Join Granny under the bus
Anyone willing to discard the person who raised them needs a generous helping of damnation.
So wear this solidarity button in good spirits.
Let Hussein know what you think!
Archived in: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, racism, SocialismMarch 22, 2008 at 1:03 pm | Trackback
27 comments
No greater love hath a man than to lay down his friends for his life.
Stolen.
See, spin is one thing, but what you’re asserting here (”Anyone willing to discard the person who raised them needs a generous helping of damnation”) is based in a complete and total fabrication. Barack Obama said “I can NO MORE disown him (Rev. Wright) than I CAN DISOWN MY WHITE GRANDMOTHER.” Meaning, he can disown neither. Which means that your entire post makes absolutely no sense. He said the complete opposite of what you apparently think he said. Seriously, check the transcript of his speech. Jeez.
I don’t mind people that have different opinions, that’s fine, but if you’re not even going to bother to listen to what the man said, why on earth would you pass judgment on it?
Seriously, it’s still bothering me. YOU DIDN’T EVEN LISTEN TO WHAT HE SAID. Seriously, be honest. You didn’t. You posted an entry in your blog ABOUT what he said, WITHOUT HAVING LISTENED TO IT. Why would you do that? What contribution to society are you making? I’m seriously asking you.
UPPER CASE Shannon:
You obviously listened to what he said, but your blinkered romance with Obama prohibited COMPREHENDING what he said.
He stated a moral EQUIVALENCE to his grandmother and Wright, and also MISREPRESENTED his grandmother’s suspicions of the guy on the bus. Have you LISTENED to Jeremiah Wright?
Furthermore, his grandmother is a TYPICAL WHITE PERSON? Even his base, the MSM, isn’t defending THIS REMARK!
You, Madame are a TYPICAL OBAMA SUPPORTER.
By the way, Shannon, I’ve thought this over.
When you can deal with the range of intellectual and political freedom available to you without inflating your flawed candidate and slandering those who don’t, then you will have made a contribution to a “society” of free individuals….not a collective, not a herd of “contributors” who owe YOU something, your CANDIDATE something, or the collective something. We owe nothing except free thought and free publications of our conclusions.
That’s the issue with you. Not Obama. But your silly group mentality that you represent something bigger and more compelling than the individual. It’s rare that we see such a bold remark here…normally just the cranky shrieks of pain that lefties emit when we tweak their assumptions, but you’ve gone farther.
You’ve questioned our the validity of our existence in your imagined world. That’s the Obama mentality in upper case. The opposition is not only factually wrong, but morally and existentially wrong. A lot of monstrous things started out this way in the last century. You ought to read about them sometime.
Let’s see. Infatuation with the leader. Reinterpretation of realities. Grievances (and martyrdom) requiring indulgences. Demands that citizens justify their “contribution” to society. Sounds familiar, from Robespierre to the 20th century.
Obama is a closet inquistionist akin to the Segovian Tomás de Torquemada. Any heterodoxy to his extreme Socialist positions gets the auto de fe.
Hotspur: I wasn’t prevented from comprehending what Obama said, I simply comprehended it differently than you did. It’s weird, actually, because in no way does the term ‘moral equivalence’ come to mind when I consider Obama’s discussion of Reverend Wright and his grandmother. He said, simply, that he could disown neither. In the larger context of his entire speech I feel that he was clearly trying to illustrate that we should not judge an entire person based upon a limited glimpse of their views about issues as inherently divisive as race and racism.
And I agree with you: you owe nothing except free thought and free publication of your conclusions. I wouldn’t even say that you OWE it–but I reserve the right to be irritated when people fall short of the challenge. I was specifically taking issue with the fact that this post does NOT encourage free thought–it lifts nuanced comments out of context to paint a distorted picture of the man’s words. That is either because the poster didn’t bother to listen to his words, as I initially assumed, or perhaps in retrospect because he or she had no interest in what those words actually were, and rather parsed them, opportunistically, for some gem of an indicting phrase to stroke opinions that are already set in stone.
Woodchuck: Auto de fe? Really? That’s the most ridiculous unintentional hyperbole I’ve ever seen.
