endorsing Barack Obama, Colin Powell warmed up by, well ....From the Guardian:
Colin Powell celebrated his 71st birthday this year but he's clearly not too old to pull some cheeky Afro-hip-hop moves. His take on Olu Maintain's song Yahooze at the Africa Rising event at the Royal Albert Hall worked a lot better than his former boss George Bush's embarrassing inaugural shape-throwing alongside Ricky Martin. Although he kept his jacket buttoned, almost everyone deemed his dancing spot-on.
But it doesn't look as if the former US secretary of state paid too much attention to the lyrics, or he
might have discovered that the Nigerian hit is a celebration of that country's most infamous export, advance-fee email fraud (sometimes called 419 fraud, after the relevant section of the Nigerian penal code). The perpetrators are known as "Yahoo boys" after their email service-provider of choice.
"I stand before you tonight as an African-American," The Times quoted Powell as telling the audience. "Many people say to me, 'You became secretary of state of the USA., is it really necessary to say you are an African-American, or that you are black?' And I say, 'Yes,' so that we can remind our children. It took a lot of people struggling to bring me to this point in history. I didn't just drop out of the sky. People came from my continent in chains. There's no reason a new Africa can't be created right here and now."
Of course, it's purely racist for anybody to suggest that race had any influence on Powell's endorsement of Obama, even when Powell admits it was a factor.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Steve, this is Web Two Point Oh.. your post is woefully incomplete without the obligatory embedded video link!
ReplyDeleteHere's C-POW getting jiggy wit it.
And here are some pundits attempting to ridicule Fox News for accurately predicting that any 70+ year old man who goes on stage and raps about crime will probably be voting for the black guy.
It may be a factor, the primary factor, but it's not the only factor. Powell was never a strong conservative in any real sense, supporting abortion and affirmative action, for example. More importantly, one of the reasons he cited for supporting Obama was that he does not want two more conservatives appointed to the court.
ReplyDeleteBut he always still endorsed Republicans during competitive elections - until now. What does it say about blacks that even one of the most powerful and successful members of their race makes an important decision for mostly racial reasons?
The fix is in and we all should know: blacks (and Hispanics) will always use whatever political power they gain to reallocate white wealth to themselves. Just look at Obama's welfare schemes and you can tell they are designed specifically with the intent of helping blacks. Obama's proposal for refundable tax credits would top $1 trillion over a 10 year period (and that's probably based on static scoring, not taking into account the (mis)behavior it would subsidize and encourage).
Does the link confirm what you imply it does?
ReplyDeleteI read most of it and what Iread suggested the very opposite. I stopped reading when it was floated that Lieberman supports the Republicans they are White - like him.
From the Greenwald article you linked to:
ReplyDeleteContrary to Halperin's claim, Powell most certainly did not "acknowledge" that race was a factor in his endorsement of Obama. What Powell said was that he "can't deny that it will be a historic event for an African-American to become president" -- which is hardly tantamount to saying that race was a factor in his decision to endorse Obama. And as ABC News' John Cochran put it on Sunday night:
Rush Limbaugh suggested today that Obama's race may have played a part in Powell's endorsement. Powell denied race had any connection, but did say Obama's election would be historic.
The link hardly seems to support your theory. I think very few people pay attention to the lyrics of most songs while dancing (or if so, might explain some of the more horric dancing I've seen). Sometimes a dance is just a dance...
Isn't Powell mostly white? I think he's even more Jewish than Black.
ReplyDeleteGettin giggy wit it aside, Powell seems as starchy white a patrician as Obama. Mabye that's their point of commonality: guilty (mostly) white elitist playing out their oppression fantasy.
I suspect Powell also wants to distance himself from his large role in one of the worst Presidencies in US history.
Gettin giggy wit it aside, Powell seems as starchy white a patrician as Obama.
ReplyDeleteThose are the people who feel it the most important to emphasize their blackness.
How stereotypifying. The dancing, jivin' black man. Are there dominant genes for that stuff, or is it all memetic?
ReplyDeleteI love the way the dufuses attacking people for suggesting that race may be a factor in Powell's decision are now claim that the right never claimed that race was a factor in white people's support for Obama.
