From The Hill:
Clyburn: GOP letter criticizing Rice uses racial 'code words'
By Justin Sink - 11/20/12 08:08 AM ET
Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Tuesday a letter from nearly 100 House Republicans urging President Obama not to appoint Susan Rice as Secretary of State employed racially-charged "code words" to make its case.
The letter, signed by 97 House Republicans, says Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, "is widely viewed as having either willfully or incompetently misled the American public in the Benghazi matter" — language Clyburn saw as racially loaded.
"You know, these are code words," Clyburn, the third-ranking Democrat in the House, told CNN. "We heard them during the campaign, during this recent campaign we heard Sen. Sununu calling our president lazy, incompetent, these kinds of terms that those of us, especially those of us who were grown and raised in the South, we would hear these little words and phrases all of our lives and we'd get insulted by them.
"Susan Rice is as competent as anybody you will find, and just to paste that word on her causes problems with people like [incoming Congressional Black Caucus chairwoman] Marcia Fudge and certainly cause a big problem with me," he added.
In a press conference earlier this week, Fudge said she believed criticism of Rice contained "a clear… sexism and racism."
"It is a shame that anytime something goes wrong, they pick on women and minorities," Fudge added.
Why was I not previously informed of the existence of the Fudge family?
Clyburn described himself as frustrated by the criticism of Rice. While it is fair to criticize her for having initially claimed the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was the result of a protest against an anti-Islam video, he objected to the language used by Republican leaders.
"I don't like those words," Clyburn said. "Say she was wrong for doing it, but don't call her incompetent."
http://newleftreview.org/II/77/richard-duncan-a-new-global-depression
ReplyDeleteDo you get it yet Republicans? You aren't allowed to say -anything-
ReplyDeleteI guess the takeaway is that, because of America's segregationist history, blacks can never be labeled incompetent.
ReplyDeleteIn a sane country, this kind of Orwellian claptrap would be lampooned in late-night TV monologues. Instead, the media and political elites basically nod in silent agreement.
My main objection to this is that assuming Republicans are constantly talking in racist code implies that they're much more clever than they really are.
ReplyDeleteMs. Fudge is right. They should have just said "black" - the incompetence part would then be implied.
ReplyDeleteIt seems in some camps, any criticism of a non-white person is coded racism -- the Orwellian path this heads down is downright scary.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteAs if when used to describe the behavior of a minority individual "incompetent" is somehow as evil as the words "racist," "white privilege," "oppressor," "extreme right wing," "fascist," "Nazi" and all the other invective that left-libs and Media-Pravda hurl reflexively and continuously at white men and monogamous married white women.
Same goes for the avalanche of slime the Left heaps on Israel for trying to stop the "oppressed" sainted "Palestinians" who are so impoverished, so starved by Israel's airtight blockade, that they can't afford or smuggle past the blockade tens of thousands of increasingly sophisticated rockets to rain down upon the elders and juniors of Zion.
Every story in the MSM and MSM satellite organs should be prefaced with an audio track of the theme from 'The Twilight Zone.'
ReplyDeleteNo doubt Susan Rice meets minimum levels of competence. I don't know why Republicans should object to her appointment as Secretary of State. What difference is it going to make? Let Obama have whomever he wants, and let us observe the results. Perhaps for some it will be a learning experience. I would be delighted if Obama appointed Alvin M Greene to his cabinet.
ReplyDeleteCan we call Obama "half incompetent"?
ReplyDeleteIs this Fudge related to Ann Fudge, the former Pres. of the Rockefeller Foundation and a million other things?
ReplyDeleteIf Obama is a prime example of a mixed-race person who looks mostly black, Susan Rice's two children are the exact opposite.
ReplyDeleteActually, this is a good sign. One of the good things - maybe the only good thing - about this banana republic prez and his coterie of assclowns is the relentless ratcheting up of what constitutues "racism" in order to obscure/explain away his many many gaffes & grafts & failures.
