Posted on 09/21/2009 5:05:54 AM PDT by Tolik
Policies no, Obama maybe…
Barack Obama is charismatic. He can charm, and has mastered the art of set cadence, pause, articulation, and voice modulation, in the manner of a JFK. He has appeared on television far more in nine months than have prior presidents in an entire administration. But his problem is that his policies—cap and trade, nationalized health care, $2 trillion deficits, fringe-politics czars, therapeutic foreign policies, etc.—poll below 50 percent. So his advisors quite understandably assume that by sheer magnetism Obama can still sell the public a product they doubt—sort of like GM’s top salesman thinking he can sell an Honda Accord buyer a new Malibu. (trust me, it does not work)
In response to his own declining polls, his initiatives are stalled—and, more importantly, his centrist Democratic supporters are themselves dug in, fingers in the wind, waiting until his polls go back up to 55%.
When in doubt…
Barring sudden changes in the economy, or a Clinton-like 1995 flip to the center, the Obamians feel that they can still overwhelm the public through two strategies: have subordinates (but never the White House) demonize opponents as “racists”, and unleash Obama on the media, convinced that his attractive personality can become persuasive as well (the two are not the same: I like Bruce Springsteen’s music and enjoy his occasional talks, but would never follow his political advice; Tommy Lee Jones is one of my favorite actors; but would never follow his enthusiasm for Al Gore).
Wolf, wolf and more crying wolf…
A variety of liberal icons has weighed in on the racist theme. What is again sad is that many of the most prominent accusers have forfeited credibility, given their own past record of wolf-crying.
I remember in the campaign that most of the race embarrassment, in fact, was on the liberal side: the imbroglio over Bill Clinton’s charges about the “race card” played on him; Joe Biden’s “clean” black remark and Indians in donut shops; Howard Dean’s wild charges about Republicans and black servants; Geraldine Ferraro’s suggestion that being black helped, not hurt Obama; the 95% black majorities in the primaries that voted in bloc fashion against a white, very liberal candidate; Obama’s own racial baggage with Rev. Wright, “clingers”, typical white person, etc.
In other words, eighteen months ago at this time, Obama was struggling with the suggestion that his past record illustrated that he was close with racists like Wright, and saw the election in racial prisms. Meanwhile, liberal rivals had tried to emphasize those very contradictions, often in clumsy terms. Currently, he vehemently denies a racial component to criticism against his policies (he reads the polls that to do so is political suicide), but oddly apparently does not privately send the word out to his operatives in the media and in Congress to cool it, since he also sees political advantage if such charges blunt criticism of his unpopular initiatives. (A note: part of the problem is that elites dominate the issue: calling someone “racist” does not work in the workplace for most people who are not so easily intimidated; but our talking heads and journalists are themselves passive-aggressives who are as timid in real life as they chest-thump in public.)
But is there any credibility?
Fast forward: I just read the charges of Bob Herbert, the New York Times columnist, who now swears racism fuels anger at the Obama new deal. He even cites the Kenney assassination as dire warning. But, wait—JFK was killed, as the Warren Report detailed, by a pro-Soviet, Fair Play for Cuba Marxist.
Bob Hebert himself not long ago alleged on television that a McCain ad was abjectly racist because it had two supposed phallic symbols in the background: those Freudian bogeymen, the leaning tower of Pisa and the Lincoln Monument.
The racists in the McCain campaign, Herbert swore, used subliminal imagery to scare us about purported black sexual prowess. But wait once more: Herbert crafted all this. The image was simply the Victory Column in Berlin. It was chosen as a backdrop to remind viewers of the pomposity of Obama himself using the icon (after being turned down for wanting the more presidential set of the Brandenburg Gate). Even grade school students can distinguish the Washington Monument—and most likely the leaning tower of Pisa as well. (By the way, given the hysterics of the New York Times in its Obamania and the lengths to which it has gone, and given its dire fiscal condition, and given the federal bail-outs under Obama, and given the spread of czardom, we know what will follow very soon….)