ReplyDeleteOf course it was! The only reason anyone would support a no-account freshman Senator with no legislation to his name and no job history outside of politics and mau-mauing is because of race. Would a white freshman with such a paltry record be the nominee of a major party? Not likely.
Would he be hailed as a messiah? Not on your freeekin life.
powell is black???? bob barr looks more african
ReplyDeleteWill someone please tell me what percent of the Irish vote JFK got? Is this number out there?
ReplyDelete"People came from my continent in chains. There's no reason a new Africa can't be created right here and now.""
ReplyDeleteSee Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit. Mission Accomplished!
Supposing that O wins, then the most senior three blacks in federal politics will have been (i) the son of a Kenyan immigrant and a white mother, (ii) the son of Jamaican immigrants, and (iii) the daughter of native African-Americans. Stll no son of native African-Americans: fluke, or significant?
ReplyDeleteDearieme: Both Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas have sat on the Supreme Court, however, a position at least as important as Secretary of State (though certainly less so than President).
ReplyDeletePowell to GOP:
ReplyDelete"Who's this WE, white men?"
What does it say about blacks that even one of the most powerful and successful members of their race makes an important decision for mostly racial reasons?
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't say anything about "blacks". Powell is one person. It does, however, suggest that Powell is a healthy human, which is something that can't be said about 95% of whites.
"powell is black???? bob barr looks more african"
ReplyDeleteAwesome.
Are you remembering Steve's somewhat recent comment about all the talk on black radio about Barr "passing" during the Clinton impeachment?
As far as Powell goes, of course race was a huge part of his thinking, but he's always been quite moderate. But what goes 'round comes 'round and I'm talking about the G.O.P. They fell head over heels in love with Powell only because he was black. I'll never forget that Republican convention where he spoke passionately, mentioning a laundry list of conservative principles, but threw in affirmative action and it didn't matter, the delegates went nuts. I remember the anchors being shocked that he got such an applause for vociferously lauding A.A.
Were it not for tribe, Powell wouldn't have achieved such a high profile and he himself wouldn't be supporting Obama now. He's not nearly that liberal.
Powell is an abominible mediocrity, whose tokenistic rise led ultimately to the disaster of his presentation before the UN, waving his little vial of fake anthrax. You would be hard pressed to find a single instance more destructive of US credibility in the whole tortured fiasco of the run-up to the Iraq war.
ReplyDeleteThis has become perhaps the iconic image of criminal misinformation prior to Iraq, and Gen. Jello (as the blogger Stiftung Leo Strauss calls him, for his utter cowardice in standing up to the neocons in the Bush admin.) just can't stand that it belongs to him. Forget the countless innocents killed, the loss of American prestige, the cost, etc.; this puny little man can only nurse a personal grudge. That's what his pointless endorsement is all about.
It's a pattern for the man preceding this as well; he served under Reagan like a dutiful yes-man, and then years later, in an interview with the New York Times, ridiculed his "Star Wars" schemes, literally rolling his eyes at Reagan's naivete. Whatever one thinks of the Gipper, Powell isn't suited to wash his jock (though that's as good a description of his role in the Reagan White House as any--and charitable, considering his role in Iran-Contra, where he once before lent his unfathomably good name to distract accountability).
The best thing you can say about Powell's service in the Bush admin., that he knew the histrionics regarding Iraq WMD and terrorist connections were BS, leads to the worst thing you can say about him: he nonetheless led the charge, brandishing his (we now see) wholly undeserved reputation in the effort. And why? Because he bought into the "cakewalk" line, and chose personal advancement, perhaps even entertaining a presidential run, over integrity, decency and legality.
And still, he has made no meaningful mea culpa, but resents the loss of personal prestige he's suffered as a result of the war's unpopularity. This is a man of decidedly low caliber, who's been punching above his weight for a long time. I recall his sudden vaunting to prominence in the triumphalism following the first Gulf War; I took to asking friends who were so taken by the guy (yet pretending his race had nothing to do with it) if they could name another chairman of the joint chiefs, or describe the role of same. The same blank stares we see now when pressing folks to elucidate on the fabulosity of the Wonder Brother.
Racial motivation would be a step up for a man so guilty of negligent and deliberate crimes. But yes, the "transformational" language is the sort of code that our friends on the left see every time a Republican mentions hard work or family values.