ReplyDeleteI believe we're just about at the tipping point of reductio ad ansurdum now: if pointing out that Rice's (and Obama's) whoppers were either lies or incompetence is "racist", then the word is *very* close to losing its meaning....and much more importantly, its power to intimidate and stifle discussion/criticism. A lot of people no longer get the vapors when being accused of racism, it looks like. Now they just yawn at the ridiculous word, or take it as proof they're on the right track. We'll see how it goes.
Is the position of Secretary of State being downsized, losing its importance, becoming a symbolic gesture without power or influence?
ReplyDelete"In a sane country, this kind of Orwellian claptrap would be lampooned in late-night TV monologues. Instead, the media and political elites basically nod in silent agreement."
ReplyDeleteThis is a perfect environment for a competing show like SNL to take the ball and run with it...and watch SNL's ratings slip.
I think in order to deal with the elites, you have to start making literary references to this kind of Orwellian stay-mum shit.
"'I don't like those words,' Clyburn said. 'Say she was wrong for doing it, but don't call her incompetent.'
ReplyDelete"Those of us on the Left have the privilege and responsibility to criticize wrong-thinking people however we please," Clyburn said, speaking for the Progressive movement. "Thus, it's only fair that those of you to our Right conform your commentary to things we'd like to hear. Your ever-more-stringent self censorship will help speed America's transformation into a diverse and vibrant community."
"No doubt Susan Rice meets minimum levels of competence."
ReplyDeleteShe has academic credentials, but according to Beltway pundits of both political stripes (some on the record, most off), she rubs everyone the wrong way and has no interpersonal skills that one would expect of SOS.
Of course, John Bolton as UN Ambassador rubbed people wrong too, but he wasn't up for State.
OTOH, maybe we need such people at State?
"No doubt Susan Rice meets minimum levels of competence."
ReplyDeleteI had no idea she was part-black. Thought she might be Hispanic or an Indian mix.
Peter
ReplyDeleteIf Obama is a prime example of a mixed-race person who looks mostly black, Susan Rice's two children are the exact opposite.
The lesson here is that in the future, when Susan Rice's children are adults, it will not be considered racist to call her children incompetent.
Susan Rice's flacking for the POTUS on the talk shows has put her between a rock and a hard place. Either she is a liar, or a nincompoop for believing such drivel.
Welcome to the real world.
Not The Twilight Zone but its far better rival:
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We can reduce the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to... The Outer Limits.
Race: Are We So Different?
ReplyDeleteThis is on its way to my local Museum and Science Center, so I had to see what the local schoolkids would be in for. Just poking around the website for a few minutes solidified what I expected it would be. Certainly the other end of the spectrum from iSteve.
"f Obama is a prime example of a mixed-race person who looks mostly black, Susan Rice's two children are the exact opposite."
ReplyDeletePhoto of Rice with White husband and kids
I agree 'incompetent' may not be the best word here. 'Liar' would be the most accurate.
ReplyDeleteAre you all kidding? according to a Dana Milbank article Rice was wont to shoot the finger in heated exchanges. If that is anywhere near true, she has hit her Peter Principle ceiling. Why would Obama replace Hillary with a lame?
ReplyDeleteYou all are nitpicking about what is no more the ephemeral noise of the political system. Obama is not pro HBD but he not the anti-Christ either.In his lights, he is a patriot. Read Steve's book and reread Obama's first autobiography.
Mike Eisenstadt
Austin TX
'Racist' is the officially enforced code-word for 'dangerous speaker of truth', aka 'heretic who should be burned at the stake.'
ReplyDeletePeople should start treating the word 'racist' like they (or many) do 'anti-semitic' - being unfazed and saying it's a word blacks call people they don't like. It probably hasn't reached saturation yet though.
