The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Just in Case New York Times Readers Don’t Feel Enough White Guilt Yet …

Posted on | March 8, 2013 | 41 Comments

. . . Ta-Nehisi Coates is there on the op-ed pages with a stern sermonette for them. It involves the fact that an employee of a New York deli didn’t recognize the actor Forest Whitaker and accused him of shoplifting. Coates offers a few more examples — including from before he was born — of a racism that “haunts black people with a kind of invisible violence.”

And also haunts them, we might add, with dramatic prose.

Far be it from me to say that New York deli employees aren’t in the thrall of atavistic ethnic prejudice, their minds crowded with ignorant racial stereotypes and hateful bigotry. But, on closer inspection, that doesn’t seem to be Coates’s point:

In modern America we believe racism to be the property of the uniquely villainous and morally deformed, the ideology of trolls, gorgons and orcs. We believe this even when we are actually being racist.

Who is this “we”? But never mind that. In fact, Coates is right, insofar as he is suspicious that the “good people” — even nice, well-meaning, liberal white people — are more guilty of racism than they would like to admit. How often, for example, have I given my opinion on the utter hopelessness of the public education system, only to have some parent explain to me that they live in a good district with good public schools. The suspicion that “good” is actually a synonym for “mostly white” is hard to avoid, but these parents don’t want to think of their personal choices in that context, and so I don’t bother to point this out.

Frankly, there are a lot of things about contemporary race relations I don’t bother to point out, because I am a white man who isn’t a liberal and one who has, indeed, often been called a racist.

There are no New York publishing houses offering me contracts to write The Complete NeoConfederate Guide to Better Race Relations, although it has occasionally occurred to me that problems which seem insoluble inside the margins of Political Correctness could most likely be improved by more truly radical thinking.

Here’s a radical thought: What if racism isn’t really the problem?

Ethnocentric attitudes are commonplace, a logical consequence of mankind’s innately tribal nature.

Everyone is self-interested and, insofar as he has any actual thought about race, is chiefly concerned about whether anything might affect the mental category of People Like Me.

Obviously, race is not the only such category. We might mentally categorize ourselves in any number of ways: Male, female, old, young, urban, rural, Crimson Tide fans, et cetera.

Man’s innate tribalism persists, but in a media-saturated consumer society one notices that there are many people who classify themselves by what they buy and what they watch on TV.

You see this especially among young people, where high school cliques are sometimes defined by certain fashionable clothing brands. But high schoolers denominate themselves by all kinds of crazy classifications that make no sense to sane adults, and which honestly never made sense to me even when I was a teenage dopehead. (“Teenage dopehead” being a rather large fraternity in the ’70s.)

 One category which young people are avidly encouraged to join nowadays is Not a Racist.

Membership in the Not a Racist Club is exclusive to white kids, because the same mentality that castigates whites as racist is also constantly telling non-white kids that the most important thing about them is their race. The result is that while the minority kids get their heads crammed full of ethnic chauvinism, white kids are taught — often quite explicitly — that being white is a source of shame.

Such indoctrination produces effects consistent with Newton’s Third Law of Motion: Every teaching has an equal and opposite reaction. One occasionally encounters white people who have so entirely internalized ther anti-racism lessons that they run around all the time pointing fingers at other white people, yelling, “RAAAAACIST!”

That’s annoying, but it is not as troubling to me as the opposite reaction: White kids who, resisting the indoctrination, develop a profound resentment of the non-whites whom they are constantly told are their moral superiors (in the liberal calculus where victimhood is superiority).

Trust me, Ta-Nehisi: It ain’t the old-fashioned white racism you need to worry about, it’s this disturbing new racism of kids quietly embittered at being branded with a collective mark of racial shame for the sins of dead white guys hundreds of years ago. You can call it “backlash,” or you can call it “unintended consequences,” and you might even wonder if the accidental results of the White Guilt curriculum weren’t occasionally manifested as something that doesn’t look like racism, but rather an inchoate rage: Columbine, Tucson, Aurora and so forth.

