Sunday, July 25, 2010

Post Racial White Flight

Update: “Silence implies consent, and the lack of a disclaimer indicates that there is some measure of positive approval of not just Mr. Goodwin’s right to his views, but of his views themselves.” (commenter barefoot bum)

Consider that disclaimer added, then: Bob G. and I are well aware that we disagree strongly on a whole range of issues, and I was daft to assume that this awareness would somehow simply carry over, telepathically, to NC commenters.

As for the accusation of trollery: these views are bordering on mainstream, which is a fact worth paying close attention to. If you want to live in a civil society, you had better figure out a way to engage with them and understand where they come from. Which does not mean, agreeing with them.

- RS.

By Bob Goodwin, an investor and medical device entrepreneur who lives in Mercer Island, Washington

I hate being called a racist, and I won’t take it anymore.  But I digress.

Unless you have been living under a rock the last week you have seen the light speed villianization and redemption of Shirley Sherrod.  It is a good story about a good person caught up in partisan battleground.  With the Democrats’ poll numbers dropping quickly leading up to an important election, the NAACP was called upon to bring down the tea-party a notch by reminding the world of the right-wing’s history of being on the wrong side of racial issues.  Race baiting is not new to politics: the Willy Horton ads in the 1980′s sadly (and effectively) painted black people as a criminal element, which helped galvanize that generation of conservatives to the voting booths.  But black people didn’t like being called criminals, and the conservative movement was tainted by the tactic.

Initially the tea party responded to the NAACP accusations of racism with a boiler plate defense “of course there are a few whack jobs in our movement, but there is no evidence of racism here”.  The argument wasn’t helped when this attention seeking whack job opened his mouth. Words matter.  But this defense misses the point completely.  The NAACP used weak evidence to demonstrate their argument.  Those who already believed the right was racist would accept any evidence and visa-versa.  Reverse race baiting circa 2010 had begun.  Andrew Breitbart replied in a nasty bit of theatrics.  He wanted to retaliate against the NAACP.  He didn’t care who he hurt.  It worked.  The NAACP will be more careful in the future about picking a fight.  People on the far left and far right feel aggrieved.  Those of us in the middle are bemused.

This is dangerous business on both sides.  There are still major race issues in America.  Black men are far more likely to go to prison than college.  Despite a generation of affirmative action, black people are significantly underrepresented in the privileged class.  Progress on racial equality has fallen way behind expectations.  One of the key tenants of 1960′s liberalism was that a root cause of racial inequality was racism.  White people across the country worked in concert to alleviate overt racism at every corner.  Being a racist in 2010 is entirely unacceptable, a dramatic change since 1960.  Our top colleges, technology centers and financial centers are filled with people from all races working respectfully and prospering together.  In our post racial utopia we have integrated Chinese and Indian and Muslim intellectuals into a new urban society.  And although there black people in the group, it is disappointing that they remain underrepresented.

I grew up in a wealthy town, where there was a house for inner city black kids to live at and go to school with us.  I remember the house well, but I cannot remember a single name of a friend who lived in that house.  I think they mostly kept to themselves (as did we), which is understandable given how we each identified ourselves.  When I went to an Ivy-League college, there was a summer program for affirmative action black kids who needed extra instruction to get them up to snuff.  But I remember few black kids graduating from my engineering school.  Affirmative action is necessary, but I began to question if it was enough.  As an entrepreneur and manager I remember always looking for qualified women and minorities to hire, and hired many, with some real success stories.  At work today I struggle to understand all the accents of my co-workers, but few of these coworkers are black.  Post racism has not meant racial equality.  Not even close.

I am in an interracial marriage, and I am reminded by her of the subtle racial disadvantages of her life such as the teacher who pays more attention to the white parents.  I am sure these issues exist.  Subtle biases exist at many levels in life, and we have a responsibility to overcome them.  But I resist my wife’s accusation that my aversion to house work is racist.  As a white man I have been willing to hold my head low for 30 years and repent for the sins of my father.  But I must admit I am starting to personalize the accusations of racism.  I think I am representative of today’s center-right white America, and the political dialog seems to accuse me of something I am not.

Here are a list of posts from prominent people excoriating people like me for being racist, either for criticizing our president, being part of the tea party or for protesting at town hall meetings:   Krugman, Dionne, Dowd, Rich, Jacoby, NAACP, Jimmy Carter, Jealous (ex-NAACP).  I know the NAACP and Jimmy Carter claims are somewhat muted and indirect.  But so too were the Willy Horton ads – and still very toxic.

Our Pro Tem Host Richard Smith provided this link which suggests that the tea party is 25% racist.  Again, I think this misses the point entirely.  Do I think that racism is completely gone?  Of course not.  Do I think that the tea party is 25% racist?  I doubt it, but cannot know.  Is the right more racist than the left?   Are there any black people in the tea party?  If you are asking these questions you are missing my point.  We don’t believe we are racist, but we do believe we are being mischaracterized.  Fair or not, feelings matter, and we vote too.

This dialog is spreading from the front page of the New York Times to the water cooler and the dorm room.   The debate is often less than civil.  I am a person of the tea party who disagrees with a lot of our president’s agenda.  But I know that I am not a racist.

What happens to me when I feel targeted in this way?  I guess I feel like the nerdy kid who was picked on by the cool kids in school.  Initially I feel rejected, but over time I just distance myself from the other group.  In the end I just look down on the ignorance and pettiness of the accusers.

Most of the 20th century racial politics involve correcting wrongs at a relatively small cost to society.  These include the Martin Luther King holiday, the civil rights movement and affirmative action.  Likely none of these would have happened without the presence of racial politics = so racial politics is not universally bad.  You could not really oppose any of these actions without seeming petty.

We are now entering a phase of redistributive change.   It is no longer petty to oppose sweeping changes.   Calling the tea party racist does less to appease the liberal base, and does a lot to inflame the accused.  We believed we were entering a post racial world, and yet the divide deepens.

It is interesting to talk to white folks across the political spectrum.   Clearly some white liberals think the tea party is racist.  I do not think it is a cynical ploy on their part.  They believe it.  But many of the folks in the middle are being caught in a bind.  The immigration issue has been played as a racial issue with many swing voters siding with Arizona despite the mantra of racial profiling.  Healthcare overhaul was needed to care for the uninsured, with the 12 million undocumented Mexicans with the greatest need.  Was opposition to this flawed bill racist?  White people don’t like being called racists, and the liberal movement is being tainted by the tactic.  The sting of this accusation is moving beyond just the right wing as more independents are distancing themselves from the incumbent party.

Brad DeLong writes a blog post titled A Republican Party that Really, Really Doesn’t Want Any Black or Hispanic People Voting for It Ever Again.  How about the rest of us?  My wife voted for Obama, and is more conservative than I am.  She voted for him as a vote for post racialism.  I don’t know how she will vote next time around.  But I know that plenty of us feel the indiscriminate use of the word racist is *not* post racial.  It is not at all surprising to me that white people are running for the hills.   Reason and debate die when parties become identified by race rather than ideology.

Topics: Guest Post, Politics, Social policy, Social values

Email This Post Email This Post Posted by Richard Smith at 8:13 am

210 Comments » Links to this post

210 Comments:

  • lambert strether says:
    July 25, 2010 at 8:46 am

    Yep. Obama’s faction threw about half the Democratic Party under the bus by falsely smearing them as racist, while simultaneously running a campaign marked by the most vile misogyny.

    So it’s not surprising that Obama’s faction would continue to play the racist card, since that’s all they’ve got.

    Certainly, they’ve got nothing on policy, unless the continued upward transfer of wealth, 10% nominal (20% real) unemployment as far as the eye can see, a whole new war, and the normalization of every single one of Bush’s executive power grabs are your policies of choice.

    • alex says:
      July 25, 2010 at 9:41 am

      “running a campaign marked by the most vile misogyny”

      Thanks for reminding us of the comedy of the Democratic primaries. If you supported Hillary you were a racist and if you supported Obama you were a sexist. A perfect setup!

  • craazyman says:
    July 25, 2010 at 8:54 am

    Jesus Bob. Your wife calls you a racist for not wanting to do housework??!!!!

    Holy Shit, Man! You need to lay down the law at your house and get that woman’s head spun back so it’s looking straight ahead, man. You can’t let the P-Whip come down like that on your back, or you’ll end up with scars so deep even plastic surgery won’t work anymore. And then she’ll dump you because you’re a wuss.

    This woman needs a real attitude adjustment. Here’s my suggestion. First, let her have it, verbally, in a determined, firm, hard and non-compromising way. Second, let her think about it for a week, while you and her share the housework in a fair way. Third, take her for a romantic weekend somewhere so she can feel totally ashamed, remorseful, pliant to your every comman, and loved again. That should make the point you need to make.

    Remember, people are people. Most are completely insane even though they seem sane, and that includes blacks, whites, reddish-orange people, people with slanted eyes, everybody, ha ha ha. This should be self evident to any sane person.

    It’s all so much more complicated than racism, which is only a surface manifestation of much deeper conflicts. It all started when they came in from other dimensions of space time and seeded the DNA of monkeys a few million years ago, there were a few problems which you can easily perceive just by channeling it. There’s a lot more to it than I really have time for now, but the main thing is to get your wife back as close to sanity as possible, for her best interests as well as yours.

    • lambert strether says:
      July 25, 2010 at 9:25 am

      Well, that certainly elevates the discourse. Well done.

      • Mountainaires says:
        July 25, 2010 at 1:24 pm

        Well, lambert, let me “elevate” it even lower:

        I am a racist. I become more of a racist every single day, by virtue of the fact that I am white; I didn’t vote for Barack Obama; and I am no longer a Democrat. Yep. That’s it. That is the sum total of my sins. That is what makes me a racist.

        How things have been turned on their heads. I despised Bush for 8 years; couldn’t wait for the Democrats to return to power; worked for Democrats for 4 years as a member of the local party. I’ve never been a member of any TEA PARTY.

        Barack Obama is elected on a wave of “post-racial” solidarity and voila: I’m a racist. At first, I protested. It didn’t matter. So, I am just now learning to accept it, and have embraced the new RACIST me.

      • craazyman says:
        July 25, 2010 at 7:15 pm

        no lambert, they really are all insane at a fundamental level. Even the ones who seem like their on your team. Some little tick, some little eye shine, some volcanic sardonic outburst with a dripping pen — and they reveal themselves as prostitutes for pyschic forces they know not and that control them untterly, and that turn them to pupetts of invisible strings pulled by invisible hands, hands huge and celestial, hidden in the serpent DNA snake or, as Keynes said, by some defunct economist, who himself was caught up in some mind shine from navel gazing into the abyss.

        This is what Jesus said when he said “Forgive them father, for they know not what they do.”

        they don’t know. they are unconscious, they are acting out impulses that are miles deep in their brain cave.

        Like Charles McKay said in Extraordinary Poplular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds . . . “Men think in heards, they go mad in heards, but they recover their senses slowly, and one by one . . .”

        And as for Mrs. Goodwin, it would be tough for her out on eHarmony looking for a new husband. Mr. Goodwin seems quite successful and a serious man. eHarmony is really a raquet, a delusion. Better to forgive his so-called prejudice with charity and empathy, and grab the mop and clean up like a good wife. Just for self-preservation, and then work it all out privately in honest negotiations without the “R” word. LOL.

  • Ignim Brites says:
    July 25, 2010 at 8:59 am

    It is pointless to talk about this. Those parts of the country in which the majority feel that the tea parties are racist will just have to secede after the next election. This is where we are. How we got here is a curiosity for the historians.

  • Piero says:
    July 25, 2010 at 8:59 am

    You forgot to mention about how the “Journo-list” excerpts showed the liberal media types posting there reflexively reaching for the racist label as a sort of “in case of emergency, break glass” tool for attacking their ideological enemies, a label in which the accusers didn’t have to have any sincere interest or belief whatsoever.

  • tkarn says:
    July 25, 2010 at 9:22 am

    “As a white man I have been willing to hold my head low for 30 years and repent for the sins of my father.”

    I appreciate hearing your perspective. I would be interested in an elaboration of the above sentence, which for me undermines some of the more thoughtful observations.

    • alex black says:
      July 25, 2010 at 5:02 pm

      Maybe I can try:

      Knowing the history of slavery and Jim Crow and overt racism that came before I was born, although I treat everyone I come across with kindness, I find myself making a little extra effort when I deal with African-Americans. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, an instantaneous desire to compensate for wrongs done by others of my race before me. I always hold doors open for women and my elders and add a little smile. I notice that when I do this for someone who is African-American, I find myself somehow giving a deeper smile, one with a bit of sadness – an apology of sorts. I have no idea who this stranger is, or what they’ve been through, and I don’t do this as a conscious act – it’s just there. I don’t give it forethought, and I don’t give it afterthought. It’s a reflex – my head hangs a bit lower as a gesture that somehow tries to say “What was done before me (not by my ancestors – they arrived in 1930) was wrong, and it was racist, and let’s work to make sure that that happens no more.”

      Funny thing is, I get a smile in return that is also different than the one I get from, say, I caucasian older man when I hold the door open for him. With the caucasian man, I’ll get a smile that seems to say “Thanks, I”m older and that helps.” With an older African American, the smile seems to be a bit deeper, and lasts longer, and seems to say, “Thanks, when I was young, no white man would have done this for me, much less smiled. I notice the difference now, and the world seems a bit more comfortable now than it did back then.”

      Just a small example….

  • mrmetrowest says:
    July 25, 2010 at 9:24 am

    Perhaps if tea partiers wish to promote ‘reason and debate’ they might start by actually having a political platform, and they might also comport themselves more in keeping with reasonable discourse, as opposed to disrupting public forums with incoherent rants. It’s tough to take seriously the reasoning ability of people who are opposed to socialized medicine while simultaneously depending on Medicare, and given the level of rage on show, only too easy to believe their anger is of a kind that no longer dares speak its name.

    Assuming the tea party movement is against ‘erosion of civil liberties’ and ‘the deficit’, many who believe the tea party movement contains a significant racist component wonder where the tea partiers, and their anger, was during the Bush administration. Obama has been a disappointment in that he has not attempted to control, and even expanded, our paranoid security apparatus, but the disappointment is that he continues to follow Bush’s lead. As to irresponsible federal spending – you were in a coma for eight years?

    Adding to the concerns about the tea party is that a number of their heroes are racist. Limbaugh, for instance, is an overt racist who periodically (Barack the Magic Negro) crosses the line between political speech and slurs, to the delight of his audience.

    Post racialism will arrive when racist sentiments and even the memory of racist sentiments are dead. Shirley Sherrod’s father was murdered in 1965; his murderer was never prosecuted because the victim was back and his killer was white. 1965 is within the living memory of people who today are only in middle age. If the tea party wants to avoid being thought of as a movement of bitter white people perhaps they should grow up as a political movement and formulate specific, defensible policy positions on what’s wrong with America and how to fix it, rather than running on emotion.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 2:53 pm

      The tea party has clear ideology. You may disagree with this ideology, but it is there.

      Regarding Bush, I agree with you, as do a lot of other tea partiers. He did the war thing and the deficit thing that Obama has just amplified.

      • mrmetrowest says:
        July 25, 2010 at 3:44 pm

        Where may I go to read the tea party position on Iraq, Afghanistan and the possibility/desirability of a war with Iran?

        How does the tea party propose to bring federal expenditures back in balance – I assume taxes are ruled out, so what programs will be cut and by how much?

        What is the tea party position on raising the SS retirement age to 70?

        How does the tea party propose to keep health care available and affordable for middle income Americans?

        Please provide links to the TP’s detailed positions on these questions.

      • attempter says:
        July 25, 2010 at 3:46 pm

        The tea party has clear ideology.

        A “clear” ideology, no less!

        So are you going to tell us what it is, or is it a secret?

        It’s definitely not against anything Obama’s doing, since that’s just all the same stuff Bush did, and there was no “tea party” then.

      • Tao Jonesing says:
        July 25, 2010 at 6:13 pm

        The Tea Party does not have a clear ideology. It is muddled and mutually inconsistent in many ways. The only way I can descibe what I see is as cognitive dissonance shouted at the top of one’s lungs.

        There are two distinct constituencies to the Tea Party. There’s the white entitlement constituency, and there’s the libertarian constituency. Neither constituency has a coherent ideology. The white entitlement group is simply mired in the historicist “chosen people” meme that has driven so much strife and division over the millenia. The libertarian constituency is driven not by ideology but by a secular theology: libertarians’ asserted beliefs are internally inconsistent and self-defeating, and they are also belied by how the architects and adherents of the theology gladly used state power to enslave people through debt peonage (see, e.g., Chile and Latvia).

  • i on the ball patriot says:
    July 25, 2010 at 9:27 am

    You have taken the bait and furthered the divisiveness you profess to detest. Better to focus on the creators of ‘racism’ and what ‘racism’ really is.

    ‘Racism’ is a construct of the wealthy ruling elite.

    ‘Racism’ takes note of ANY differences in humanity — sexual preference, skin color, gender, body weight, religious beliefs, etc. — and magnifies those differences in order to create controlling divisiveness that deflects from the ultimate ‘racism’, the little talked about ‘racism’ of the RICH RACE of the fat greedy wallets and the HAVE LESS race of sparsely filled, thin and empty wallets.

    That is the difference that should be magnified and talked about!

    That is the difference that should be magnified and cause calls for affirmative action!

    That is the difference that should be magnified and talked about so as to eliminate the effects of years of aggregate ‘racism’ constructed by the wealthy ruling elite!

    The rich race funds the divisiveness of ‘racism’ and the two party ‘political’ charade you speak of.

    You are either drinking the kool aide or selling the kool aide.

    Who benefits from what brand of ‘racism’ is being sold?

    Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.

    • Raging Debate says:
      July 25, 2010 at 2:22 pm

      Who benefits? Government that uses Administrative law (ie: State Commissions on Health and Human Services) to tax at the Bell Curve.

      Solution: Decrease your productivity and hide real assets. Mine are buried in intellectual property. They die without me. But when I show up for cojrt being accused as a racist, sexual predatory pig it takes the State and the salivating attorneys two years to finally get a bankruptcy notice. Sad about the downward mobility forced until myself and those forced into jury duty.