ReplyDeletetruth==racism
ReplyDeleteWhat you are seeing is Dems mounting a preemptive defense of Obama's presidency. There is nothing more damaging to a president than an accusation of incompetency. The Democrats know this because that's how they brought down Bush. The original accusations against Bush - that he is dumb, that he is a tool of evil corporation, that he is a cowboy warmonger - made hardly a dent in his popularity. Only when the Dems switched gears and began the campaign of hammering Bush with charges of incompetency (Katrina, etc.), the charges gained traction and his popularity nosedived, even among his supporters.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly with Obama. All the portrayals of him as the evil anti-American Muslim socialist were never going to hurt him. Accusations of incompetency, on the other hand, could be deadly. Republicans are generally clueless about the art of character assassination, but sooner or later they may stumble upon this line of attack. So the Democrats are working to preemptively define the charges of incompetency as a "racist dog-whistle". This will ensure that no one in the MSM will touch this issue with a ten foot pole; and if someone does come with such an accusation, instead of paying attention to the substance of the claim all that we ever going to hear is an endless discussion about whether or not the claimer hates black people.
racism (noun): A thought, word or action that casts in a disparaging light a member of a designated victim group
ReplyDeleteI count myself, despite consistent attention to political affairs over the last 25 yrs., as sceptical about the actual usefulness of diplomatic personnel, and thus about whether "competence" is actually salient wrt a Secretary of State. The main issue is what an administration's basic orientation will be to the bad actors of the day, so that, if "respect" (groveling) is Obama's choice of posture toward Islam and its teeming hordes of aspiring fascists, then the identity of the particular careerist who occupies the top spot at State if probably of little importance. I welcome explanations of why this is shortsighted.
ReplyDelete"If Obama is a prime example of a mixed-race person who looks mostly black, Susan Rice's two children are the exact opposite."
ReplyDeleteOkay, Susan Rice's Jamaican grandparents. So, who exactly were her white ancestors? Cuz we know she's got them. Both her parents look half white at least.
If Obama is a prime example of a mixed-race person who looks mostly black, Susan Rice's two children are the exact opposite.
ReplyDeleteSusan Rice genealogy:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~battle/celeb/susanrice.htm
Clyburn himself uses code words when he refers to Susan as being "wrong". Doesnt he know that black people have heard that word all their lives growing up in the South? Reminds me of my Marine Corps days when the officers would fear their performance reviews. There was a whole list of superlatives starting with Outstanding.If you get anything less than Outstanding it means,uh oh,somebody aint getting promoted... As for Susie maybe we should say her actions were "magnificent" but a bit short of "Super"? She looks a bit like the lady from Bridesmaids. If she is mixed,which she obv. is--what is the "other"? Would it be Scotch-Irish? Susan MacRice? Explains a lot. A lot,Jerry! PS:The Fudge family lol!!
ReplyDeleteNever let it be said that blacks lack self-esteem.
ReplyDeleteIf Obama is a prime example of a mixed-race person who looks mostly black, Susan Rice's two children are the exact opposite.
ReplyDeleteSusan Rice is half-black. Hubby is white.
What was 'revenge' codeword for?
ReplyDelete"Diversity" is codeword for "Let's destroy whitey".
ReplyDelete"Affirmative action" is codeword for "favoring less competent blacks for more competent whites".
"Equality" is codeword for "whites should be less equal than non-whites".
"War on women" is a codeword for "war on taxpayers".
"Hate" is codeword for "daring to speak the truth about Jewish power, black violence, illegal invasion, and the gay agenda."
I usually skim through examples of idiotic minority oversensitivity because of how common they are, but this one stands out to me. Most of the time you see this sort of crap, it comes from a liberal journalist who tries to convince you that "Chicago-style" is a code word for "black men will pillage your fields and rape your daughters if you don't watch out."
ReplyDeleteHowever, this example is much more serious than the prototypical example above. It is much more egregious. First, these comments were made by a member of Congress. That a member of Congress feels comfortable making comments that are so alienating to and seem ridiculous to what's left of "middle America" is a sign of how far this insanity has gone. Second, at least "Chicago-style" has a cultural connotation, which liberals might claim is being invoked. But the word "incompetent" is nothing more than a common adjective. Criticism of the term "Chicago-style" on the grounds of opposing racism is at least supported by an argument, even if that argument is laughably weak. But pulling the race/womenz card after someone says "incompetent" is a simple matter of gloating "you're not allowed to say anything at all."