Lot of really angry young white guys out there, eh?

“Racism” is a word that has been degraded by promiscuous overuse, and if we can still recognize racism at work in the unfair suspicion directed at Forest Whitaker by a deli employee, it’s almost a miracle, considering how often nowadays we are told that “racist” is effectively a synonym for “Republican.” (Was the deli employee Republican?)

In truth, however, actual racism — a generalized hostility toward other races — is a psychological defense mechanism, a rationalization of personal failure by resort to blaming the scapegoated Other.

We recognize this in the life of Adolf Hitler, the failed artist who became an eager acolyte of anti-Semitism after being rejected at the Vienna institute. And we see how the German people, humiliated by defeat in World War I, responded to Hitler’s blame-the-Jews message as an explanation for the collective insult to their pride.

Anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools, Bebel said (as if socialism itself weren’t foolish enough, we might add). And the interesting thing about the Third Reich is that it was the National Socialists who created it. The Nazis’ particular hybrid of socialism was disowned by other socialists, whose habit is always to dismiss any failed socialist experiment — from the Stalinist nightmare to Pol Pot’s murderous lunacy to Hugo Chavez’s sordid mess in Venezuela — as Not Really Socialism.

But Hitler’s socialism was Really Socialism in the sense that it was about the victimhood of the allegedly virtuous masses at the expense of the vicious Other. Just substitute “Jews” for “bourgeoisie,” and it’s the same thing as more orthodox socialism. It’s about scapegoating — externalizing the causes of failure — and it doesn’t really mattere who the chosen scapegoat is, or what elaborate ideological superstructure one erects to justify it, the Politics of Blame is always the same.

How about that One Percent, huh?

NYPD arrest Occupy Wall Street protesters, Oct. 1, 2011

“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.”
– William F. Buckley Jr., Up From Liberalism (1959)

Well, “Occupy” mobs raging against bankers may seem harmless enough, but I wasn’t the only one who noticed that those mobs were mostly a bunch of idiot white kids, and who knows where their victim mentality may lead? Not in my lifetime, of course.

As bad as schools are and as vicious as our politics have become, America isn’t likely to go through any violent revolution or totalitarian dystopia soon. We seem to be traveling The Road to Serfdom by baby steps. Yet the escalating ignorance of history, and the dying off of those who have any direct memory of fighting against dangerous “un-American” ideas, creates a genuine risk of future generations surrendering to Bad Ideas we thought we had long ago vanquished.

Pardon the long digression, Ta-Nehisi, and sorry to bust your hustle, but why does the New York Times only want a black man to write op-eds for them when the subject is racism? Why don’t the editors ever solicit your thoughts about the budget or foreign policy? Are the editors of the New York Times the sort of liberals who think black writers can’t write about anything except being black? Isn’t that attitude . . . racist?

That box you’re thinking inside? Throw it away.

You might be surprised what the world actually looks like, once you escape the indoctrination and begin thinking for yourself. 

 

Category: Culture, History, Intellectuals, New York Times, Racism

LIVE AT FIVE: 03.08.13

Posted on | March 8, 2013 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Norks End Non-Aggression Pacts, Threaten U.S. & ROK With Nukes

Norks having a tantrum again

Military police at the Panmunjom crossing point in the DMZ

Announcement follows fresh round of UN sanctions


President Obama Does Lunch With Paul Ryan
Still no cure for cancerdebt crisis



Hugo Chavez Gets The Lenin Treatment
Corpse to be embalmed. put on public display



POLITICS
Rand’s Stand Draws Bipartisan Support

Awkwardness in a Senate elevator

Awkwardness in a Senate elevator

Graham, McCain accuse Rand of scaremongering as filibuster draws attention to domestic drone strike possibility


Markey Who? GOP: Poll “Speaks Volumes”


Oberlin College Asks FBI To Investigate Possible Racial Incidents On Campus

Hurricane Sandy Probe Looking At Homeowners

Sen. Levin (D-MI) Won’t Seek Re-Election In 2014

Interior Nominee’s Links To Environmentalists Draw Sharp Questions

Michigan Judge Delays Decision On Gay Marriage Ban

Will Arkansas’ Tough New Abortion Law Survive Court Challenges?



