I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
These guys aren't being two faced are they?
Which is at lastt four more mouths than we need to hear from thm anyway
Somebody must be on vacation and should be hiding their head in shame.
But, of course, he won't.
Jesse Jackson, Guinier, Carol Mosely-Braun, Cynthia MaKinney, Earl Hilliard, and now Barack Obama.
The far right certainly saves some of it's most vicious attacks for African-American Democrats.
And now there's a open racist running for Congress in Tennessee that the White House refuses to condemn?
Sure has the appearance at times of Dixiecrat migration to the GOP leadership, doesn't it?
Before there was "Google bombing" there was " 'fact' bombing."
Which isn't a good name for it at all, but it's the antithesis of scholarship, and especially attractive in an anti-intellectual culture like the U.S.
Scholarship is slow and tedious because it requires rigorous thought and attention to detail. Why, for instance, do so many people think that Medieval theologians busily debated how many angels could dance on the head of a pin? Because it's true! Except it isn't.
It was a joke made up in the Renaissance, to moke the interests of another age. But we all know it to be true, just like we know the "Middle Ages" were a dark period of fear, superstition, and foolishness. (Hint: also now true.)
But it is taking a new generation of historians, 600+ years later, to straighten that out.
Not surprising, then, the technigue is so effective in "real time." What's missing are the liberal "think tanks" with scholars on hand to counter this "spew" the moment it is announced. The times are propitious. The "think tanks" that brought us neo-conservatism have been shown to be morally and intellectually bankrupt. Ann Coulter now spins McCarthyism, Michelle Malkin will soon be excusing slavery.
The iron is hot. Progressives and liberals need to unite, form "think tanks" of their own, and start responding to this kind of crap before we have another Guinier in the Kerry Administration.
Because just because the neo-cons are going down in a blaze of infamy (and possibly taking the country with them), doesn't mean they'll be gone for good come January.
"Mokc"?
Damn. Should, of course, be "mock."
As in: "My own typos mock my intent to be clear."
I'm sure many of you have seen this clip of Chimpster, but here it is anyway.
1992 wedding video excerpt--shot years after Bush went cold turkey in July 1986--needs to be preserved for future generations
Drinking?
Crap.
"(Hint: also not true.)" is how it should read.
Aw, just wipe it clean and let's try again later.....
(damndamndamndamndamndamndamndamn)
Here - have a nice political monograph with your morning coffee:
"Racial Politics and the Clinton-Guinier Episode," Dissent, (Spring 1995): 221-235. [An exchange about this article appeared in Dissent, (Fall 1995) - Lani Guinier, "The Miner's Canary: Race and the Democratic Process", and David Plotke, "Response": 521-529]
I'm reading David Brock's "The Republican Noise Machine" now and it has all the info anyone could possibly want on Thernstrom's background and funding. The book is great, by the way. Long story short, Thernstrom's a monster from way back.
sorry, I'm the Big Dogs biggest fan and Guinier was out there on the edge even for me. she would probably have been a decent civil rights defender but what people criticized about her writing was her whole proportional representation thing. that's st. raplph's bs.
one man, one vote. not first, second and third choices and the like. we are a constitutional republic, not a scandanavian socialist paradise.
there are more of us than there are of them. if we mobilize and vote we win. we don't need silly tricks that will get nutty greens or right wingnuts elected. the power of persuasion and ideas, not voting trickery is the solution not ginning the system.
Obama will prove this on 11/02.
And to think I recently witnessed a veritable cavalcade of well meaning Dem supporters going on about how we shouldn't use Goss's own words about how he couldn't work for the CIA today because that's not exactly what he meant.
Oh, thank you for talking about Lani! I have been steaming about the treatment she received ever since, and I've been pissed off at the amnesia over her.
Anonymous,
Only in "Amurca" could someone like that find work......
It may have been true long ago
That all Repukes didn't totally blow.
That's no longer the case.
We just have to face
The fact that they're fucking psycho.
"The iron is hot. Progressives and liberals need to unite, form "think tanks" of their own, and start responding to this kind of crap before we have another Guinier in the Kerry Administration."
I believe "think tank" is the wrong word to use. "Think tanks" are an older concept and decribe a place where future government policy is research and crafted.
