« Churchill and McCain | Main | Waterboard Barack Obama » More Thug-Life Chronicles15 Oct 2008 12:30 pm I should stop, but somehow I'm transfixed. It just amazes me, especially in light of our convo on conspiracy theories. Dig this. TrackBackListed below are links to weblogs that reference More Thug-Life Chronicles:
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The best part of that clip is the commentary at the end from the reporter:
"It's a reminder that hate and fear are still powerful sources in American society."
From your lips to god's ears. You're only going to get that kind of blunt honesty on a foreign wire service. I love the fact that it's al Jazeera. It's a wonderful inversion of the way that the American media tries to portray the entire Muslim world as violent fundamentalist wackos.
It's rather ironic to me that for a long time the republicans have prided themselves as being the standard bearers of so called small town values. The only small town values I've seen reflected in this video are hate and blatant ignorance.
On the other hand, this is a reflection of the opinions of low information voters. We on the left have them as well. Which is something important to remember. Ultimately, I hope at some point we can help to change the hearts and minds of people who have been misled deliberately.
The fact that someone who spent their life trying to help other people is attacked that way is unfortunate.
Obama has actually done more for middle class Americans than John McCain has done in 26 years in the senate in the house.
I'm surprised they talked to him at all, unless he didn't identify who he was reporting for.
It's interesting for me to look at clips like that, because I grew up in small towns and suburbs, and lived in them for most of my life--the first real city I lived in was San Francisco, and I moved there when I was 34--and I wouldn't go back to the country for anything. Small town values are too often a big bag of suck, as those clips show better than I could ever tell.
Key comment " I dont like the way he looks down on us white people. He thinks us white people are trash"
The people in the country have always thought people in the city were wicked and foriegn and elitist. When the cities were mostly Irish or Jewish or Italian, they felt the same way about Irish and Jews and Italians as they now feel about gays and blacks.
911 was the only time in American history people in the country accepted the fact that New Yorkers were American.
I wasnt sure that a non-southerner could win the Presidency. I figured the only Democrat who could win would wear boots and chew tobacco, Obama's success is really unprecedented. We focus so much on race, we forget that he is a liberal senator from a northern state. That hasnt happened since... ever.
I was listening to the Mike Gallagher show this morning on the way to work and a caller said that the Obama candidacy is a "flight 93" situation headed for the White House and that McCain has to "storm the cockpit". And no, I am not exaggerating. This is pretty much verbatim and Gallagher agreed wholeheartedly.
Picking up on Jimmy's point. What the hell do these people care about terrorists who bomb major cities anyway. They don't consider us American to the extent that we share their values. They can't possible fear that someone is going to burn their corn crop or drive an exploding bus into Red's Barbecue Shack and Muffler.
Come to think of it, how many of these people have ever even met a muslim or an arab (how many now the difference?). I'm usually not this condescending and I know this sounds mighty elitist, but these people are a fucking disgrace to decent white folk.
Whatever,... their time is over and they know it.
In a way, I'm encouraged. A year ago the conventional wisdom was that there was a hard core of such people in America, and thus Obama could never win the nomination. Now those people are still there, eager to be interviewed, and they're driving the country to elect Obama by huge margins as people determine not to be associated with these pathetic whiners.
The Al Jazeera logo looks just like the Baby Phat logo. Why do Black people hate America?
My parents live in a town of 4,000 and are supporting Obama, and people at the grocery store look at them dumbfounded, saying things like, "You know he's a terrorist," right?"
But honestly, I really think it's just willful ignorance. Only the craziest of the crazies really believe this stuff. People are scared of change, they go for the most extreme reason (real or invented) they can think of to express their fear, and then say that to the camera. Put a bunch of these people together in a small town and people start racing to out-crazy each other.
Doesn't make it any less offensive or ridiculous, but I think you're seeing more group think than true ignorance. Not sure which is better, though.
Look at it this way, TNC: after Obama wins, you can go up to that first old lady and be like, "Gimme your house, bitch! We're taking over!" You'll make a killing in the real estate market.