Everyone sort of has a feel for the Hierarchy of Criticism that has developed in the racial/gender/sexual orientation/differently-abled caste system of New America, but isn't about time this was officially codified? It may be perfectly clear that "old white men" Republicans better have only postive things to say about anyone outside their own demographic, but what are the rules for everyone else? I mean, the time is going to come when a black female congressperson is going to feel the need to say something critical about the performance of a gay Hispanic administration official, and we need to be clear as to whether or not this is permitted.
ReplyDeleteClyburne isn't exactly wrong. Yes, conservatives do use a lot of codewords, but why? Because our culture of political correctness doesn't allow us to speak openly and forthrightly about racial, sexual, and political matters.
ReplyDeleteSo, Clyburne is barking up the wrong tree if he wants social and political discourse to be more honest. He should condemn political correctness for the preponderance of codewords as substitutes for honest discussion.
We should live in a society where we can't honestly discuss the problems of black crime, Jewish power, gay agenda, feminist lunacy, illegal invasion and its costs, and etc. If you express even the slightest 'wrong' sentiments about such issues, you are hounded by politically correct hysteria as a 'racist', 'antisemite, 'homophobe', 'xenophobe' and etc., all of which are instant career destroyers for many people.
Ideally, we should be able to discuss all manner of social issues in relation to racial, sexual, and cultural differences.
But truth has been banned as 'hate', and therefore, so many people--honest liberals as well as conservatives--often resort to codewords to get their views across.
But then, Clyburne doesn't want honest public discourse on the most compelling issues of the day. He supports the policy of political correctness that forces so many people to use codewords. So, he is part of the problem, but he attacks the political culture of using codewords. His ilk have created the climate of having-to-resort-to-codewords, but he bitches and whines about the culture of codewordery.
Does Clyburne prefer a return to honest discourse where we can speak freely and openly about all manner of social, cultural, and political topics? Of course not. He is totalitarian who wants to ban not only codewords but the hidden thoughts behind them.
Like so many recent liberals and blacks, the message to conservatives is DON'T EVEN THINK OR MAKE CONSERVATIVE ARGUMENTS AT ALL.
Traditional liberals called for more open debate, and their way of dealing with conservatives was debating, discussing, and arguing in an open exchange of ideas, and in this regard, liberals had the moral upperhand in intellectual matters.
But there was always another kind of 'liberal' or 'leftist' who didn't so much want to argue with opposing sides and win the argument empirically and rationally but to silence opposing sides altogether and impose the correct orthodoxy.
These radical liberals feel this way out of arrogance, blindness, cowardice, and impatience. They arrogantly think they know all the answers and are fanatical in their blindness. But they are also afraid that their Iron Truth might crumble if it were to come in contact with the real truth. Deep down inside, some of them fear that their Iron Truth is really made of glass.
They are also impatient to change society to their liking, and that means shutting down all debates so that everyone will just go with the program like sheep.
In the past, liberals said, "Let's talk about race, sexuality, immigration, and etc, etc." Today, they say, "you conservatives better not say this, better not say that, better remain mum, better just agree with us, and do as we tell you. We liberals know best about what the 'new conservatism' should be, and so, don't think for yourself and don't make up your own minds since we liberals know what and how you conservatives should really think." So, what should the 'new conservatism' be?
ReplyDeleteJust a pale imitation of politically correct liberalism.
The big irony of the so-called 'liberal ideological/intellectual victory'...
Liberals seem to think that the re-election of Obama has vindicated the liberal ideology but not so. Nothing Obama has done in the past 4 yrs had demonstrated that liberalism works better than conservatism. Nothing that has happened has vindicated Paul Krugman or Maureen Dowd.