The Heritage Foundation is not a think tank. It is an entity that actively promotes an ideology and philosophy. There's no "research" or "crafting" going on at the Heritage Foundation. It's all about marketing their ideology.
So I think the discussion would be better served by asking... how do we all market progressive ideals better?
But what does Mary Rosh say about the Florida election? (snicker)
sorry...1st paragraph in the above post is a Robert M. Jeffers quote... the rest is response to that
Gore Vidal has also written about "The Therns" as I recall.
That they were published in a racist rag like The New Republic is no surprise. That they still have access to NYT op-eds is revolting.
we really need a have you no shame momment
"how do we all market progressive ideals better?"
bannedmann | Email | Homepage | 08.14.04 - 11:04 am | #
Maybe we can start here.
george bush cannot speak english.
Has the NY(W) Times written any scathing editorials on DeLay's and his flying monkeys' (thus far successful) efforts to gerrymander Congressional districts along racial and socio-econ lines to ensure that right wing white males get elected to Congress?
I mean, who can blame DeLay? Wealthy, powerful, white males just don't have enough voice or enfranchisement in this country and truly need some more folks on the Hill to champion their causes.
BTW, I am a Southern White Male (oh, and protestant, too). So I can talk.
For any who thought I was a South Seas islander, and heir to a bamboo throne in a thatched hut somewhere, hate to disappoint.
Queequeg
____________________
"how do we all market progressive ideals better?"
bannedmann | Email | Homepage | 08.14.04 - 11:04 am | #
Maybe we can start here.
http://www.rockridgeinstitute.or...ic/framing/
view
-Katie Dingo
That's a start. Looks like they need a lot more resources aimed at the concept of strategic framing of arguments.
Anonymous,
Actually, it struck me that dumbyass spoke much more comfortably in that clip than he ever does in a formal political announcement. It's just astonishing to see him be this overgrown dumbass entitled frat boy and still have people "like" him or whatever. Who are these pod people who "like" him? Sorry to ask such an obvious question over and over again, but I just can't get my head around it. Owwww.
Shorter Republican Party Platform in perpetuity:
Apparently, some of us feel comfortable providing special protections for wealthy landlords or white South Africans, but we brand as "divisive" and "radical" the idea of providing similar remedies to include black Americans, who after centuries of racial oppression are still excluded.
OT: Here's a focused stormblog. Some great reports from the areas hardest hit by Charley...
http://weatherbug.blogs.com/
"If the officeholders are not 'community-based,' 'culturally rooted' and politically and psychologically 'authentic,' then they're 'tokens contaminated by white support'...."
Even though this comment is only attributed to Thernstrom's caricature of Guinier, I don't disagree with it. It applies to people of all races. I don't believe a rich bastard, of either party, represents me in Congress. I think a representative, to be "authentic," should come from the same community as the people he represents--and that means not just geographically, but economically. To represent working people, a pol should know what it means to get his hands dirty, live on mac & cheese at times, and be a couple of paychecks away from living on the street.
I live in a city where about half the aldermen are "at large"--and they all come from the same rich neighborhood. Two hundred years ago, the Anti-Federalists opposed Congressional districts of 30,000 because they feared only the rich and connected could afford to make themselves known to such a large number of voters. Today, districts are 600,000+. At the turn of the twentieth century, "reformers" proposed at-large aldermen and citywide school districts for the same reason. City councils and neighborhood school boards had entirely too many workers and small business people in them, and increasing the size of the district would ensure that only properly qualified "professionals" could get elected.
Of course, I think class matters a lot more than race in establishing "authenticity." That's why I don't care nearly as much about cabinets and boards of directors that "look like America" in a racial sense, as I do about breaking the power of such organizations over working people's lives altogether. A racially diverse ruling class just means that working people get to enjoy a pleasure that us white folks have had for centuries: of knowing that the people who are screwing us have the same pigmentation. The left committed suicide by abandoning old-fashioned class struggle for identity politics.
If my local government is controlled by real estate developers and bankers who use their position to line their own pockets, I don't give a rat's ass what color they are. Their heads need to be on pikes in front of City Hall. And the same principle applies at every level of government.