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Oil Falls In Asian Trade As Concern Over U.S. Budget Deadlock Grows: NYMEX $91.31, Brent $110.75
Citibank Seeks Permission For $1.2 Billion Stock Buyback
PRC February Exports Surge 21.8% In Latest Sign Of Improving Global Demand
Dollar Surges To 3.5-Year High Against The Yen
Weekly Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Drop 7K
Justice Dept. Consulted Treasury On Economic Impact If HSBC Charged With Money Laundering
Navistar Appoints CEO To Cement Turnaround, Shares Jump
Pandora Shares rise On Higher Than Expected Earnings; CEO To Retire
Google Begins Another Round Of Layoffs At Motorola Mobility
Facebook Making Photos More Prominent
FTC Cracks Down On “Gift Card” Message Spammers
Cablevision: Viacom Made Billion-Dollar Threat Over Bundling
“You Are A Pimp”: How Google Glasses Will Make Dating Creepy
Apple Patent Would Let You Sell Your iTunes Content To Others
Layoffs Underway At T-Mobile
Microsoft Adds Kinect Gesture Support To Windows 8
“Tomb Raider” Reboot Goes Gun Crazy



SPORTS
Mariano Rivera To Retire After 2013 Season

One Yankee that doesn't suck

Mariano Rivera

Holds save record with 608

Bruins Never Make It Easy

Thunder Holds Off Knicks, 95-94

Dominican Opens WBC Pool C With Rout Of Venezuela


Hamlin Fined $25K For Criticizing Gen6 Car; Furious Driver Says He Won’t Pay

Players Association Signs Off On NHL Realignment

Nash, Gaborik Rally Rangers Past Islanders

Frustration After Wildcats Fall To Bulldogs

Short Stint For Gio Gonzalez Before WBC



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Sofia Vergara’s Bra Racks Up “Machete Kills” Body Count

Because some things have to be seen to be believed

Apparently not a Photoshop job

“Lifts, separates, and mows down rivals.”

Disney: No Place Like Another “Oz” Sequel

Joy Behar Leaving “The View”

Justin Bieber Collapses On Stage In London, Rushed To Hospital

Chris Brown Threatens Valet Over $10 Service Charge

Kelly Osbourne Rushed To Hospital After Seizure

No, Miley Cyrus Did Not Call Off Her Wedding To Liam Hemsworth


Demi Moore Files For Divorce, Wants Alimony & Lawyer Fees

Ford, Fisher & Hamill On Boar For “Star Wars VII”? George Lucas Says Yes

“Hangover Part III” Trailer Debuts

Snooki Loses 42 Pounds, Debuts Post-Baby Bikini Bod

“Game Of Thrones” Babe Emilia Clarke’s Nude Broadway Scene Triggers Flash Pic Frenzy



FOREIGNERS
Cuban, Iranian Leaders To Attend Chavez’ State Funeral
Kenya Election” Odinga Camp Says Vote “Doctored”
Syrian Rebels Abduct 20 UN Peacekeepers, Demand Loyalists Withdraw From Village
Arab League Discusses Giving Syria’s Seat To Rebels
Burma Opposition Holds First Party Congress
Ignored Sultan’s Borneo Invasion Risks The Peace
Morsi To Abide By Court Ruling Striking Down Election Decree
Berlusconi Gets One Year For Wiretapping
Bersani Seeks Way Out Of Vote Impasse, Rules Out Coalition With Berlusconi