And on and on…
Maureen Dowd had no evidence of racism either. No matter once more—she inserts the word “boy” into Joe Wilson’s unfortunate “You lie” rude interruption, to invent a racist rather than a merely boorish remark. But with all due respect once more, why believe Ms. Dowd, who just recently lifted sentences from another writer, used them as her own, and then, when caught, claimed she absentmindedly cut and pasted from an email?
Jimmy Carter, at 84 no less, of course had his say. In blanket fashion, without qualification, he blasted opponents of Obama as racists. Projection? One of the reasons as a Democrat I did not vote for Carter ages ago in 1976 was his own racist past. During the 1976 campaign, it surfaced that in the 1950s Carter himself as a school board member had tried to block new black schools as part of Byzantine efforts to circumvent integration.
In his past, he has apologized several times for condescending racial language, and his brother and his family came off even creepier than he was. In this context, his virulent attacks on Israel and the supposed Jewish lobby were logical rather than aberrant. Again, no credibility at all on matter of race or racial tolerance.
More of the usual suspects
Then there was the failing career of Gov. Paterson in New York. Seventy percent of liberal New Yorkers don’t want Paterson to run again because he is inept and without political sense. No matter. He too cries racism. And he warns Obama is the next target of the haters. But rumors now blanket the news that Axelrod, Emanuel, etc. (on orders from Obama himself) want the albatross Paterson gone, lest he lose them New York to a Giuliani or centrist Republican. I think the real narrative would be better expressed as, “I am a victim of a racist whispering campaign to undermine my reelection bid emanating from the racist White House.”
We come to Nancy Pelosi. She’s now warning about extremist language and its dangerous wages. Pelosi cites the 1970s hatred in the Bay Area that killed Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone. But wait, wait again. Dan White was a Democrat who shot the two officials in a long running political dispute that came to a head with his sudden resignation from his supervisorial seat and the unwillingness of the two other officials to allow the erratic candidate to get back on the board. Pelosi, of course, used to praise protestors until she detected Nazi symbolism in the latest manifestations of dissent, and then tried to demagogue the issue with as much inflammatory language as she could muster. Republicans don’t say much about her speakership, because they know that her tenure, along with the presence of the ethically-challenged Rangel and Murtha, are political godsends.
The Rationale
What, then, is behind the “racist” charge? Let us count the strategies in calling wolf, wolf.
Preemption. The American people by overwhelming majorities reject the desperate retreat to the racist charge. But no matter. Elites know that by preempting criticism with “racist!,” they can fire a shot across the bow of potential critics. Conservatives scoff, but some of them will be wary of spending hours writing mea culpas that they are not racists.
Bewilderment. Many who employ the desperate tactic are themselves bewildered by criticism of Obama. They had assumed that his ratings would stay at 70%. Apparently, they thought anger at Bush, the Iraq war, Wall Street after the meltdown, and the McCain campaign, all translated into grass roots demands for a new humongous mother state, in which the government would run 40-50% of aggregate GDP, under the aegis of bureaucrats like a Timothy Geithner, Joe Biden Eric Holder, or Van Jones.
Exemption. There are no downsides to the charge. It is akin to calling someone a wife-beater or molester. Conversation turns to “No, I’m really not!” It ends all discussion. The perpetrator suffers no censure. If one doubts that, just examine the strange career of Al Sharpton. He went from street theater and inciting violence to a respectable talking head, largely because he knew the more he charged racism, the more others would not wish to waste time denying it, and so reinvented him as a mainstream civil rights leader.
It is prophylactic. Van Jones in his own language is a racist. By his own words, one sees that he see problems, whether environmental or homicidal, in terms of white pathology. Charles Rangel is a racialist: he too charges white pathology anytime he is targeted as tax cheat. And so on. Legitimizing the racist charge ends any discussion of whether there is a real problem in the black community of elites using such preemptive charges in lieu of rational argumentation. E.g., “You are a racist, and therefore cannot critique my argument on its logic.” Or “I can use racist tropes, but am myself exempt from charges of racism.” It reminds me of proactive armor that explodes in the face of incoming charges.