Gore Vidal's critique of the Thernstroms ("Bad History", published in The Nation in 1998 and now I think available in a Vidal collection) is one of the all-time great demolition jobs. (Nabokov's comment about another review applies: Vidal takes the Thernstroms apart "as if they were an unfamiliar and possibly defective type of coffee machine.")
That the Thernstroms continue to make public statements after Vidal says something about their brazenness.
Because just because the neo-cons are going down in a blaze of infamy (and possibly taking the country with them), doesn't mean they'll be gone for good come January.
Robert M. Jeffers |
While we've got them on a retreat, we've got to get our troops in order, & smash them while we can or we'll just have another White House neocon in 2004 or 2008 to deal with. USA & the World can not afford this risk.
Queequeg -- Does that mean you don't have the secrets of the universe tatooed on your skin, either?
I've only done a cursory reading of Guinier's works but as a political science grad student took some courses & was influenced by Positive Theory, then an up & coming field in political science (really game theory as the overarching framework for the analysis of politics).
Most of the academicians in this field had a middle to conservative ideological orientation. One of the big topics that Positive Theorists were enthusiastic about was proportional representation, the one area where the media correctly identified Guinier's position. Rather than being radical, its a fairly commonsensical view of elections - that voters should be able to vote their true preferences in a meaningful sort of way. Under the present system, if you don't get 50%+ vote out of your party/candidates, you get no representation. Under proportional representation, a party that gets 25% votes gets 25% of the seats.
Sorry if I come across as being pedantic. Its just that Guinier wasn't some radical but simply a academian interested in voting mechanisms & how they reflect political beliefs.
Think tanks? "Think tanks"?
One reason I put them in quotes. They are propaganda centers, and not the traditional "think tank" as the term was first intended. But it's another term the "right" has confiscated for its own obfuscatory purposes.
Call them what you will, they have proven a most effective method of marketing ideas. So far, progressives and liberals have: Michael Moore; Amy Goodman; Al Franken; Molly Ivins; Noam Chomsky; Jim Hightower; and a few others who don't come to mind readily.
See a pattern? Individual efforts, not combined, or even joint. People as "liberal" as Joe Conasan regularly lambasts Chomsky as "too extreme," for example, and Amy Goodman is largely unknown outside of Pacifica listeners. Disagreements are obviously to be allowed; but without some joint and cooperative efforts, the neo-cons will always represent the "Establishment" (i.e., received wisdom), and the challengers will always be on the outside shouting in.
Fine position for true radicals (i.e., those trying to follow Jesus of Nazareth, not Jesus of Western Culture), but no place for a political movement.
"one man one vote" is a nice slogan but it doesn't really mean much. Democracy isn't "50%+1 takes all" by definition, and it obviously isn't that in our current system (see Senate, U.S., electoral college, election systems for city council members, etc... etc...) As Carter says, Guinier was interested in different voting mechanisms, many of which existed historically or even survive in some places today. Her ides were not radical by any stretch. Whether or not we want to implement them is something to debate, "anti-democratic" they are/wer enot.
That the Thernstroms continue to make public statements after Vidal says something about their brazenness.
Or: how little the "mainstream" pays attention to "The Nation" or Vidal.
Didn't he write Myra Breckenridge? That, sadly, is what most people connect his fame to. That, and maybe his biography of Burr. Little beyond that, unfortunately.
I wonder how many really know what an insightful, and political, writer and thinker he is? No one has heard, still, of the "daddy" of neo-conservatism (and his name escapes me now). But we all live today with the consequences of his influence.
Why not Vidal? Or Chomsky? Both supremely rational thinkers (in the American, pragmatic mold). Why are they seen as "radical," when the completely impractical and non-pragmatic neo-cons are seen as "wise men"?
What manner of madness is this, except the power of organized centers of propaganda, and theory propagation.
Time to get organized our 'ownselves'.
bannedmann:The Heritage Foundation is not a think tank. It is an entity that actively promotes an ideology and philosophy. There's no "research" or "crafting" going on...It's all about marketing their ideology.
Great post. The original think tanks were primarily analytical & oriented toward empirical research; the right wing ones, that were created largely through the funding of Coor, Scaiffe & other right wing radicals, simply market an ideology. There's about much original thinking going on as there is in Grant's tomb.