    • sliderhouserules says:
      July 25, 2010 at 4:30 pm

      You really need to learn the difference between bigotry and racism, because they’re different things. Muddying the waters like you’re doing, and using a label for things it doesn’t apply to makes the label less effective and paints you with a brush of ignorance.

      • i on the ball patriot says:
        July 25, 2010 at 4:55 pm

        You really need to learn the difference between perception and deception, because they’re different things. Muddying the waters like you’re doing, and accepting a label for things it doesn’t apply to makes the label MORE effective and paints you with a brush of ignorance and stupidity.

        Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.

  • nanute says:
    July 25, 2010 at 9:41 am

    I know I shouldn’t, but I’m gonna do it anyway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiaI63pBmLs&feature=related
    It’s the history of the Tea Party Ancestry.

  • RN says:
    July 25, 2010 at 9:42 am

    Bob Goodwin said: “Reason and debate die when parties become identified by race rather than ideology.”

    OMG how ridiculous. Reason is dead in congress, and in much of America at large, and it has nothing to do with race and everything to do with ideology.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 2:54 pm

      Democracies can fall much lower than we have.

      Reason and debate is alive and well on NC.

  • 4jkb4ia says:
    July 25, 2010 at 9:45 am

    For those who didn’t read the Brad DeLong post until five minutes ago, he is writing about SJC senators exploiting Thurgood Marshall against Kagan in their opening statements because they had no coherent line of attack. This had little to do with the Tea Party that particular day, although some of the questions on economic issues later on would have some appeal to them. While the degree of personal racism in one’s heart can remain happily ambiguous, one can still exploit things which are racially charged. Illegal immigration is the perfect example because the face of that issue is Mexican even if they aren’t the only ones who do it.
    I agree with the poster that there are some liberals who after a 30-year history of racial code words on the part of the Republican Party assume that they are being used when they aren’t.

  • 4jkb4ia says:
    July 25, 2010 at 9:46 am

    (Hi Lambert)

  • Mr. Frothingslosh says:
    July 25, 2010 at 10:09 am

    “As a white man I have been willing to hold my head low for 30 years and repent for the sins of my father. But I must admit I am starting to personalize the accusations of racism. I think I am representative of today’s center-right white America, and the political dialog seems to accuse me of something I am not.”

    You have made a very important point here. My guess is the sentiment is widely shared. Forgive the term, but increasingly more white Americans are being emancipated from their “white guilt”. At some point, you ask how much more indirect guilt demagogues are going to put on my head, when in my own life I have never been the least bit racist, and in many cases, have bent over backwards to avoid any such insinuations.

    Moveover, the label “racist”, which used to have the power to end a career with its mere utterance, has lost much of it lethality. Too much careless use of the phrase by the daily demagogues. Where that term would once have been greeted with immediate suspicion towards its target, it is now met with immediate cynicism towards the accuser.

    As for the “subtle racial disadvantages”, I often wonder how much of this is real racism and how much of it is a natural fallback to explain unfair treatment that all of us experience at times but is not necessarily linked to race. All of us have been screwed over by a business associate, contractor, government bureaucrat, etc. at some point. Often inexplicably and seemingly unfairly. Does a black American chalk it up to racism, even as the rest of us are left to reason that some people are just jerks?

  • skippy says:
    July 25, 2010 at 10:17 am

    Ahhh class time.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism

    That the concept of discrimination can be based on “race” presupposes the existence of “race” itself. However, the US Government’s Human Genome Project has announced that the most complete mapping of human DNA to date indicates that there is no distinct genetic basis to racial types.[3] Based on this evidence, “racial characteristics” logically cannot exist either, such as group differences in eye color or human hair color.

    According to the Human Genome Project, skin color does exist as a matter of science.[3] So, that which is commonly referred to as “racism” could be more scientifically referred to as “skin color-aroused discrimination”. The term “skin color aroused discrimination” has the benefit that it is based on verifiable science, is not based on disproved notions of science, and does not perpetuate a false belief in the disproved concept of biological “race”.[3]

    Then there is these guys, warning gray matter condom required:

    http://www.cryaloud.com/racism_origin_racial_profiling_xenophobia_hate_crimes.htm

    Good book:

    http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521888554

    Is it possible to speak of western racism before the eighteenth century? The term ‘racism’ is normally only associated with theories, which first appeared in the eighteenth century, about inherent biological differences that made one group superior to another. Here, however, leading historians argue that racism can be traced back to the attitudes of the ancient Greeks to their Persian enemies and that it was adopted, adjusted and re-formulated by Europeans right through until the dawn of the Enlightenment. From Greek teachings on environmental determinism and heredity, through medieval concepts of physiognomy, down to the crystallization of attitudes to Indians, Blacks, Jews and Gypsies in the early modern era, they analyse the various routes by which racist ideas travelled before maturing into murderous ideologies in the modern western world. In so doing this book offers a major reassessment of the place of racism in pre-modern European thought.

    ————–

    Any way its a tool used to get on mob disliking or killing another, get sucked in or not.

    The front is Wall St. and the Banking class, not anything else. No wonder, no one wants to lead, everyone is shooting each other in the back for frick sake. I can hear their laughter can you.

    • Conor says:
      July 25, 2010 at 11:00 am

      Skippy you hit the nail right on the head!! Although racism undoubtedly exists, the subject it meaningless unless class and economic disparity is put front and center on the subject.

      • Doug Terpstra says:
        July 25, 2010 at 5:30 pm

        Not only is it meaningless as you say without that “class” context, but the class war itself is often cleverly camouflaged by the emphasis of race divisions. Affirmative action for instance, has become a windfall for many already privileged white women, but it’s still heavily exploited as a divisive race-based issue.

      • Puggy1999 says:
        July 25, 2010 at 5:51 pm

        Oh my racially blended GOD!!! I had not thought about race for years, but realize now, what a racist I am.. But hey, remind me who am I supposed to be racist against?? Being a white lower middle class Guy, and getting lower by the tax day, kind of guy. Is there a Lynching 101 class I could take, But whom to lynch, hmm.
        Maybe a stay out of the NBA, you short Cracker, online course. Should I hate Shirley Sherrod, or Condoleeza Rice…. Maybe Clarence Thomas or The entire Black Caucus. Can I be a little itty bitty racist. Or, if someone is 1/2 black, am I a 50% racist Please help me bring a frothing racism into my soul, but please help and guide me who to be the best racisinigist poossible.. I also like black dogs and white dogs.. Is there any hope for me? Puggy1999

        • attempter says:
          July 26, 2010 at 3:20 am

          So if you correctly recognize that race-thinking is a stupid, astroturf misdirectional tactic, why are you so focused on it?

          Why aren’t you focused 100% on the class war, of which you say you’re one victims? Why aren’t you focused 100% on smashing the corporate tyranny? That’s what’s impoverishing you.

  • Brutus says:
    July 25, 2010 at 10:27 am

    I take issue with Bob’s view that:

    “20th century racial politics involve correcting wrongs at a relatively small cost to society.”

    whereas today..

    “We are now entering a phase of redistributive change.”

    Wow. We really shouldn’t grade every piece of legislation based on its racial impact. The fact is that 99% of government spending and 99% of legislation has nothing to do with race.

    If groups are focusing on how a particular race will benefit from every proposed bill, they will never be able to have a proper debate on the true merits of that bill. Bob implies that the health care bill, the tax system (and the repeal of Bush tax cuts), the stimulus, the auto bailout, etc. are all a form of redistribution that takes money from the 80% of Americans who are white and gives it to the 20% non-white.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 2:48 pm

      I was primarily refering to the health care debate to insure illegal aliens (who are mostly non white) and to the immigration bill in Arizona.

      • Brutus says:
        July 25, 2010 at 5:23 pm

        I am glad that you called the “phase of redistributive change” a “poor choice of words” in one of the comments below. The problem is that the rest of the article can be boiled down to:

        A. I am mainstream American.
        B. I am a member of the Tea Party.
        C. The media is saying that the Tea Party is racist.
        D. These accusations will lead to polarization.
        E. Polarization will lead to bad legislation.
        F. I am having feelings of polarization, which supports [D].

        I think there are many things wrong here, which could be an entire post. The only part that I believe is worth discussing is [E]. But even here, I have difficulty listening to a Tea Party member advocating for us to work together.

        If this issue is so important to you, perhaps you should start by convincing your members to stop using pictures of the President as a Zulu warrior – this just inflames racial feelings on the other side. How does one remain a part of a group whose protests are so polarizing?

        • bob goodwin says:
          July 25, 2010 at 6:45 pm

          All presidents are brutally attacked.

          My point was that this issue is causing people to flee the democratic party. That was missing in your synopsis.

          • DownSouth says:
            July 25, 2010 at 8:54 pm

            bob goodwin,

            I don’t think it’s the racial thing that’s causing people to abandon Obama and the Democratic party.

            As I’ve heard uttered here on NC many times before, “given the chance to vote for a real Republican or a fake Republican, the people will vote for the real Republican everytime.”

          • Brutus says:
            July 25, 2010 at 10:44 pm

            Would it then be okay for someone from the Black Panther Party, or even better yet, the New Black Panther Party to discuss the importance of avoiding polarizing politics? Perhaps a member of the Weather Underground can educate us on how to have a civil society?

            At some point, we have to draw the line. After seeing the Tea Party protest, I decided that they had lost the moral high ground. Perhaps you may not see it that way. I don’t think that I am the only one who views any Tea Party member as an implicit supporter of the vile, unproductive, racially-charged protests.

      • Dick Hertz says:
        July 25, 2010 at 6:36 pm

        The definition of “White” is fungible. In West Seattle for a visit as a youth in the 70s I was informed that Italian, Polish, and Jewish Americans were not white.
        The fundamental conflict I see here in this article (besides a profound martyr complex)is the unfortunate fact that even when you try to be nice to people of different ethnicities they won’t necessarily behave the way you want them to. The only solution for that is to treat people with the respect and courtesy you would like to be treated with, give up any notion that you can make amends for history (a notion which in itself reinforces the superiority of the amender, as if to say “Sorry we won.”), and go forth as you believe appropriate.

  • Frank Ohsen says:
    July 25, 2010 at 10:32 am

    Let’s cut through the nuanced BS shall we?

    In determining who is and who’s not racist here’s a 99.9999% accurate litmus test:

    If you’ve encouraged your 17 year old daughter to date any race and to have unprotected sexual intercourse with them, you’re certainly not racist.

    Everyone else hang your head in shame you racist piece of crap.

    • Dirk says:
      July 25, 2010 at 7:09 pm

      Thatsdoes not prove that you are not a racist, it proves that you are STUPID and really dont care about your daughter. You should never encourage unprotected sex unless the intent is reproduction and both parties have been tested for STD’s esp. HIV. Race has nothing to do with that.

      As for the larger question. Without a doubt there is a significant part fo the tea party movement that is indeed racist. If the Tea Party types want to be taken seriously, they should be denouncing those in their midst that show up with overtly recist signs ike the Obama as witchdoctor and laughing of the stage any that claim that he was not born in the US. Not everyone in the tea party is a racist, but at least a substantial minority are.

      Aside for the issue of race, I think the tea partyhas more to do with Lewis Carroll than it does with the events in Colonial Boston. A bunch of Hatters and March Hares.

    • Ishamael says:
      July 25, 2010 at 9:24 pm

      What kind of a child abuser are you to encourage a minor to have unprotected sex? If you have any children social services should take them away for their own safety.

  • Kafka says:
    July 25, 2010 at 10:33 am

    Headline; rich white privileged conservative male has a grievance concerning race. And ideology is good…or something.

  • nowhereman says:
    July 25, 2010 at 10:48 am

    I’m sorry, I am Canadian and don’t quite understand this whole “tea party” business. I can remember a movement that started in protest of the Bank and Auto Industry bailouts. Then it seemed that some crack-pot commentators a la Glenn Beck and his Fox News friends usurped the movement. I thought to myself, this is very clever, what better way to quell a true grass roots protest against the government, than to silence it’s message through racial slurs ranting commentators and party politics.
    And that’s what bothers me, I would be a tea partyer because I too am disgusted by what the Fed and Treasury has done and the ineffectual job of government in reigning in the too Big to Fail. But that message has been very cleverly been made toxic. The media has effectively defined Tea Party members as all red-neck southern pea brains.
    It so sad to see how effective the MSM is in taking a true grass roots campaign and turning it into a circus, that totally misrepresents what the movement is all about. That is “the people are fed up with what the government is doing and want a voice”, but that voice has been drowned out by those who want to use this grass roots discontent for their own political purposes.
    So sad.

  • nowhereman says:
    July 25, 2010 at 10:51 am

    I’m sorry, I am Canadian and don’t quite understand this whole “tea party” business. I can remember a movement that started in protest of the Bank and Auto Industry bailouts. Then it seemed that some crack-pot commentators a la Glenn Beck and his Fox News friends usurped the movement. I thought to myself, this is very clever, what better way to quell a true grass roots protest against the government, than to silence it’s message through racial slurs ranting commentators and party politics.
    And that’s what bothers me, I would be a tea partyer because I too am disgusted by what the Fed and Treasury has done and the ineffectual job of government in reigning in the too Big to Fail. But that message has very cleverly been made toxic. The media has effectively defined Tea Party members as all red-neck southern pea brains.
    It’s so sad to see how effective the MSM is in taking a true grass roots campaign and turning it into a circus, that totally misrepresents what the movement is all about. That is “the people are fed up with what the government is doing and want a voice”, but that voice has been drowned out by those who want to use this grass roots discontent for their own political purposes.
    So sad.

  • eightnine2718281828mu5 says:
    July 25, 2010 at 11:14 am

    —
    I am a person of the tea party who disagrees with a lot of our president’s agenda. But I know that I am not a racist.
    —

    Lee Atwater:

    —
    “In 1988,” Mr. Atwater said, “fighting Dukakis, I said that I ‘would strip the bark off the little bastard’ and ‘make Willie Horton his running mate.’ I am sorry for both statements: the first for its naked cruelty, the second because it makes me sound racist, which I am not.”
    —

    Here’s the crux of the matter; even if individual Republicans aren’t explicitly racist, Republican operatives are quite comfortable in appealing to racism to win elections.

    Unless Republicans distance themselves from these tactics they’ll never rid themselves of the taint of racism.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 3:04 pm

      I did distance myself from Willie Horton. Will you distance yourself from the claim of racism in the tea party?

      • Jake says:
        July 25, 2010 at 3:44 pm

        The tea party are reactionary, nativist clowns stuck in the 1890s. Racists? Yes. Their ideology was defeated, or rather superseded, a century ago. There is no point conceding any points to them. They will be forgotten.

  • eightnine2718281828mu5 says:
    July 25, 2010 at 11:24 am

    I’d also point out that Republican operatives wouldn’t be drawn to racist messaging if there were no racists in the Republican Party.

    Their pursuit of these strategies is a direct acknowledgement of the existence of racism in their ranks.

  • The Barefoot Bum says:
    July 25, 2010 at 11:36 am

    I’m puzzled that you would publish this post without commentary, analysis or even a brief disclaimer that the article represents the opinion of a frequent commenter rather than those of the owners. Silence implies consent, and the lack of a disclaimer indicates that there is some measure of positive approval of not just Mr. Goodwin’s right to his views, but of his views themselves.

    This concern is not itself a criticism, but before I do criticize a work, I like to know know who it is I’m actually criticizing, both directly and indirectly, and more important about whom I’m drawing inferences as to what sort of person would approve of those remarks.

    I’m definitely surprised that you would for any reason publish a work of such obviously poor argumentation and intellectual laziness. The author introduces private conversations with his wife as evidence of misguided racism? That’s not even anecdotal evidence. And an examination of the links to Krugman, Dionne and Dowd (after which I gave up checking) provide no support whatsoever to Goodwins assertion that they are “excoriating people like me for being racist, either for criticizing our president, being part of the tea party or for protesting at town hall meetings.” The first three authors clearly criticize not the fact of criticism or protest, but its specific character and manner, including explicitly racists comments, and infers from that specific character that racism is a plausible motivation. Perhaps it the disconnection between their actual words and Goodwin’s conclusion that explains why Goodwin does not reproduce any actual quotations from the cited works.

    It is admirable that Goodwin acknowledges the real existence of racial inequality. And I take him at his word that he is certainly not the most egregious promoter of racism and racial inequality. But he curiously goes out of his way to take personal offense where none was offered, so far out of his way that we must seriously question his motives. Goodwin’s tone is very similar to those of religious moderates taking offense at criticism explicitly directed at extremists and fundamentalists.

    Nowhere in this piece does Goodwin even analyze — much less argue for the falsity of — the actual statements of anyone actually calling anyone else a racist. Nowhere does Goodwin show that any accusation is directed at people like himself; indeed he is not at all specific about what he even means by people like himself, unless he means all people who criticize president Obama, all people who self-identify as members of the “Tea Party”, all people who speak their minds in any way, shape or form at “town hall” meetings. (Of course, he might just mean “people who are not racist”, but it’s difficult to read any condemnation of racism as being intentionally directed at those who are not racist.) But unless he is considerably less intelligent than he appears, Goodwin could hardly mean that no critic of Obama, no Tea Party member, no one who ever spoke at a town hall meeting could possibly be a racist, and to even bring up the issue is a grave offense against decency and good will.

    If the shoe does not fit, one is by no means obliged to wear it. Goodwin stretches the shoe to bursting to make it fit and then complains he must wear it.

    As to the larger issue: Of course Goodwin has the right to both hold and express his views: their content is subject to criticism but not the fact of their expression. On the other hand, naked capitalism is under no obligation whatsoever to publish his views, and to publish them without even a disclaimer suggests that those responsible for the content here approve of both the objectionable morality of his views and the incompetence of his attempt at argumentation.

    • Brutus says:
      July 25, 2010 at 11:53 am

      Spot on. Had Yves not been on traveling, I don’t think this would have been posted.

      Naked Capitalism draws readers who are interested in analysis – whether we agree with the conclusions or not. This post, which is devoid of any analysis, is better suited for other media outlets. I learned nothing from this article.

      I also agree that there are still many interesting questions that one can explore on this topic but this article is a waste of space.