BLOGS & STUFF
Soylent Green: Best AGW Hoax Promotion EVAH!
Nick Gillespie: 3 Takeaways From #StandWithRad Filibuster
American Power: Rand Paul’s Political Genius
National Review: Rand Paul’s Drone War
AmSpecBlog: Where The Senate Does Its Business
Allahpundit: Lindsey Graham Chides GOP Senators – Funny How You Didn’t Mind The Drones Under Bush
Weasel Zippers: Rand Paul Fires Back At McRINO And Lindsey Graham
Jihad Watch: Senators Cruz, Paul Introduce Bill To Restrict Drone Strikes In The U.S.
Stephen Kruiser: Even The NYT Can’t Find Much Bad To Say About Rand Paul Today
Jawa Report: Why Obama Won’t Admit He Can’t Assassinate Americans In America
Via Meadia: Rand Paul’s Tea Too Strong For The GOP?
Power Line: It’s Too Bad We Can’t Impeach Bill Clinton Again
Israel Matzav: Obama, Kerry To Honor Cheerleader Of Burgas Attack
Mark Steyn: Virgin On The Ridiculous
Weekly Standard Blog: Samira Ibrahim Speaks
Steve Sailer: Morningside Heights Deli Of White Racism Identified
Clayton Cramer: This New Study That Purports To Prove Strict Gun Control Laws Reduce Gun Deaths
Jammie Wearing Fools: In Mike Bloomberg’s New York, 80% Of High School Graduates Can’t Read
JustOneMinute: Who’s Asking?
Viking Pundit: A Popular Idea That’s Oh So Wrong


Link submissions for tomorrow’s FMJRA are due today by midnight. Thanks in advance!


Category: Live at Five

Brett Kimberlin Calls Blog Bash Venue, Vows to ‘Put You Guys Out of Business’

Posted on | March 7, 2013 | 33 Comments

Wednesday, Brett Kimberlin associate Neal Rauhauser contacted the venue where the National Bloggers Club is hosting the fourth annual Blog Bash. Now I can report that Thursday morning, Kimberlin himself contacted the venue and, according to sources, was “raving like a lunatic” on the phone and angrily told the venue manager that he would “put you guys out of business” for hosting Blog Bash.

What is interesting is how closely these reported contacts by Rauhauser and Kimberlin echoed comments posted on a pro-Kimberlin blog by someone using the alias “Texas Tim.”  Here are screen caps of two comments, which you may click to enlarge:


To save you eye-strain, I’ll tell you that Wednesday night, “Texas Tim” criticized “these dumbass blog awards lionizing and nominating the worst scum of the earth,” falsely claiming that Blog Bash was “not welcome at CPAC,” and making this interesting claim to advance knowledge:

“[W]e know that the new venue for BlogBash will be contacted by major Muslim organizations to cancel the BlogBash event because Ali and BlogBash supported Aaron Walker, the publisher of the Everyone Draw Mohammed blog.”

Question: How does “Texas Tim” know what “major Muslim organizations” will be doing?

While you ponder that assertion of prescient knowledge, look at what “Texas Tim” wrote on Thursday morning:

“So here are a few suggestions: call [the venue] and tell them about Ali and about who BlogBash has nominated for awards. . . .
“Call Muslim organizations and urge them to weigh in by calling [the venue] and joining the protest at annd boycott of [the venue]. . . .
“Let’s put [the venue] of business for hosting anti-American Islamophobes, felons, pimps and pornographers. . . . [The venue’s] assault on women and Islam will not be tolerated.”

Well, this is fascinating, isn’t it? On the same two days that the BlogBash venue is contacted by Rauhauser and Kimberlin, “Texas Tim” first predicts Muslim groups will contact the venue, and then urges readers to encourage such groups to contact the venue. And the threat to put a certain nightclub “out of business” is the exact same language used by Brett Kimberlin in his phone call to the venue manager.

Now, Lee Stranahan has been keeping an eye on “Texas Tim” for a while and Lee says it’s Brett Kimberlin. However, the source who tipped me to these comments says “Texas Tim” is “definitely” Neal Rauhauser. I trust my source, but Lee may be right. Either way, the larger point is that this harassment of Blog Bash is not coincidental.

