by Smitty
Here’s a great essay by Victor Davis Hanson on the racial divide, epitomized by the Trayvon Martin tragedy.
And yet. . .I just don’t think the great scholar gets it, or, at least, seemed to pull his punches:
Why?
I could go on and on, but one gets the message. So why the anger at this point and not, say, in 2007, when the evil Bush was president and Obama was but a weak senator and a dubious presidential candidate? For eight years there were African-American secretaries of state. Bush, through his African AIDS initiatives, saved millions of blacks who had no access to medicine. Minorities were visible in his cabinet. No one objected to the fact that Obama garnered 96% of the black vote, or thought much about it when, in the bitter Democratic primaries, the Clintons alleged that race was used to whip up support against them. So why, then, the anger now, when things should have improved even more?
I’ll tell you why, sir: power. 2008’s Racial Healer is 2012’s Master Baiter not because he cares fig #1 about the state of racial discourse in the United States. Rather, he maximizes power on both ends. 2008 was the year when harmony was a hot stock; this year, #OccupyResoluteDesk is shorting it like Carbonite.
Here’s a principle to keep in mind: assume anyone on the Left is arguing disingenuously until proven otherwise. Sometimes they are full of crap due to simple ignorance. But that seems increasingly less likely with each crappy gambit this year (Fluke, race, Rosen).
Power is the only unifying motive at work across these disparate threads.
I’ll tell you why, sir: power. 2008?s Racial Healer is 2012?s Master Baiter
Power is the only unifying motive at work …
The point is, once again, all about energy (Energy=Power divided by Time). About tonal shift. A deeply intelligent black American president changes the racism game forever, at a very deep level indeed.
The message is this: You do not have to change your beliefs. You do not have to budge an inch on your views. You are still free to hate black people, still free to fear gay people (or demean women) all you like. It’s simply that we as an Obama-led, gender-inclusive nation no longer have any real use for your brand of poison. We are done with you.
That message is for all the conservative screamers across the land.
Correction:
(Energy=Power divided by Time)
Power=Energy/Time ; Work/Time
Power is the only unifying motive at work …
Power is the rate at which energy is is converted; generated or consumed. Which is also the rate at which work is done.
It’s interesting that you can lead off with such a fundamental mistake, yet the rest of your “argument” remains unchanged. It’s almost as though what you said is entirely meaningless…
Cleanup on isles 1,2 and 3.
How does your writing process work? You gain just barely enough lucidity to type thinking you’ve awoken from some sort hideous nightmare only to realize you were neither asleep nor dreaming?
That the nation is Obamsky-led is obviously an hallucination.
” Sometimes they are full of crap due to simple ignorance.”
You sure pegged this troll Smitty.
The elements are as follows: yin turns into yang into yin … empty into plenty …. meaningful into meaningless … (and the worth of “entering into action”) plenty is meaningful, empty calls for action: the craving.
A woman has a womb that is an unstable place if not pregnant, it can be called a public place anytime (not mine, denied individuality) she is a whore if she has two lovers (“public girl”) womb is a place of tumult and invasiveness (but the fetus won’t solve it because itself is agitated, a restless condition in general) the gynecologist is invasive, coitus is invasive, her own pleasure is invasive, periods are blood, the sign of Mars, a battle, …. it is Grand Central Train Station 🙂 … a woman looking for sex is looking for trouble and she knows it consciously, a man can make himself believe that he will find appeasement (as long as it lasts) and find this place a sure, solid anchor from where to apprehend the world. For a woman the heart is that warm place of safety, “relating to the world with my heart, i found peace and anchor” … which is also an illusion anyway, violence and destruction happen as soon in violent sex as in violent heart, the avidity to exist can use any channel it wants.
Incoherent babble not relevant to sentient life. Typical.
VDH’s article compares “two racial narratives,” which he sees as equally uncompromising: the first is basically the “we need racial justice” narrative; the second is basically the color-blind-society narrative.
Personally, I see arguing over these supposedly opposing narratives to be counterproductive to conservatives/libertarians. The “we need racial justice” narrative is fraught with flawed notions, yet the emphasis should be on the failure of “progressivism” to achieve its supposed goals.
Without conceding the point, per se, we should ask: Okay, assuming your narrative is largely correct, how do we go about promoting [from VDH’s article] ” true equal opportunity and justice”? Do we know how to achieve that goal via progressive public policy, micro-management of the economy, socioeconomic programs, etc.? You say that we need [again, from VDH] “decades more of instruction, recompense, affirmative action, and set-asides to achieve real fairness,” but to what extent have the last several decades of such efforts contributed to “true opportunity and justice”? If we’re going to double-down on such approaches, would you please demonstrate their past effectiveness?
The reality is, they cannot, because they do not know how to achieve what they believe is “true justice,” and their attempts to do so tend to cause more harm than good.
At this point Anamika is beyond any help from anybody but her own downward self-spiral.
Frankly, I neither like nor dislike Anamika, because there is No There there to either like or dislike…She is Totally Unreal as a living and loving human being.