“Racist!” supersedes the real problem of class. In today’s multiracial society, class is no longer predicated on race. The elite Stanford students of color I encounter during the week are far more privileged than many poor whites I see in the southern San Joaquin Valley on weekends. Asians have higher per capita incomes than Californians at large. I am here at Hillsdale for four weeks of teaching, and, to engage in stereotyping, the poorer whites of southern Michigan (and almost everyone of the proverbial middle and lower middle class here) seem to be far worse off economically than their counterparts, or indeed Hispanics in general, in a Selma or Reedley in central California, in a state that is literally bankrupt. Race does not seem to have much to do with status, social standing, or wealth. Class and education are the greater determinants. Add the ubiquity of modern intermarriage into the equation, and race seems to be increasingly passé, and now largely diminished to an ID badge for elites who see careerist advantages in tribal identification (when they can even establish it in the age of hyphenated nomenclature). Most others go along their daily lives, and do not predicate their waking hours on their own or others’ particular race.
Not Hope or Changed
As I wrote often, the election of the “healer” Barack Obama, I felt, would make racial relations worse, despite the bipartisan appreciation of his historical candidacy. Why? Obama had, by his voting record, proven the most partisan Senator in Congress. His career in Chicago was predicated on racial-identity politics. His 20-year membership in the racist Rev. Wright’s pulpit was predicated on the need for establishing street credibility and racialist credentials. I was not convinced by Michelle Obama’s campaign rhetoric that I was in error.
And his offhand remarks on race—more calls for victimization studies in the schools, calls for reparation (withdrawn when the media publicized them), and unfortunate slips, from the Pennsylvania stereotyping to “the typical white person” flippant, second-nature remark—did not disabuse me of that initial impression. Nor did Chris Matthews’ tingle or Newsweek’s “A god.”
In other words, I thought it would be very difficult for a candidate who had seen problems in terms of racial identity to transcend his past, however elegant and moving the rhetoric. In contrast, there are dozens of major black political figures, and, I believe, the vast majority of Americans of all races, who see race as incidental rather than essential to their personas.
Again, nothing these past nine months have persuaded me that my fears were misplaced. And now we witness a new development in which the serious and once legitimate word “racist/racism” tragically has lost all currency (despite the continual presence of racists and racism). In political discourse, it means nothing other than a tactical move to obtain political or careerist advantage. (By the same token, “Nazi” means nothing now either. It too has devolved from a descriptive term of a nightmarish philosophy that engineered the murder of 6 million and started a war that led to 50 million dead to a debating tool to end debate entirely).
Footnotes.
I have not posted this week due to the flu here in Michigan; I haven’t gotten the flu in five years, but surely did this past week. Our Danube Munich to Budapest historical trip is almost sold out, the most quickly so in the brief history of our trips.
We plan to take 60, but this week are nearing 55 signed up, even though we advertised the May 2010 trip just a month ago. We will have two historians on the trip with me, and at least two guest historical lectures by major European intellectuals. A great deal on emphasis will be on the eastern fronts during World War II.
I’ve been posting irregularly because I’m trying to get out four books in the next 18 months—a Princeton edited Makers of Ancient Strategy (10 essays by classicists on terrorism, preemption, counter-insurgency, etc. and their classical antecedents; due out in May), War, the Father of Us All (14 essays I wrote on war over the last decade, but 70% rewritten and expanded, due out in late summer, Bloomsbury), No Man A Slave (a historical novel on the great liberation of the helots; another Bloomsbury book, due out in early 2011), and the Savior Generals (six cases studies of wars deemed lost and then saved by unique ancient and modern commanders, Bloomsbury/early 2012). For these reasons, I have tried to cut back this year (and next) on travel, speaking, and media things to ensure all four are finished on time (three are completed). I’ll try to keep these posts shorter and more frequent. I appreciate the comments, and the general level of debate which I try to follow closely.
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We need to countercharge when we are accused of racism.
I suggest using the following:
Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.
Straight out of their playbook...
Anti-racism’s only meaning in today’s vernacular is anti-white, these race card hustlers are nothing but proto-nazis of a different color.
He has yet to do that. He tepidly has made comments that can be spun as doing this but his responses have been so weak as to be almost meaningless.