Obama won not because liberal ideas were better but because the American population added many more dummies. If anything, Obama got fewer votes among educated people in 2012 than in 2008. But he got the lion share of the Hispanic vote and the like. This was no liberal intellectual or ideological victory. It was victory of demographics and racial politics. I mean Jesse Jackson Jr. won re-election too, so what does that prove? The victory of Jacksonite liberalism? Gimme a break.
A community with a lot of dummies will cast dumb votes. And as US becomes dumber, Dems will be favored. Very ironic since Democratic party is the party of the intellectual class. Funny that the party of the intellectual class won not with better ideas but with more dummies voting for it. Even more ironic is the fact that so-called smart intellectuals think they won the debate because they got more dummies and illegals to vote their party.
I mean what is the great liberal intellectual idea of 2012? "We got the Hispanic vote because we offer tons of freebies to illegals, and we got the single female ho vote because we offer them more stuff at the expense of taxpayers."
THAT is an intellectual or moral argument? Sounds more like massive bribery to me.
tim geithner, steve chu, janet napolitano, and ben "big money" bernanke are also totally incompetent. is it ok to criticize them or is that not allowed either.
ReplyDeleteobviously ken salazar and hilda solis are totally off limits from any and all cricisim despite being clueless (and corrupt now too), but maybe we can call out education secretary slam dunkin' for not knowing WTF he's talking about? are we even allowed to mention john bryson's name? and lol @ this petraeus guy. who else but a scumbag would accept an appointment by the obama administration?
who ISN'T completely incompetent in the obama administration? ray lahood i guess? tom vilsack? unfortunately for ray lahood, car crash deaths went UP this year, and tom vilsack had to deal with a drought.
I guess the takeaway is that, because of America's segregationist history, blacks can never be labeled incompetent.
ReplyDeleteIn a sane country, this kind of Orwellian claptrap would be lampooned in late-night TV monologues. Instead, the media and political elites basically nod in silent agreement.
And each time they do, a bit of them dies.
Comparing out-of-wedlock births in Sweden to the US and the proportion of intact families in both.
ReplyDeleteThe elephant in the room that no one will mention is kind of funny.
Hook-up culture. Looking for sex without commitment.
ReplyDeleteBook-up culture. Gaining knowledge without commitment.
http://www.cracked.com/blog/the-5-stupidest-ways-people-try-to-look-smart/
ReplyDeletePriss Asagiri said...
ReplyDeleteClyburne isn't exactly wrong. Yes, conservatives do use a lot of codewords, but why? Because our culture of political correctness doesn't allow us to speak openly and forthrightly about racial, sexual, and political matters.
My favourite conservative code-word is "family". As in FOCUS ON THE FAMILY = focus on the almost non-existent White Anglo-Saxon Protestant family that always needs shoring-up. Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, Asians, and Jews have much stronger families; and I suggest that the misandrist Protestants in charge of the conservative movement follow their example.
The elephant in the room that no one will mention is kind of funny.
ReplyDeleteIt's not funny, love of Scandinavian style welfare states is like love of endless stimulus spending for hard core Keynesians like Krugman. No amount of deficit spending is ever enough for Paul. You spend 800B dollars, and it didn't work, it's wasn't enough, clearly. All the trillions of dollars Japan has spent on stimulus? Not enough because it didn't work, so it clearly wasn't enough because Maynard Keynes proved deficit spending always works. But despite it not working it saved us from a depression, so it was necessary. If we spent 2 trillion dollars and nothing happened it would just prove it wasn't enough. Likewise a paternalistic welfare state works in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, so therefore it has to work in the US, Canada, France, etc... those countries just didn't spend enough per capita or didn't allow for as much generous benefits as those Scandinavian paradises. The fact that the culture isn't the same, never once occurs to anyone. Because we all know Zimbabwe could just as rich as Singapore, if only it had wise and benevolent bureaucrats running it. Come on, right wingers, get with the program!!!!!!!!