"Healthy human"? Douche. Bag. I think you're in a couple strata over your head. Instaputz and Snarkette are back that way.
Oh man.. Funny pics. Old men dancing, gotta love it!
ReplyDeleteWell, this kind of proves the point that diversity doesn't make a country stronger, but tribalizes the various ethnics.
Sad to see that Powell is just another man of identity politics though. All I can say that, at least, you Americans really tried to be inclusivist. But it takes two to tango as they say.
OTOH, an Obama presidency might not be as bad as a McCain presidency. I don't know why, but I have a feeling that it could be possible.
Isn't it about time for all of you guys to head back to South America for the winter?
ReplyDelete'HHHHRRRRRRRAAAAAAACCCCCCCk, Polly want a cracker!'
I like the fact that someone as prominent as Powell has repeatedly shown a willingness to make a fool of himself on a stage. But what I'm curious about is who among the organizers hired this rapper and approved the songs? White devils or Original people? (To use Nation of Islam terminology.)
ReplyDeleteAwwright you guys ... the links aren't supposed to support Sailer's thesis that race had something to do with this. The quote Sailer included in his essay is supposed to support his thesis. The links are supposed to indicate the goofiness of leftists shouting "racist" about this whole thing.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of reasons not to like Powell, even (or especially) if you're liberal. He's the guy who should have known better than to present his bogus PP presentation to the UN about Iraq's fearsome WMD machine!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, there's no requirement for a reason to vote for someone. It's just as legitimate to vote for someone because they're black as to not to vote for someone because they're black.
I do find it funny that some of the posters on this board (testing99 and lucius vorenus) think that if Obama wins, their homes will be raided, and iSteve will be shut down. I hope you guys have guns at the ready for when Obama goes Elian Gonzales on you!
Re SFG,"what percentage of the Irish vote did JFK get?" Would this refer to ALL the Irish who voted for JFK...or just the living ones???
ReplyDeletePowell's interview gave his reasons for supporting Obama, which sure as hell didn't come off as primarily being "because he's black like me." In fact, he had a long list of reasons, which sounded pretty sensible to me. McCain really has seemed rather befuddled about what to do about the financial crisis, Palin really was a pretty questionable pick, etc. Those all strike me as perfectly sensible reasons to support his opponent.
ReplyDeleteNow, if you could look into his heart, would you find that he was especially happy to be endorsing/voting for a black guy for president? I'd bet that's just what you'd find. As Ben Tillman points out, this is perfectly natural.
But it's also monumentally stupid to let the identity concerns blind you to bigger issues. I don't think Powell is doing this, because I don't think, to a moderate Republican, Obama/Biden actually looks like a bad choice relative to McCain/Palin.
On the other hand, Powell did endorse George W Bush, so I'm not sure his endorsement should be taken as overwhelming evidence of competence. I do wonder what the odds are that Obama's cabinet will include Powell as Secretary of State or some related office.
Powell is just another example of the medocrity or worse that typified the Bush II administration.
ReplyDeletePowell is just another C average student (at City College NY) who through race, connections or conniving rose far above their natural capability do wreak havoc on the US:
* Bush/Rove - destroyed the GOP party
* Chaney - brought oil/military contractor corruption to new levels
* Greenspan - helped wreak our economy
* Rumsfield and his Pentagon Neocons like Wolfowitz, Perl, etc. - historically inept handling of post Baathist Iraq
* Powell - willing UN salesman for a fraudulent war
* George Tenet - CIA Director
* Brownie - FEMA
* etc.
Birds of a feather I say.
Would this refer to ALL the Irish who voted for JFK...or just the living ones???
ReplyDeleteROTFL! but does anyone have the number?
I think that Mr. Dale's harsh words about Powell would only have been justified if Powell could have averted the war, but didn't. But this is not the case. He couldn't have averted anything. Would Mr. Dale have preferred that Powell resigned and then publicly denounced the warmongers? Or that he denounced them while in office and then got fired for it? The war would have still proceeded in both of those scenarios. He was hired by them for symbolic reasons, not to contribute to important decisions, and he obviously knew that. Instead of pointlessly going down in flames Powell leaked to the press the fact that he opposed the warmongers behind closed doors, but agreed to support their policy in public when asked to do so. Obviously, not much courage here, but neither is he to blame for any of the countless innocent deaths that Mr. Dale mentioned. Is Powell a mediocrity just because he never managed to rise to the level of power at which people can make decisions about war and peace? But neither I nor Mr. Dale nor anyone else who reads this will ever reach such a level of power or anything even remotely close to it. Perhaps we shouldn't call Colin Powell a mediocrity just for that.