      • Jackrabbit says:
        July 25, 2010 at 1:09 pm

        I disagree. Racism is not an inappropriate topic for NC. The problem is the treatment of it in this post. I think Yves would take a different, and MUCH more erudite and enlightened approach.

        There is plenty to say about racism – how it has gone underground, the economic and social effects (indirect, or second order economic effects), and more – but I feel that responding to this post in a more substantive way is just feeding the troll.

      • Jackrabbit says:
        July 25, 2010 at 1:34 pm

        Oh, I misspoke. I should have said “I agree” not “I disagree.”

        The author of the post, using himself as strawman, invites reproach from those on the liberal-leaning NC to which he and his movement can take further umbrage. It is not worthwhile responding to the post directly, but the Barefoot_Bum does a great job is questioning the posters motives and the editorial decision that allowed the post.

      • Tao Jonesing says:
        July 25, 2010 at 1:44 pm

        I actually appreciated Bob’s post for its honesty. Unless we can have conversations about issues like racism, they’ll always be available to divide us.

        I also appreciated Bob’s post for what it points out, at least to me, which is the pervasiveness of neoliberal propaganda, which is what led to “self-interest wrongly understood,” as Yves says. The Tea Party is guided by an interesting fusion of typical GOP wedge-issue propaganda and neoliberal (aka libertarian) propaganda. For example, the fact that Obama is black somehow makes him a socialist. What a fascinating conflation of bogeymen.

        Something else just struck me, and that’s the use of the term “Post Racial” in the title of the post. When Obama was elected, I was an executive of a public company, and I was sitting in the board room with three other members of the executive staff, including one who is now a Tea Party member, when he said the most remarkable thing: “Now that Obama has been elected, blacks can’t complain about racism any more.” The two other guys nodded their heads. Is that what it means to be “post racial,” that blacks can no longer complain about racism, even if it exists, because one of “their own” got elected POTUS? That doesn’t sound “post racial” to me.

        • Jackrabbit says:
          July 25, 2010 at 2:23 pm

          I actually appreciated Bob’s post for its honesty.
          Damning with faint praise.

          Bob is not interested in racism. He’s interested in himself, as evidenced by his opening remark: “I hate being called a racist, and I won’t take it anymore” and furthering the goals of the Tea Party (which probably benefits him financially, and which he probably feels is being derailed by charges of racism).

          I suspect that there are many in the Tea Party that are NOT racist. However, I suspect that many racists have associated themselves with the Tea Party movement simply because many racists have a similar outlook and “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Bob complains to the wrong audience for the wrong reasons. If he really want to disassociate himself from racism then he should be writing letters to the Tea Party people, not trolling on NC.

          • bob goodwin says:
            July 25, 2010 at 3:53 pm

            I cannot imagine why you feel that I make money from the tea party. I believe in less government ideologically.

            My post had nothing to do with distancing myself from racism.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 3:17 pm

      You thoughts are appreciated and well written.

      If you read my post carefully you would reallize that I stated that the claim of racism was muted and indirect, in the same way that the Willie Horton Ads were.

      I used personal evidence extensively because I was talking about feelings, and extrapolating these feelings on many other voters. It is easy to provide evidence of political white flight, it is harder to prove causation.

      I have chosen to post on NC because I am an active member of this community, and I value the fact that Libertarians have a voice in this community. I don’t think you want ideological purity here, and I am sticking my neck out to open up the debate. I don’t think that qualifies as trolling.

      • Tao Jonesing says:
        July 25, 2010 at 4:30 pm

        “I don’t think you want ideological purity here, and I am sticking my neck out to open up the debate.”

        Exactly right. Also, thank you for self-identifying as a Libertarian. It has opened the door to the following discussion, which ties in with my previous comments about the confluence of GOP and neoliberal propaganda in driving the Tea Party agenda.

        Within a generation or two, I believe that Hayek, Mises and Friedman will be as widely reviled in the U.S. as Marx. These three founders of neoliberalism, which is better known as libertarianism in the U.S., are the architects of a bright shining lie that has convinced people of good will and strong intellect to voluntarily don the shackles of slavery.

        Let me provide an example.

        What do you call it when your government owns your country’s means of production? Answer: socialism, which Hayek denounced as “the road to serfdom” in a book of the same title.

        What do you call it when your government allows another government to own your country’s means of production? Answer: free trade, which Hayek proclaimed as his passion:“the one thing that I stand for above all else is free trade throughout the world.”

        In a democratic republic such as the United States, the only difference between socialism and free trade is that with socialism, the citizens have a say over the government that controls the means of production, whereas with free trade they do not. You only are free to choose among the choices provided, and if somebody else controls those choices, how free are you, exactly?

        So, tell me, which of the two systems results in more liberty? While socialism provides a road to serfdom that need not be traveled, if you pursue the neoliberal version of free trade, all roads lead to serfdom.

        It is pretty clear that the architects of neoliberalism intended a new kind of feudalism. How else could Friedman speak about the freedom to choose when we live in a world of scarcity? Again, you are only free to choose among the choices provided. How else could Friedman, Mises and Hayek studiously ignore the dominant role of the corporation in the economy and pretend that it was the individual or entrepeneur who was the primary economic actor? How could Mises baldly assert that beauracracy was possible only in government and not in private enterprise when that manifestly has never been true? How else could libertarians excommunicate Henry Simons from their ranks and embrace monopoly as, at worst, neutral economically and dismiss it as no danger to democracy? These men were intellectual giants and far from naive.

        Organized labor? Bad. Organized capital? Not discussed. Monopoly? Shrugs and yawns all around.

        Apparently, the only bad aggregation of power is that which accrues to the benefit of the people. Simons, at least, recognized the danger of tyranny from any aggregation of power, but orthodox libertarian dogma creates massive blindspots to tyranny from anything other than government.

        This is why I say that neoliberalism is a bright shining lie. What you find with Mises, Hayek and Friedman is nothing more than Edward Bernays’ style propaganda designed to isolate and weaken the individual, not to free or strenghten him.

        So, what has happened to our country? Neoliberalism in the form of the Washington Consensus, which has ruled our country unbroken since Reagan first took office. Clinton and Obama are just as neoliberal as Reagan, Bush and W were.

        The neoliberal coup is complete, but there is one last loose end, which is the need to make sure that nobody else can undo what the neoliberals have accomplished. That’s one of the roles of the Tea Party: to call for the destruction of the only power by which the people can assert their sovereignty and get their country back. And having a president like Obama, who pursues the neoliberal agenda while falsely peddling hope, was a masterful stroke at this juncture. By the time he’s done with his one term as president, everybody in this country will feel that hope has died.

        Then, we’ll be free to choose between the choices provided by rent-seeking multinational corporate monopolies run at the behest of the banks.

        For attempter’s views on neoliberalism (which he rightly calls neo-feudalism) and its end game (which is a little more despairing then mine because I think it will fail), you can start here:

        http://attempter.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/part-4-the-full-fury-of-the-new-feudal-war-the-intended-end-state/

        • ArmchairRevolutionary says:
          July 26, 2010 at 7:57 am

          Wow! Great post!

          This information should be shared with as many tea partiers as possible. I do not see the tea party as racist (they just have racists among them). I really think at its core the Tea Party is about getting representatives in Washington that actually represent the people. It is not about supporting a neo-liberal agenda, although in practice that is what it does.

        • wmartin46 says:
          July 26, 2010 at 5:24 pm

          > the only difference between socialism and free
          > trade is that with socialism, the citizens have
          > a say over the government that controls the means
          > of production, whereas with free trade they do not

          And what happens when the means of production are owned by the private sector? Seems you’ve left a number of squares in the matrix out of your analysis.

  • Tao Jonesing says:
    July 25, 2010 at 11:49 am

    “We are now entering a phase of redistributive change.”

    You do realize that this is a dog whistle phrase, right? And you also realize that it is a false statement, right?

    We’ve been going through thirty years of redistributive change upwards that has left the middle class stagnant and failing while benefiting people like you and me. Whatever Obama’s rhetoric, we are currently experiencing George W. Bush’s third term. To the extent that there is any differences in policy, Obama is a tinkering technocrat, and he usually finds a way to make sure that the lion’s share of whatever pocket change he achieves goes to the multinational corporations.

    Now, I’m sure that when you talk about “redistributive change” you are referring to tax policy, etc., but many of your fellow tea partiers mean something different. You need to spend some more time on freerepublic.com or other places where you can find people in touch with their inner bigot. To them “redistributive change” is all about a black president taking the hard-earned money of white people to give it to lazy black people. Yes, I’ve seen it said as plainly as that. That’s why I say this is a dog whistle phrase: objectively it seems neutral enough, but for a certain segment of society it means something unsavory.

    While I have sympathy with the mainstream members of the tea party movement, I was watching Rick Santelli on the day of his rant when he first mentioned throwing a “tea party,” by which time the website for the event in Chicago had already been purchased by a well-known GOP operative. From its inception, this “movement” has driven by corporate propaganda aimed at tapping into middle class white angst that distracts people from the real problem facing our country, which did not begin when Obama took office.

    And it has worked, even with you, Bob. How is it that we find ourselves having a discussion about your hurt and anger at being called a name? There’s this phrase that I learned as a kid that may be apropopos, and it starts with “sticks and stones.” How does that go again?

    And how does the fact that you’re not racist establish that you are not part of a movement that appeals to bigotry and race-based fear with dog whistle phrases like “redistributive change?”

    How did this become all about you, Bob? I’ll tell you: propaganda is often designed to bring out the audience’s inner narcissist. You may want to read Edward Bernays’ “Propaganda” and watch Adam Curtiss’ “Century of the Self” (which you can find on YouTube). Also think about reading Milton Mayer’s “They Thought They Were Free.”

    The problem we face is not a rising tide of socialism (there is none), but that our government has been captured by the banks and other multinational corporations. Change is certainly necessary, but much of the changes that tea partiers are calling for will only make the problem worse, granting even more power to the TBTF banks and multinational monopolies that year after year are granted more control over our lives through legislation passed at their behest.

  • Blurtman says:
    July 25, 2010 at 12:02 pm

    We will continue to have racism as long as people like the author continue to place human beings into categories like “white”, “black”, “Hispnaic”, etc.

    Mr. Goodwin is a racist but a good racist, under the definition of racism as a belief in the existence of races.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 3:18 pm

      So would you prefer I remain silent when I am attacked as racist?

      • Blurtman says:
        July 25, 2010 at 4:52 pm

        My point is that you are a racist as you believe in the existence of races. Whe you are accused of being a racist, you are offended, because you see yourself as a good racist, and no doubt you are.

      • Tao Jonesing says:
        July 25, 2010 at 6:35 pm

        Bob,

        You admit yourself that you have not been attacked by anyone as a racist. Admittedly, your (most likely Asian) wife has chided you as being a racist, but ribbing doesn’t count. (If your wife were black, you would have said so to lend legitimacy to what you are arguing.)

        The fact is, you are reacting to attacks on a group that you are a part of, not attacks on you. Instead of taking a hard look at whether there is any racial bigotry at play in the politics of that group, you have decided to blindly defend your group, your tribe.

        Your reaction is a manifestation of cognitive dissonance, a form of irrationality. Nobody said you are a racist (at least before your post). They said the group that you are a part of is racist. But, you said to yourself, “I am not a racist; therefore, the group cannot be racist.” Sorry, but that is not logical, which should be readily apparent to any libertarian. Not every individual in a group is the same, and not every member of a group supports everything the group says or does.

        • bob goodwin says:
          July 25, 2010 at 6:53 pm

          I see no difference between the tactic of accusing the right of being racist and the Willie Horton ads. Regardless of what you feel about my feelings, the post is about the larger issue of White people abandoning the democrats.

          I really appreciate your thoughtful effort to wrap your head around this issue, but you continuously seem to evade that single point. Democracy is about one man, one vote, and you cannot disqualify a vote because it does not make sense to you.

          • Robert R says:
            July 26, 2010 at 1:28 am

            “I see no difference between the tactic of accusing the right of being racist and the Willie Horton ads.” So,
            the Republicans run a racist advertising campaign (e.g., Willie Horton) and the left calls them out for running a racist campaign, and you see “no difference” between the two. One side appealed to racist bigots in the South, signaling its agreement with those views in order to win their votes. The other side correctly pointed out that the Republicans are aligning themselves with racists. How exactly are the two sides the same? Yes, that was 20 years ago. However, the signs at Tea Party rallies of Obama with a bone in his nose are not two decades old. The “colored folks” letter occurred last week. Whatever your views of illegal immigration, there is no question that no one stopped in Arizona and questioned regarding their residency will be white. These are inherently racist behaviors/attitudes. They are also inherently associated with the Tea Party. It is not racist, nor is it unfair to you, for us to point that out, and to suggest that it is inappropriate and tarnishes the image of your movement. It is certainly not equivalent to the Willie Horton campaign. An inability to recognize that suggests perhaps a sort of “passive” racism that characterizes many within the tea party.

          • Tao Jonesing says:
            July 26, 2010 at 2:45 am

            “I see no difference between the tactic of accusing the right of being racist and the Willie Horton ads. Regardless of what you feel about my feelings, the post is about the larger issue of White people abandoning the democrats.”

            Given some of the ad hominem attacks you’ve received today, I can accept the fact that you’re reacting more than thinking, and I think it is this dynamic that has led to a false equivalency on your part. The Willie Horton adds were racist. So is a lot of the race-baiting rhetoric out of the tea parties. The fact that there are folks like you who are not racist but have embraced the tea party in spite of this kind of rhetoric does not absolve them of their sins. Imagine that you are Catholic priest who does not molest children and arguing that because you Catholic priests do not, in fact, molest children because you don’t. You wouldn’t buy that logic any more than I would. Like it or not, there are a lot of tea partiers who have a lot of race-based fear, and a lot of tea party rhetoric plays exactly on that. While I don’t feel compelled to call that racism (an over-used word), it doesn’t mean that you don’t hang out with a lot of people who are, in fact, racial bigots.

            “I really appreciate your thoughtful effort to wrap your head around this issue, but you continuously seem to evade that single point. Democracy is about one man, one vote, and you cannot disqualify a vote because it does not make sense to you.”

            Actually, you continually evade one point, which is that the libertarianism and neoliberalism fundamentally despise democracy, which is designed to provide majority rule over the individual. Remember, there is no society. Just a bunch of coppertops, each of whom is smarter than every other one. Even Hayek preferred a “liberal” dictator over a democracy. The neoliberal version of “free trade” is all about rendering each and every one of our votes irrelevant by putting the means for our survival beyond our political influence.

            You’ve been duped into acting against your own self interest. Plain and simple.

            And I want to make one thing clear, which is that but for the obvious lies of libertarianism’s/libertarianism’s architects, I would probably self-identify as a libertarian. The neoliberal abuse of centralized government power has convinced me that we need to distribute power in a way that gives individuals and states more power to police the markets in a way that is closer to the free market ideal than anything we’ve ever seen in history (I have yet to share how this would work, but it is really quite simple). I don’t like Obama one bit, and if the GOP had provided a qualified VP candidate to backup one-foot-in-the-grave McCain, the doddering panderer would have had my vote. I did the best I could by voting for Obama, but I was really given no choice, and what we’re left with is Dubya’s third term. I am not defending Obama or his administration at all.

  • koshem Bos says:
    July 25, 2010 at 12:22 pm

    The Republican Party runs on the Southern Strategy which is basically: appeal to the white and oppose the blacks. It’s the present, it’s central and not marginal and it’s racist.

    The Tea Bagger Party is for “constitutionality” in the interpretation of the 18th century. It’s anti government, that is against deficit and for very low taxes. It ‘s also the drill baby drill and denies global warming party.

    Obama is a centrist president. Health care, which the Teabaggers opposed vehemently, is a mainstay of all Western European governments left or right. The Teabaggers are nothing but extreme Republicans. Their opposition to deficit, as already mention by other comments, is only in the context of Democratic president and deficit. Reagan and Bush may have as much deficit as they wish. Ignoring global warming is Republican and dangerous. Lowering taxes is an old Republican mantra that never worked.

    In summary, the post attempts to obscure the fact that racism is widely practiced by people with the views as the poster and that his political tendencies are at least 150 years old and very dangerous.

  • Frank Ohsen says:
    July 25, 2010 at 12:49 pm

    “The Republican Party runs on the Southern Strategy which is basically: appeal to the white and oppose the blacks. It’s the present, it’s central and not marginal and it’s racist.”

    and this peach….

    “…..and that his political tendencies are at least 150 years old and very dangerous.”

    Dangerous to what? The extreme left’s idea of utopia?

    Btw, let’s say I’m black and I’d like to screw your 17 year old (ok, make it 27 years old too while we’re at it) white daughter and have my baby.

    If you say ‘no’ then you’re a deep-rooted racist and your political leanings are nothing more than BS disguised in the form of altruistic racial-equality integrated no holds barred pollyanna socialism as long as it doesn’t apply specifically to YOU.

    So are you another FOS hypocrite telling us that ‘southerners’ and tea partiers are inherently racist but left-leaners inherently aren’t because of their party affiliations? GMAFB.

    Be honest now.

    • mrmetrowest says:
      July 25, 2010 at 1:37 pm

      If your daughter is 17, as a parent you have every right to object to anyone’s desire/attempt to impregnate your minor child. If she’s 27, it’s not your choice. If your objection is race based, you are indeed a racist.
      BTW, the image of randy blacks hoping to knock up young white girls is an excellent example of good, old fashioned racism, straight out of the 19th century.
      Let it all hang out!

      • Frank Ohsen says:
        July 26, 2010 at 2:20 am

        Then YOU should encourage your 27 year old daughter to do just what I said and put your money where your mouth is so you can claim you’re truly not racist.

  • Ronald says:
    July 25, 2010 at 12:58 pm

    I live in Sonoma, Calif strongly liberal voted heavily for Obama and is very very white. Sonoma reflects white flight and the reality of race relations in America today which is strongly rooted in economic expression rather then Jim Crow laws or overt acts of aggressive abuse towards a minority. Latinos has always had a strong part in Calif economics they provide the field work,landscaping and house cleaning services so necessary for White middle/upper class lifestyles and conveniently live in the lower tract housing far from the white enclave due to housing prices. Blacks that live in Sonoma can be counted with one hand their numbers are extremely small. Major sporting events both college and professional are attended overwhelmingly by Whites while blacks and Latinos would attend in larger numbers but cannot afford the ticket prices.