Ot.
I sure hope the recovery efforts in Florida dont get screwed up by politics and the Bushes supreme efforts to get relected.I'm already hearing wording to that effect on CNN.
You can be rest assured this will play some kind of role in the campaign.
OT: America's Best Places to Live 2003
by Sperling's Best Places
1. Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill, NC
2. Denver, CO
3. San Diego, CA
4. Punta Gorda, FL
Located on Florida's Gulf Coast, Punta Gorda has the best economy score in the nation. Current and future job growths are both excellent, the unemployment rate is very low, and the cost of living is affordable. Florida's tax structure can be very favorable—there's no personal income tax. House prices are low and appreciate quickly, and utilities are inexpensive. Punta Gorda's 14,000 residents also enjoy the peace of mind that comes with a very low property crime rate, an extremely low personal crime rate, and low health care costs. Punta Gorda's climate is comfortable and commute times are short. A very poor transit score and a significant lack of recreation options only partially offset the great quality of life Punta Gorda offers.
5. Tucson, AZ..."
http://houseandhome.msn.com/
Move...toLive2003.aspx
I guess Charley took care of that. There's reports leaking out that hundreds are missing with "significant loss of life" expected. The tragic irony here is almost Shakespearean.
To cs: Secrets of the Universe.
I keep my tatoos in a Persian slipper on the mantle. Sometimes I take them out and put them on. Sometimes I just sit and let other people watch the stories unfold, letting the shoe thrive and writhe on The Other Foot.
But, enough of this. I must get back to hunting the gopers out there. They task me, you know.
Queequeg
_______________________
To: smalfish.
Bush 41, it can certainly be argued, lost Florida in '92 due to his and his administration's feckless, indifferent response to hurricane Andrew.
"House prices are low and appreciate quickly"
Must be some Jeb Bush trick, because I don't see how real estate could "appreciate quickly" in a market where home prices remain low.
Poor Florida. First Charley, now an epidemic of Bushes.
Clinton's treatment of Lani Guinier was horrible. I have to say I pretty much turned on him after that. I thought it was despicable, the way he caved in to the bullshit.
I don't think he'd do that today. He learned the hard way that you can't appease the right-wing hate machine. It's a voracious monster that is never sated...
And, speaking of which, The Oregonian today is carrying a hateful piece by Kathleen Parker that stops just short of saying Kerry lied about his war record and his injuries. Instead of saying Kerry is lying, Parker suggests he is "fantasizing" because he has always been hungry to be the center of attention.
Shorter Kathleen Parker: If people accuse Kerry of self-inflicted wounds, Kerry should be investigated, even if it isn't true.
To: smalfish.
Bush 41, it can certainly be argued, lost Florida in '92 due to his and his administration's feckless, indifferent response to hurricane Andrew.
-Queequeg
Reporters were hammering Gov. Jeb in a press conference for evacuating Tampa early, but not getting the evacuation order out quick enough to the area the Hurricane went ashore.
I really don't remember a Hurricane that ever took a straight line course. Charley was aimed at Tampa for a while, but hurricanes never stay going in the same direction for very long. Jeb had a Cat. 4 hurricane bearing down, shouldn't he have just ordered the whole state into shelters?
First of all Guinier really wasn't that out there. She advocated a system that was used in Illinois for the state lege for over 100 years. As a fairly new resident - they got rid of that system in 1980 - I sat up and took notice at the people calling for its return.
As for Cynthia McKinney, she's back. She won a crowded primary in that district with more than 50% of the vote in a safe Dem district.
When I was in graduate school in the late 90's, I had to read the Thernstroms' fucking book for a fucking course in fucking sociology. I took one chapter of the book, blew it away with fucking government statistics, and got a fucking A.
And, speaking of which, The Oregonian today is carrying a hateful piece by Kathleen Parker that stops just short of saying Kerry lied about his war record and his injuries. Instead of saying Kerry is lying, Parker suggests he is "fantasizing" because he has always been hungry to be the center of attention.
No... Parker accuses everyone in the the WHOLE US NAVY of "fantasizing" except John Kerry. Kerry's crewmates. Kerry's superior officers. Kerry's command structure. Servicemen cannot and do not recommend themselves for medals. Kerry is the one person uninvolved in the process which led to Kerry recieving multiple medals for heroism.