She’s a cardboard characterization of her own distorted mental image of who she thinks she wants to be, only not really.
All her posturing and posing is at MOST, a hopelessly vain attempt to become real in some way, and truly get it together, but to no avail, simply because there is absolutely no reality there to begin with.
What I disdain is not some meaningless persona called “Anamika” but rather the complete waste of an opportunity to get real and offer something of value, instead of totally useless, and completely phony two-dimensional (if that!), strutting and striving to impress herself, if not anybody else.
What a waste! Totally useless.
Oh, so does all of this mean you’re getting ready to discard the “Anamika” persona? Damn I hope so.
2008?s Racial Healer is 2012?s Master Baiter
HaHa sheer genius. I shall steal that, sir, and use it on a regular basis. It should be the next internet meme.
This coming from a person whose comments in the past have personified “angry screaming” and (rather base) assumptions of the relative makeup (and merits thereof) of other commentor’s socio-economic class, cultural roots, and even physical attributes.
Truly, you are indeed a gift that keeps on giving.
Ok, who’s been putting the LSD into Anamika’s water every day? You can fess up now.
Well, to a certain extent there is a reality there — from a deconstructionist viewpoint (and I’m guessing that Anamika loves Foucault and Derrida).
There is no center to be held, but the outward accoutrements have taken the place of those so completely and well that they have taken over the role — which means, according to the laws of physics, that she has reached a state where entropy diffuses itself to the point of becoming stasis…at least in a philosophical, dialectical, if not physical sense.
Well there’s your problem my darling: you are using astrology and Oriental mysticism to describe something which has already been well thought out scientifically.
You know, getting out and working on a small farmer’s stake would be good for you intellectually, and it would get you out of the house (or office) and into the fresh air (so the physical benefits would be wonderful as well).
Get you out of all this mysticism nonsense and rethinking how you view the yin/yang, Mars/Venus method of reconciliation of opposites.
Shove your disdain up your soul, and solve your own shit buddy.
One more idiotic statement from addled fool.
I’ve confronted gg face to face and up real close so many times, to utterly No avail, that I purposely chose this time to stay out it, knowing full well that Smitty listens to no one except those apparent voices that loop continually through his brain and filling his mind with vain thoughts of artistry and activism…
Pay attention, idiot, and maybe you will finally learn something.
Pulling punches is what VDH does.
Do you often talk to yourself like that? Those fights you have when you’re alone must be real dozzies.
Sanctioned hate against those who think other than yourself – is this what the famously non-judgemental, inclusive, political party looks like in action? Color me NOT amused.
Damnit! You beat me to it! I was busy watching and re-watching Katy Perry’s Marines video … quite the bit of eye candy that distracted me …
A deeply intelligent black American president changes the racism game forever, at a very deep level indeed. Invalid premise.
@c6e924189936bf4784915a1779bbd588:disqus
I’ve confronted gg face to face and up real close so many times
I don’t know what the proper word for it is where you are from, but here, we call it a “mirror”.
Mostly invalid. I fear Obama has, in fact, changed the racism game forever.
I would caution you about over humanizing it (“my darling”) dead pets in pots you know.
Farmers use pesticides to keep “animikas” away from their farms.
@c6e924189936bf4784915a1779bbd588:disqus
Wasn’t just last week you wrote that you adored Smitty and only had a a problem with Wombat?
As a side note how do you get an internet signal with all the structural steel overhead?
Gift?!!
Adobe, I’m not really worried about my pets in a pot — that would by necessity be a very large pot and a very hard task, if one could even get to the point of putting my “pets” in (which would also be a trifle difficult).
I highly doubt that our darling Annie here would be up to it.
Of course, arguments and opinions are all well and good, but examples are proof of the pudding.
“…2008?s Racial Healer is 2012?s Master Baiter …”
Haaahahahaaa…
She’s a gift especially to the anti-immigrant movement. Many more of her coming over here after so long our borders would be permanently sealed.
Well, Adobe. I must report that your attempts at self-effacement have failed miserably.
You apparently just don’t understand your own potentials for being simmered down to a gooey mass of squirming protoplasm. Not only that, but the resulting disgusting mess could be used as a gravy poured over Satan’s Humano-spare ribs, but I fear that even he would be repelled by your still-arrogant goo.
Yes, Adobe. As has been widely observed here at ToM, your numerous character defects, as well as your incipient superiority, simply makes you unsuitable for inclusion in that glorious species ‘Homo Sapiens’.
And I know this is shocking news for you; please do try to take all of this very seriously, and please, roll around and twitch and howl after reading, and then post a few paragraphs of agonized, paranoid drivel.
Only then, after you have been properly humilificated, will you possibly be seen by the ‘others’ here (such as we are) as maybe fit to clean our toilets, and give our household pets tongue-baths.
All the best.
Who are you including in we Dunbat.
Ah, but you forget those insane and on psychoactive drugs (surely both apply) are often capable of physically difficult not to mention despicably depraved acts.