Also, Hotspur, I’m wondering what you mean when you said that Obama ‘misrepresented’ his grandmother’s suspicions about ‘the guy on the bus.’ What is that referring to?
Hyperbole indeed! You need to go back to his early rants while in the state legislature. His voting record puts him on the extreme side of Lenin.
Compare that to the Buck & Wing we get now, it rivals Hillary’s truth transgressions.
Ferraro had it right. If BObama lost his melanin he wouldn’t be allowed into the convention.
The auto de fe is ongoing daily twixt Hillary and Barry. They are eviscerating each other with their sickles while lumping each other’s heads with the hammer. The balkanization of the Donk party is the best show on the MSM.
Monty Python said it first. This pair are other people’s bottom wipers!
Shannon:
In the speech in question, Obama deployed his grandmother’s native “racial consciousness”, as a typical white person, as a counter balance to Wright’s tomfoolery. He can’t disown Wright any more than he can disown his grandmother is lawyerly disssembling. In other words, a feint. Neither can he disown the air he breathes and expels, nor his candidacy, but it’s immaterial. They aren’t the issue, and neither is his grandmother. None are associated with Wright.
But, since he connected his grandmother to Wright, and went on to elaborate upon his grandmother while evading Wright, it’s clear that he was using the tuo quoque fallacy - of which he must be aware - to foster sympathy from people like yourself he equalizes the magnitude of the evils and neutralizes the larger one. It seems to have worked with you. He conflated his grandmother’s racism with Wright’s lunacy. Any other interpretation is nonsense and willful ignorance.
Now, you seem to be indifferent to the plausible complicity of Obama’s both contributing to this church and attending it for 20 years. This, in the case of lesser mortals, would be enough to connect attendance with awareness, but I realize by now that Obama supporters will discount this simple intelligence and stick to their man in spite of the visible evidence. You attribute this to mirrors of comprehension (you and me), which is a form of relativism and alternative cognition that undermines ALL truth and understanding. There are some objective truths, even if you don’t wish to acknowledge them.
Obama knew about Wright’s craziness, and I suspect he heard similar things all through his educational career. It’s standard leftism, along with some specious crap rooted in Occidentalism and Edward Said. Obama is no mystery, and neither is Wright. Anyone who intellectualizes this foolishness doesn’t know enough about Obama, Wright or the intellectual origins of Black Liberation Philosophy and the oily radicalism it’s saturated with.
He heard this stuff at Harvard and in the circles he moved in with Samantha Brown.
You’ve also revealed something in your challenge to know how legitimate your opposition is, which is that the poster committed an ideological heresy and needed to publically atone for it by stating his contributions to society. This is none of your business, but it shows the linkage between your liberalism and righteous uniformity. This isn’t the liberalism I know, nor is it the kind I used to follow.
And what’s wrong with auto de fe?
Sorry…Black Liberation Theology.
Hotspur: I’m rather frustrated and appalled at your assertion that this is a matter of ‘objective truth.’ Interpretations, by definition, are subjective. Further, your ‘interpretation’ is NOT literally an interpretation, but a judgment. You are not claiming to be deciphering the true meaning that Obama intended to convey with his words, but rather asserting that the fact that he said what he said means something. There is a distinction between the point that Obama himself was making and the judgment that you would like to pass on his point. His point is something that you may not agree with, but that would serve you to recognize. That point (in the part about grandma) was that while he disagrees with Rev. Wright’s comments, he refuses to disown the man–and the parallel he drew with his grandmother served to illustrate that point.
You may say that you think it was weird or stupid or inappropriate for him to draw that parallel, and people may agree or disagree (I think it’s clear that I disagree), but that does not qualify as an interpretation of his point nor does it qualify as an objective truth. This is the difference between the content of what someone says–which can be restated objectively–and the inferred implication of what they say. Your claiming that your ‘interpretation’ is objective while mine is not is ironic, to say the least.
And honestly, I’m not going to argue about it, but I truly did not mean that Woodchuck needs somehow to prove to me his contribution to society. I was simply saying that I don’t think he’s making one. That’s my judgment, and you can disagree.
Auto de fe? Maybe, as a liberal myself, I just don’t understand the Inquisition reference. It seems completely ridiculous to me, and continues to after further consideration.