No serviceman writes the
Guinier was totally in the mainstream. There was nothing outthere about her.
What's Guinier got to do with 2004? I don't get it.
Meanwhile, the Bush family is going to try to turn this hurricane disaster into a campaign poster for George in 2004 and Jeb in 200??
lisa: Clinton's treatment of Lani Guinier was horrible. I pretty much turned on him after that. I thought it was despicable, the way he caved in to the bullshit.
Clinton did what presidents that are against the wall on their nominations always do (except for W who'll be a one termer), move on. The true agenda of a president is changing policy, whether its environmental, health, economic, poverty. Having to battle Congress for 6 months + over a nominee drains a president of resources & prestige that should be used to affect policy changes. What happened to Guinier is more a reflection of Republican than Clinton's character.
Its also another reason to get rid of Senator Specter, that so called moderate.
What's Guinier got to do with 2004? I don't get it.
It's historical media whoring that they're all too willing to practice today.
new thread up
And, speaking of which, The Oregonian today is carrying a hateful piece by Kathleen Parker that stops just short of saying Kerry lied about his war record and his injuries. Instead of saying Kerry is lying, Parker suggests he is "fantasizing" because he has always been hungry to be the center of attention.
No... Parker accuses everyone in the the WHOLE US NAVY of "fantasizing" except John Kerry. Kerry's crewmates. Kerry's superior officers. Kerry's command structure. Servicemen cannot and do not recommend themselves for medals. Kerry is the one person uninvolved in the process which led to Kerry recieving multiple medals for heroism.
I love this. Bush goes on a 2 decade long bender, disappears from TANG, his records vanish for years, then finally show up and prove true what was widely suspected; he's reportedly lost years, not just a weekend or two, to drugs; run every company he's ever touched into the ground; come out on top because of how Daddy is; fleeced the people of Arlington, Texas like sheep...
...and Kerry's the one to worry about, based on a past that is being lied about to degrees unimaginable by the likes of "Tricky Dick" Nixon.
How do these people get their fantasies into print in newspapers?
Tomato Observer: Did you enjoy the fuckin course?
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
OT: Video is now being shown on CNN. It looks like Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte look just like South Dade Co. after Andrew.
Robert Jeffers, as Maia says, the GOP takes the truth and turns it upside down and inside out. It is not so much lies they tell as anti-truth.
On a separate matter, say one Hail Mary for each of the d--ns and go ye and sin no more, my son. 
Emergency turkee to FLA.
When Lani Guinier's nomination was torpedoed by the right-wing slime machine, America's loss was greater than hers.
Totally, OT, but yet another example of the press being a shameless tool. Salon had another interesting article about Annie Jacobsen's crusade against Syrian musicians. What I found truly disturbing was the fact that a group called the Federal Air Marshal Association (FAMA), is not an official government entity but, "several media accounts discussing Annie Jacobsen include statements from FAMA, ostensibly speaking on the government's behalf." All govt. agencies, of course, have refuted Jacobsen's allegations, yet the bonehead press insists on quoting a group whose head is not even a Federal Air Marshall.
I really recommend going to FAMA’s website, do not skip the intro- it is one of the most shameless pieces of propaganda and fear-mongering that I've seen, (okay, maybe not, but it is truly dispicable). It is infuriating that the press even quotes these people. The article is worth putting up with Salon's sponsorship ads.
" was Thernstrom's pretense that she was citing Guinier in those scare quotes."
reminds me of that Chris Farley skit on SNL, using the quotes hand sign for every other word.
but but but wasn't Bork the first victim(even though he deserved it)
Media lies. Look at the MSN Homepage and it reads "Uneasy Najaf Truce Holds." Click on the story and you find that negotiations have collapsed.
Could it be they know most people don't read the story and do what Ralph Reed's embedded editors want them to believe that Iraq has an olympic team and things are good in Iraq?
Guinier was slandered mercilessly and Clinton behaved abominably--not to mention suicidally, since caving on her nomination was all the blood in the water the Rethugs needed to know they could walk all over him. NO ONE bothered to actually read what she wrote and ask he about it.