Someone I was talking with recently, after we had both observed a horrid incident of dog-abuse-by-stupid ‘owner’, said this:
Indeed. Are ‘we’ aware of the history of ‘pet ownership’? Turns out that in Merry Olde England, only the rich could ‘afford’ the ‘pet’; eg, a non-working (non-farm) dog. The ‘rich’ would pridefully proclaim their financial status by ‘walking’ the dog in public.
Soon enough, the non-rich began emulating the rich, as always happens in ‘stoopidland’ (eg, everywhere). Poor folks obtained ‘pets’ and that was the beginning of our current human-pet dilemma. Now, it seems to be very common for people to ‘own pets’ which they cannot really afford to feed or care for (Vet bills, spaying, fences, noise control, training, liability insurance).
I am an animal lover in the sense that I have the good sense to not flatter myself that I have the time, the will, the skill to ‘own’ a pet.
I love animals in the sense that they are best left to their own devices ‘in the wild’. I am in favor of preserving wild habitat for animals and not in favor of breeding ‘pet’ animals and I am in favor of kindness to all animals and for me, this means to leave them alone to be animals and not to force them to conform to the same insane ‘standards of behaviour’ which humans inflict upon other humans; eg, to ‘hold it in’ until the toilet or poop-space is reached, to be quiet in polite company and so on.
Sheesh! The whole ‘pet’ thing must be rethought immediately! It can only get better!
BTW; of all the people I know who own dogs, every dog is sick, and every ‘owner’ is in denial about that. And I know a lot of people who ‘own’ dogs. Even the ‘healthiest’ dog is sick and that is the constant topic for the ‘owner’ until I say:
“So, are you saying that your dog is sick?”
Pathfinder’s wife:
We could always find matters regarding our “positions” to argue about, if that’s what we want to do. Rationalists take extreme positions, theocrats take extreme positions, etc. My position is less extreme than your position, etc.
I enjoyed these words of yours and thought they had a lot of value. I could leave it at that . . .
But . . .
I suspect, having sampled the other Pathfinderisms you shared, that your “reasonable middle position” words are in the service of appealing to other sensible people in the middle to lurch a little toward a more radical rationalism.
But things could be worse. Rationalists have not really had a chance to fuck the world up so completely as have religionists, so maybe they should have a chance to have more sway.
I’ve got a better idea. Take all the leftist animal activists, chop them up into little bloody pieces, and feed them to the wild animals. Since they seem to worry so much about bears and wolves, they would be perhaps the most appropriate beneficiaries, although rats and insects might be even better. Not only would the fucking world be better off without these human pieces of trash, so would the animals.
Probably gg and all of her other equally insane alternate personalities.
Oh, just to let you know, we have filled your special rush order for Enhanced Liquid Trust nasal spray, the cologne-like mixture of oxytocin and chemical scents called pheromones that have been assisting you in boosting the dating and relationship areas of your life.
We were wondering if you would be willing to share your experiences with our Enhanced Liquid Trust nasal spray? The success stories of our many clients are so inspirational to others.
If you think Obama is “deeply intelligent,” you are even dumber than I thought, which is surprising because I never thought you were particularly bright.
Drunk again?
Note that Anamika has achieved her goal of hijacking the thread almost completely, ensuring less attention is paid to Hanson’s thoughtful and insightful article than to her drunken musings.
This election is coming down to the simplistic question:
Do you want the Dumbos in office, or do you want the Smartypants in office?
Clearly, Obama is the most intelligent and prepared candidate for dealing with the current american environment, which seems to be “going to hell in a handbasket”, while Romney literally pales in comparison in so many ways.
Yet, the Dumbos may likely win, and for many reasons.
One, is that most people feel less comfortable with people who are more intelligent than they are (even when they can’t actually say that), preferring those who are clearly dumber (or equally dumb) than they are. This sets up the, personality versus issues debates. (Would you want to have a beer with him, or talk family stuff with her… or, would you want to discuss the big, complex issues we’re currently facing now, nationally and globally? The dumbos prefer beer and family, over complex intellectual concepts, because the first is fun, and the second is work.)
Two, is because the level of american intelligence seems to have had gone on hiatus for the eight years of Bush, and it may not come back in our lifetimes.
When sports figures and american idols (sports, entertainment) are admired more (and paid better) than scientists and educators (science, education), that presents a kind of problem, for those who admire and appreciate the latter, way over the former.
Are you saying Anamika has an alcohol problem? Hell, all this time I thought she was just another leftist moron with delusions of eloquence.
You must not have a family. Moreover, we already have the dumbos in office. The Kenyan is in way over his head.
We could do without the smarty pants types as well. The Kenyan, dumbo that he is, has surrounded himself with teh smarty pants set and all they can do is run around telling how effective they are. Last I looked they were just digging the hole that FedGov has been difgging since 1933 deeper.
You’re both probably right. Or it could just be the Meth she’s cooking.
You’re quite right. Unfortunately there are some restrictions placed on our actions in this matter.