Also, since you didn’t reply, I looked up the thing about Obama ‘misrepresenting’ his grandmother’s behavior. All I could find was a blog where the guy recounts a passage from Obama’s book about his grandmother expressing distress over being approached by a black man at a bus stop, and said that the statement in his speech doesn’t “mesh” with the account in the book. If this is what you’re referring to, I think you can agree that there is no basis for saying that just because a single reference in an autobiography written 10 years ago does not comprehensively describe events referred to later in a separate speech on a different topic does NOT mean that the two are ‘inconsistent.’ That’s like saying that it’s ‘inconsistent’ to claim that Lincoln went to the bathroom because there’s no account of it in my history book. If you’re talking about something else, let me know, but as far as I can see there’s absolutely no logical basis for saying that Obama misrepresented anything.
Strange reply, Shannon.
You choose to emphasize the cognitive differences between what you, and I, classify as objective truth, while:
1) Ignoring the fact that Obama used his grandmother as the anvil upon which to hammer out his committment to Wright (when he could have used anyone, ar anything), while a) at the same time denying that he heard Wright’s comments, and b) claiming that he heard his grandmother make racist comments. Some coincidence. You’re smarter than that, Shannon, and my guess is, you’re being coy about all this. But it doesn’t matter.
2) That there is a qualitative and quantitative difference between the grotesque preaching of a black racist minister and Obama’s support of that ministry, and the kind of comments Obama attributes to his grandmother. The presenting fact is, not as you would have it, the grandmother, but the preacher. It apparently doesn’t matter to you, nor does Obama’s sleek diversion of the race issue, by fallacy, to his grandmother rather than Wright. That’s okay.
3) That Wright’s preaching is simply radical leftism sprinkled with unorthodox Christian seasoning, and with which you probably already agree. That’s okay, too.
4) This, from Shannon:
“What contribution to society are you making. Seriously, I’m asking you”.
- explained by Shannon in:
“….I truly did not mean that Woodchuck needs somehow to prove to me his contribution to society. I was simply saying that I don’t think he’s making one. That’s my judgement and you can disagree”.
There is, of course, always the assumption with liberals that those they disagree with are also people of bad character, are stupid, or fascists, and lack personal merit. It’s especially true that where these villains fail to conform to liberal thinking, they also fail the test of good citizenship…which is an accusation you have clearly made while affording an entire range of dispensations to Obama.
I don’t know why, but a figure comes to mind… Thoreau… he would have been banished by the Shannons of the world because he failed to adapt to the good progressive society, was certainly misanthropic where is mattered, and lived his life with an uncompromising vision of truth; he condemned temporizing and vagueness in speech and thought, and knew a nay from a yay.
You’re right, Shannon, we disagree. On lots of things.
Oh yes. An “autobiography written ten years ago”. Inconsistent? Are we on two entirely different topics. I have no idea what you’re referring to in this tepid and confused defense of Obama.
Shannon, for whom will you vote when Hillary steals the nomination?
And you may have the last word. I have no interest in replying.
1-3: I think this argument could use a rest. Obviously we took different things from the speech, and that’s fine. I am only saying that while you may disagree with how Obama made his point, I think that the point was valid. And I think that the value of the point of the whole of his speech far outweighs any perceivable controversy over a single rhetorical device.
4. Yes, “I’m asking you” because I’d like to know. And honestly, I still would like to know. It was a (carelessly phrased) way of saying ‘come on, man, stop posting stuff that adds no value to the discourse. How does this add value?’ I was saying so assuming that people who post blogs about politics and stuff like that WANT to be contributing something to society–that that is the point of your effort. Again, I don’t want to argue this with you. Obviously I was leaving a bitchy comment on a random blog and did not measure my words perfectly, and you have done a great job of blowing that out of proportion to indict me…
Seriously, though, regarding the Thoreau comment–who says I’m trying to banish anyone? By challenging people’s contribution to society I may be encouraging a good progressive society, but I’m certainly not suggesting that they be exiled or banished. I’m not representing myself as some sort of governing council who will, like, chop off your frontal lobes if you don’t meet my standards for citizenship.
Re: post 17–we may be on two different topics. I didn’t know what you were talking about.