We had classic racism for about five hundred years. The Portugese landed in Africa about the middle of the fifteenth century. Every informed European held that African blacks were intellectually inferior.
ReplyDeleteAbout the middle of the twentieh century it became fashionable to consider black inferiority some epiphenomenon caused by colonialism and/or slavery. Starting at that time no one was supposed to use the 'N' word or speak about observed racial differences.
In fact the evidence piled up that African blacks were indeed intellectually inferior but no one was allowed to say so.
So for sixty some years America has had a crisis in candor. In the privacy of your own mind - you dare not speak out loud - almost everyone recognizes that blacks as a population are simply not as smart as Caucasians and Asians. This means that everyone who wants to comment on the behavior of blacks in general or some single black person has to walk through a verbal minefield.
Time for change. If you want to end this egregious nonsense - speak candidly. Be polite but speak openly of black inferiority. Blacks are less competent in almost every endevor except basketball but this incident with the Benghazi incidents had nothing to do with general black inferiority. Don't confuse population characteristics with individual characteristics.
Being candid is the only solution to the mess we are in. It will take a good deal of courage of course, but meally mouthed euphemisms will just delay the turn around. No one will accuse you of using code words if you are candid.
Albertosaurus
"who ISN'T completely incompetent in the obama administration?"
ReplyDeleteWho WAS competent in the Bush administration.
Who WAS competent in the Bush administration.
ReplyDeleteRumsfeld, probably the only one.
PC makes you stupid:
ReplyDeleteDems call Bush the chimp and caricature him as a chimp and that's okay.
Reps call Obama the chimp and caricature him as a chimp and that's RRRRRRAACCCCIISSS!!!
They're too stupid to see their own (obvious) racism.
They're so haole they don't even know they're haole.
OT, I loved the photo Drudge used yesterday of Paul Krugman holding a cat. He looked like a cross between Ernst Stavro Blofeld and Corky St. Clair.
ReplyDeleteBlacks are less competent in almost every endevor except basketball
ReplyDeleteCue T comment on cornerbacks in 3...2...1...
"Is the position of Secretary of State being downsized, losing its importance, becoming a symbolic gesture without power or influence?"
ReplyDeleteYes, I think so. In comparison, there's never been a woman or a black Federal Reserve Chairman or Treasury Secretary or Goldman Sachs CEO. The modern age has given us a new way to tell sinecures from seats of real power.
To anonymous @ 6:40. That was an excellent article you cited. Too bad the libertarians who read this and related sites won't bother to read it and if they did, won't understand it and if they did, won't believe it. They are as daft as unrepentant liberals and the pejorative term libtard applies equally to both sects. Libertarians await the "second coming" of free-market capitalism as eagerly as fervent Marxists awaited the worker's paradise.
ReplyDeleteOf course, stating the obvious at least to the crowd here, the most interesting thing about this is what he doesn't implies when he calls it racist to use the word,"incompetent".
ReplyDeleteOf course, even spelling it out wouldn't do any good among the 50.000001% crowd who elected Obama.
" Hail said...
ReplyDelete"f Obama is a prime example of a mixed-race person who looks mostly black, Susan Rice's two children are the exact opposite."
Photo of Rice with White husband and kids"
Damn, those kids are so white, they look even whiter than the dad!
You know, sad to say it, but these kids are the guys making out like bandits from AA. They're probably around 7/8ths white, so the drop in IQ from their African ancestry is likely minimal to none, and they obviously will grow up in a well-to-do neighborhood/school so they have every advantage, but they get to check off black on their college admissions entrance, on every job application, scholarship, etc for their whole life, so get all the perks from that. That's the near-future of the US. And how AA will eventually die.
Instead of incompetent, one must use "differently competenced" or "competency-challenged".
ReplyDeleteSomeone should tell Jim Clyburn "I am not a racist, and to prove it, let me respond to your allegations by quoting a famous black poet."
ReplyDeleteNoggin said...
ReplyDelete" And how AA will eventually die."
--------------------
No, it will just be refined using the disadvantaged percentage of your genome.