Let's be clear about this--Guinier was the sort of stellar nominee who comes along only once in a decade, or perhaps a generation. She had written profoundly about one of the fundamental problems confronting the American body politic--the persistence of racialized voting, even after overt racism had been soundly repudiated. Her solution--while somewhat technical--was easily graspable: give representation to groups of people of like minds, rather than like bodies. That is what proportional representation is designed to do. PERIOD.
Virtally every democracy in the world outside of the US and Britain uses some form of this. Even in the US, corporate boards use it. (They may not want it for the rest of us, but for themselves, they insist on it.) After the partition of Ireland, both parts were obliged to use proportional representation for a period of several years. Both parts were bitterly divided internally, culturally, plitically, and religiously. Northern Ireland got rid of proportional representation as soon as legally allowed. We all know what a blood bath that has produced. Ireland kept proportional representaiton to this day--and has had a continuous series of minority, coalition governments which have produced a far more peaceful, civil society. Such is the real-world record of the "radical" "out there" ideas she proposed.
If Guinier had been given the spotlight in a confirmation hearing, it would have been a profound educational opportunity. All manner of misconceptions could have been brought up, and dispelled. Instead, Clinton abandoned her--without ever allowing her to defend herself in public.
This is what the Clinton apologists gloss over, forget, or never knew in the first place. Clinton allowed Guinier to be attacked falsely and repeatedly, while demanding that she remain silent, and refusing to defend her personally, or through other Administration spokespeople. Thus, it was not a strategic decision on his part to give up a lost battle. It was a decision to not even fight in the first place--which only encouraged the Rethugs to do more of the same. This victory Clinton handed them was the birthplace of Harry & Louise, and GOP control of the House of Representatives that continues to this day.
I had the disturbing experience of meeting Abigail Thernstrom when I was a graduate student. She told a political science seminar that desegregation of the Boston Public Schools was a violation of the civil rights of white families, who were forced to send their kids to Catholic school or move to the suburbs since permitting their children to attend school with those people was obviously not an option.
I practically barfed on the carpet. She is a vicious, unashamed racist. I told her so, in front of the crowd, and she just said, "okay."
True story, I have witnesses.
yeah the republican noise machine is great. im still not sure how to take brock, but he seems to be atoning for his years as a lying scaife political whore. i guess its forgive and forget time--its not like hes in the same category as elliot abrams.
Chiming in in support of proportional representation. It offers a means to open the door to 3rd party candidates, whose platform may more accurately represent a voter's views than the current Democratic Party. I object to being told I am "throwing my vote away" when my views are more similar to a 3rd party candidate. Proportional representation allows a voter to both vote with their conscience as well as have their vote counted in our current 2 party system.
re Najaf truce "holds" by collapsing:
We were reading something somewhere about how there is actually less content in newspapers than TV. TV is very broad but shallow, whereas newspaper columns are set up so as to be cut easily, so the truism that newspapers are inherently superior is false. The guy went on to note that many newspaper columns are skimmed or have just their headlines read, taking advantage of the inverted pyramid scam, even though often some "detail" is buried at the end and so missed which mitigates the conclusion foregone by the headline.
Anyway, recall the phenomenon remarked upon by leftist cartoonists around the time before the aggression against Iraq, where reputable newspaper headlines actually flatly contradicted the stories they announced. It was like Dan Perkins or somebody noticing this.
Consider that editors and publishers (overwhelmingly far-rightists) must know that most people juast skim headlines, must be canvassing their audience/market with surveys and so on constantly. A decision was made somewhere to bury the mitigating, inconvenient "detail" where it "belonged" at the nadir of the inverse pyramid, while headlines and first paragraphs were made to conform. After all, all the reader has to do to be free of the error is actually read the whole story-it's not like we're censoring anything.
Or, to clean that up a bit:
We in the US use the inverted-pyramid scheme, an unnatural scheme devised by penny-pinchers and not writers to optimize editing at the expense of writing.
It puts "what you need to know" at the very top, with importance descendiong as you approach the end.
This means that most people feel they can get a good gist of the day's stories, by just going over the very first bits of many items, in the time it would take to read one fully. And of course they see the headlines.