In addition to the report at Twitchy — today is their first birthday, by the way — there is a long list of bloggers now on this story:

 

Category: The Kimberlin Files

Tell The GOP We Want Reform

Posted on | March 7, 2013 | 22 Comments

by Smitty

What I said here at Boehner’s little site:

I blame the input more than the output.
Instead of a proper economy, with taxation funding an enumerated set of federal services, things run backward now.
“Zimbabwe” Ben Bernanke prints the money, DC hands it out as increased spending, and everyone pretends this is sustainable.
You can bleat on about managing the spending, but those with a grasp of human nature know that you will always find some “emergency” to justify the next spree.
“A mind is a terrible thing,” and rationalizations are not reform.
Repent, reform, restore.

Update: linked by That Mr. G Guy

Category: Uncategorized

Report: Team Kimberlin Harassment Now Targeting ‘Blog Bash’ Event at CPAC

Posted on | March 7, 2013 | 21 Comments

‘Speedway Bomber’: Criminal terrorist Brett Kimberlin was convicted in 1981

Guests and sponsors of the fourth annual “Blog Bash” have been harassed by associates of convicted bomber Brett Kimberlin, the event’s organizer said Thursday.

Kimberlin associate Neal Rauhauser reportedly contacted the party’s venue Wednesday attempting “to gather information about Blog Bash, knowing that all of us will be in one room for the first time ever,” National Bloggers Club president Ali Akbar said in a report.

The caller “tried scaring” the venue’s staff, said Akbar: “This is harassment and nothing short of a threat.”

Since its inception in 2010, Blog Bash has grown to become the biggest private party at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). At last year’s event, New Media entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart was recognized with the “Changing the Narrative” Award, the only journalism award he received during his lifetime. This year, the National Bloggers Club has renamed the award in honor of Breitbart, who died less than a month after being honored at Blog Bash.

The targeting of Blog Bash by Kimberlin is hardly coincidental. Andrew Breitbart himself warned before his death that “convicted domestic terrorist” Kimberlin and Kimberlin’s associates “need exposure.”

Kimberlin’s tax-exempt organization Velvet Revolution had called for criminal prosecution of James O’Keefe III and Hannah Giles for their 2009 video exposé of the left-wing group ACORN, which catapulted Bretibart’s online news operation into national headlines.

In October 2010, Breitbart published an account by Mandy Nagy (“Liberty Chick”) documenting Kimberlin’s criminal history as Indiana’s “Speedway Bomber.” In 1981, Kimberlin was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison for his crimes, but was released after serving only 17 years. By 2005, Kimberlin had formed two non-profit “progressive” groups that between them have since collected more than $2 million in donations, including substantial grants from foundations associated with George Soros, Barbra Streisand and the family of Theresa Heinz Kerry, wife of U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry.

Neal Rauhauser, a former Democrat political consultant, apparently joined forces with Kimberlin’s organizations in mid-2011, after Breitbart helped expose the sex scandal surrounding Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.). Rauhauser had become obsessed with the conspiracy theory that Weiner was the victim of a hacking hoax. In fall 2011, Rauhauser represented himself as an agent of Kimberlin’s Velvet Revolution group in communications with organizers of the “Occupy” anti-banking protests. Rauhauser and Kimberlin have accompanied each other to court appearances, and Rauhauser’s specialty as an online troublemaker has been a major part of the controversy that resulted in “Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin Day” last May.

The National Bloggers Club’s defense of bloggers targeted by Kimberlin and Rauhauser has now apparently made the Club’s annual Blog Bash a new target:

My Blog Bash staff and I have been monitoring their online chatter for weeks now. They’ve harassed our sponsors, tried hacking into our personal Twitter and Facebook accounts, and now they’re trying to stop the National Bloggers Club from hosting our annual gathering of bloggers, Blog Bash. 

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: John Hoge has extensively reported on Aaron Walker’s legal entanglement with Kimberlin:

Team Kimberlin just doesn’t get it. They’ve run up against a wall of bloggers who are determined to keep at the story until they’ve been brought to justice.