ReplyDeletePowell has been openly using his race to make himself rich and prominent since at least 1985. Here is a quote from a book I have recently read:
ReplyDeleteGen. Colin Powell rose to the ultimate military position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff not entirely on merit, but partly because he was Black, but few dare say this out loud. When Louis Farrakhan asked Gen. Powell to Join his Million Man march on Washington D.C., Gen Powell declined and cited "schedule conflicts"...
...It is also no surprise that someone with Gen. Powell's demonstrated lack of character favors racist affirmative action. As revealed by the October 6, 1995 issue of the New York Daily News, in 1985 Gen. Powell was one of a group of prominent Blacks who bought WKBW-TV, a Buffalo, New York television station, taking advantage of special tax breaks not available to Whites. Blacks are making much progress in their racist agenda to gain exemption from taxation (as illustrated by Gen. Powell's above manipulation) while simultaneously siphoning off more government aid intentionally channeled to Blacks but not to Whites.
It should also be noted that Gen. Powell was engaging in this "business" while on active duty and drawing government pay. Active duty military officers should not engage in private business ventures as they are a time-consuming distraction which conflicts with a proffesional officer's sacred duty to devote all of his time and energy to looking after the defense of his country and the lives of the men entrusted to his command.
pages 59 and 60
I apologize to Mr. Tillman. I mistook his meaning.
ReplyDeleteIs Powell a mediocrity just because he never managed to rise to the level of power at which people can make decisions about war and peace?
He rose to the level of Secretary of State, for crying out loud. Nothing mediocre about that. His service in that regard was decidedly mediocre. But this misses the point--he was not just mediocre, but corrupt.
Furthermore, he was inept at interoffice warfare with the Cheney/Rumsfeld faction. They beat him like a rented mule, and he still doesn't know what hit him. His opponents were armed with an ideology and overriding worldview. Powell, armed only with the ideology of Powell's advancement, never had a chance. "Mediocre" is kind.
Should he have publicly opposed the war? No, he should have privately opposed it to the point of tendering his resignation, and then he should have publicly opposed it, with decorum and dignity. It's not that hard, it just meant he had to sacrifice the promise (now seen as illusory) of further power accruing to him as a result of war's glorious resolution.
Let's stop prevaricating, simply because we don't want to acknowledge these criminals have implicated the nation in their crimes: these people willingly lied the nation into an unjust war because they thought its success would have made the question of necessity--read, justice--irrelevant.
Yes, it would have been hard; yes it he would have risked his career and prestige; no, these things were not more important than avoiding a criminal war. Let's get real, and start demanding something of these people. "What was he supposed to do, sacrifice his career?" My God. We have the leadership we deserve, I suppose.
He wasn't even a very good military officer in the end, willfully obeying and passing along criminal orders.
His leaking to the press, another pattern for him, was always about mitigating the damage done to Powell. Respectfully, "harsh words" are woefully inadequate recompense for the damage this man has done. The fact that he's the lesser among the culpable, let's face it, their dupe, doesn't ennoble him in the least. He should have been dragged before Congress to testify in the impeachment trials of his superiors, and then retired to the too mild punishment of obscurity and disgrace.
I recall his sudden vaunting to prominence in the triumphalism following the first Gulf War;
ReplyDeleteIt's ironic that Powell became a star after Gulf War I. His initial hunches on that war were entirely wrong. And the infamous "Powell Doctrine" must be the most elementary lesson in war: if you can overwhelm in the enemy, do it.
Powell is not a great general. He is simply a cautious general. His caution led to incorrect predictions in Gulf War I, but would have served us well in this latest war. Unfortunately, as you have stated, he is too much of a yes-man to have done the right thing.
I hope you guys have guns at the ready for when Obama goes Elian Gonzales on you!