That 0 does not do come out and publicly rebuke the race baiters indicates he not only condones the accusation, he is in fact encouraging the accusers to keep making the blatantly fraudulent accusation.
I had someone charge “racism” to me recently (and they were white) and I started laughing and said, “Really. Is that the best you can do? You can’t debate me on the merits of my argument so are you really going to start calling me a racist?” Caught them completely off guard.
Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
&&&&&
A story:
Back in the late sixties, I worked in the inner city of Baltimore, where the Black Panthers, and other groups promoting “black is beautiful” were very active.
One day, stopped at a traffic light, a middle-school-aged boy started to cross the street in front of my car, changed direction and came to my window and yelled “honky, honky, honky.” My immediate reaction was to laugh at him.
I have often wondered what he made of that reaction. He must have thought he was using the equivalent of the “n” word. I wonder if he realized that calling someone ‘honky’ was not a weapon at all. No name is, unless we allow it to be hurtful.
But the king has no clothes.
(No intellect, either.)
THAT’s why the Obamaloon is hiding his school records.
He’s nature’s most perfect vacuum.
Sounds good. I suppose it will turn up in the library in 2012!
You had the PERFECT RESPONSE to such a stupid insult.
They cannot win on the merits of the arguement so they have to attack.
Remember the Clintons and the politics of personal destruction...
Clinton was an advocate of Saul Alinsky as are all radicals today.
Why am I NOT surprised?
Awesome riposte to claims of racism!
riposte |riˈpōst|
noun
1 a quick clever reply to an insult or criticism.
2 Fencing a quick return thrust following a parry.
“Racist!” supersedes the real problem of class.
Yes, it does, and this is a fairly important point. The distribution of poverty among black citizens was very different a half-century ago from what we see today and the mapping of race to economic class, although not entirely valid, was far more valid than it now is. The black middle class has solidified and the argument has had to devolve, in classic Marxist fashion, from poverty/economics as a class identifier to other forms of oppression - "disparate impact" for example. That's harder to prove to be sure but proof is not important; the accusation is sufficient.
This accounts for the viciousness with which middle-class blacks who do vote class interest over race, are marginalized, cursed as race traitors, intimidated, silenced. Ironically this is done most enthusiastically by tenured professors and activists in thousand-dollar suits who derive their political legitimacy not from protecting black people, but (ostensibly) from protecting poor people. If that mapping fails, their influence fades.
In short, there is an inverse relationship between noise and substance on the issue. There is yet another class relationship going on here: between an influential elite that considers itself the rightful proprietors over progressivism and the rest of us who are to be (1) led, (2) "educated", (3) silenced, and (4) milked for all we're worth. That's the class relationship the phony screams of "racism!" are protecting.
"used subliminal imagery to scare us"
They liked finding the Da Vinci Code in the McCain "fame" ad.
But it revealed more about the fantasies of a liberal New York Times writer.
Not to be outdone by the McCain camp,
they enlisted the president of France in reviving the legend
and adding some more subliminal symbolism.
Why am I NOT surprised?
Several years ago, a black acquaintance of mine was absolutely insistant that all of the southern governors who had fought school integration through the 1950s and 60s were evil Republicans. They just had to be.
He was completely amazed to find that they were, in fact, all Democrats and that it was a Republican president who sent in federal troops to enforce court-ordered desegregation.
The Dems love hiding these policies and statist expansionism
behind this accusation.It's an attempt to end and silence debate.
That's why he was picked and groomed for this role by his handlers
and puppetmasters. They can try to ram through these outrageous policies
of socialized medicine, population control, and Fabian Socialism
while claiming ANY opponents who speak out against it are racists.
Has anyone taken the time to point out that Obama's executive order
for U.S. tax dollars to fund abortions and global population control abroad
in Third World countries will target predominantly non-white populations?
What would have been the reaction if Bush had been the front man
for such a Malthusian policy?
He was completely amazed to find that they were, in fact, all Democrats and that it was a Republican president who sent in federal troops to enforce court-ordered desegregation.
As you noticed, control of the MSM has it's advantages - keeping the lid on truth is one of them. Blacks in congress didn't know Byrd was a member of the KKK until just a few years ago...
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