Thursday, March 27, 2008

Jonah Goldberg's View of the Dialog on Race

Oh, thank goodness Obama fired the starter's pistol in the race to discuss race. Here I'd been under the impression that every major university (and minor one for that matter) in the country already had boatloads of courses -- often entire majors -- dedicated to race in America. I'd even read somewhere that professors had incorporated racial themes and issues into classes on everything from Shakespeare to the mating habits of snail darters. And scratching faintly in the back of my mind, I felt some vague memory that these same universities recruited black students and other racial minorities, on the grounds that interracial conversations on campus are as important as talking about math, science and literature. A ghost of an image in my mind's eye seemed to reveal African American studies centers, banners for Black History Month and copies of books like "Race Matters" and "The Future of the Race" lined up on shelves at college bookstores.
Were all of the corporate diversity consultants and racial sensitivity seminars mere apparitions in a dream? Also disappearing in the memory hole, apparently, were the debates that followed Hurricane Katrina, Trent Lott's remarks about Strom Thurmond, the Supreme Court confirmation hearings for Clarence Thomas, the publication of "The Bell Curve" and O.J. Simpson's murder trial. Not to mention the ongoing national chatter about affirmative action, racial disparities in prison sentences and racial profiling by law enforcement.

And the thousands of hours of newscasts, television dramas and movies -- remember Oscar-winning films such as 2004's "Crash?" -- dedicated to racial issues? It's as if they never existed, vanishing like the image on a TV screen after the plug's been pulled. The New York Times' six-week Pulitzer Prize-winning series, "How Race Is Lived in America": just an inkblot?

It all seems so otherworldly. I feel like one of the last humans in an "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" movie in which all of the pod people are compelled by some alien DNA to pine continually for yet another "conversation" about a topic we've never, ever stopped talking about. And if I just fall asleep, I too can live in the pod-people's dream palace, where every conversation about race is our first conversation about race. . . . . .

In fact, doesn't it seem like the majority of people begging for a "new conversation" on race are the same folks who shout "racist!" at anyone who disagrees with them?

This sort of disconnect between rhetoric and reality is the kind of thing one finds in novels by Alexander Solzhenitsyn or Milan Kundera. . . . . .
Why do voluptuaries of racial argy-bargy want another such dialogue? For some, it's to avoid actually dealing with unpleasant facts. But for others -- like La Raza or the college professors scrambling to follow Obama's lead -- when they say we need more conversation, they really mean their version of reality should win the day. Substitute "conversation" with "instruction" and you'll have a better sense of where these people are coming from and where they want their "dialogue" to take us.


This is from National Review on Line

Political Benchmarks

What, specifically, are the much referred to political benchmarks? Opponents of the war routinely say the war is lost because of lack of political progress. But I never hear specifics. They seem to imply that if such and such has not been done by some hallowed date it is a sure sign of defeat. They seem to be knowledgable about some international, intergalatical set of standards by which one can prove the situation hopeless. Is there some such thing written in stone and kept in a vault in Geneva? To me it seems laughable to imagine that a country could transform itself from brutal dictatorship to a vibrant democracy in five years, yet, this seems to be the standard seriously proposed by the critics of the war.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Roger Wilkins Goes on CSPAN and Looks Down His Nose at America

Monday March 24 I saw Roger Wilkins on CSPAN.
Roger Wilkins who is professor of history at George Mason University says even intelligent people will argue that if their family arrived in the US after slavery ended they therefore have no responsibility for slavery. But Wilkins calls bullshit on this argument. He says these people came into a nation that looked down on blacks and made fun of blacks so they share the responsibility. Please spare me. What a smelly, anti-intellectual, guilt ridden , hateful load of crap. The man is a guilt machine. He has made a living out of white guilt. Anything he does to really help blacks would only threaten his comfortable way of life. So, in order for this fraud to have money and power, the majority of blacks must remain where they are. He doesn’t want to have a conversation about race: he wants to tell people what to think and feel about race and then insult anyone who disagrees with him.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