So if there was a blatantly false impression--not a propaganda lie you understand--embedded in that first part, corrected by a petty detail buried at the end, the publisher's not lying. He'd be lying if he didn't mention the detail, and he can't help it if people don't read the whole story.
I had the disturbing experience of meeting Abigail Thernstrom when I was a graduate st--
Cervantes
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz...
Ignorant attacks on Guinier are kind of a good example of a rightist tactic used over and over again, especially in racial issues and "free trade": they obscure a slightly more complicated reality with a saccharrin-sounding simplicity. Nobody ever lost by betting on American gullibility or ignorance.
This is the same reliance on American popular stupidity used against "quotas". Never mind Dr King's eloquent explanation of Affirmatiove Action, that doing something special for one party is a natural and necessary decency in view of the fact that doing something special for another party has already been the norm for centuries. It's "quotas", it's unfair. "Quotas" is "bad".
Similarly "free trade", actually the survival of colonial mercantilism, "free for me but never for thee", and "deregulation", actually the same lawlessness that gave us the Depression and countless consumer-targeting horrors, depend entirely on popular ignorance.
Ignorant attacks on Guinier are kind of a good example of a ri--
keiri & yedwards
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzz...
Oh, thank you for talking about Lani! I have been steaming about the treatment she received ever since, and I've been pissed off at the amnesia over her.
Avedon
Ditto -- but I've also been steaming about Clinton's treatment of her ever since. Along with his treatment of Joclyn Elders and Janet Reno.
Clinton was such a bastard. He's the perfect example (until Kerry is sworn in) of an ultra-rightist taking popular support for granted while shitting right onto people's faces. Besides his charisma, which Kerry will never have, their great selling point is But Look At The Alternative. How can any moral person not want to destroy and build from scratch the parties?
Rightists admit that they really have nothing to say and probably don't even understand the arguments, just saying "zzzzzzzz"
maya ibuki
ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...
Well, Atrios and most others missed a crucial point: Representatives *should* represent the actual views and values and character of their constituents, not just be optically similar! And, isn't a whole point of districts, to corral similar people together so they can vote for candidates like themselves? You see, even "you guys" get some drugging by the echo chamber, although the other points about distortion matter also.
Atrios is advocating optical similarity?
Guinier is not trying to better represent constituent values?
The purpose of population-based district representation is to "corral" people into zones of political homogeneity?
You're being sarcastic, right?
Well, Atrios and most others missed a crucial point: Representatives *should* represent the actual views and values and character of their constituents, not just be optically similar! And, isn't a whole point of districts, to corral similar people together so they can vote for candidates like themselves? You see, even "you guys" get some drugging by the echo chamber, although the other points about distortion matter also.
Reread my post - Perhaps Atrios was only saying, that Lani was being misrepresented, and didn't want to delve into the issues themselves. That's OK, because misrepresentation is wrong on the face of it. However, he didn't really step in to defend the ideas she was in effect "accused" of presenting (ie, she wasn't just idly misquoted, but her alleged positions were presented by her detractors as bad.) I wanted to say, making those points would have been OK anyway, because they're good points, and it would have been refreshing to hear some support of that (even if she missed doing it herself!) Sure, there's an ironic or sarcastic bent with the metaphors, but surely you get that there's no big gain for black folks just because the rep is "black" - why not just spray-paint a white man? I'm serious.
Or, you could just repeat yourself and hope I get exhausted...
A subtle point, but: sure, to "corral" insinuates that the fence is fixed and the critters are being moved, but certainly it can be appreciated that in the districting context, this means drawing the district lines around similar people who are under no pressure to move elsewhere. I'm sure you also realize, that the current scandal is more about putting incumbents in challenger-proof districts.
You're serious about procrustean spray-painting?
You didn't actually read the post, did you?
The critters...?
I had the disturbing experience of meeting Abigail Thernstrom when I was a graduate student. She told a political science seminar that desegregation of the Boston Public Schools was a violation of the civil rights of white families, who were forced to send their kids to Catholic school or move to the suburbs since permitting their children to attend school with those people was obviously not an option.
I practically barfed on the carpet. She is a vicious, unashamed racist. I told her so, in front of the crowd, and she just said, "okay."