    The creation of white enclaves throughout the urban landscape reflects the pattern of race relations while the GOP and the Tea Party are singled out as being overtly racist they have provided the MSM with proof that old style racism is alive so we can expect various heated debates on TV and blogs about just how racist they really are but this debate obscures the bigger picture of race in America which uses economic forces to protect White cultural living standards.

  • eightnine2718281828mu5 says:
    July 25, 2010 at 1:14 pm

    —
    Btw, let’s say I’m black
    —

    So the only piece of information you provide is skin color.

    Interesting choice, similar to the 2000 South Carolina primary flyer pointing out that McCain had a ‘colored’ daughter while neglecting to provide any additional details about her.

    Just out of curiousity, how many parents would sanction their daughter being ‘screwed’ by someone whose sole motivation is to impregnate her with no intention of providing support to either mother or child?

    In short, you’re not only a moron, but you’re a racist moron, and the Republican party views you as a reliable vote.

    • Mountainaires says:
      July 25, 2010 at 1:34 pm

      Don’t be stupid, Eightnine.

      Here’s what’s happening. The vast majority of Americans are not racists; don’t give a rat’s ass about race. They’re just trying to survive economically in this world. They live in diversity every single day at work; their children and grandchildren are more diverse than you can imagine, racially and ethnically. Diversity has gone mainstream. The constant race-baiting by liberals annoys and enrages them, because of their own diversity. The more Democrats engage in such divisive tactics, the more people will vote Republican out of disgust for race-baiting they know to be deliberate divisiveness. I speak from personal experience, and I can tell you, we don’t give a shit anymore about being called “racists.” After a while, you don’t feel a thing except disgust for the ones doing the labeling.

      • eightnine2718281828mu5 says:
        July 25, 2010 at 1:57 pm

        —
        don’t give a rat’s ass about race.
        —

        But Republican operatives *do* care about race.

        Lee Atwater wasn’t racist, but he was happy to have the racist vote and cultivated it assiduously.

      • KareninCA says:
        July 25, 2010 at 6:59 pm

        Mountainaires, you have described the situation perfectly.

      • Datafox says:
        July 26, 2010 at 9:07 am

        I’m with you too. It is the moral failings of those who use the term “racist” for their own self-serving agenda that should be reviled.

        Saul Alinsky may rest in peace knowing that he analysis of tactics was spot on, but that doesn’t mean that I agree with him that the end justifies the means if the end as corrupt as the means to get there.

  • chris says:
    July 25, 2010 at 1:27 pm

    The era we live in now is now of racism but of raciality and racial ignorance. If anyone here is serious about understanding the nature of raciality as it stands today in 21st century early america,

    I suggest reading tim wise “white like me.”

    It is the best discussion known to me of the concrete instances of the phenomena consistently misunderstood by white america: race and racism in the 21st century. It supplements better than anything I, or any of these commentators, could add here and spells out in detail, despite being only 160 pages what it means to be white, and what it means to be black (fyi, tim wise is white, and I the poster am black )

  • aeolius says:
    July 25, 2010 at 1:28 pm

    This argument, and those like it, denies Evolution has its effect on humans just as well as it does on all other species. In this their argument makes common cause with the Creationists (albeit for different reasons).The recent study showing that Tibetans evolved to live at high altitude in just 3000 years should give pause. This time scale is short enough to infer that the social environment can shape adaptation.
    But for Nurture also the Liberal argument has a basic assumption. That it can be easily changed by social engineering. In fact the successful continuance of ancient cultures embedded within our own (eg Hebrew, Pharsi and Gypsy, as well as the four British cultures described in “Albion’s Seed”)makes this assumption difficult
    A sub-assumption is that Slavery destroyed pre-existing culture and a new culture was invented by the demands of slave owners.
    This is so central to the Affirmative Action mentality that I have not seen it seriously challenged. I am not naive enough to assume that there was a common African culture but comparisons do need to be made. The Mother-Child dyad is extremely strong in transmitting culture. Several decades ago I worked in a mainly minority workplace. It was common for Afro-Americans to give different attributes to those from different southern states.
    Finally, because of the peculiarities of American culture, most Americans of mixed African and European blood are counted as “Black”. So almost all studies based on race are suspect. Does say Affirmative action help pure African descendants as much as those of a mixed background. Until this is controlled for any studies of the effects of social engineering must be suspect.

  • Anonymous Jones says:
    July 25, 2010 at 1:42 pm

    I did not click through on every link, but if you can’t tell the difference between what Krugman is saying in that article and “excoriating people like you for being racist,” do you honestly expect anyone to take anything you say seriously?

    Honestly, re-read that article and just consider for a moment that the article might not be directed at you personally and might actually be about a trend or about a trait that is applicable to many people in a movement, not necessarily *every person* in that movement. Yes, I realize that you are the center of your own universe, but you are not the center or mine or anyone else’s.

    Your post is not entirely without merit, but does it not occur to you that if you are going to go to the trouble of writing this long blog post, then maybe it might be worthwhile to be more precise in your word choice and your arguments so that people don’t immediately discount the *entire* post?

    Racism is an important topic, and humans of all races have engaged, continue to engage, and will forever engage in racism (it is an entirely natural and sensible heuristic that unfortunately has had deleterious consequences to many). Sadly, this post is more incoherent apologia for one’s own confused beliefs and past questionable actions than a thoughtful investigation of the subject.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 3:23 pm

      Krugmans point was no less muted or indirect than the Willie Horton Ads.

    • DownSouth says:
      July 25, 2010 at 4:40 pm

      Anonymous Jones,

      I’m just finishing up reading David Sloan Wilson’s Darwin’s Cathedral, and I think his theory of multi-level selection does about as credible a job as any of explaining why humans behave the way they do. He shows, through a combination of individual selection and group selection, how humans came to be hardwired the way they are, why they organize themselves in groups and compete with other groups (and not in a very nice way).

      Group selection explains why there is an imperative to treat those within our group morally, and why this imperative doesn’t exist for those outside our group.

      But there are many other factors besides skin color that determine whether an individual is in-group or out-group. To name a few of the more important ones:

      Wealth
      Income
      Birthright
      Education
      Language
      Morals
      Secular beliefs
      Acculturation
      Ethnicity
      Nationality
      Religion
      Sexual Orientation
      Fame
      Political power or position

      In today’s America, I suppose that for some skin color still trumps all. But for most of us it is probably a combination of skin color, along with other factors like those mentioned above, which determines who is in-group and who is out-group. I have a hard time envisioning too many Americans who would consider Edward Harrison or Barak Obama as out-group, even though they do obviously exist, as the birther movement pretty clearly demonstrates.

      Fortunately, hardwiring doesn’t explain everything. Besides biological evolution, there is cultural evolution. As Smith goes on to explain:

      Within-group selection by itself creates a world without morality in which individuals merely use each other to maximize their relative fitness. Group selection creates a moral world within groups but doesn’t touch the world of between-group interactions, which remains exactly as instrumental as within-group interactions in the absence of group selection. Moral conduct among groups can evolve in principle, but only by extending the hierarchy to include groups of groups. This possibility is not as far-fetched as it may appear. Remember that individual organisms are already groups of groups of groups, if the emerging paradigm of major transitions is correct. Perhaps history will reveal the rudiments of moral conduct among human groups struggling to emerge against opposing forces, rather than total absence of moral conduct among groups.

  • dbt says:
    July 25, 2010 at 2:27 pm

    Is there anything more mind-numbingly boring than a member of the richest, most privileged class ever to exist in human history complaining about how hard done by they are?

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 3:25 pm

      I would not have written this as a complaint. I was making a point about where I believe the voters are going. You may not care about who feels aggrieved, but you are foolish not to care about how people vote.

      • dbt says:
        July 26, 2010 at 1:25 am

        I don’t live in your country, and I don’t frankly care how you or your fellow countrymen vote, because it makes very little difference in how your country conducts itself on the world stage. The idea that Tea Partiers could be convinced to vote for candidates that aren’t solidly for rolling back the advances of the Civil Rights movement if only those dastardly Liberal pundits could be convinced not to call them racists is absurd in any case.

        My point is this: you’re an Ivy-league educated white male, with enough money to describe your profession as “investing”. You have more than 99% of all other humans on this planet, and more than 99.999% of all humans who have ever existed. You self-identify as a member of the Tea Party, a movement which overwhelmingly opposes the pittances which are thrown to the underclass in your country. I don’t know whether or not you’re a racist, and I don’t particularly care. You should, however, be able to leverage your Ivy league education to understand why people might believe that a political movement composed almost entirely of whites, which opposes the few government programs available in your country directed at alleviating some of the effects of racial discrimination and poverty, might be racist. This is particularly true in light of the slavish support of elements of the movement for the military-industrial complex, which wastes vastly more taxpayer resources than the anemic welfare state in the US ever could. The onus is on you and your peers to describe alternatives to the programs you oppose.

        Until the Tea Party can articulate a coherent alternative to government intervention in support of your country’s rapidly expanding underclass, they’re going to be called racist. Do you think it’s some kind of coincidence that the Tea Party is 88% white? Poor blacks and hispanics look at the kinds of things the Tea Party is saying and they recognize that those policies don’t help them. Come up with proposals that actually help the poor, and you’ll get minorities on your side, and the racism canard will drop away.

    • Doug Terpstra says:
      July 25, 2010 at 5:48 pm

      When you assume one is “a member of the richest, most privileged class ever to exist in human history” do you mean a Nigerian banker, Russian oligarch, Mexican plutocrat, Chinese Party member, or a white guy working as a greeter at Wal-Mart because his Enron pension was embezzled? It’s not really clear.

  • lark says:
    July 25, 2010 at 2:27 pm

    You claim yourself as a member of the ‘bemused middle’ and then identify as allying with the Tea Party folks?

    Stop right there. The Tea Party folks are far from the middle. They are extremists.

    And while you may be in an inter-racial marriage, that is far from the norm for your fellow travelers. This is an overwhelmingly white grouping.

    In fact there is much race baiting and race frothing coming from these people. That is the context for the shameful race baiting and lying and character assassination that targeted Shirley Sherrod.

    It is telling that you begin your screed with a focus on the NAACP.

    But what happened here? In the climate of facts-don’t-matter, let us slash and burn ordinary folks, Breit Bart went ahead with a video clip so misleading it destroyed the career of Shirley Sherrod. The right wing noise machine destroyed an actual flesh and blood person.

    Here is a white farmer on Sherrod:
    http://www.cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2010/07/20/ricks.sherrod.white.farmer.responds.cnn

    Face it: the malignancy of race baiting is flowing from the extreme right.

    I didn’t know Yves was sympathetic to these tendencies in American society, I am disappointed in this blog.

    One more point. I have folks in my family in this ‘Tea Party’. And they repulse me. Their politics are part of the kiss-suck-slobber part of the new American conservative character. Give the rich whatever they want (kiss-suck-slobber on the butts of the rich) while entertaining populist fantasies. They in effect give the government to gangsters because they can’t tolerate the realities of democracy. They in effect brought down our economy because they indulge their fantasies that the only real problems we face can be solved by deregulation and low taxes. It is disgusting. It signals the decline and fall of this country, I am sorry to say.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 3:28 pm

      I think you make a common misconception of the tea party as far right. If you are repulsed by something you probably are not paying attention.

      • lark says:
        July 25, 2010 at 8:34 pm

        Not paying attention? Look at yourself. There are many surveys that show the following:

        “The 18 percent of Americans who identify themselves as Tea Party supporters tend to be Republican, white, male, married and older than 45. They hold more conservative views on a range of issues than Republicans generally.”

        http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/us/politics/15poll.html
        Or,
        http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/01/tea-party-survey-old-cons_n_522336.html

        • Datafox says:
          July 26, 2010 at 9:58 am

          lark,

          Your arguments are based on biased opinion spouted for the purpose of advancing a biased agenda. It is not so much a rational reaction to free thought as a bias cemented in a liberal education. Your sources quoted in your reply is evidence of that.

          Just remember that free-thinking still requires effort just as assuredly as does unbiased thinking. To be motivated to post such absurd statements shows just how far assimilated into your own fundamental educational biases you have become.

          In your posting you almost sound as if you haven’t read George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. If you did you, by inference, probably side with the government in it. Don’t worry.

          There is still hope because there still are activists that are somewhere right of the extreme left that don’t know you but will fight for your fundamental rights you seem to have left behind along with your freedom of individual personal thought.

          If you thought it was “just a story” then Alice wants you to join her in a rabbit hole and “The Funny Farm” is looking for a new director.

      • Tao Jonesing says:
        July 26, 2010 at 3:03 am

        The exception does not disprove the rule.

        A few months ago, I met with a former colleague of mine who was enthusiastic about the tea party, although he was not himself a member. The guy is a sweetheart, and I view him as generally slightly right of center, which is a good counterpoint to my slighlty left of center. We’re both radical moderates.

        He viewed the tea party as a positive development for democracy, as a sign that people were taking responsibility for their government again. Finally.

        I countered by noting that much of the tea party anger was misdirected at government in favor of business when the government was, in fact, acting at the behest of business. While I thought that tea partiers’ concerns about the direction of country were valid, their reaction to those concerns was not, that they were more akin to fascist brownshirts than democratic patriots.

        He paused. Thought about it. And agreed that my concern was valid, and more importantly, that my concern about the collusion between big business and government was valid.

        The reason the founders of neoliberalism encouraged individuals to walk away from their governments is because (1) the neoliberals want to control the governments without competition from the riff-raff, and (2) the neoliberals want to be able to place the blame for the government doing what it’s told on the government instead of on neoliberals.

        Libertarianism leads to fascism as surely as communism leads to totalitarianism. And fascism and totalitarianism are just different versions of feudalism.

        Come on, man, Rothbard and his buddies purposefully borrowed from Leninist propaganda techniques, and the evidence is right there on Mises.org, if you care to search for it (try “rothbard confidential memo”). Libertarianism was designed to counter communisim, to be its polar opposite, which means that it also ultimately advocates an unrealizable utopia that results in slavery.

  • bill smith says:
    July 25, 2010 at 2:29 pm

    Racist – what a stupid word. The author states that his wife is of another race – ergo, he must be a racist. So what. Races exist, not only in the human population but in many organisms. And yes there are differences or the concept of race wouldn’t exist. Get over it.

  • Nick says:
    July 25, 2010 at 2:53 pm

    Mr. Goodwin:

    Slavery and Jim Crow apartheid are the shame of our nation. The legacy of those racist policies is shown by all sorts of statistics with African Americans on the losing end–from higher infant mortality to shorter lifespans, and all manner of life experiences in between. It is clear to anyone who looks, that the racism has been institutionalized in this nation, to the great detriment of African Americans.

    Moreover, the Republican Party and conservative movement in this country has sought to capitalize on that disastrous reality, through use of the infamous Southern Strategy. At least THREE RNC chairmen have admitted this (Lee Atwater, Mehlman, and Steele).

    The Republican Party could not successfully use the racist Southern Strategy without at least the acquiescence of 50.1 percent of its supporters. (“Silence implies consent.”)

    If you don’t like being called a racist, then stop supporting a political party which exploits racial strife for political and economic benefit. You can’t have it both ways.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 3:31 pm

      By your logic, all people who disagree with the democrats are racist?

      Do you have any objection to the racial politics on the left?

      • Nick says:
        July 25, 2010 at 4:11 pm

        Let me take your second comment first. Who is hurt worse by racism, blacks or whites? By every measure, it’s not even close.

        Commons sense should tell you that whereas white people can comfortably say “I don’t even think about race”, in a culture where skin color is so clearly important to the well being of non-white people–it’s non-whites who by far bear the burden of racism.

        Decrying black racism, in a culture where blacks have very little power, and comparing it to white racism, misses the issue–usually deliberately. By a huge margin, African Americans are hurt by racial bigotry and it’s institutionalized effects. It’s not even close.

        But yes, black racism and discrimination bother me, but as the effects of black racism and discrimination are minute in comparison to the effects of white racism and discrimination, it’s WAY down the list of my concerns.

        Second, your first qeustion–does opposing the Democratic Party make one a racist?

        Now, when I vote Democratic, I knowingly vote for a party that supports the right of abortion for women, with the result that 1.3 million fetuses are aborted each year. I don’t get to run away from that responsibility. It’s a moral choice.

        When YOU vote for the Republican Party, you knowingly are voting for a party that has pandered to white bigotry for political benefit, with the result that bigotry against African Americans is reinforced. You don’t get to run away from that responsibility. It’s a moral choice.

        • Dirk says:
          July 25, 2010 at 7:38 pm

          Let’s just say that the Right to life types got their way and Rowe v. Wade was overturned. How many abortions would there be in the country, certianly not zero, they would simply be forced underground and would result in far more maternal deaths. Bill Clinton had it right, abortions should be safe legal and rare. Widely available contraception and encouragement to use it would be a much more effect method of reduing the number of abortions. Strangely though, those who make the most anti abortion noises (i.e the Catholic Church) are the ones who do the most to prevent wide spread use of contraceptives.

  • Blurtman says:
    July 25, 2010 at 3:05 pm

    Examining the history of the concept of race illustrates the absurdity of this human concept. For example, in the 1800′s, the following racial categories were in use: Bushman, Negroes, Negritoes, Melanochroi, Australoids, Mongoloids A, Mongoloids B, Mongolids C, Xantochroi, etc.

    It would equally absurd for Bob Goodwin to write about his wife, the Bushman.

    The suffix -ist can mean “an adherent of or believer in.” Ergo a racist is an adherent of or believer in race under this definition.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 3:32 pm

      How does it elevate the conversation to smear my wife?

      • Blurtman says:
        July 25, 2010 at 4:49 pm

        Bob,
        I have no intention to smear your wife, but rather lampoon your clinging to racial (I would say racist) categories. I think my intention is clear, especailly as I argue for the absurdity of the very definition of race.