Strange Call in the Night

I was meditating when the phone rang. I hopped over to grab it since it was 10:20 PM on the Saturday night before Easter and I thought it might be my friend, Mary Jo, wanting to talk. I said, “Hello.” And a male voice at the other end said, “Say, n****r, you the motherfucker selling the New Yorker?”
I had an ad on Craig’s List for all of the past New Yorkers on CD. So I answered, “Yes.”
“Say how much you want for that shit. That’s some good shit isn’t it?”
“It’s $24,” I answered.
“That’s a good price for that shit isn’t it, n****r? I could sit up here in my crib with my bitch, do some crack and do that New Yorker stuff. That’d be some good shit huh, n****r?” The strange voice on the phone asked.
“You’re joking, right?” Is the only thing I knew to say at this point.
“What you mean, n****r? I just want to get some of that New Yorker shit up here in my crib with my crack and my bitch. That’s the good stuff, right n****r?”
“This must be a joke, right?” I persisted. Not having a clue what else to say.
“You think I’m funny, n****r? What’s wrong, fag? You afraid, you little fag?” The voice now becoming loud and more frightening.
By now I had figured out that he only had my phone number from the ad. He couldn’t know where I live unless I told him. Though I was sure by now that he was very aware of the city I live in because it was on the ad. And my little city has a local reputation for having a large gay population. So he must have seen the artsy magazine and the city full of weak little gays and figured it would make a fun prank call. But I was still flustered and afraid and not sure what to do. So I said, “Oh, come on. You’ve got to have something better than this to do with your time.”
“N****r, you know I want that New Yorker shit. You’re laughing at me you fag?” His voice was getting louder. But I was very aware that it was the filthy language that upset me the most. I had seen people who talked like this on TV and in movies but had never spoken directly to anyone talking like that. It’s prison talk and it’s meant to threaten possible violence if the speaker isn’t properly respected. But I could see no point in continuing the conversation.
“I’m hanging up now,” I said and pushed the button to end the conservation. I half expected the guy to call back and continue the harassment. But he didn’t.
Guess where my mind went immediately? I said to myself, “Barack me no Obamas.” The much worshipped candidate had just been on TV saying that he will not question or repudiate any white hating black separatists. He explained why he feels that blacks are free to do or say anything they wish. Seems something happened 140 years ago that makes sense out of irrational hate. If you think that rationalization for hate had a long shelf life, Barack apparently sees no end in sight. We’re in a conflict between civilization and another force who feel that stoning and beheading are so cool. When McCain implies that this major conflict might last a hundred years Barack gets huffy and morally indignant. But in response to the fantastic story that AIDS was created by the US government and is being used by them to kill people of color Barack refuses to become a voice of reason or take any kind of stand. At this point, I have no reason to believe that Obama doesn’t believe this wild, hateful story. Barack Obama is not a leader. He’s just mau mauing whitey. And if he’s successful the message sent will be that hate and intimidation works. He’s just another Chicago extortionist.


Yet another not so fun fact about Barack Obama. No matter what he is calm. Nothing bothers him enough to become emotional. His campaign is attacked so much that he has to go on the tube and make a “major address.” He stays up late writing the whole thing himself and the next day he comes out totally even and relaxed. It’s a better than average speech for an American politician and he delivers it without any sign of anxiety or tension: as if it’s just a normal event on a normal day. HE IS TOO CALM. Nothing ever has any emotional effect on him. This is pathological, probably severely pathological. There is no there there. It looks like he might be totally empty at core. He is an incomplete person who is all outsides without insides. If you look at his history he has never been tested. He has never been in a situation that pushed him to his limit. What will it take for that to happen? And how will he react? Professional politicians tend to be highly sociopathic but Obama has the look and feel of a really slick sociopath. Take Tony Soprano but twice as intelligent and well educated and surround him with a bunch of smart yes men. Just watch out for Obama. Who knows what will finally set this guy off. Maybe they'll run out of white meat at Thanksgiving and he'll snap. And what will he do? It could be terrifying.



One last observation. He gives a major speech and won't take questions. And the MSM didn't even notice. The question isn't whether or not the media is in the tank for Obama. The question is just how far are they in the tank. How many of them will drown?

Saturday, March 22, 2008

What Victor Davis Hanson Said About Obama

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Obama's Mega-problem by Victor Davis Hanson

Whence Obama's problems? It is not that he believes in the venom of Rev. Wright, or that when he says something stupid like a "typical white person" he means to imply a stereotyped distasteful race. He doesn't.

The problem is instead the environment that he heretofore has navigated in — prep school, the Ivy League, the regional identity politics of Chicago, or Illinois liberalism — is hardly representative of his own country. So what he can say among sympathizers and friends will not be excused or contextualized by average others who don't know him and won't give him the latitude he is accustomed to and apparently has counted on.

He and Michelle have no doubt rebuked sympathetic elite white audiences, and by both their presence and purse have let it be known that they consider the Rev. Wright's rhetoric tolerable, but they have no idea that the vast majority of Americans that they heretofore have rarely come into contact with are a far different audience, and find the Obamas both more privileged than themselves and undeserving of any more of a pass than any others.

The irony is that like proverbial rarified whites, who have voiced racialist remarks beyond the club, and who have rightly caught hell for the perceived bias, the Obamas suffer from that same blinkered existence and narrow associations that make the extreme seem accustomed and normal.

When he praises Rev. Wright he sounds like he is from Mars — but hasn't a clue that he does. And so like a deer in the headlights Obama keeps waiting for a black precinct captain or a Columbia professor to come to the rescue and explain — ever more clueless that even if they did, it wouldn't matter a bit.