Seriously, though, this is just sick and depressing. I make jokes like that one because I honestly have no idea how these people will react if Obama wins.
On the other hand, this is a reflection of the opinions of low information voters. We on the left have them as well.
Oh, absolutely.
I was out canvassing a few weekends ago, and one Obama supporter I was talking to was discussing her concerns about the way the country was going. Basically, everything she could complain about was immigrants taking our jobs and international students taking spots at top colleges. And I'm thinking, "Okay, these are sort of Republican talking points, but I'm not going to tell this woman that her reasons for supporting Obama are ridiculous." But man, she'd be perfect YouTube fodder for a Republican with a camera, right?
I mean, Obama is polling over 50% right now. Does anyone really believe that the majority of Americans have nothing stupid to say?
Okay, Andrew has a video of Penguin debating Batman that should be spread far and wide.
Penguin: Who IS Batman??
Moderator, a 1960s Sean Hannity, using only his eyebrows: Yeah! Who IS this masked man?
Batman: My opponent is not telling the whole story here...
It's like Batman, boringly wonking along his factual stuff, is an early Gore/Kerry/early Obama/early Clinton.
Good lord I'm wrong that's Marc's blogs. Okay, Marc's hints that he's fed up with McCain have now come to fruition.
TC, I too, agree with your comment at the start of this post, I should stop looking at these videos of people who demonstrate a definite lack of intelligence, but I too am transfixed and cannot stop searching for and viewing them. What amazes me is the actual fear/guilt I see in these individuals at the prospect of Black person being elected President. The impression I get is that they actually believe that African Americans will be intent on subjagating them to a type of "reverse" racism. As if America's history of racial hostility towards Black people will be reversed on them. A new (Un)civil rights movement will be developed to take away their rights as a result of some unfounded Black backlash. Nothing will change if Obams is elected President, other than the old adage "We all can be President some day" will ring true, if you you run a smart, well thought out, intelligent campaign. We as a people (African Americans) will not suddenly become the dominant economic force in this country, head all the Fortune 500 companies, take over all the banks, etc.
We focus so much on race, we forget that he is a liberal senator from a northern state. That hasnt happened since... ever.
John F. Kennedy doesn't count in your opinion for some reason?
I'd like to take a moment and offer a profound and heartfelt thank-you to the nice folks in the GOP currently staging a billion dollar nationally televised campaign to ensure that "blue" leaning urban areas like mine, retain our human capital advantage for the foreseeable future. Thanks again!
I think we should keep in mind the experience of Chicago and Mayor Harold Washington.
My understanding is that Obama admires Washington and considers him a model.
Washington won election as mayor in 1983 in a campaign where the racists attacks he faced were far more ugly than what Obama is seeing.
White Chicago dug in its heels and through an obstructionist city council tried to ignore Washington's presence.
But Washington's courage, hard work, and fundamental decency gradually wore away at the hostility and he won reelection in 1987 in a tough but less racially apocalyptic campaign. Sadly, he died of a heart attack not long after he was reelected.
I think Obama has it in him to be that kind of leader.
One more time: This is the modern Republican party.
John F. Kennedy doesn't count in your opinion for some reason?
Obama doesn't count as a liberal in mine. He's a moderate. Now Bernie Sanders...
John F. Kennedy doesn't count in your opinion for some reason?
He's not exactly the most reassuring comparison in a thread that's focusing on thugs and conspiracy theories ...
On the other hand, he did pretty much drive a stake through the idea that a Catholic can't be elected President. And I think the Secret Service has learned from past experience.
1. This is who we thought they were.
2. I never did thank you for titling this series Thug-Life Chronicles.
I love that.
When I hear people talking this way, I really could just break down and cry. Sometimes I do.
Furthermore, I ask myself questions like, "Should I give a fat rat's ass if these individuals have affordable health care or die uninsured without treatment for their diabetes, etc..?" And, "Are these people worth a microsecond of my worrying that they should make a living wage and be able to support their families with a little left over?" Should it matter to me that the elderly among them are able to live with dignity? Should anything about these people concern me other than wishing they would go back into their holes and keep their mouths shut?