      • KareninCA says:
        July 25, 2010 at 7:07 pm

        Good grief, Bob, if you think that he was smearing your wife, you must be getting tired from reading so many comments. He was not even slightly smearing your wife. He was making fun of old-timey, ridiculous racial categories.

        By the way, your wife’s calling your aversion to housework racist, is simply obnoxious. There, I insulted your wife (very mildly). Few guys like housework; race has nothing to do with it; she’s misusing the word “racist” by using it that way. It cheapens the word.

  • jay22 says:
    July 25, 2010 at 3:06 pm

    Another ‘woes me’ angry at the world because he is being accused of something he is not.

    Of course despite the multitude of links provided, the author doesnt really provide any evidence that anyone is calling him a racist (besides his wife apparently).

    It is impossible for anyone to ignore the racial element to some of the protests that have occured around the country over the last 2+ years. You cant just ignore the signs, the pictures, the flags or the screamed comments that many of the protestors are bringing out. You cant say these things do not exist, even if you have spent 30 years keeping your head down to avoid causing any problems.

    The problem comes when you associated with people who are doing these obviously racist things. You become tied to them because the non-racist portion of the protestors have done so little to distance themselves from the racist elements. When people criticize the groups, they are never criticizing every single member…..yet people like the author throw a fit because they are being lumped into the criticism when they themselves choose to be part of the group and dont do enough to change the actions of the racist fringe.

    The author seems to have 30+ years of buried buried racial angst that he has decided to haul out of the closet now and take it out on the Democrats/liberals. Anger at those who decry the obvious signs of racism because you want to belong to the same group as some fringe racists and you dont like anyone taking shots at your little club…despite its shortcomings…well, its silly. Good luck dealing with your 30+ years of built up racial issues….dont blame Krugman, Dionne, Dowd and the NAACP for that. THis is your issue, figure it out.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 4:00 pm

      My point is about voting trends and division. Otherwise I don’t need to expose my feelings to others.

  • Nick says:
    July 25, 2010 at 3:12 pm

    “Mountainaires says:

    July 25, 2010 at 1:34 pm
    The vast majority of Americans are not racists; don’t give a rat’s ass about race.”

    Sorry, you don’t get to simply avert your gaze from an issue that causes so much trouble for so many people.

    African Americans get the short end of the stick in just about every way we can measure. How convenient for the majority of people (non-African Americans) to be able to say they simply don’t give a rat’s ass about race. It’s certainly not a Christian attitude, and Republicans keep telling us we’re a Christian nation. Can’t have it both ways.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 3:33 pm

      Many Christians care deeply about race.

      • Nick says:
        July 25, 2010 at 3:46 pm

        Nobody who cares about his brother would stand with a political party that actively works to demonize his brother (or sister) for political and economic gain.

        The Sermon on the Mount is essentially a statement of liberal social justice. It’s the longest uninterrupted statement of Christ’s principles, and it runs contrary to the attitudes of the type of Christians which comprise the Republican Party today. Blessed are the peacemakers was nowhere in evidence among Republicans during the run-up to the Iraq invasion. Ditto appeals to Christian Charity.

        Am I my brother’s keeper, or not? Answer that question honesty to find the dividing line between Republican Christians and liberal Christians.

        • bob goodwin says:
          July 25, 2010 at 4:05 pm

          I think your opinion is not well researched. Conservatives are more disinclined to use government to right the wrongs of society, but are far more willing to take personal action. The christian right was overwhelmingly the group that tried to adopt orphans from Haiti.

          • eightnine2718281828mu5 says:
            July 25, 2010 at 4:24 pm

            —
            Conservatives are more disinclined to use government to right the wrongs of society
            —

            Please.

            Flag burning?

            Gay rights?

            Abortion?

            Marijuana laws?

            At the local level we have them agitating for prayer in public schools and restrictions on teaching evolution.

            Republicans are hardly restrained in their use of government coercion which is why all this flag-waving and bleating about freedom is so obnoxious.

          • Nick says:
            July 25, 2010 at 4:26 pm

            Mr. Goodwin:

            It was right wing Christians who supported the Iraq invasion, and liberal Christians who opposed it. That’s not open to dispute. No research needed. Blessed are the peacemakers? Not Republican Christians.

            It also was largely Southern Baptists and similar Christian sects who historically supported slavery and Jim Crow. That’s not open to dispute either. But remind me–aren’t Southern Baptists overwhelmingly Republicans?

            Finally, it’s a nice distinction to state that Republicans are disinclined to use government for social justice reasons–but the right wing churches sure didn’t do anything to end slavery or Jim Crow. Who else but government can people turn to when faced with systemic discrimination? And in a modern nation state, the idea that local church based charities can sufficiently provide welfare needs is at best naive. At best.

          • bob goodwin says:
            July 25, 2010 at 4:38 pm

            Yes, Bush invaded Iraq, and Obama escalated in Afganistan. Kennedy and Johnson did Vietnam. There was popular support within their parties for each of these moves (at the time). Does not make them right.

          • bob goodwin says:
            July 25, 2010 at 4:40 pm

            Slavery ended 150 years ago. I am not sure what that has to do with politics in 2010. If I remember, it was a Republican who signed the emancipation proclamation.

            In any case, irrelevant today.

          • Nick says:
            July 25, 2010 at 4:48 pm

            “bob goodwin says:
            July 25, 2010 at 4:40 pm

            Slavery ended 150 years ago. I am not sure what that has to do with politics in 2010. If I remember, it was a Republican who signed the emancipation proclamation.”

            You’re not sure what slavery and Jim Crow have to do with politics today? That’s a stunning admission. Start with the Wikipedia page on the Southern Strategy and go from there.

            As for Lincoln, yes. And when northerners led by Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act, then white bigots fled the Democratic Party into the party of Lincoln. Raising Lincoln to support the bigotry of the Republican Party is bitterly ironic–the man was murdered by segregationists for goodness’ sake.

          • benamery21 says:
            July 25, 2010 at 5:55 pm

            And also overwhelmingly the group which wishes to block adult Haitians from asylum.

  • Bernard says:
    July 25, 2010 at 3:51 pm

    what a fantasy land these people live in. to see the Tea Party rant and rave about socialism, pics of Witch Doctor Obama, Nazi holocaust pics and the like says a lot more than defenders of the Tea Party. Guilt by association is very easy to do in this instance.

    what it appears to me is the Tea Party is now being destroyed by the Republican Party after it became too much of a VOICE of the screwed Whites out there.

    success is going to be the Tea Party’s demise. the GOP won’t allow any ONE to stop their game plan. the whole idea of this Party was hyped until the Tea Partiers gained traction and got candidates like Angle, Paul and so on.

    the South is and has been full of easily used White people who were told the Government would give their tax money to help Black People. That is the GOP’s southern strategy. it works and has been for 40 years now.

    my mother protested “Integration in the 60′s” here in New Orleans. i was with her as a young child in the streets. i SAW the reality and the fear of the White people of PAYBACK from losing the Civil War. the fear of Blacks and payback from Slavery. Whites segregated themselves rather than have “Government” give their “TAX” money to Blacks.

    the Truth is nasty, and it hurts. so the Whites followed George Wallace, then Lee Atwater and Rove.

    if you want the Truth, open your eyes to the reality, not some spiel from aggrieved “individuals” complaining about Government being BAD.

    Government is composed of YOU and ME!! the Spin Meisters/Rove/Atwater etal/ have done a wonderful job of screwing the Middle Class Whites for the last 40 years. some of the Tea Partiers get it. others are just plain racists who buy fear and suspicion of the “Other.” Dumb yes, but effectual. Americans can be so dumb.

    southern Americans are really a pitiful class of ignorant well fed on hate and fear. The GOP knows how to keep these “racists” fed. And they have been fed on this diet of hate and fear for 40 years. It WORKS!!!!

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 4:35 pm

      The rants on both ends of the spectrum look remarkably similar. The realities are far more nuanced.

  • Loxy Bagel says:
    July 25, 2010 at 4:04 pm

    Bob, seriously, why do you feel targeted by the accusations of racism? I’m white, and I don’t. Is there something you’re not telling us? It is obvious that a major element of the tea party is racist, as is a fair-sized proportion of the knee-jerk anti-Obama sentiment out there. It’s not even debatable.

    It sounds an awful lot like you’re saying that people shouldn’t be allowed to charge racists with racism. I’m sorry if that hurts your feelings, but there is no place for racism in decent society. If you’re not going to help root it out, please do the world a favor and get out of the way.

    • Loxy Bagel says:
      July 25, 2010 at 4:05 pm

      And Yves? Why did you publish this?

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 4:32 pm

      You just made my point. There is a very real debate about both the tea party and racism. Joe Biden said the tea party was not racist. There is no debate? Because you believe it is true, it is okay to hurl the invective?

      • Tao Jonesing says:
        July 25, 2010 at 6:50 pm

        “Joe Biden said the tea party was not racist.”

        So? George W. Bush said he was a uniter, not a divider. And Obama promised change you could believe in (i.e., no change). I really don’t care what a politican says, I care what he or she does. Since Joe Biden is not a member of the tea party, he can do nothing that proves or disproves his statement about the tea party.

        I can agree with Joe Biden to the extent that the formless, fearful mob of overwhelmingly white people (like my mother and step father) that calls itself the tea party cannot be called racist in the strictest use of that term, which requires discrimination on the base of race. I can say without hesitation, however, that a great deal of tea party rhetoric plays on race-based fears and stereotypes. Regrardless of whether those dog whistle phrases have their intended effect on you, the fact is that they’re being employed purposefully.

  • Jim says:
    July 25, 2010 at 4:25 pm

    The most crucial part of attempting to build a new political movement is the conceptualization of its cultural/theological/spiritual/ethical dimension.

    The dimension provides both the normative structure of its message and it also mobilizes the personal emotional energy necessary to reorganize society in a different way.

    Politics is, finally, about values.

    Without the personal transformative experience of people like Shirely Sherrod, politics becomes mere rhetoric.

    It is imperative that these types of transformative experiences be looked at more closely.

    What might be at work here is the move to a more selfless form of behavior.

    When launching a new politics it may be necessary to articulate a new conception of self as well–one that gradually emerges through choices of the heart.

  • Hugh says:
    July 25, 2010 at 4:26 pm

    Have not yet read the comments but wished to jump in. This is an incredibly muddleheaded post. If tea party members are racist but don’t like being called racist then we shouldn’t call them racist, and if we don’t call them racist then they aren’t racist. How simple. The truth is that the left blogosphere has been talking about the Tea Party and racism for months. We didn’t need the NAACP wandering in recently to tell us about it.

    When I look at the Tea Party movement, I see an astro-turfed organization funded by conservative Republicans and led by Republican whackjobs like Sarah Palin. This is not a centrist movement since its effect is to push even hardline conservative Republicans further right. Nor is it a substitute for or spokesman of the populist discontent that is very real and out in the country.

    So what does this post add to the discussion exactly? Because I’m not seeing it.

    • mannfm11 says:
      July 26, 2010 at 5:34 am

      Instead of watching the elite funded news, you might read this article and learn a little what the Tea Party is about and why it is viewed as part of the Republican Party, though it isn’t. The Democratic party doesn’t agree with these people and the Republican party screws them by doing much of the same things the Democrats do. The point is the Democrats are the party of the political elites, not smart people, but people that hide behind pieces of paper that say they are smart. The bailouts and the no one saw this coming and the Barney Frank nonsense when there was piles of evidence he was a pusher behind the fueling of the housing bubble and the Chris Dodds who when researched we found he was literally on the payroll of Wall Street. Then we look and there are the Bob Doles and Al Gores and to some extent the Bill Clintons pocketing millions as lobbiests. There isn’t a non-obscene group of words to describe people of this class. This is the Tea Party is about, getting these criminals out of government. Just so happens these criminals are race pimps as well, poverty pimps, anything to corner enough votes to stay in power and soak middle class Americans of hundreds of billions a year and much of their prosperity. Remember, the ladder to a better living in America died years ago, probably about the time Nixon came along. Since then we have been told we were too stupid to take care of ourselves. Ever ask yourself why with several thousand colleges in the US, most of the top officials come out of the good old boy network in New England? It isn’t because these are the smartest or best educated people. If you believe that, then you might either start looking around or you are too stupid to see and understand what is right in front of you. They just stole $10 trillion right in front of us and now we owe it to them. http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/print

  • Jackrabbit says:
    July 25, 2010 at 4:52 pm

    Goodwin has a certain point of view, that is perhaps better illuminated in his comments. To improve the conversation, I have listed his comments below so that those who wish to respond can cite the number(s) instead of replicating the entire comment.

    1) The tea party has clear ideology. You may disagree with this ideology, but it is there. Regarding Bush, I agree with you, as do a lot of other tea partiers. He did the war thing and the deficit thing that Obama has just amplified.

    2) Democracies can fall much lower than we have.
    Reason and debate is alive and well on NC.

    3) I was primarily refering to the health care debate to insure illegal aliens (who are mostly non white) and to the immigration bill in Arizona.

    4) I did distance myself from Willie Horton. Will you distance yourself from the claim of racism in the tea party?

    5) Willie Horton was 20+ years ago. I doubt it would work today anywhere outside the deep south.

    6) I cannot imagine why you feel that I make money from the tea party. I believe in less government ideologically. My post had nothing to do with distancing myself from racism.

    7) I agree that was a poor choice of words.

    8) You thoughts are appreciated and well written.

    If you read my post carefully you would reallize that I stated that the claim of racism was muted and indirect, in the same way that the Willie Horton Ads were.

    I used personal evidence extensively because I was talking about feelings, and extrapolating these feelings on many other voters. It is easy to provide evidence of political white flight, it is harder to prove causation.

    I have chosen to post on NC because I am an active member of this community, and I value the fact that Libertarians have a voice in this community. I don’t think you want ideological purity here, and I am sticking my neck out to open up the debate. I don’t think that qualifies as trolling.

    9) I agree that was a poor choice of words.

    10) So would you prefer I remain silent when I am attacked as racist?

    11) Krugmans point was no less muted or indirect than the Willie Horton Ads.

    12) I think you make a common misconception of the tea party as far right. If you are repulsed by something you probably are not paying attention.

    13) By your logic, all people who disagree with the democrats are racist?

    14 )Do you have any objection to the racial politics on the left?

    15) How does it elevate the conversation to smear my wife?

    16) My point is about voting trends and division. Otherwise I don’t need to expose my feelings to others.

    17) I think your opinion is not well researched. Conservatives are more disinclined to use government to right the wrongs of society, but are far more willing to take personal action. The christian right was overwhelmingly the group that tried to adopt orphans from Haiti.

    • mannfm11 says:
      July 26, 2010 at 5:40 am

      Willie Horton didn’t work because he was black. He worked because he was a criminal that got out of jail early and killed someone. To say they wouldn’t have used Willie Horton if he was white is mind reading. To say you can only use white examples like that is just as racist as saying the guy must be black. Anyone that votes for or against one of these stage actors because of a commercial should probably resign from voting in the first place.

  • Mick says:
    July 25, 2010 at 4:53 pm

    Everyone dances around issue. Obama is as racist as any Klan leader. We are all products of our environment and Obama’s environment was racist. His mentor, pastor and friend for over 20 years was the bigot Rev. Wright. Look at Obama’s own written words and his actions for the truth. He inaction to condemn the NBPP is very telling as was the incident with the bigot black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.

    The country has made great strides in dealing with its slavery past. Be we made a terrible mistake in trying to atone for past sins by putting Obama in the white house.

    Obama is a racist…..and everyone knows it.

    • Tao Jonesing says:
      July 25, 2010 at 6:55 pm

      Racist to the benefit of which part? The white half, that he grew up surrounded and nurtured by? Or the black half that he relied upon to get elected, in spite of the fact that he has almost nothing in common with most African Americans?

      The guy is not racist. He is part of the same elite as the last president. Stop watching Fox and Glenn Beck.

    • Dirk says:
      July 25, 2010 at 7:53 pm

      Oh yeah, Obama hates his own Mother and the grand parents that helped raise him. The NBPP is a little fringe group not worthy of comment by the POTUS. Oh and by the way, the case against them was downgraded to civil from criminal on 1/7/09, and Obama took office 1/20/09. The whole issue about them is 100% BS. I’m not a huge fan of Rev Wright, but most of what he has said comes far closer to the real message of Jesus (See sermon on Mt.) than what the Falwells and the Focus on the Family preach. Wrights church did have the virtue of being the only major black Church in Chicago that is not extremely hoomophobic as well.

      You Sir, are an ingnorant, and most likely racist jerk.

    • Gordo says:
      July 25, 2010 at 11:51 pm

      This is loathsome, if you had looked in to the speeches given by Rev. Wright you would know that they were just like the Sherrod case. Cherry picking of statements made, but he simply was telling it like it is and was nothing racist there at all, Obama had to distance himself from that truth just too get elected. But I guess you did not get the memo just took it from rushbeck and ran with it.

  • Jackrabbit says:
    July 25, 2010 at 5:00 pm

    OK a few more since I posted the first 17.

    Of course, you can still respond within each thread, but if you want to address the POV (multiple statements) then its best to cite the post or the comment #.

    While I hope this improves the debate, my take on the whole post remains the same (see above).

    18) Yes, Bush invaded Iraq, and Obama escalated in Afganistan. Kennedy and Johnson did Vietnam. There was popular support within their parties for each of these moves (at the time). Does not make them right.

    19) Slavery ended 150 years ago. I am not sure what that has to do with politics in 2010. If I remember, it was a Republican who signed the emancipation proclamation. In any case, irrelevant today.

    20) The rants on both ends of the spectrum look remarkably similar. The realities are far more nuanced.

    21) You just made my point. There is a very real debate about both the tea party and racism. Joe Biden said the tea party was not racist. There is no debate? Because you believe it is true, it is okay to hurl the invective?

  • eightnine2718281828mu5 says:
    July 25, 2010 at 5:01 pm

    —
    racist as any Klan leader.
    —

    I hear the White House trees are literally festooned with the smoldering corpses of white folk.

  • Nick says:
    July 25, 2010 at 5:06 pm

    I heard that Obama makes white people ride in the back of Air Force One.