UPDATE II: Jeff Dunetz at Yid With Lid:

We will not be silenced. We will continue to fight for the truth. And we will have a great celebration of Blogging next Thursday night.
Want to piss them off? Donate a few bucks to the National Bloggers Club today.

UPDATE III: Jackie Wellfonder says, “WAR!”

UPDATE IV: Linked in a report by Oliver Barrie at Viral Read and also by Pete Da Tech Guy making the obvious point:

I think this is a huge mistake on their part, if you try to go after the odd blogger here and there online it’s pretty easy to convince a judge that it’s just some internet squabble.
However when you are harassing the organizers and venue of an event that draws significant guests from the political world and said event is held at a DC venue with some gravitas that’s a different story.

Pete also calls attention to a must-read post by Lee Stranahan about how Kimberlin’s crew have tried to expose Aaron Walker to make him a target of dangerous extremists.

 


Category: The Kimberlin Files

Senators Cruz And Lee Talking Doubling Down On ObamaCare Funding

Posted on | March 7, 2013 | 12 Comments

by Smitty

Byron York at the Examiner reports:

With Congress moving ahead on a continuing resolution to fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year, some Senate Republicans are proposing an amendment to delay funding the implementation of Obamacare — and they are threatening to stop the entire continuing resolution process unless their amendment is given a vote.
The amendment is the work of Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, joined by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee. “I intend to object to consideration of any continuing resolution that does not include a vote to delay funding of Obamacare,” Cruz said in a press release Wednesday. Arguing that Obamacare will slow economic growth — already just 0.1 percent last quarter — Cruz added, “I believe we should continue to delay such funding at least until economic growth returns to historic averages.”

Slowing economic growth is one thing. The question I have is, if there is no balanced budget, and every time they revise the costs of ObamaCare, it goes up by a non-trivial number, how can we possibly be thinking of letting this monstrosity get funded?

York notes:

In the end, they will lose. It is highly unlikely that Cruz and Lee will receive a vote on their amendment, and even if they did, it would fail in a Senate with 55 Democrats. It is much more likely that Majority Leader Harry Reid would invoke cloture and at least 60 senators would vote to go forward over the Cruz/Lee objections and without considering their amendment. The end of the story, according to one Senate Republican not aligned with Cruz and Lee, is simple: “Reid files cloture and people don’t want to shut down the government.”

It would be a vote that would come back to haunt at least Mark Warner here in Virginia. Make these sunny beaches own the sand they’re kicking into our future.

Category: Health Care

Rallying To Find Ways That Lefties Are Not Completely Untrue RE Sequestration

Posted on | March 6, 2013 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

Americans for Prosperity sure isn’t Americans Trying To Help A Beleaguered Administration Find A Way To Navigate A Second Term. So, despite all the mean-spirited nit-picking of their post, this blog will, once again, fearlessly step into the breach, and try to salvage some of that tattered honor:

Fiction: FAA: “In one of the most immediate consequences of the pending spending cuts, the Federal Aviation Administration has informed contractors that … the agency will move Monday to close some 168 contractor-staffed air traffic control towers nationwide on April 1, and another 21 towers by Sept. 30, industry officials tell CNN.”– CNN 3/1/13
Fact: “Two days after a Federal Aviation Administration official told contractors that steps were being taken to shut down 168 air traffic control towers on April 1, the agency gave the towers an unexpected reprieve Friday, saying the official’s comments were ‘unauthorized.’”- CNN 3/1/13

Now, if by ‘close’ you mean ‘delay’, and by ‘168’, you mean ‘any positive integer’, then clearly we can connect sequestration with air travel delays brought on by the nor’easter to the capitol region today. Furthermore, for all George W. Bush is the pulsating heart of all universal evil, the White House has fallen short of blaming the weather on him or the GOP. Admirable. Read more

Category: Uncategorized

World’s Youngest Blogger Simulates Reaction To Incoming Drone Strike

Posted on | March 6, 2013 | 9 Comments

The WYB is not alone:

Category: World's Youngest Blogger
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