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24 comments:
That's pretty freaky, but I'm glad he 'membered Hawaii.
He's good enough. He's smart enough. And gosh darn it, I like him.
He's a hell of alot better than that Norm Coleman douche.
I can't believe anyone would vote against him after that. (Confession: I love maps.)
It really should be a requirement for all Senators.
Senators in Canada are powerless muppets who couldn't draw a map of Saskatchewan.
i just wikied saskatchewan to see if it's easy to draw. sure enough, folks, it is.
Speaking of U.S. politics through the eyes of a Canadian...
I have to give credit to the temperment in your Congress.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/09/10/obama.heckled.speech/index.html
This story struck me as odd. Up in Canada, this sort of shit happens all the time, and it's run of the mill politics. We never made much of a shift from the old parlamentary systems of England 1800's yore. We're still standing in our benches screaming across the room, trying to one up each other on insults directed at respective mothers.
So to see someone called out like that for something seemingly so minor to this Canadian guy, I had to etc.
The uproar does make us look a little silly in a way.
But I think people are making a big deal out of this because of the strong suspicion this heckler Re. Joe Wilson is disrespecting Obama because Obama is black. It's the same with the birthers - I suspect quite strongly these nutcases don't want to believe Obama was born in the U.S. because they don't like having black president.
No one has everyheckled a president in Congress this way.
No one has ever questioned the birth certificate of a president or a presdiential candidate this way.
I truly believe racism the undercurrent, the unspoken foundation of a lot of the insane hysteric opposition to Obama.
It's very disturbing.
Turns out Rep. Joe Wilson was also appalled that the late Sen. Strom Thurmond's black daughter (from when Thurmond "had sex" with a 16-year-old black maid) came out in public and told the world she was Thurmond's daughter after he died.
What on earth could be appalling about identifying your father? His comment only makes sense if you understand Joe Wilson is a racist.
It's difficult for most mainstream media oulets to mention disrespect for Obama and race head on, because it's an explosive allegation to call someone a racist.
It's very hard to prove. And it gets people upset.
Also, I think many mainstream media people don't like to think and write about race.
Here's a good piece on Joe Wilson's attack on Strom Thurmond's biracial daughter.
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/09/you-lie-not-the-first-time-rep-wilsons-emotions-got-the-best-of-him.php
I read the story and the comments below. I find that the liberal left are quicker than most at leveling ad hominem remarks.
While they might be right more than half time, I'd hate to see the U.S. catch the socially counter-productive disease we have in some parts of Canada.
All of our jokes about racism aside [note, "not racism jokes"], I think racist is a very bad thing to be. It's not cool to be racist. It's not just politically incorrect, impolite, or somehow out of fashion, it indicates [highlights] a shit load of ignorance, lack of education, and an inability to adapt/evolve. These people failed at evolution, which is saying a lot, considering its automatic for most species. And it's just my personal opinion I'm sharing here, but I figure one should have a lot of ducks in a row before they level that kind of gun at and fire 'racist'. Not sayin’ you don’t [at all], but just sayin’.
I agree - commentaries in response to articles, especially on Web sites that clearly lean one way or the other (in TPM's case, to the left) are supremely annoying.
The other thing about throwing a label like "racist" at someone is, this will often just end debate.
After all, what's someone who's just been called a racist to say in response? "No, I'm not!"?
That won't get he/she anywhere really. And the allegation won't get the the accuser very far either. Nobody changes anyone's mind. People just get angry and pissed off.
At the same time, the undercurrent of race is so powerful in behavior of the birth certificate conspiracists, those who don't want Obama talking to their children at school, and people like Joe Wilson, that I feel the public and the media must acknowledge and highlight it.
Maybe Bob Moser, the editor of the Texas Observer, addressed the issue the most intelligently in this response to a New York Times question. He doesn't call anyone a racist, but points out that race plays a major role in the politics of people like Joe Wilson:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/10/over-the-line-in-south-carolina/
While racial issues don’t infest the state’s politics in the blatant way that they once did, they still matter more in South Carolina than perhaps anywhere else in the South. The dominant Republican Party has managed to hold together its fundamentalist, anti-government and Chamber of Commerce factions largely because there’s some underlying — often unconscious — sympathy between them on issues of race. Meanwhile, Democrats are widely stereotyped in South Carolina as “the black party” — a label that hasn’t changed despite the Democratic leanings of the state’s fast-multiplying Latino population.
So it was no great surprise that Joe Wilson’s rebel yell was provoked by the first black president’s declaration that his health plans didn’t include government health care for illegal immigrants. It was an echo of the summer’s rowdy town halls all over America, for sure. But it was also an echo of those South Carolina statesmen, from John C. Calhoun to Strom Thurmond, who have forever specialized in one shouted word: “No!”
I think Litcube might be right about the extreme left quickly resorting to ad hominem attacks. I think it's also true that the far right quickly resorts to tortured logic to hide the ad hominem attacks they're trying not to say out loud. Safe to say, anyone on the far anything (and most commenters on political message boards) can't be really counted on for elevated discourse.
Also agree with Odori that calling someone a racist has no debate value--nobody scores any points with it. Further, I'm not convinced it's actually a valid criticism. I think scoop and Lungclops convinced me of this a while back--that thinking about racism as thoughtcrime is not the way to go. Making the act of simply wanting something into a punishable offense is a socially dangerous way to think. It's what you do with your racism that counts.