True story, I have witnesses.
Cervantes
Worth repeating. One of the most revolting aspects of Thernstrom is how she trades on her little old and slightly disoriented lady persona. To me she's always seemed to be little more than a faculty wife scorned who is going to get revenge on an entire ethnicity for a complaint made against hubby.
This kind of thing seems to be a pattern with lots of university neo-cons. Anything that threatens their little lifestyle and they're ready to join the S.S. I knew one who went Republican when the students stopped calling him Dr.
Let's be clear about this--Guinier was the sort of stellar nominee who comes along only once in a decade, or perhaps a generation. She had written profoundly about one of the fundamental problems confronting the American body politic--the persistence of racialized voting, even after overt racism had been soundly repudiated. Her solution--while somewhat technical--was easily graspable: give representation to groups of people of like minds, rather than like bodies. That is what proportional representation is designed to do. PERIOD.
Paul Rosenberg
I agree. The reason conservatives don't like it is the same reason they like the Senate and electoral college. If her ideas were used democracy might just break out.
Clinton was a coward on her appointment as he was on several other issues. With her it was much worse in some ways because she has so much to give. That is a legitimate reason to bring him up on it, not the issue of friendship betrayed.
It has to be said!
<Professor Farnsworth>"Thernstrom!"</>
(rather obscure Futurama reference)
Guh! We didn't even see that one.
Clearly, there ain't no such thing as too much Amy Wong.
More synopses of synopses? Tsk Tsk.
Thernstrom a "hack" and a "racist" and a NEOCON? You left out fascist and tax cheat and husband beater.
Did any of you read the original TNR piece under discussion or are you content with Berube's condensed version?
How about it, Cliff's Notes fans?
"Vidal...Didn't he write Myra Breckenridge? "
He also wrote something about George Bush helping to plot 9/11 in order that he might build a pipeline through Afghanistan. He's also written a bunch of stuff sympathetic to mass murderer Tim McVeigh.
Pinkie Green, my opinion of Abby T. goes a lot farther back than last night. Apparently yours doesn't.
EPT, you sound like you have some kind of weird axe to grind. I would refer anyone inclined to read AT in the original here.
AnonyZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........
EPT, you sound like you have some kind of weird axe to grind.
If opposing a racist hack is grinding a weird axe I'm proud to plead guilty as charged.
Yes, read Abby T but remember while you're doing it that there's a lot more to her than her scribblings. She's a right wing memeber of the Civil Rights Commission, constantly voting the Republican right's line opposing anything that would, for example, secure the vote of black people in Florida.
She reminds me of Fredrick Douglass on Francis Willard in his great address, The Lesson of the Hour. He described a nice Northern lady who was as racist as any Klan memeber. Abby just modulates her words to be more acceptable. Sort of an Ivy League David Duke.
"And, isn't a whole point of districts, to corral similar people together so they can vote for candidates like themselves?"
Just to complete the circle of irony here, Republicans have embraced the creation of minority districts- in the process creating two or three white districts where their candidates have the advantage. If they can't win the black vote, at least they can quarantine it.
Sounds like Guinier was sadly prescient about this.
EPT if you think lobbing anonymous slanders at a respected academic counts somehow as speaking truth to power, you are sadly mistaken. And yes, it is a slander to compare Abby Thernstrom to David Duke, as any fair minded person would acknowledge.
Gore Vidal has written many things, Pinkydangle, and I doubt you've read any of them.
You didn't even paraphrase correctly the Vidal book you mentioned, so if you want to have an opinion about Gore Vidal, I suggest you start getting busy. He's written more than 50 books, more than Boy George has ever read, I'd bet.
And yes, it is a slander to compare Abby Thernstrom to David Duke, as any fair minded person would acknowledge.
Pinkie Green
Aw! People who don't want to be compared to David Duke shouldn't support depriving black people of the vote.
You ever catch her in action at one of those Commission meetings? Dithering cassett player of discrimination. Look at her actions, words are cheap.
I thought Myra was funny, just as he intended it to be. A sharp satire on pornography. Mae West's last good role too.
I remember reading that her pronounciation of a word was corrected by a script girl and she said, "What's that? Some dirty woid I'm s'pposed ta know?"
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