I’m chastened; things are worse than I thought. It seems Paul Krugman, Sherrif Dupnik, et al. were right after all: there really is a lot of racist, violent, over-the-top, “eliminationist” rhetoric out there. At a political rally deep in the Southwest, a cameraman has captured on video chilling footage of this vitriolic, inflammatory hate-speech: people so enraged by a black man wielding enormous power that they want not only to impeach him, but also — in a frightening echo of our nation’s darkest era — to “string him up”.
I’m sure this will be all over the papers, and that the editorial board of the Times will be outraged. Frankly, this time I can’t blame them. Have a look here.
16 Comments
All da haterz be hateratin’.
Boy, I’ll say. Just makes you want to grab that extra-capacity magazine off the dresser and join the fun!
So you found a video of some people on the street saying some stupid (and probably racist) things. So what? Anyone with a camera and the stamina can go interview people in a huge crowd and find some nitwits to say something ill-advised, especially when encouraged, and then string it all together in a nice little propaganda video.
On the other hand, go listen to right-wing idiot radio for a while. Yesterday I heard one call Obama a communist and blamed him for the uprising across the Middle East. Another last week (I listen on my way home from work) started with some birther nonsense, and then when on a long diatribe about the Aryan race, and finished off with ‘America feeling the weight of foreign conquest’. And people like Hannity bring on faux examples of liberals, or the most ill-informed and whiny liberals they can find, to tear them apart on radio- all good political propa, but also dangerous. I’ve heard liberals called scum, liberals called evil and irresponsible, traitors, diseased, crazy, and so on. The difference here is that kind of language is on the radio and on certain tv outlets all day long all year long.
take responsibility.
I play drums for a country music group. I hear talk of niggers and wetbacks a lot. Most of them are conservatives, some are liberal, all of them are white.
Guess you haven’t watched much MSNBC.
Say, I play drums too! Looks like we have something in common after all.
I’m also a computer scientist and programmer, with strong interests in philosophy and anthropology.
I don’t watch cable tv.
and my family owned a recording studio and grew up working there.
so we’re practically the same person, which is why I cut you so much slack. ( ;
Hadn’t noticed the slack-cutting, particularly.
Wonder if I ever worked at your studio.
@Posted February 4, 2011 at 12:36 pm
“I hear talk of niggers and wetbacks a lot. Most of them are conservatives, some are liberal, all of them are white.”
____________________
What do you talk about? Kikes?
WTF!
I know that I’m a rather “difficult” person to get on with, not because I try to be offesnsive but because I have a way of expressing myself that can “put people off.” But despite my frequent disagreements with Malcolm, he has always treated me respectfully. So it puzzles me, and even bothers me, that people would come into his cyberabode, piss all over the floor, and generally show such a lack of grace. Surely, we are capable of better than this.
Thank you very much indeed, Bob.
I don’t moderate comments here; I’ve always felt that the tone you set is the tone you get.
Sometimes it’s a little disappointing.
What do we talk about? What any group of musicians talk about in between songs. Its a jam group, with new members coming in and leaving all the time. People say whatever is on their mind, and sometimes its about race, sometimes its about immigration. That is all.
TheBigHenry, no I don’t talk about Jews in derogatory terms, and the topic of the Jewish people or of Israel has never come up during a jam session.
I’m rather astonished at your comment. Mine was merely an observation made about a segment of our population (working class white america) with whom I have frequent contact and the kinds of less than savory attitudes they sometimes exhibit. Your comment is just crazy.
As for Jews? I am no special friend of the Chabad house, or of Orthodox Judaism. Or for that matter the state of Israel. But I do not hold any animosity toward Jews. Why should I? Neither do I have any animosity toward blacks or browns, or against Muslims. Even though one man who was once my friend and who is a Muslim threatened my life for refusing to call Jews pigs. Or when my sister is taunted by Mexicans as being too white. Again, why should I? I grew up with Mexicans, wrestled with them in the grass when we were kids. And I remembered that they were poor and lived hard lives and were ashamed at school to admit that they had spent their weekends picking in the fields.
But your offensive question makes me recall how in 2003 I accompanied my friend J. to the town of PÅ‚ock; We visited his old home, and the grave of his mother; she had died and been buried there before J. and the rest of his family fled to Warszawa and were eventually sent to Auscwitz. We could not find the grave because the old Jewish cemetery had been make into a playground. I stood there with an old man crying in the rain.
Whatever. I think I am beter than you, big henry, at least for today.
I get it. Some of your best friends are Jews, so how can you possibly be a Jew-hater? What an original line of reasoning-by-assertion. Nice touch of authenticity, referring to Warsaw as Warszawa.
Color me unsurprised.
As for being a beter man, define “beter”.
The question is, TBH, why you accused me of being a Jew-hater in the first place. I insist that you answer. Point to something specific I said that would warrant such an outrageous accusation.
As for authenticity, I have lived in Warsaw off and on for a number of years, so I have the right, I think, to add a “touch of authenticity”.
The burden of proof is on the accuser, not the accused. If you do not accept my reminiscences as evidence of my own character, that is your own problem, not mine. Yet, I must ask, how can a man be unmoved from such an experience? Is there not enough suffering and abuse in this world? Do I not see the suffering of every people of every race and religion and political persuasion? Did I not say that I haveDo you think that I am hard on Malcolm because I think him worth nothing? God, conservatism must be saved from itself. How can I disagree with Malcolm when he says that cultural resilience and stability are desirable? Indeed I cannot. But he and others fail utterly to convince me that it is not motivated by xenophobia pure and simple. When he, and others like him, descend into a cesspool of hatred and fear (for Muslims, for instance) I will stand against it, and him, and you too. Even if in the end that means striking you down. I will not have the likes of Malcolm provide the intellectual justifications for turning the United States into another fascist racist state. For if Muslims and Mexicans are what conservative America fears today, and indeed, some have called for puttin them in camps, it was Jews and Communists yesterday who were hunted down, AS YOU WELL KNOW. If yesterday, then it and can be again tomorrow. Be careful with whom you ally yourself.
Oh, please. Both of you need a time-out. Go to your rooms.