Snapperhead:
ReplyDeleteNo, that's giving them too much credit. This is a magic-word argument. Years and years of white guilt and intellectual laziness have made crying "racism" a rather effective way to shut someone up. So lots of people use it.
It's not that they're never right--sometimes, the person they're accusing of racism really is a racist. It's not that they're always defending the wrong side--this clown would make the same magic word argument whether Rice was the very picture of competence or so inept she couldn't find the ladies' room.
This tells you nothing about Rice or her attackers. It only tells you that the guy making this argument is trying to shut his opponents up with a cheap shot.
In the second comment on this thread (11/20/12 6:40 AM), Anonymous posted a naked link to an interview with Richard Duncan in vol. 77 of The New Left Review, A New Global Depression?
ReplyDelete- - - begin excerpt - - -
But with no restraint on credit, either, credit growth exploded [once the U.S. went off the gold standard in 1973]... In the US, total debt... expanded from $1 trillion in 1964 to over $50 trillion by 2007 (Figure 5). Credit growth on this scale has been taken for granted as natural; but in fact it is something entirely new under the sun—only made possible because the US broke the link between dollars and gold. This explosion of credit created today’s world... Not only did it make the global economy much bigger than it would have been otherwise, it changed the nature of the economic system itself. I would argue that American capitalism has evolved into something different—in my latest book, The New Depression, I call it ‘creditism’.
- - - end excerpt - - -
I'd apreciate any links to credible rebuttals of Duncan's ideas.
Susan Rice looks far more attractive than either Hillary or that other Sec of State named Rice.
ReplyDeleteIf nude photos of hers were leak out I wouldnt mind taking a peak!
ReplyDelete"Is the position of Secretary of State being downsized, losing its importance, becoming a symbolic gesture without power or influence?"
Yes, I think so. In comparison, there's never been a woman or a black Federal Reserve Chairman or Treasury Secretary or Goldman Sachs CEO. The modern age has given us a new way to tell sinecures from seats of real power. "
All goog points, however no position of power is immune from identity politics but the good news that in such cases power is quickly divested to other parties.
In the case of Hillary,in 08 administration she was undercuty by George Mitchel,Richard Hobrooke,Cass Sunstein(Tamil and Chinese speaker-talk about esoteric talents!) , James Jones and Susan Rice(which is why she was sent out as a mouthpiece after BenGhazi)who quite promptly coopted entire regions of South Asia, China, Middle East ,Pakistan and Afghanistan from her influence for themselves.
Time was that the Vice Presidency was considered an irrelevant post.I think the shift of irrelevancy from VP to SecState really started with Gore and went into in hyperdrive with Cheney and Powell/Rice.
Ideally the Presidency should be as devoid as executive power as possible and Congress and Senate run the affairs..but....
Ron Paul...we couldve used if you werent equal parts crank and awesome.
The guilty flee when no man pursueth.
ReplyDeleteShut up, he explained.
ReplyDelete"Galvani's Frog Dance Theatre's Orchestra Conductor said...
ReplyDeleteThe original accusations against Bush - that he is dumb, that he is a tool of evil corporation, that he is a cowboy warmonger - made hardly a dent in his popularity. Only when the Dems switched gears and began the campaign of hammering Bush with charges of incompetency (Katrina, etc.), the charges gained traction and his popularity nosedived, even among his supporters."
They were helped by the fact that Bush is a dummy.
"jody said...
ReplyDeleteWho ISN'T completely incompetent in the obama administration? ray lahood i guess? tom vilsack? unfortunately for ray lahood, car crash deaths went UP this year, and tom vilsack had to deal with a drought."
Vilsack is only notionally Secretary of Agriculture, i.e. in the sense of being a public servant. Primarily he is a lobbyist for Monsanto and other agribusinesses.
"It is a shame that anytime something goes wrong, they pick on women and minorities," Fudge added.
ReplyDeleteAffirmation for the late, great Joe Sobran.