ReplyDeleteI think the name you're looking for is Janet Reno, is it not?
Would Mr. Dale have preferred that Powell resigned and then publicly denounced the warmongers? Or that he denounced them while in office and then got fired for it?
ReplyDeleteThose are the things someone with integrity and courage would have done. Powell has neither.
The war would have still proceeded in both of those scenarios.
Probably. But we'll never know.
"Should he have publicly opposed the war? No, he should have privately opposed it to the point of tendering his resignation, and then he should have publicly opposed it, with decorum and dignity."
ReplyDeleteA part of my disagreement with you is that I don't think that this would have changed the outcome. The war would have gone forward anyway.
Why did Bush (the real dupe of the story) believe Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Feith/Perle/etc. and didn't believe Powell?
Perhaps because the neocons had been working on him since before 2000. Their worldview was already familiar to him, Powell's not so much. I remember reading something about Perle tutoring Bush in foreign policy back at the start of Bush's first presidential campaign.
There were more of them at the table than there was of Powell. No matter how wrong and/or idiotic an argument is, it tends to sound authoritative in the mouths of a majority.
Perhaps to Bush they seemed smarter and more informed than Powell. Of course they were being smart in pushing THEIR OWN self interest, which was contrary to the country's and to Bush's self interest. However, an intellectually lazy guy like Bush could well have made the smart=right assumption, missing entirely the possibility that what was right for them could have turned out wrong for him and for the country.
I doubt that Powell had presidential ambitions in 2003, but it's not impossible. He publicly dismissed the idea in 1996 and in 2000, but we can't be sure if it was because he really didn't want the job or because he thought the circumstances weren't yet right for him to win. If it turned out that he did have presidential ambitions and if they were the reason why he avoided a public breakup with the Bush administration in 2003, then my opinion of him would fall precipitously. However, the presidential ambitions thing could have cut both ways. If he were that cynical, he could have foreseen public opposition to the war in 2003 being translated into popularity with the voting public in 2004. Well, maybe not in his party, but he could have switched parties painlessly.
I still think that it's likely that he simply decided that his resingation would have done nothing to avert the war.
Just got this e-mail from Minnesota's top jazz venue:
ReplyDeleteLast Minute Dakota Schedule Change • Tonight - Sunday
It's difficult to point fingers in situations like this, but unfortunately our weekend act, London-based soul vocalist Ola Onabule, was denied entry to the United States due to visa complications. Upon arrival at the local airport, he was informed that he lacked the appropriate performance visa, so he was returned to London.
Nice to know our immigration officers are keeping our country protected from potentially dangerous (London-born) Nigerian soul singers!
Though a look at his tour schedule shows that he did some shows on the East Coast in August. Independence Hall is still standing, I believe.
(Oh, and thank Blogger for using my college literary magazine's title for the "word verification" tonight. Ah, memories...)
I don't think any data about Irish voting patterns in 1960 would be available, but Gallup had 78% of Catholics voting for Kennedy in their final pre-election poll. That's compared to the 51% of the Catholic vote Adlai Stevenson received in 1956. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/11911/Protestant-Catholic-Vote.aspx)
ReplyDeleteMy guess would that be that had someone like Lyndon Johnson or Hubert Humphrey would have gotten 60-65% of the Catholic vote against Nixon. So maybe 13 to 18% of Catholics voted for Kennedy specifically because of his Catholicism.
I would say that there are actually very few African-Americans who would vote for McCain over a white Democrat but are now voting for Obama. Hillary still would have gotten between 85% and 90% of the African-American vote, even though black turnout might have been slightly down because of hurt feelings in the primaries. Heck, even in the 2006 Maryland Senate race where black Republican Michael Steele was running against white Democrat Ben Cardin, Steele could only get 25% of the black vote.
Now perhaps there are a lot of African-Americans who will be motivated to go out and vote because Obama is black, but it's not like they were going to vote for McCain.
Men like Powell, that is African-Americans who are moderate Republicans who would ordinarily vote Republican, but are now voting for Obama because he's black make up less than one percent of the black population.
To the anon posting:
ReplyDelete"A part of my disagreement with you is that I don't think that this would have changed the outcome. The war would have gone forward anyway."