  • Mick says:
    July 25, 2010 at 5:14 pm

    Obamas Mentor, friend and Pastor…FOR TWENTY YEARS, espoused Black Liberation Theology. The doctrine is itself the inspiration of James Hal Cone, who’s warped racial thinking was as twisted as Hitlers. Yet Obama listened to this vile racist puke and was best friends with monster who preached it!

    “Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community…. Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love.”

    • DownSouth says:
      July 25, 2010 at 5:34 pm

      Deuteronomy 20:10-18 (New International Version)

      10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. 11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. 14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies. 15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.

      16 However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. 17 Completely destroy [a] them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has commanded you. 18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God.

      http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+20%3A10-18&version=NIV

      • Doug Terpstra says:
        July 25, 2010 at 6:51 pm

        Wow, by contrast, today’s conquest of the over-promised land is a kinder gentler version. The Palestinians have it so much better than the Philistines and Amalekites.

        From I Samuel 15:3 (NIV):

        “This is what the Lord Almighty says: …Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’”

        Of course, King Saul killed all the men, women and children but quite sensibly kept the best cattle and sheep alive (who wouldn’t, along with a few nubile sex slaves?). For that Jehovah was grieved that he had made Saul King of Israel.

  • Mick says:
    July 25, 2010 at 5:25 pm

    “Obama couldn’t get enough of Wright. Barack and Michelle had him marry them. They chose him to baptize their children, who were routinely exposed to Wright’s race-baiting bombast. In point of fact, though, the Obamas didn’t just associate with Wright. They subsidized him to the tune of over $20,000″

    These are facts and are not disputable. But the press did there best cover this up during the election and even acted in concert, (Jornolist) to even call others racist for daring to bring out the truth.

    Daily Caller reporter Jonathan Strong :
    “It was the moment of greatest peril for then-Sen. Barack Obama’s political career. In the heat of the presidential campaign, videos surfaced of Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, angrily denouncing whites, the U.S. government and America itself. Obama had once bragged of his closeness to Wright. Now the black nationalist preacher’s rhetoric was threatening to torpedo Obama’s campaign.
    The crisis reached a howling pitch in mid-April, 2008, at an ABC News debate moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Gibson asked Obama why it had taken him so long – nearly a year since Wright’s remarks became public – to dissociate himself from them. Stephanopoulos asked, “Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?”
    Watching this all at home were members of Journolist, a listserv comprised of several hundred liberal journalists, as well as like-minded professors and activists. The tough questioning from the ABC anchors left many of them outraged. “George [Stephanopoulos],” fumed Richard Kim of the Nation, is “being a disgusting little rat snake.”
    Others went further. According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.
    In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists.”

    • Gordo says:
      July 26, 2010 at 12:01 am

      This is loathsome, if you had looked in to the speeches given by Rev. Wright you would know that they were just like the Sherrod case. Cherry picking of statements made, but he simply was telling it like it is and was nothing racist there at all, Obama had to distance himself from that truth just too get elected. But I guess you did not get the memo just took it from rushbeck and ran with it.

      Pick up that propaganda ball did you.

      Do not forget the first rule though.

      Lie as much as and as often as possible and hope it sticks.

  • Jackrabbit says:
    July 25, 2010 at 5:49 pm

    Goodwin claims that he is not trolling because: 1) he’s a long-time NC reader; and 2) he was just trying to illuminate the political realities and putting his own feelings(!) on the line to do so. What a guy.

    Judging from the comments (his and others), it is Goodwin who needs to be illuminated about racism and his chosen “Party.” The readership seems to be well aware of what the Tea Party stands for.

    But Goodwin doesn’t seem to get it. And that is troubling (for a long-time NC reader). African Americans and others who have been discriminated against don’t have an equal opportunity, racism IS alive and well in the USA (but not overt), and the Tea Party’s small government agenda means that Goodwin, and other wealthy people, seek to profit (via less taxes) from what would almost certainly be the misery of others (but its OK because White right-wingers will donate to white churches so Whites that are poor won’t suffer *too* much).

    In typical neocon fashion, Goodwin prefers navel gazing rather than concerning himself with the problems of “others.” Oh he tries soooo hard to hire minorities but African Americans just don’t measure up. He comes THIS close to saying: “they will NEVER measure up, they’ve had their chance, its time to cut the cord or white guilt and let the devil take the hindemost.” Such a know-nothing (as in “I don’t wanna know”) attitude is typical.

    It would be better for NC to have an intelligent discussion regarding policy choices related to persistent poverty and racism than give a voice to Tea Party activists that are either racist or seek quick, self-serving answers that further our already too insular and mercenary society.

    • Tao Jonesing says:
      July 25, 2010 at 7:04 pm

      Bob is not a neocon but a libertarian. While libertarians are closely related to neoliberals (the same people founded both), libertarianism is more a philosophy while neoliberalism is a specific manifestation of libertarian policy. The primary difference between neocons and neoliberals is that the former creates empire through military warfare, whereas the latter does so through economic warfare (aka free trade as administered via the IMF).

      Again, I’m happy Bob posted his views. Further, I don’t think that anything he has to say is driven by racism or bigotry on his part. He is defending his group because he sees an attack on it as an attack on him. That’s not true, but that’s where the response comes from. What’s interesting is that Bob is proving his libertarian heroes wrong: apparently there is a society, there is something beyond the individual.

      • bob goodwin says:
        July 25, 2010 at 7:15 pm

        I have appreciated your posts as well.

      • Nick says:
        July 25, 2010 at 8:03 pm

        Bob Goodwin supports a political party which admittedly tried “to benefit politically from racial polarization.” (Ken Mehlman, former RNC Chairman).

        The promotion of racial polarization will inevitably cost the weaker group more than the stronger group–in this case African Americans.

        If a person supports an organization which seeks to gain by promoting a racially discriminatory agenda, at the overwhelming expense of an historically oppressed racial minority–it that’s not racist, then what is it?

        • bob goodwin says:
          July 25, 2010 at 8:22 pm

          Do you really not see how you are making my point?

          We live in a 2 party system where each party must stay within shooting range of 50% of the vote or it will be forced to evolve against its own will.

          So by your logic close to 50% of the population must be racist.

          I feel the two sides have a lot to talk about. Invectives are just a way to stop debate when you cannot win through logic.

          • Nick says:
            July 25, 2010 at 8:41 pm

            Mr. Goodwin:

            If supporting an organization whose deliberate actions inure to the detriment of African Americans is not racist, then what do you call that?

            I think that almost all white Americans, myself included, contribute in many unconscious ways to institutionalized racism.

            The difference between me and the 50% who support the Republican Party, is that I at least recognize the problem, and refuse to support an organization which seeks to gain from continued racial polarization. Do you see the difference here?

            Let’s go through the premises:

            1. The Republican Party admittedly adopted political tactics which enhance racial polarization.

            2. Said racial polarization obviously helped continue a legacy of discrimination against African Americans.

            Conclusion: Supporters of the Republican Party are guilty of supporting an organization whose actions promoted racial discrimination at the expense of African Americans.

            Tell me where I’m wrong, and tell me what word you would use to describe people who support an organization which uses racially divisive tactics at the expense of an historically oppressed minority.

          • bob goodwin says:
            July 25, 2010 at 9:12 pm

            I respectfully disagree. The democratic party has a lot to answer for as well.

          • nick says:
            July 25, 2010 at 10:06 pm

            You disagree with what? You can’t disagree with everything I wrote–your own party chairman have admitted, in detail, to promoting racial discord for political benefit. Do you disagree with that?

            Do you disagree that promoting racial discord has harmed African Americans? On what basis do you hold that belief?

            Finally, what do you call a person who supports an organization which promotes racial discord to the disadvantage of minorities? That’s a question–you can’t disagree with a question.

            You said you want discussion. I’ve broken it down into a plain syllogism for you, and all you can say is, you disagree? That’s pretty telling.

      • DownSouth says:
        July 25, 2010 at 10:02 pm

        Neoliberals may claim not to be neocons, but the distinction is a false one. Jonathan Schell explains:

        The early champions of the free market, most of them British, had in fact looked to industry mainly to create the wealth of nations, as the title of Adam Smith’s classic book had it, not the power of nations, which had been the preoccupation of their mercantilist predecessors. The advocates of laissez-faire declared the independence of economics from state power. (The eventual coining of the word “economics,” identifying a distinct realm of human activity subject to its own laws, was one sign of their faith in that independence.) The market worked best, the worldly philosophers of the late eighteenth century believed, when the government kept its hands off it. Classical economics, in fact, “had no place for the nation, or any collectivity larger than the firm.”

        Smith’s successors proceeded even further in this line of thinking. In the early nineteenth century, the most prominent champions of the market, including the British champions of laissez-faire Richard Cobden and John Bright, contended that free trade, by breaking down or ignoring national boundaries, naturally tended to foster world peace. The market, they ardently believed, was a solvent of national units and a pacifier of national conflicts. “I see in the Free Trade principle,” Richard Cobden said in a speech in 1846, “that which shall act on the moral world as the principle of gravitation in the universe, drawing men together, thrusting aside the antagonism of race, and creed, and language, and uniting us in the bonds of eternal peace.” …. An unbroken thread of faith in free trade as an abettor of peace runs through the entire tradition of liberal internationalism, surviving many disappointments and continuing, if in attenuated form, to this day.

        [….]

        However, events did not proceed as the liberal imperialists expected—-neither in Asia nor in Africa nor in the Ottoman Empire. The economic arrangements forced upon those lands did not strengthen and liberalize their governments but undermined them and drove them, one after another, toward collapse. The Egyptian government, for example, accepted loans from Europe, spent the funds on large but unproductive public projects, and, when these failed, sought to keep up payments on the loans by raising taxes on the poor, who grew discontented and rebellious. The imperial powers then were faced with what seemed a drastic choice: between withdrawing entirely and imposing direct rule. They chose direct rule.

        By the turn of the century, most of the territories of the globe had been incorporated by imperialism into the European vortex. Any move anywhere—-in the heart of Africa, in the Bay of Bengal, in the Strait of Tsushima—-by any of the great powers now seemed to the others likely to upset a global balance of power and to require a countermove. The conservative British politician Lord Curzon spoke for his whole generation of statesmen when, after a long journey to the Middle East in 1890, he wrote, “Turkestan, Afghanistan, Transcaspia, Persia—-to many these names breathe only a sense of utter remoteness or a memory of strange vicissitudes and of moribund romance. To me, I confess, they are the pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a game for the dominion of the world.”

        –Jonathan Schell, The Unconquerable World

        • Tao Jonesing says:
          July 26, 2010 at 3:14 am

          DownSouth,

          Thanks for providing a cite to yet more reading material. My bookshelves are already bursting!

          I do think the neoliberals are different than the neocons. Yes, the neoliberals purposefully misinterpreted the Invisible Hand metaphor to excise its inherent communist fiction (as first observed by Gunnar Myrdal and later acknowledged by Hanna Arendt), and yes, the neocons adopted that point of view as their own. The big difference between the neoliberals and the neocons is that there is no difference between neocon rhetoric and neocon action. Neoliberals, on the other hand, act politically in a manner that seems to define what they abhor.

          In that sense, neoliberals are much worse than neocons. At least I know that neocons believe in what they say and only use rhetoric to make their biases seem reasonable as opposed to using it to hide their true intentions.

      • i on the ball patriot says:
        July 25, 2010 at 10:45 pm

        “The primary difference between neocons and neoliberals is that the former creates empire through military warfare, whereas the latter does so through economic warfare (aka free trade as administered via the IMF).”

        And both ideologies are brands owned and controlled by the wealthy ruling elite who also own and control; the central banks, the global propaganda media, nation state governments, and their military machines.

        ‘Racism’ is a divisive construct of the wealthy ruling elite as is the duoploy theater of scamerican politics and its energy dissipating bogus ideologies. It is not particular to scamerica but a formula employed globally.

        This is rich against poor on deception roids.

        You are either drinking the Kool Aid or selling the Kool Aid.

        Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 7:08 pm

      You misrepresented my opinions.

  • Ashes77 says:
    July 25, 2010 at 6:03 pm

    Is there some reason to believe that tea party people believe that Northrup Grumman, Halliburton and Blackwater – all of them dependent on big government handouts and all of them paying for the tea party, are actually in favor of “small government” ?

    I don’t think any one in the tea party even partially believes that there benefactors support small government.

    so, if the central premise of the tea party is a lie promulgated by big government dependent welfare queens like Blackwater and Halliburton, then what is the real motivation of the people, hateful or otherwise, who join it?

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 8:29 pm

      I have not seen your evidence of the tea party being supported by corporations. But I agree in general that Bush/Obama has been terrible largely because of corporatism where big government and big finance/medicine/et-al are in close cahoots. It is a tragedy and another reason we should try and get past the divisions of ideology.

  • Spirit of 1776 says:
    July 25, 2010 at 6:51 pm

    Please explain to me why I, a white man descended from White men and White women, whose ancestors built this country from scratch with their bare hands, explicitly for the benefit of their posterity (meaning their CHILDREN AND THEIR CHILDREN’S CHILDREN)

    Owe a damned thing to racial aliens? NO ONE EVER ASKED ME ABOUT IMPORTING AFRICANS. OR ORIENTALS. OR MEXICANS. OR INDIANS. MY PEOPLE BOUGHT THEIR LAND FROM THE AMERICAN INDIANS.

    Screw you with your “racism” cries! You sound like Leon Trotsky (and yes even the Bolshevik faction) with your insane worship of human equality.

    What planet do you inhabit?

    Maybe brainwashed Boomers and their Huddled Masses parents think “anti-racism” is next to Godliness but the rest of us — those that make and do and love our own blood — have been fed to our eyeballs with your suicidal balderdash.

    • mrmetrowest says:
      July 25, 2010 at 7:05 pm

      The people you’re descended from – they weren’t cousins, were they?

    • Tao Jonesing says:
      July 25, 2010 at 7:11 pm

      I’m sure that Bob is less than pleased by your defense of him. With friends like you, he doesn’t need enemies.

    • eightnine2718281828mu5 says:
      July 25, 2010 at 7:15 pm

      —
      MY PEOPLE BOUGHT THEIR LAND FROM THE AMERICAN INDIANS.
      —

      Of course you remembered to get a receipt?

    • Nick says:
      July 25, 2010 at 7:37 pm

      “Spirit of 1776 says:
      July 25, 2010 at 6:51 pm

      Screw you with…. your insane worship of human equality.”

      We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal….

      Spirit of 1776 indeed.

    • skippy says:
      July 25, 2010 at 7:41 pm

      You need to have a genetic test done…pronto.

    • Ishamael says:
      July 25, 2010 at 9:50 pm

      “MY PEOPLE BOUGHT THEIR LAND FROM THE AMERICAN INDIANS.”

      That is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time.

      Even if this dude is Dutch, the Dutch bought only Manhattan — and from natives who didn’t even reside on it. Kinda like me buying your house from your neighbor.

      Other than that example, there are practically nonexistent examples of American land being bought and paid for to native — I mean, Louisana Purchase was paid to Napolean. Alasaka to the Russians, etc.

      It’s all about power folks. All about power.

    • Mannwich says:
      July 25, 2010 at 11:17 pm

      Bob – one of yours, I take it?

  • skippy says:
    July 25, 2010 at 7:07 pm

    Gotta love one racist calling another racist, ergo there is no race involved in the human *species*.

    To even acknowledge this divisive, intentioned by conception in the authors (whom ever they were historically) first breath[!] is to carry the water for them.

    The conversation should be about the powerful and the weak and how and why that’s played out the way it does. Do some humans achieve greatness by virtue or by lack of it and to whose benefit, long/short term with regard to our species AND OTHERS survival.

    Other wise we should rename our species to Homo homicida aeternus cēterīs paribus.

    Forget the the divisive stuff, the front is wall st and the banker cabal…nuff said.

  • YankeeFrankee says:
    July 25, 2010 at 8:09 pm

    I think Bob’s post on his resentments as a “Tea Party” member were instructive as to the motivations of sincere “Tea Party” members. I denote him as sincere because of the now well-documented ongoing astro-turf campaign that is the reality of this “movement”. I feel a little bad for Bob and other sincere members of this group — their obvious inability to grasp the true nature of their enemy, and the ease with which they are manipulated by such douchebag organizations like the “Tea Pary Express” and other Republican and corporate-backed creeps is sad. Bob tells us he is alerting us to the anger that is driving voters towards this “Tea Party”, and he gives us a personal account that does a little bit in this regard. However, I don’t really think it has taught us much we didn’t already know — that the “Tea Party” is made up of a bunch of aggrieved middle-aged and older white people who feel disenfranchised from the society they feel belongs to them. What Bob and his friends in the “Tea Party” don’t seem to be able to comprehend is that WE ALL FEEL THAT WAY, except most of us don’t feel so entitled to assume that this country actually belongs to us because it really never has. It used to belong to Bob and his friends, in that they made up the dominant culture and felt things were generally pretty good for them and run the way they liked. Of course for most of us, that was never the case — the USA was a country of, for and run by entitled white protestant guys of a certain position, outlook and temperament. So we don’t think its appropriate for us to run around with a bunch of entitled racists shrieking about how we want our country back from that damned socialist n____r and his “redistributionist” policies. We never believed the rhetoric and always saw the cracks in the facade. So I do feel slightly bad for Bob — it seems he’s genuinely tried to do right as best he can. The biggest problem is that he used to believe the bull and now, instead of drawing the proper lesson — that it was always bull and we’d better stick together and make government work for the people because its all we’ve got and all we’ll ever get — he trucks around with fools, charlatans and yes — racists, and gets his back up when he’s called out on it.

    • Jackrabbit says:
      July 25, 2010 at 8:35 pm

      Well said YankeeFrankee. Thank you.

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 9:02 pm

      You seem like a genuine liberal. I would be careful not to take too much stock in the astroturf claim. Astroturf is a means of getting media attention which is in itself a means of getting people to the voting booths. I am not convinced that this is all that effective of a tactic.

      However your *belief* that the tea party is not real is a dangerous one if you want to engage in honest debate, which is necessary in these difficult times. It is easy to avoid people who do not agree with you. I would prefer to see us all have a civil dialog.