Anyway, this has all been very interesting. I’m pretty super liberal, and I don’t talk to Republicans that often. There’s sort of a shared vocabulary or set of concepts (the socialism comparisons, the Inquisition references, etc.) that you all seem to share that I’m not fluent in. It’s made me reflect on ‘us liberals,’ and what sorts of things we might take for granted (fascism comparisons, as you mentioned, is one) that wouldn’t make sense to the other side. Nice to get some reflection–though I maintain that you are a completely disagreeable person with whom I would never get along (attempt at humor here).
Woodchuck: I really, really hope I don’t have to make that choice. I actually like McCain more than Hillary (in the gut-reaction, character evaluation sense) but would probably vote for Hillary because I think it’s very important to end the war and he’s not proposing to do that. But I’d probably do more research than I’ve currently done into both candidates before I’d officially decide.
Good response, Shannon. Little, if any, agreement from me, chiefly because blogging isn’t discussion. It’s generally a cartoon of opinions and cheap shots, but you wrapped it up pretty well.
I’m not a Republican, either, and neither is Woodchuck.
Shannon, a couple of things. You didn’t enter a McCain camp here. He’s a RINO who was going to leave the GOP. He should have.
Hotspur and I are former military, combat hardened in the Nam. If you think either of us likes war, you really don’t understand just how we think. OP, another poster here was in the Air Force. You are dealing with two officers and an enlisted.
Wars end when one side loses, not when someone blows a whistle and calls it a game. I can assure you that, skin to the schoolyard bully, the loser is going to get it again and again until they win.
You might want to read some of the history of WWII, especially the Pacific theater and then what was going on here in the States. Not too different from today. If our troops had quit you would be either speaking German or working in a “Comfort House” for the Japs, like in Nanking.
The other side ia making the rules; you will play by them, civilians are fair game.
A final thing. The “good progressive society” doesn’t exist and never will. Government is one system among many which requires competence only, and no mechanisms to adjust for human shortcomings. Again, govt isn’t “about” metaphysics, it’s goal is to solve practical problems and otherwise leave individuals alone. Even David Mamet has come to this realization. I recommend his column in the Village Voice. It’s a good read. I took a path similar to his. I recognize the reformist impulses in Obama and the statism in his goals. He’s left of Hillary in that respect.
Good point, VW. Wright’s lament about bombing the Japanese was at the end of a road that began in Manchuria in 1937. Obama might not know this, with Harvard and all.
VW: I wouldn’t have presumed to know how you felt about McCain or how you felt about war–just answering your question. Also, Hotspur, I only assumed you were Republicans because of the blog’s name. I can’t tell who’s a Republican and who’s a Democrat nowadays, what with this array of candidates. I personally have always thought of myself a social liberal and a fiscal libertarian, but could probably be called out on multiple ‘transgressions’ by both camps.
Hotspur: I’ve been reflecting on our conversation quite a bit today, mostly because you’re pretty smart and it really bothers me to disagree so vehemently with people that I can’t dismiss as idiots (that’s an admission, I aspire to higher). Something occurred to me. We spent quite a bit of effort arguing over one comment, Obama’s comment about his grandma. However, while I was arguing about that comment almost exclusively within the context of his speech, You seemed to be arguing about it almost exclusively within the context of the Rev. Wright controversy (not sure about this, just seems that way to me). The distinction I see is that the speech was not actually about the controversy, but rather attempted to use the controversy as a jumping-off point to talk about something larger, so these contexts are actually separate and distinct from one another. So my question, to you, the pretty smart guy who completely disagrees with me about everything, is this: Do you think it’s possible that one comment can have two completely separate meanings, given different contexts? Just wondering what your perspective is on this.
Also, I have a question. Have you actually read the entire transcript of Obama’s speech? I’ll admit to having watched only some–not all–of the Wright footage. It would be an interesting experiment, I think, to try to adopt each other’s contexts. Not that we’ll start agreeing with each other or anything, and not that we have nothing better to do, but you know…interesting.
Also: it’s interesting to know that you are Nam vets. My dad is a Nam vet. Which means that maybe some of the context that you two seemed to share that baffled me could be generational, rather than party-related.