>"It is a shame that anytime something goes wrong, they pick on women and minorities"<
ReplyDeleteCherchez la femme et le noir.
I'm surprised no one mentioned the greatest codeword of all: 'anti-racist' -- aka anti-white. It's been proven many times over that whites will happily, gleefully screw themselves if they can be convinced that some policy is necessary in order to 'fight racism.'
ReplyDeleteSure, most people will 'fight racism,' but their motivation is to fight racism against themselves. That's true even when it's, say, a latino fighting against anti-black racism. Deep down his feelings about blacks aren't much different to the 'racists' he's fighting against, but what he's really fighting against isn't to prevent racism against blacks, it's to prevent a change of direction or overflow to racism against his own kind. If you look you will notice that no non-white groups bother to fight anti-white racism. That's because they're all agreed that anti-white racism is in their interests. Don't bother trying to explain this to white people, though. Lol, white people.
TontoBubbaGoldstein quoted Fudge: "It is a shame that anytime something goes wrong, they pick on women and minorities," Fudge added.
ReplyDeleteHunsdon reminisced: "World ends, women and minorities suffer most"
Mr. Anon said: They were helped by the fact that Bush is a dummy.
ReplyDeleteHunsdon inquired: Personally, I regard the Iraq misadventure as so monumental a catastrophe that I am willing to arrogate to it the phrase "The Late Unpleasantness", and I carry no brief for George W.. With that said, lay down, brother, some evidence that George W. is a dummy. (When you refer to Bush, I assume that it is Bush the Lesser to whom you refer.)
"Hunsdon said...
ReplyDeleteWith that said, lay down, brother, some evidence that George W. is a dummy."
NCLB, Unlimited Immigration, DHS, TSA, Harriet Myers, John Roberts, Religion of Peace. Some of this, perhaps, may be chalked up to malice on his part, but I have to believe that some of it was just stupidity. Then there is also the fact that he sounds stupid. When someone sounds stupid, it's a good indication that he might, in fact, be stupid.
To Anonymous @ 11/20/12 5:37 PM:
ReplyDeleteThis (more or less) libertarian *did* read that "excellent article," all the way through. Though I'm not especially economically literate, I think I understood most of it. I have two main issues:
(1) Duncan prefers the current administration's approach to the ongoing financial crisis to the libertarian alternative because "it's better to die ten years from now than to die now." By which he means that *both* approaches lead inevitably to a second Great Depression, but the current approach at least delays it for a few years. This is unpersuasive, to put it mildly. Granted that going cold turkey on further indebtedness will bring about an immediate crash, mightn't it make that crash shorter and shallower than going *all in* with ever-increasing government spending on whatever strikes Barack Obama's fancy? Duncan doesn't even address this question. That is a mistake.
(2) Duncan's own preferred "solution" seems, frankly, silly. Go *all in* on further indebtedness, just like Obama/Bernanke - but dump it into "transformative 21st-century technologies like renewable energy, genetic engineering, biotechnology and nanotechnology" - just on the off chance that something might turn up and change the game?
I.e., "let a thousand Solyndra's bloom!"
I mean, what could possibly go wrong?
That said, I agree that the interview is fascinating, and frightening, and everybody, especially libertarians, ought to read it and think about it.
@AMac: I, too, would appreciate "any links to credible rebuttals" of Richard Duncan's views on the ongoing financial crisis. Personally, I find his diagnosis all too persuasive, but his cure hopelessly lacking.
ReplyDelete"With that said, lay down, brother, some evidence that George W. is a dummy..."
ReplyDeleteThread closed.
-Administrator
ReplyDeleteTroof: don't be so dull.
W. advanced his own interests and those of his family quite effectively. He's no "dummy."
He's other things. Much, much worse things.
http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/11/21/good-news-hecho-en-mexico/
ReplyDeleteMexicans no longer incompetentez.
"W. advanced his own interests and those of his family quite effectively. He's no "dummy."
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right, I was just keeping things simple for the purpose of the blog.