      • YankeeFrankee says:
        July 26, 2010 at 1:53 am

        “Astroturf is a means of getting media attention which is in itself a means of getting people to the voting booths.”

        The term astroturfing means a false grass roots campaign. False because rather than being a bottom-up organization of the common folk, it is funded by deep-pocketed donors with immense power. The “Tea Party Express” and “Freedomworks” are funded by GOP operatives and politicians, including Dick Armey. I’m not sure about other factions of the movement, but the way FOX, Glenn Beck, and their ilk support the tea partiers is another sure sign it has been co-opted.

        “However your *belief* that the tea party is not real is a dangerous one if you want to engage in honest debate, which is necessary in these difficult times. It is easy to avoid people who do not agree with you. I would prefer to see us all have a civil dialog.”

        I did not state any belief regarding the tea party, only the facts, which all point to a huge astroturfing campaign by the same people who brought us GW Bush and Cheney. Apparently they think the GOP “brand” has a stink on it so they immediately grabbed onto this tea party thing as a way to attack Obama from “outside” the GOP. Now, I was careful at the beginning to trust you in your words and describe you as a sincere member of the group. I was trying to have a civil dialog.

        Unfortunately, the grounds for an honest debate do not fall within the purview of the tea party — you might as well accept now that your group was co-opted by the GOP almost from the start, which is how the corporate powers do things today. You aren’t the first group to be co-opted this way. I’ve seen things I care deeply about destroyed like this over and over again.

        I said it in my original post, and I’ll say it again in a different way: you once liked the leadership of this country and thought they were leading us well. I imagine you really liked Reagan and perhaps Bush I. You may have even liked GW Bush for a time, I don’t know. Unfortunately, you have been conned. You were conned from the start. These people gave you the illusion that you had a say in things, but you didn’t. They dissembled and covered up their corruption and they sold you and the rest of us down the river. I include the Democrats Carter, Clinton and now Obama in this as well.

        As a member of the dominant culture you thought you had a say, but you didn’t really. Now that reality has smacked you in the face and you don’t know what to do or where to turn. My advice to you is to stop listening to the right wing, because they are the father of lies. Also don’t listen to the MSM as they are the flatterers and courtiers of the powerful. And don’t listen to the left either as they are largely neutered and useless. Instead, read as much history as you can find and keep asking yourself “cui bono?” (“who benefits?”).

        All the things you learned and the sincerity of your penitence for your father’s misdeeds, the basic morality and decency you try to manifest in the world — realize there are people in this world who don’t give a tripe for those things. They use those ideas to shame you and keep you in line, the easier to manipulate you towards their aims.

        I think for basically good people who grew up in the dominant culture it is hard to see the world in its baseness. Marx is despised in this country but he was brilliant and he taught us to look past the labels the ruling class puts on things to what their real motives are — which are always and everywhere to further their own power. They are not like you and me — content with our little patch of land if we are lucky enough to have one. They have the urge to dominate and control, and they never have enough money or power.

        I feel the pain of the tea partier because in large part it is my pain as well. The difference is I never bought the party line in the first place and so now that the ruling class has let it all hang out for us to see I’m just not that surprised. Not because I’m smarter than you, but because I was always more of an outsider in the first place and as an outsider you get to see things from another perspective.

        I don’t know much about you and it may be more than you can really change to move away from these false certainties you live with, but if you don’t your frustration will never cease and you won’t know any peace. Its not big government versus small, or taxes versus “freedom”. Its really all of us “small people” (as one BP douchebag put it) versus the mega-giant corporate multinationals and investment banks. And the battle is over who will control the government and hence who will control our lives, because government ain’t going away, and there will always be taxes.

        • bob goodwin says:
          July 26, 2010 at 2:22 am

          I did not mean to imply you were not civil, in fact I find your arguments very cogent. And I agree strongly that (at least) Bush and Obama have given us a corporatist society (close government/multinational corporate governance).

          It is a point that people on both the right and left are starting to engage.

          Whether the tea party movement has been co-opted, manufactured or is simply a political opportunity is not that important to me. The passon is real.

          The dialog with folks like you is valuable to me as well.

  • dave says:
    July 25, 2010 at 8:12 pm

    Let’s face facts. Obama is weak and his party is in the pocket of big corporations. Though they happened first under Bush, democrats were overwhelming supporters of the bailouts. Then when Obama took over with an overwhelming majority at 59 senate votes he couldn’t get anything meaningful done. He choose to continue the bailouts under Bush without any serious changes, and passed a halfway financial reform bill. He enacted a health care bill practically written by lobbyist. He also increase troop deployment to Afghanistan and we are still in Iraq.

    People are legitimately angry about those actions. Some from a left perspective and some from a right perspective. They don’t buy the argument that this was “all he could do”. With the overwhelming majorities he had he defiantly could have done more. He didn’t even try. He never even fought for something greater.

    So naturally people question his leadership. Then the Obama savior crowd that thinks he’s the second coming and accuses anyone who doesn’t get in line of being a heretic. And in upper class liberal white speak “racist” is another word for heretic. So anyone that doesn’t want to cup Obama’s balls is a racist.

    • DownSouth says:
      July 25, 2010 at 10:51 pm

      Dave,

      I think Obama’s problem is with his base. Obama and the Tea Partiers all belong to the same troop of thespians—-they’re all on the same payroll. It’s all political theater to fool the helots.

      I’m sure there are those Democratic partisans who would support Obama even if he were a child rapist. But I think you underestimate the damage Obama and the Democratic Party have done to themselves with their base. And if you would take time to look at some of the links Ed Harrison furnished today, you would see that some of the most ferocious broadside against Obama are coming from the left, and from black people on the left.

      The racist antics of the Tea Partiers were designed to make the liberals circle their wagons around Obama. But it isn’t working.

      • bob goodwin says:
        July 25, 2010 at 11:54 pm

        The attack on the NAACP by Breitbart was in direct retaliation for the accusation of Racism against the tea party. The attack harmed the right, but it definitely sent the left scrambling too. Both sides look aweful, but it is partisan warfare. I am guessing that the right is going to continue to be aggressive about claims of racism, and I am further guessing that the left will become more reluctant to make these claims.

        But it is anyones guess.

        BTW DownSouth, you are still using the invective ‘stupid’. That is not helpful to civil discourse.

        • DownSouth says:
          July 26, 2010 at 6:56 am

          bob goodwin said: “BTW DownSouth, you are still using the invective ’stupid’. That is not helpful to civil discourse.”

          Oh really? Then how do you respond to this?

          The problem which society faces is clearly one of reducing force by increasing the factors which make for a moral and rational adjustment of life to life; of bringing such force as is still necessary under responsibility of the whole of society; of destroying the kind of power which cannot be make socially responsible (the power which resides in economic ownership for instance); and of bringing forces of moral self-restraint to bear upon types of power which can never be brought completely under social control. Every one of these methods has its definite limitations. Society will probably never be sufficiently intelligent to bring all power under its control. The stupidity of the average man will permit the oligarch, whether economic or political, to hide his real purposes from the scrutiny of his fellows and to withdraw his activities from effective control.
          –Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Immoral Society

  • JS says:
    July 25, 2010 at 8:13 pm

    Racism is what just collapsed the economy and sent us into a depression?

    Oh right! That’s the national debate we should be having right now! I guess the distraction of national health care is now “solved”, so we now need something new to keep the chattering classes distracted while we don’t address biggest problem this country faces.

    Sure, we’ll fight about racism. That’s keep everybody busy.
    We could “fix” racism tomorrow and still not have a job to put food on the table. Let’s keep our priorities straight.

    Look folks, racism is real. Its a cancer. It needs to be fixed. But let’s not lose focus here. Every minute we’re distracted by the latest “issue” tossed around by the ruling class is one less minute we’re not asking, “Hey! Why aren’t you fixing the things that really matter right now?”

    The more desperate we become to keep our financial heads above water, the more we’re gonna be back-biting each other rather than addressing the real problem: we’re dying from a lack of real leaders. Fix that and we’ll have the time and resources to address the other 15 major issues we need to fix, racism included.

  • Neil D says:
    July 25, 2010 at 8:58 pm

    What scares me about the tea party is not its policies but the take no prisoners hatred. I don’t know if it is racially motivated, but it is there and it defies explanation. We can argue about tax rates and we should be able to compromise somewhere. It’s just a number, we should be able to split the difference. But somehow that is no longer enough. It’s not about the policy or whether the tax rate is 20% or 30%. It seems to be about them hating the left so much they would rather bring the whole country down. Do they just want the country to fail to punish the rest of us for voting them out of office?

  • T. Rex Bean says:
    July 25, 2010 at 9:24 pm

    Two words: Southern Strategy.

  • Costard says:
    July 25, 2010 at 9:48 pm

    What an avalanche of vitriol. I feel bad for you, Bob.

    But this post was ill-advised. Whether you hate this minority or that one is irrelevant. If you support policies which will disproportionately harm one ethnicity – or repeal policies which have disproportionately benefited one ethnicity – then you will be accused of racism. If you defend your motives, then the accusation will change to “institutional racism” or something to that effect. Thus, for objecting to entitlements and wealth redistribution, which de facto benefit minorities, the tea party is called racist. It’s offensive, sure. But did you really expect manners?

    This is an argument over property. It’s like a divorce (except we still must live together), and have you seen how nasty those get?

    The tea party people say that those who labor have a right to their earnings. The libs says that the needy and the downtrodden have a right to other folks’ earnings. They represent two sides in a war that has been escalating for many years, and in this war, the American vote has become a gun. Yes it’s sad and there can be no doubt that it will end very badly, but this is the natural course of a nation that values rights over liberties. We were founded on slavery and we’ll finish with something very similar.

    • DownSouth says:
      July 25, 2010 at 11:25 pm

      Naïve, stupid and foolish are the adjectives that most accurately describe the typical rank and file Tea Party partisan.

      If democracy is to survive it must find a more adequate cultural basis than the philosophy which has informed the building of the bourgeois world. The inadequacy of the presuppositions upon which the democratic experiment rests does not consist merely in the excessive individualism and libertarianism of the bourgeois world view; though it must be noted that this excessive individualism prompted a civil war in the whole Western world in which the rising proletarian classes pitted an excessive collectivism against the false individualism of middle class life. This civil conflict contributed to the weakness of democratic civilization when faced with the threat of barbarism. Neither the individualism nor the collectivism did justice to all the requirements of man’s social life, and the conflict between half-truth and half-truth divided the civilized world in such a way that the barbarians were able to claim first one side and then the other in this civil conflict as their provisional allies.

      […]

      The success of Nazi diplomacy and propaganda in claiming the poor in democratic civilization as their allies against the “plutocrats” in one moment, and in the next seeking to ally the privileged classes in their battle against “communism,” is a nice indication of the part which the civil war in democratic civilization played in allowing barbarism to come so near to a triumph over civilization.
      –Reinhold Niebuhr, “The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness”

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 25, 2010 at 11:49 pm

      I am not harmed in the smallest way. There has been some excellent discourse here. The vitriol is heartfelt on both sides. We have all improved the civil discourse despite obvious frustrations.

      We must find a way to help the black population get onto equal footing. It is a disaster that we have not. The politics will only evolve through debate.

    • YankeeFrankee says:
      July 26, 2010 at 2:09 am

      “The tea party people say that those who labor have a right to their earnings. The libs says that the needy and the downtrodden have a right to other folks’ earnings. ”

      This is total hogwash. Those who actually labor in this country don’t stand a chance. Lower and middle class wages have not increased in this country in 30 years. Most poor people (white, black whatever) work harder than anyone, often two full time jobs, just to make ends barely meet. The needy and downtrodden ARE the people who labor, just as much or more than YOU. And guess what, despite working two jobs and sometimes even three, they can’t afford decent housing, food, education and healthcare for their children. Illegal Mexicans, who I am sure you despise, work harder than anyone I’ve ever seen, doing jobs you would never want to do. Learn about the world before you speak. You embarrass yourself too easily.

  • kenzo says:
    July 25, 2010 at 10:05 pm

    …when you have Medicare patients who are against Government Medical Care you have racists who don’t know they are Racists.

  • Michael Fiorillo says:
    July 25, 2010 at 10:06 pm

    In the US, racism is one of the masks worn by class warfare.

    And ironically, Obama will go down as an utter catastrophe for the long-term interests of Black people, given his weakness in confronting racism or being seen as a tribune for African-American or working class people. He is a transitional, diversionary figure through which the oligarchy can effect a spurious narrative of redemptive change.

    Many people, presumably like the author of this post, will with a clear conscience say, “They’ve had their chance, and they blew it.” This despite the fact that Obama’s connection to working class African-Americans is that of a dilletante and opportunist. His real political base has always been the (not nearly as liberal as they’d have you believe) foundations, real estate and finance.

    Years ago, some Big Men pointed in Obama’s direction and nodded. They know him better than he knows himself, understanding that he will sacrifice his ostensible base (for example, by cutting/privatizing Social Security) in an effort to advance himself.

    Only a Democrat can successfully attack Social Security (which is not just a proper noun, but a concept that is anathema to the interests of a sociopathic ruling class) and that’s what Obama is there to do.

  • Ishamael says:
    July 25, 2010 at 10:07 pm

    Well, looking over the posts and having kept up some on the various news involving American society in general, I believe I am seeing the disintegration of America.

    America was such a good dream.

    But that dream depended on grabbing more and more land from natives who were powerless to do anything. That dream depended on the rest of the world being unstable and too economically backward to compete. That dream depended on a population aspiring to work hard to enjoy the small and banal fruits of their labors.

    We have dreamed that dream. And now the dream is gone.

    There is no more land for us to take from powerless natives.

    Many more countries than ever before are becoming advanced enough to be competitive.

    And the populace, brought up on a steady diet of higher expectations and feelings of entitlement, expect to enjoy luxuries without effort.

    These racial matters, arising with greater intensity over the last few years, are to me but a manifestation of our general decline.

    I’d like to get out some popcorn and watch, but I fear I’d be consumed by the conflagration.

    It’s really looking like a time to emigrate.

  • eightnine2718281828mu5 says:
    July 25, 2010 at 10:10 pm

    —
    The tea party people say that those who labor have a right to their earnings.
    —

    But the Tea Party reserves the right to implement a military draft, which also deprives the draftee of his earnings and potentially his life.

    All of this is, of course, done in the interests of the collective, just like proper little socialists.

    • skippy says:
      July 25, 2010 at 11:44 pm

      Earnings LOL, we all work together to share the GDP pie, one cannot exist with out the other hahahaha, all nations are socialist in nature.

      Its just how the pie is cut and served and why.

      Tea party afectados lament their reduction, can’t understand why their masters don’t love them like they used too.

      Did they not get the memo, you are a risk heavy liability (employers taking out life insurance on employees comes to mind), your romantic visages are the illusion cheaply bought with political promises ie: that you or yours could one day be like them or serve them in the same capacity….fools, bloody fools.

      Skippy…truly this blog should require a top FICO score to submit comments…the poor are getting dirt on the art work, Me, Ruprecht!

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqMc9B7uDV8&NR=1

  • T. Rex Bean says:
    July 25, 2010 at 10:45 pm

    My last word: So, after reading all this, how do you feel about the rubric “post-racial”? It reminds me of a former editor of mine (I used to work at a newspaper) who told me, in all seriousness “Race doesn’t matter anymore.” This was a decade ago. And, to top it off, he was from Detroit.
    I don’t really have to tell you what color he was, do I?

  • jerome says:
    July 25, 2010 at 11:06 pm

    You are not a racist. I’m a black liberal/center-left. Well educated. Graduate of a federal military academy.Married to a black woman. She is a college professor. Society provides all of us with simulacra…false images that bear no relation to reality. There is racism. Everywhere. Not just in Selma, Alabama but also Rwanda, the West Bank, Israel, France, Australia, etc. I prefer the word ‘tribalism’. We all prefer our own tribe. We may cross the tribal divide, many times easily. But, when stressed, we all retreat to the comfort of the familiar. I voted for Obama. I will not again. Why? He has been ineffective. Demonstrably ineffective (from a liberal/progressive point of view). The mainstream media simulacrum of me is an ‘Uncle Tom’. I was for the public option in the healthcare debate. I am for protecting civil liberties vis-a-vis the Bush era post 9-11 executive actions. I am for jobs for the 15 million un/underemployed americans. I am for real solutions to the home foreclosure pandemic. And I am not afraid to be identified as or with Black America. But, because of my principled political and philosophical differences with President Obama, it is me whose racial self identity would be questioned. Am I a racist? No. Only my simulacrum is. Therein lies the difference.

  • tinbox says:
    July 25, 2010 at 11:37 pm

    Bob Somerby at dailyhowler.com does some great work on the issue that bothers Bob Goodwin–the casual or reflexive resort to the race card from “liberal” pundits. Somerby’s point is that it is a losing formula for Democrats. It feels good, but it doesn’t win votes.

    Here a good example:
    http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh060910.shtml#RACE

  • Stelios Theoharidis says:
    July 26, 2010 at 2:08 am

    I think it is rather silly that you think we are in a post racial USA. Now our current system predates on the poor both domestically and internationally. Black people having higher concentrations of poverty are subject to this system. What you fail to acknowledge is the structures that exist that reinforce racial inequality, that may not necessarily always be de jure but are often de facto.

    The justice system is full of examples. In general white people get less jail time due to better representation. Predominantly white people with cocaine get imprisoned for significantly shorter periods of time than black individuals with crack possession charges. What do they learn to be when they get in jail, better criminals.

    Look up redlining or predatory lending. Want a payday loan at 10% monthly interest? How about a rent to own couch that will cost you 10 times the amount it is worth? How about a education at Devry which is going to cost you 4 times as much as a community college and offer you much less opportunity.

    How about the differential per capita between predominantly black schools and white suburban schools. How about the studies conducted when people submit ‘black’ sounding names with job applications versus white sounding ones. Why don’t you just look up the amount that monority men, white women, and minority women get paid for the same work that white men do. What is it now 15-25 percent less? Why don’t you look up environmental issues in urban areas with predominantly poor black concentrations, water quality, air quality, contamination levels.