I got this from National Review Online   http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTYwMDkzZDUxZGExN2VmMzI5ZmQ3MmNlZTA3ZGM1NmY    where I was sent 
via a link from Hot Air.
I had posted something along those lines in the comments on Hot Air.  But I didn't say it so well.  VDH is always worth reading.
Obama has not yet been willing to submit to questioning from anyone who does not worship him and his ethnic specialness.  To become president he is going to have prove that he can talk to someone in a setting he doesn't control.  Can he do so  successfully?  All we know at this point is that he doesn't want to.   But if he can't handle Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity we can't trust him to deal with Putin, 
Ahmadinejad or other world leaders who 
will take his Ivy League sense of entitlement and manipulate the hell out of him.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Los Angeles School District Payroll Dept. Becoming as Incompetent as Teaching Staff

The Los Angeles spent $95 million on a new computer payroll system. Ever since the new system has been in use many employees have not been paid the correct amount or been paid at all. One teacher died and she is still being paid. Her daughter has been unable to get the school district to take the money back. The head of payroll, after 5 months of checks sent to a deceased teacher, acts like he never heard of the problem. That seems to be much of the problem: the people in the payroll department have a real fuck you attitude. The trouble shooters will not return calls, promise follow ups that never happen, make agreements and then unilaterally change the conditions mutually agreed to. And the head of the payroll department apparently still doesn’t think there is a problem. His employees don’t care if the problems get solved and he won’t own the problem. Looks like the problem is nowhere near going away.
If present trends continue the work output of the payroll department will be as bad as literacy and education in the children whose future apparently is of no concern to the teachers. Maybe some of the difficulty arises from the payroll department hiring graduates of the LA school system. You can have a $95 million computer system but if you can barely read, write or cipher you might not get much help from a computer. Maybe the guys in trouble shooting are just displaying as little interest in teachers’ pay as the teachers displayed in their education.
One of the elementary school teachers mentioned in the coverage makes $90,000 a year. There’s little discipline and the kids can’t read or write but this woman is being paid as if productivity were going on. Obviously good pay does not equal good teaching.


The bigger picture: all of this is good for the Democratic party. The less educated the voters are the better it is for Democrats. If you have no fund of knowledge, lack the skills to get any and lack the ability to think clearly the more likely it is that you will be susceptible to the emotional appeals and guilt bombs that are the stuff of Democratic campaigning.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

And the Weasels Crawled Out of the Obama's Mouth

This is from Huffpo via JustOneMinute (http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2008/03/let-me-be-sure.html) where I was sent from one of my favorite sites, Hot Air.
"The statements that Rev. Wright made that are the cause of this controversy were not statements I personally heard him preach while I sat in the pews of Trinity or heard him utter in private conversation. When these statements first came to my attention, it was at the beginning of my presidential campaign. I made it clear at the time that I strongly condemned his comments."
He must have taken Weasel Words 101 from Bill Clinton. Basically he seems to be saying that while sitting in that spot or while standing in that other spot he never heard those words. This leaves open myriad other times and places which he apparently doesn't want to talk about.
And this qualifies as New Politics how?

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Old Video About the Supremes

I think I left that tooth in Santa Ana.

Sunday, March 2, 2008

Obama Not Ready for Prime Time

I watched many of the presidential debates. I found one of the early Democratic debates startling. Senator Obama said a couple of really stupid things that were overlooked by everyone there and by the MSM. Senator Obama said that Osama bin Laden was located between Afghanistan and Pakistan. And he said this twice. This was at a time when it was generally accepted that bin Laden was located in Waziristan, which is in Pakistan. A quick look at the map reveals that there is no geographical area that falls between Afghanistan and Pakistan. No one in the media noticed or cared about senator Obama looking like the least informed Harvard grad to ever to appear on national TV. They didn’t even give him a quiz about the heads of state of little known countries.
In the same debate senator Obama proposed that the US should, without consulting with the government of Pakistan, launch air strikes on Pakistani territory. While this has happened and will probably continue to happen, it is not the kind of thing members of a government speak about in public. Should senator Obama become the Democratic nominee the Pakistani government might be forced to deal with this issue in ways that might be dangerous to American troops and American interests. Either senator Obama is naïve which I doubt. Or he has little concern for the safety of our armed forces. Or maybe there is another explanation that I don’t see. But I don’t like what I do see. It looks like poor judgment and ambition to me.
One more disturbing incident; In a recent debate with senator Clinton senator Obama spoke about our troops in Afghanistan not having enough armored vehicles or enough ammunition to perform their duty properly or safely. Apparently he had been told this story by an officer over there. And he shared the story during the debate to illustrate the poor handling of the war. I was surprised that a US senator who can have some impact heard the story, did nothing to solve what he saw as a problem and apparently just forgot about the whole thing until his memory was jogged long after in a debate. Don’t we want a president who would do what is best for the troops instead of letting a problem fester until he thinks it’s of value to further his ambitions?
These three incidents cause me to feel that senator Obama lacks the preparedness, maturity and judgment to deal with foreign affairs or be commander in chief. This is compounded by the fact that he has never undergone sustained questioning from anyone critical of his candidacy or his policies. He will no doubt be presidential material some day, but not now