If someone with a very low I.Q. stands up and makes a point you don't agree with, you don't stand up and remind the room that the speaker is stupid; you challenge his point itself. I mean, unless you want to look like a jerk, or something.
Rather than discussing Wilson's entirely probable racism, or debating congressional decorum, or asking Wilson to apologize over and over, I guess I'd like to see a little more coverage of how the health care plan deals with illegal immigrants. Maybe it's not smart to dignify assholes with a response. But on the other hand, maybe it is.
Your paragraph 3 is rad.
I was thrilled that Maureen Dowd took on the topic in her column for Monday's paper. I think she did a classy job. Yet, she won't do much to convince folks like Joe Wilson.
I'm really torn by this. I suspect that ignoring bigotry - by not addressing it head on - won't help it go away. I suppose I even fear that ignoring bigotry may allow it to grow and thrive.
I have no solutions to offer.
Here's a quote from a comment I enjoyed today, by blogger Ta-Nehisi Coates:
http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/09/race_is_a_factor_but.php
If we concede, as most reasonable people do, that racism is a factor--not the factor but a factor--in resistance to Obama, then in fact, what we've seen this year is, by the very nature of an Obama presidency, unprecedented. Put simply, we've seen the crazy-tax, of which race is a portion, before. But we've never seen the crazy-tax intensified by race. We have not seen it accompanied by watermelon jokes, by Congressmen referring to him as boy, by clucking heads claiming that the president "has exposed himself as someone with a deep-seated hated of white people." We've never seen the whitey tape, before.
There's a tendency to lump anti-black racism in with all the serious problems presented when you try to make a democracy work. There is always a danger of becoming single-minded, of bringing to bear a myopic analysis which sees one thing in everything. Moreover, watermelon jokes are a long way from red-lining, and in seeing how far we've come, the temptation is to dismiss how far we have to go.But from a black perspective, it's a temptation you can ill-afford. Racism cost us dollars a half-century ago. Today it costs us quarters--but it still costs.
Don't let the grinding familiarity of Obama blind you to the profound times we live in, and the work that's still left to do. We've never had a black president before. This is without precedent. We've also never had anti-Semitic white supremacists shooting up the Holocaust Museum. This, too, is unprecedented.
Those are some interesting thoughts. Scary thoughts as well, if you consider that some folks see Obama's presidency as sort of an "all bets are off" kind of signal. That sort of notion gives me pause. It's as if some people really take those apocalyptic movies with the obligatory black president seriously.
Seriously. When has the president's birth certificate ever come into question before?
How can those seemingly out-of-right-field voices become valid questions?
Jesus fucking christ. That's the first I heard about someone shooting up the holocaust museum. We can call this guy an anti-Semite, right?
Guys, It's starting to sound like you've got to go through a right of passage with fire ants in your underoos and a PhD in Stupid to be prejudiced against "other human races". On the contrary, I think it comes very naturally to some people and some cultures. Remember, these are the guys who haven't progressed past a kindergarden definition of race. Don't expect too much from them, okay?
Definitely, it's bad to frivolously throw around words like racist, communist, or furry. Also, completely discrediting someone's argument just because he's a biggot is unfair. But come on. Joe Wilson not a racist? Does anyone think that's really possible, let alone likely? And where exactly were these arguments going that they will suddenly fall flat if the oversized elephant in the room isn't ignored out of some misplaced sense of unrequited respect?
And Pony, I also agree that your third paragraph is rad. But I think there comes a point where one's patience with stupid people dries up. You can only tolerate so much irrational, delusional, self-serving bullshit before your head just goes boom. Sure, you can keep trying to argue, but where do you draw the line at "stupid"? After the hundredth Sarah Palin or after one of them shoots up a museum, you really just have to fucking stop and call it for what it is.
This is why I think the left may have more ad hominem attacks than the right, if they do. It's a psychological defense mechanism against stupid.
i have no problem with calling joe wilson--and joe wilsonian arguments--stupid. but to infer racism would be error. as pony succinctly summarizes in his second, and truly awesome, paragraph (in which, coincidentally, i am credited), i think we've become a little obsessed with ferreting out secret racists. unless someone says or does something overtly racist, calling him a racist is a grave, or at least medium-bad, disservice to public discourse. it moves the bar for what is considered racism to an unacceptably low level. if you lower that bar enough, we're all racists.
course, if i had to place a bet on it, i'd put my money on joe wilson being a racist. all's i'm saying is, "you lie" is not even close to definitive enough proof to be publicly branding him with that.
i guess what i really mean to say is that, like sexuality, racism is a spectrum, not a dichotomy.
Ah, I see what you're saying there. When I say that I think he's a racist I don't mean that in a derisive, national label kind of way. I mean it simply as a statement which it seems we all agree on. Joe Wilson's likely a racist. He also probably eats cereal for breakfast and enjoys music. Hey, it's probably all true, but we don't need to brand the guy with a patch or cry about it on national TV.
It occurs to me that you score more debate points by implying that your opponent a racist than you do by coming out and saying it.
you won't make any money overestimating the intelligence of the american public like that.
Is there any money in overestimating the intelligence of the american public?
Good points all.
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