    None of this has been resolved because the structures still persist. Lack of investment, lack of opportunity, lack of alternative, as well as a media that feeds off stories of crime when crime rates have been declining for years. How about a rap music industry that caters to 90% of its market (white people) but still projects a caricature of race for young african americans to get a good example of how to make it out of the hood. Sell crack and rap.

    That doesn’t really even account for our tacit support of war against people of color across the planet through our purchase of a number of goods that are obtained by their subjegation. You name it, if it is a raw material or good purchased from a developing country it is highly likely that it is obtained on the backs of laborers that exist in slave-like conditions or through the marginalization of ethnic groups in order to obtain the resources beneath their feet.

    Please don’t tell me that America is a post racist world, it makes your whole dialogue foolish. Go tell that to the Nigerians that get nothing from their oil, Congolese dying due to conflict over their resources. Because it has been many of our corporations, our government that have supported these dictators and corrupt governments for years. Go on tour and tell your ideas about our post racist society to the millions of black men in our jails, which are mostly in rural areas with predominantly white populations guarding them. Can’t even get a job doing that.

    Thanks for holding the door for some black people. You are a lot of help to breaching the racial divide.

    Mr. Goodwin.

  • Tao Jonesing says:
    July 26, 2010 at 2:22 am

    Matt Taibi’s take on this very topic:

    The Tea Party is Perverted and Irrelevant

    http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/matt-taibbi/blogs/TaibbiData_May2010/184697/83512

    A snippet:

    “It’s just not necessary to say whether or not these people are racists. All that needs to be pointed out is that when they get a chance to gape at a video purporting to show a black Obama official confessing to having mistreated a white farmer (it turned out to be the opposite of that, of course), or a tape of Black Panther King Shamir talking about ‘killing cracker babies,’ the word that best describes the emotions they display at these times is glee.

    They enjoy these morbid stories about offenses to white dignity way too much. I caught Glenn Beck talking about some case involving a Black Panther who was intimidating people at a voting booth back in 2008 – the guy had this pervy smile on his face that made him look exactly like one of those creepy dudes sitting hunched over at the edge of the bed playing the cuckold in cheating-wife porn videos. Over the Black Panthers! Who the hell has even seen a Black Panther since the seventies? The whole thing reminds me of that Chris Rock routine about Native Americans – ‘When was the last time you saw two Indians?’

    At every Tea Party event I’ve gone to, the scene always devolves in one of two directions: either everybody trades stories about the corruption of Charlie Rangel or ACORN or Jeremiah Wright or some other notable nonwhite villain, or else a group therapy session breaks out in which everybody shares their harrowing experiences of being unjustly accused of racism. Once they reach one of those two destinations, they camp out there, conversationally, not just for minutes but hours.”

    • bob goodwin says:
      July 26, 2010 at 2:30 am

      Mr. Tao,

      I Love reading Matt, he is fun to read. But he is a take down artist. You, on the other hand, are a thoughtful intellectual. I am certain that had you attended a rally you would have disagreed with a lot of what was said, but would have been able to create a coherent argument on behalf of the attendees. That is not his job. I very much enjoyed your comments.

      • Tao Jonesing says:
        July 26, 2010 at 3:56 am

        Mr. Goodwin,

        I’ve enjoyed your comments, as well, and I’ve learned a lot from reading them. Thank you.

        I have no doubt that I would have been more empathetic than Taibbi was in view of what he observed. That’s because I’m very much interested in trying to find what binds us together, not what drives us apart. Unlike Matt, I would not have been able to stand idly by and observe, I would have felt compelled to engage, and I know how to engage on terms that encourage rational discussion. I really wish he would have engaged with these folks at the rally and confronted them with what he thought he saw because I think he would have a lot more to tell us.

        That being said, his observations are his observations. Just as yours are yours. Neither are facts, but both are data points.

        A year ago, I was in New England, and I had two conversations that were very apropos. In the first, in Boston, a friend of mine was the first to ever accuse me of being an intellectual. I pulled back in fear saying “oh, no, I can’t be an intellectual because intellectuals are the first ones they come for.” In the second, I was at a family picnic in Connecticut, which had 20+% U6 unemployment time. My father’s parents founded unions in the area, so most of my family’s concerns came from a pro-labor perspective, but we had a few tea partiers in attendance (my father is the youngest of twelve kids, so do the math). The bottom line is that everybody was frightened of the same thing, they just blamed something different as the cause.

        While my paternal grandparents only arrived in the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century, on my mother’s side I trace my roots back both to the Mayflower. As a result, the tea partier ratio is much higher on my mother’s side of the family, including my mother. I’m forced to live with both sides of the family, so perhaps that explains my ability to converse rationally on these topics.

        This is why I stand ready today to argue at this precise moement that the underlying concerns of the tea party are legitimate, but that does not mean that I can defend the tea party’s diagnosis of the cause of those concerns. I can’t. I really believe the tea partiers have been duped into misdirecting their anger and fear at a bogeyman that does not exist.

  • Elliot says:
    July 26, 2010 at 2:29 am

    The protestations of being misunderstood and misused over class (masquerading as race), by a Mercer Island resident, are rather droll. I wonder if the readers here know that is one of the most affluent, class conscious enclaves in Washington State? We working class kids in college had names for the Mercer Island kids, for the way they treated us, which I won’t use here. Seems like not much has changed in 40 years.

  • phil_hubb says:
    July 26, 2010 at 4:39 am

    The conclusion reached after years of study by geneticists was clear. Race is a purely social construct.
    The concept of race is a total fabrication. This would explain why no references to race appear before the 1500′s.

    Had the world even heard of black and white people before then?
    Of course there were references to Numidians and Abyssinians throughout this period, but no one at the time thought to classify humans by skin tone. A Numidian was just a Numidian. A German was just a German. And to the Roman world they were equally non-Roman, alien, barbarian.

    This classification of people into white, black and other color groups is ridiculous, unscientific and really has to stop.
    Race is dead to science. Don’t believe it? Look at the peer reviewed scientific journals published in the last twenty years. Race is dead to the sciences with the exception of sociology, in which it is discussed as a social phenomena, which is all it is and ever was, a social phenomena.

    Some of you will claim that this is all the work of political correctness brigades, but then you would be wrong.

    Nowhere is it politically correct to discount the existence of race itself. This was proved the day the Human Genome Project bravely published its findings to the jeers and boos of groups all across the political spectrum.
    Do you remember that day? The day the KKK and the NAACP finally found something they could agree on: “The geneticists are full of crap. It’s all PC run rampant”
    The KKK and the NAACP actually crawled into bed together to protect their racialist vision of the world. That was the day Bill Clinton gave a speech ridiculing science and Rush Limbaugh completely with him.
    That was the day I finally realized what a nasty piece of work we humans really are.

    But anyway, take a boat cruise down the Nile and tell me what is the “race” of those people are living along its banks.
    Because I don’t have a clue what “race” they belong to and interestingly, neither do they.

  • mannfm11 says:
    July 26, 2010 at 5:15 am

    The Democratic Party today stinks of Nazi fascist tactics. To demonize their potential opponents by calling them names, especially unpopular names smells of Goebels. As for black people, I notice quite a few blacks running for office under tea party endorsement. Also, I am tired of hearing the pimps of the black movement condemn every white person like his family was a slave holder. Most white ancestory moved to the US after the Civil War and many fled what was paramount to slavery in the first place, European feudalism.

    The Democratic party seems to be more interested in moving money to their cronies and creating permanent sociopathic oppressed new underclass groups to represent than to bring real productivity and prosperity to the US. If we don’t change course, both blacks and whites who could ride in a time machine between 20 years hence and 1950 would gladly take the trip back in time. Famine is on the way if we continue on the current course.

  • LeeAnne says:
    July 26, 2010 at 10:13 am

    Congratulations Ed. 197 comments for any post on this blog is unusual.

    HuffPost gets thousands for similar ilk every day.

    And, BTW, Jim Webb is an uncommonly thoughtful and decent politician; we’re lucky to have him among the very few still working for us.

  • Jackrabbit says:
    July 26, 2010 at 12:08 pm

    Bob Goodwin said:
    We must find a way to help the black population get onto equal footing. It is a disaster that we have not. The politics will only evolve through debate.

    While the Tea Party is sensitive to cries of racism but I’d bet that the sentiment you expressed here is a bridge too far for them. Sounds like you just stopped being a Tea Party member. I think you may have been drawn to Tea Party principals, but in practice its a different animal. MAYBE people like you can help to guide them to a greater understanding but there will always be skeptics about Tea Party motives and intent.

    Your comment also makes me feel that you are not a troll but are genuinely seeking a greater understanding. If true, I wish you Godspeed in your quest.

  • Rick Schaut says:
    July 26, 2010 at 12:13 pm

    Where to even start? Post-racial? I presume you’re serious, but I confess to being stunned. Are you aware, for example, that the Federal Government owes black farmers some $1.15 billion pursuant to a settlement involving racial discrimination on the part of the US Department of Agriculture from 1983 through the early 1990′s, or that Congress presently refuses to allocate the funds required to satisfy this settlement? Even today, racism is not a fringe phenomena consisting largely of people telling jokes that begin with, “Two jews walk into a bar.” To declare the advent of post-racial America is to remain utterly blind to just how far we have yet to go.

    You said:

    “Here are a list of posts from prominent people excoriating people like me for being racist, either for criticizing our president, being part of the tea party or for protesting at town hall meetings: Krugman, Dionne, Dowd, Rich, Jacoby, NAACP, Jimmy Carter, Jealous (ex-NAACP). I know the NAACP and Jimmy Carter claims are somewhat muted and indirect. But so too were the Willy Horton ads – and still very toxic.”

    Wow. The problem with the Willy Horton ads was less about their caustic nature and more about the extent of damage those ads did to the truth. Excluded from those ads were the fact that the furlow program in question was initiated by Gov. Dukakis’ predecessor and the fact that there were serious questions under the Massachusetts Constitution as to how it would be possible to maintain that furlow program while excluding violent offenders like Willie Horton.

    To compare the Willie Horton ads to the various pieces you’ve cited, and to which you’ve offered no substantive rebuttal what so ever, bespeaks of even more ignorance on your part. Your feelings aside, the difference in truthfulness between the Krugman et. al. articles and the Willie Horton ads is like night and day.

    Which brings me to the central point: truthfulness. The bulk of the Tea party opposition to President Obama and/or his policies has little or no grounding in fact. We are told, by Tea Party activists, that President Obama wants to raise taxes on working people in order to increase hand-outs to poor black people. You can see this in this very comment thread. Yet, the actual facts are, that President Obama has signed into law the largest middle-class tax cut in our nation’s history and has made no attempts to change the distribution of welfare programs that would, in any way, favor blacks over whites.

    From death panels to birth certificates, the Tea Party has promulgated a variety of claims about what President Obama *wants* to do, and the Tea Party faithful soak this stuff up like sponges. No one ever asked President Clinton about his birth certificate, and no one ever made any claims about death panels with respect to his proposals for health care reform. The rank and file of the Tea Party seem willing to believe all manner of things about President Obama that they would never believe, without substantive evidence, were the same claims leveled against President Clinton.

    How are we to interpret this in any way other than manifest racism? You claim that the Tea Party has a clear ideology. The Tea Party has an ideology that is clearly incoherent and at odds with known facts. No group has, in recent memory, been so given to believing claims that are provably false as has the Tea Party movement, and we’re supposed to believe that this disconnect with reality is based on policies?

    We cannot have a well-reasoned discussion about policies without truthfulness, and truthfulness is sorely absent both from this post and from the Tea Party movement in general.

  • craazyman says:
    July 26, 2010 at 12:51 pm

    My main takeaway from all this is the incarnation of:

    “Goodwin’s Law”

    If you’re a white guy in a debate about social issues and one variable is skin color, as the discussion grows longer the probability of being called a racist approaches 1.”

    booowaaha ahahaha hahah! ahaaha ahahah ahaha! :) :)

  • JTFaraday says:
    July 26, 2010 at 3:08 pm

    “Until the Tea Party can articulate a coherent alternative to government intervention in support of your country’s rapidly expanding underclass, they’re going to be called racist.”

    Calling that “racist” is besides the point.

    Or rather, the *real point* of calling that racist for the D-Party and its culturally “liberal” neoliberal pundit class is that they can attract the votes of well intentioned liberals without actually actually having to do anything about it in terms of social or economic policy.

    This should be clear by now.

    If not, hopefully this will be more clear after the D-Party and its culturally “liberal” neoliberal pundit class attempt to rally their own puppet troupes to attack social security.

    We’ll probably spend half our time listening to the culturally “liberal” neoliberal pundit class point out how hypocritical the Tea Party is for not wanting the government to cuts its own benefits–ooh ooh don’t touch my Medicare!– in an attempt to get the rest of the public to cut off its own nose to spite the Tea Party’s white face.

    Coming soon to a theatre near you. Call it “what’s the matter with Massachusetts” or something.

  • JTFaraday says:
    July 26, 2010 at 4:00 pm

    “Unfortunately, you have been conned. You were conned from the start. These people gave you the illusion that you had a say in things, but you didn’t. They dissembled and covered up their corruption and they sold you and the rest of us down the river. I include the Democrats Carter, Clinton and now Obama in this as well.”

    Well, if Bob has done as well for himself as people on this threadh have been construing, then maybe Bob wasn’t conned or, at least, has not been effectively conned yet.

    Take another Bob I’ve spent some time thinking about: Bob Reich, former Labor Secretary under Clinton and current tenured public policy professor at Berkley and frequent internet commentator and critic, but nevertheless oh-so-reluctant rally-er of the D-Party troupes, no matter how neoliberal friendly Obama gets.

    I think Reich, who has talked frankly about his time in the Bob Rubin Administration, has sincere pro-labor and New Deal style liberal convictions. At the same time, however, Reich is surely well off enough and smart enough to have benefitted–at least thus far–from the neoliberalism that he seems to comment in opposition to.

    Honestly, the guy hasn’t had too much at stake here, and he’s likely done very well for himself–at least thus far. Ditto Krugman, who is really creeping me out.

    All of which is just to say that you can’t assume neoliberalism hasn’t been good to the Bobs, and that they are not actually working in their own self interest.

    Meanwhile, calling the Tea Party racist (and, I agree some factions within it do seem to be racist!) and really really building that up in your mind and promoting that story in the public, enables people like Bob Reich to overcome his cognitive dissonance about supporting a neoliberal D-Party regime that done him good, but which conflicts with his education and long term ideological perspective.

    Gotta keep the racists out at all costs, people. Consequently, the singular focus of the culturally “liberal” neoliberal pundit class.

    Even if it’s a dumb strategy that costs them Bob Goodwin’s vote–which would be much more straight forward, don’t you think?

  • JTFaraday says:
    July 26, 2010 at 4:45 pm

    “From death panels to birth certificates, the Tea Party has promulgated a variety of claims about what President Obama *wants* to do, and the Tea Party faithful soak this stuff up like sponges. No one ever asked President Clinton about his birth certificate, and no one ever made any claims about death panels with respect to his proposals for health care reform. The rank and file of the Tea Party seem willing to believe all manner of things about President Obama that they would never believe, without substantive evidence, were the same claims leveled against President Clinton.

    How are we to interpret this in any way other than manifest racism?”

    Birth certificates aside, don’t you think most of these policy imputations are entirely typical caractures of D-Party positions, going way back to when it was kinda liberal? “Tax and spend liberal” did not originate with the election of Obama.

    As far as not paying attention to what Obama is actually *doing* in office–this works both ways. Neither the Tea Partiers and other assorted conservatives nor your typical busy workaday D-Party leaning voter is paying attention to what Obama is actually doing in office. The complaint that Bills are 2000 pages long is legitimate.

    Even people who do have some discretionary time to pay attention do not rise above their caracature of “What a Democrat Does” in office. Consequently, you have the Obamabot phenomenon of people who continue to laud the Messiah, impute pro-public intentions and accomplishments to him that are no where evident to the rest of us, continue to defend him at all costs, and assume that anyone criticizing him could only be racist.

    As far as the right not Clinton a hard time–you must be joking. The reason the guy was Our First Black President is because of his inherently insatiable sexually predatory nature. I’ve sure you’ve also head of his sexually insatiable lesbian wife.

    Newt Gingrich, OTOH, can get away with that. And Bam, it seems to me, has had a suspiciously easy ride.

    • Rick Schaut says:
      July 26, 2010 at 9:58 pm

      “Birth certificates aside, don’t you think most of these policy imputations are entirely typical caractures of D-Party positions, going way back to when it was kinda liberal?”

      Death panels are typical caricatures? “Obama’s plan: White Slavery” is a typical caricature? And why simply cast birth certificates aside? None of these are emanating from just the fringes of the various Tea-Party groups.

      “The complaint that Bills are 2000 pages long is legitimate.”

      Let me know when Congress passes one. Even if you combine the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (906 pp) with the subsequent reconciliation bill (55 pages) we’re still nearly 500 pages short of President Bush’s last budget bill.

      “Consequently, you have the Obamabot phenomenon of people who continue to laud the Messiah”

      You’ve just made my point for me. Thank you.

      “As far as the right not Clinton a hard time–you must be joking.”

      Where did I say that right didn’t give Clinton a hard time? Peddle this straw man somewhere else.

      You’re missing the primary point. Significant numbers of the Tea Party movement have bought into claims that are provably false. Not just wild speculation (e.g. Vince Foster), but stuff that’s outright false (e.g. legislation that’s 2000 pages long).

  • Bernard says:
    July 26, 2010 at 6:44 pm

    gee at this rate the Rich can finish off the rest of the American economy by just waiting for the right and left to argue forever about race, while they steal what’s left using the two faces of one Party/Dem/Rep system.

    Race is such a wonderful mindfokker. spinning wheels why the Rich keep sending jobs overseas, break up unions, pit poor whites against poor blacks, attack Hispanics as “illegals”, rape the country via coal disasters, oil spills, electrical brownout ad infinitum. lol

    silly rabbit. the money is for the Rich, Get over it!!!

    i wonder what Native American indians are saying watching the Rich white folks screw everybody else. lol. the Indians said a long time ago, “white man speak with forked tongue.”

    that saying was just a little ahead of its’ time. lol


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