The reporter said that this (McCain/Palin) has "brought out into the open what is usually behind closed doors." Man, is that ever true. Now they have strength in numbers and they can forget whatever small amount of discretion, manners, good judgement, and kindness they might ever have had. Their horrible hate speech makes it very difficult to care about them.
Yeah, "Thug Life Chronicles" is a good title for this series.
Even if these people really believe whatever crap they are spouting, you would think that for reasons of self preservation (i.e not wanting to appear crazy or ignorant on TV) they would give a more moderate reason for not voting for Obama.
Heck, just repeat the experience thing, or the big-spending liberal thing, or the national security thing, or even the I-just-like-McCain-better cop out.
It's not just the fact that they feel that way that's disturbing. It's the fact that they seem to want to tell the whole world they feel that way, and that they seem aggrieved! aggrieved I say! that other people don't feel the same way.
This is just another reason to work hard for the end of the electoral college system. These people's votes count soooo much more than mine.
I would love to see a politician at least give lip service to the fact that studio-apartment New York atheists are Americans too. Or at least admit that the majority of the population lives in cities. These people, not me, are fringe.
The 'big city' values of tolerance, diversity, openness, education and live-and-let-livity are worth something too.
But yeah, I totally agree with mmy, I'm terrified of what these people will do if Obama wins...
"We focus so much on race, we forget that he is a liberal senator from a northern state."
I agree, that's what people should really think about. I don't like how McCain's coddled people thinking of other things instead.
As for JFK he was not particularly liberal. As I recall he lowered taxes and was very much a Cold-Warrior. I believe he was also friends with Joseph McCarthy. As for him breaking the ceiling on Catholics realistically that doesn't precisely seem to be the case. We have had one Catholic President and he distanced himself from his religion as best he could then got assassinated by a lunatic. No Catholic of non-Irish origin has ever been President or VP and this will remain true when Biden becomes VP. (No Italians or Poles of any faith ever became Prez or VP so far as I know)
I line up with the 10/15@1:01 p.m. comment from Deborah. Why should this election not be remembered as the one in which the U.S. voter stopped shooting him/herself in the foot?
--
Since Nixon's "Silent Majority," politics has been prostituting itself to the most venal fears of "independent" voters. We have an opportunity through 2012 to re-establish the proper place for politics in U.S. democracy -- not in our bedrooms, not in our prayers, not in our superstitions, not in our greed, but in our ability to comprehend that a successful U.S. polity MUST ACCOMMODATE OUR DIVERSITY, with all of its often repugnant flaws.
The "he thinks white people are trash" woman breaks my heart. I mean, how beaten down, how paranoid, how traumatized do you have to be that the very sight of a black man in a suit makes you sure, absolutely positive, that he's laughing at you behind your back?
Is white fear of black people just karma, or something else? Please enlighten me, white people. I don't understand shriveling up in the presence of black people.
(an Asian-American)
Let's not forget that Obama is a member of a working class white family from Kansas.
It's not that they have any more numbers this time.
The number of rightard, flying-monkey, fundie/racist phux is pretty constant at about 60% of the WHITE population.
The difference this time is that they have a public affront to their ignorance, arrogance, and belligerence: an actual KNEEGROW at whom to direct their bile...
These "white people," far from being ignorant of the evils of which they have been a part, and of which they have been significant beneficiaries, are more than anything fearful that the people whom they've injured and terrorized for the last 400 years may turn the tables, once they have the power to do so, JUST AS THESE "Whites" would do if the situations were reversed...
But don't you have to admire these republicans? Not for their belief in what is right or wrong but in theur tenacity, the fact that they are like the captain of a sinking ship who refuses to abandon ship, and rather go down with it. How they cling to the body of a rotting corpse and won't let go.
What will they do come November 5, the day after?
Pappy Finn. I almost sympathize.