By your measure of morality, every ambitious SS officer could be forgiven for not only refusing to but for actively killing as many Jews as possible to advance their career even if they thought it wrong.
Or more abstractly, since there is evil in the world everyone could be forgiven for not only opposing evil but becoming evil for personal advancement.
What a nonsense defense for Powell's primarly role in selling the most damagning and unjust war in America's history.
"I still think that it's likely that he simply decided that his resingation would have done nothing to avert the war."
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like by your logic people should only do the right thing if they can be absolutely certain of the outcome.
Anyway, never underestimate the power of the magic negro. The sight of the black man acting honorably and putting country first against the greedy white establishment would've been too sweet a story for the negro worshipping elites. Negrophilia extends outside the US and is why Powell was used to sell the war to the UN. Powell could've stopped the momentum and things could've snowballed.
Either way, he would've needed integrity and a spine to do that so it's a moot point.
Finally watched Powell's endorsement fellow affirmative action supporter Senator Obama.
ReplyDeleteScary stuff. It was clear from Powell's comments that he would only consider for the Presidency people he knew personally. Imagine if you or I did that. Powell strongly implied that there were only two people in this Presidential race - a form of dissembling that is absolutely unethical. He took it so far as to imply that the policies of the candidates mattered little. Of course, they do - Powell has only tolerated the Republicans insofar as they didn't stray too far from his policies, which derive from his worldview:
(a) abortion is in the Constitution whether you can see it or not, and conservative judges who can't see it are not fit to serve (didn't HC Andersen right a story about that?),
(b) blacks must be included in all workforces and student bodies in proportion to their number in population, and policies to ensure that are necessary (it is also necessary that the policies that require quotas also ban quotas, to keep everyone thoroughly humiliated),
(c) "the right to keep and bear arms" means something other than a right to keep and bear arms,
(d) increases in Federal power at the expense of civil rights/liberties are okay as long as the policies are old; thus, supporting gun control or the Patriot Act is ethically neutral at worst, if the original legislation were drawn up before you were in office.
The Republicans are fairly close to him on all these issues, but the Democrats are closer, so it makes ideological sense for Powell to abandon his old allies. The scary thing is, most people are voting for Obama for non-ideological reason closely analogous to Powell's. They are familiar with only two candidates because the media only supports statist candidates.
Our leaders have abandoned us. The age-old arguments that "third party candidates are unfit to serve because they have no experience" is factually incorrect in this case even if only Congressional experience counts - two supporters of civil liberties in the current race (McKinney and Barr), have experience in the Congress.
With a single exception, our leaders simply lack the character and foresight to consider the endorsement of a candidate who doesn't support cultural suicide through enforced mediocrity and bureaucratic-authoritarianism. Our leaders have decided that we need to be more like Latin America was in the 1960s. We have agreed.
Anonymous said: ""Instead of pointlessly going down in flames Powell leaked to the press the fact that he opposed the warmongers behind closed doors, but agreed to support their policy in public when asked to do so."
ReplyDeleteIn other words, he behaved deceitfully. And disgracefully.
The point is not that Powell didn't have the power avert war, but his craven "public" support for it. No one could have stopped the war given that the NeoCons had set their minds on regime change in Iraq.
It's about the man's integrity, or lack of it. If he had resigned and publicly stated that he believed the war to be wrong, he would at least have won respect for being true to his conscience. But he lacked the courage. Obama saying that he felt "humbled" by Powell's support is quite simply grotesque.
The British Minister, Robin Cook, resigned as Leader of the House of Commons in 2003 in protest over the war. It's worth reading his statement. It was the making of him, even though it left him - in terms of Blair's government - in the wilderness.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/mar/18/foreignpolicy.labour1
Writing in today's Daily telegraph, Bonnie Greer talks of the perception amongst some of her fellow African-Americans that Obama is not "black enough". (Something Steve has written about in the past). "From the fact that his mother was white and that Obama himself was largely brought up by her parents, to the fact that he has become a kind of Princess Diana figure for the type of middle-class white liberal whose contact with black people of any sort is minimal in the extreme, there is deep suspicion among a certain minority of African-Americans. They are demanding that, since 99.9 per cent of African-Americans will vote for him, Obama will pay a "black tax". "Payback" is expected and will be demanded." She also talks about the possible white back-lash if he is elected. I tend to agree.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/3255983/US-election-Slavery-was-only-yesterday.html
Bonnie Greer is a classic race hustler. She just gathered up all the cliches of the historically-illiterate left, glued them together, and is probably proud of her "news article".
ReplyDelete"an America that considered people of African descent to be only three-fifths human" ... the North wanted slaves to count for zero; the South wanted them to count 100%; the three-fifths compromise didn't mention a word about "people of African descent". Because the leftists in charge of our schools benefit from it, Greer probably believes, like most people, that "three-fifths" is a rough approximation of the civil right accorded to black people in the antebellum period. In fact that clause was not a description of voting rights or civil rights but a census convention.
"It has always been clear to African-Americans that the Emancipation Proclamation, that wartime measure whose intention was to destabilise the Confederate states rather than to set free their slaves, is less than 150 years old." What a godawful sentence that is. Is she implying that white people have trouble figuring out how old a measure is by simple arithmetic? Complaining about the EP without mentioning the 13th Amendment is classic leftist obscurantism - "let's pretend Lincoln could free all the slaves in the union at the stroke of a pen so leftists won't accidentally end up respecting a white man". If you listen to people like her, you'd think slavery was still legal (it isn't, and I'm dead certain she doesn't know why ... complaining about the EP dominates everything the left has to say about the Civil War).
"No one from an ethnic minority, no African-American, has ever been the presidential candidate of a major party." ... Right, because Irish people were never an ethnic minority? That's pure revisionism. Kennedy's election obscures instead of enlightening ... when leftists tell the history.
"Racism, itself, however, will not disappear." Oh, what a shock! The election of a guy who calls it a "fight" when half a dozen black jocks beat in the face of a white kid wouldn't end racism? It's okay though, because news articles never EVER mention the European/North American-perpetrated slave trade against West Africa without mentioning the North African-perpetrated slave trade against Europe. Never. To do that would be racist.
And thank GOODNESS her article didn't stoop to mentioning the Ku Klux Klan without mentioning the Death Angels, the Weathermen, or the decades long black-on-white rape campaign. That would be racist. And dark whispering about "drive-by shooting" (that didn't start with "us"), or pretending that the need round-the-clock protection will be something unique to a black president ... naw, that would be beneath her.
The reason the left tries so hard day and night to squeeze the last bit of meaning out of the word "racism" - rendering it utterly useless - is that they know eventually people will catch on, and figure out that for the last 35 years, the real perpetrators of racism in this country have always been leftists. They want to make sure there is no word left to describe what they do and they way think.
I agree with your points, Blode.
ReplyDeleteGreer is just another mediocre media personality who trots out all the usual leftist racial blather. Britain is rife with them - appearing more often than not on "cultural programs" where they can pontificate about European attitudes to "the other" and generally patronize.
But I do think Obama's presidency will encourage not so much ambition in the black population, as a sense of entitlement.
I could well be wrong. We'll see.
anonymous:
ReplyDeleteThat's probably the most interesting question to ask right now, given the available data: What will an Obama presidency mean for US race relations?
My guess is that it will somewhat improve things, but only so far, because a lot of the cause of the problems is rather fundamental. My take on this is that a major sore point for race relations is the big differences in performance/outcomes for blacks and whites. Way more blacks than whites do poorly in school, way more end up in jail, way more have kids before they're married. So long as that kind of difference persists, black/white race relations will be strained.
Those differences in outcomes look to be very hard to fix. A lot of them seem to flow from stuff like intelligence and personality, which have big genetic components. Cultural stuff (no stigma for bastardy, low regard for education or respectability, nobody teaching you proper work habits) could conceivably change from Obama's example, but I wonder how much. After all, there have been relatively prominent blacks for many years who are smart and competent and successful, and this hasn't fixed whatever cultural brokenness leaves blacks dropping out of school, going to jail, raising kids who don't know their fathers, etc., way more than whites.
Electing Obama probably undermines much of the argument that the bad outcomes of blacks in the US is the result of someone keeping them down. But the same is true of every city with black mayors and political power structures, where the black kids still drop out of school and crank out fatherless babies and kill one another at awful rates.
If most people were to stop accepting that explanation, what would happen? Would it make things better, or worse?