Archive Listing
August 11, 2011 - August 4, 2011
Friday, November 05, 2010
Beware of Milady
Dangerously
evil, with excuses, infinite wiles, and a mercenary obsession.
AMAZON. Here's a sobering forecast from the National Review about the probable fate of the Tea Party d'Artagnans who are riding to our rescue in Washington.
A
Pig Walking on his Hind Legs
The Post ruminates today on whether the new crop of anti-Washington congressmen will go native, as so much of the class of 1994 did. Some great quotes suggest the answer is yes:
“They run against Washington calling it a cesspool and discover that it’s really a hot tub,” said Craig Shirley, president of Shirley and Bannister, a conservative public relations shop based in Alexandria.
and:
Fourteen of those 73 freshmen [from 1994] remain in the House, but many more are still in Washington. “A lot of them went on to have relationships with big lobbies or law firms here,” Killian says. “Most decided, ‘It’s great in Washington and I want to stay, so I’ll figure out a way.’ People want to take you to dinner all the time, and everybody’s hanging on your every word.
“By and large, they became indistinguishable from the people they replaced.”
My natural pessimism leads me to think the same will happen this time. As Orwell wrote at the end of Animal Farm:
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
The only way to remedy this is to shrink the importance and activity of the national government (both at home and abroad) because talent and money will always flow toward power. But, once in possession of power, only extraordinary men like George Washington or Cincinnatus are going to give it up. And while Congress may not be, as Twain wrote, America’s only “distinctively native American criminal class,” they’re not Washingtons either.
Which suggests to me a reading recommendation for all those of Tea Party bent: Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers. How could it possibly be relevant? It features a character who may be the ultimate villain in the entire history of fiction, greater even than Iago, who was, after all, a creature of intellect. Not so with Milady de Winter. She was far more akin to the scorpion of the fable who fatally stung the frog on whose back she was riding across a torrential river: "Why?" asked the stricken frog. "We will both die now." The scorpion replied, "It is simply my nature."Wikipedia actually contains a biography of the Milady de Winter. Here are some highlights:
A capable and beautiful spy, Milady is
an unusual example of a strong, independent woman with a tragic and
checkered past, filled with the seduction and willful destruction of
men who will provide her with monetary support. Milady is remorseless
and unrepentant for her countless "misdeeds". Late in the novel, after
the reader is already presented with numerous examples of her villainy
to the crown, she is revealed to be the wife of Athos, one of the
musketeers in the title of the novel...
After being expelled by Athos, she winds up in the employ of Cardinal Richelieu, working as his spy, assassin, and messenger. She steals the jewels that Anne of Austria, wife of King Louis XIII, entrusted to her lover the English Duke of Buckingham, but the intended scandal is averted.
D'Artagnan himself later meets Milady and falls under her spell...
When the Catholic Richelieu lays siege to the Hugenot city of La Rochelle, the Protestant Buckingham leads an unsuccessful expedition to assist the besieged. In a house near La Rochelle, Athos and his friends Porthos and Aramis overhear a conversation between the Cardinal and Milady, plotting to kill Buckingham before he can make another attempt.
Even if he is the enemy of France, the musketeers regard Buckingham, the man, as a friend. They commit treason to the crown, and thus warn him of the threat and upon arriving in England, Milady is arrested and imprisoned in a house by her hostile brother-in-law, the new Lord de Winter. She seduces her jailer, John Felton, persuading him that she is a Puritan at heart and that Buckingham is persecuting her because she refused his advances. Felton has his own grievances against Buckingham, whom he blames for his lack of promotion in the army. He thus proceeds to murder the Duke (a real-life event), but after carrying out the murder he is aghast to see Milady's ship sailing away without him. He is later hanged.
Returning to France, Milady carries out the murder of d'Artagnan's landlady and lover, Mlle Constance Bonacieux, when the two happen upon one another in a convent. For her multiple murders, and for the other deaths she has caused, Milady is judged by the musketeers, Lord de Winter, and by the executioner of Lille, the group having proceeded to track and hunt Milady after the death of Constance. The executioner of Lille, who placed the brand upon her shoulder years ago, beheads her in one of the last scenes of the novel after a mock trial.
After being expelled by Athos, she winds up in the employ of Cardinal Richelieu, working as his spy, assassin, and messenger. She steals the jewels that Anne of Austria, wife of King Louis XIII, entrusted to her lover the English Duke of Buckingham, but the intended scandal is averted.
D'Artagnan himself later meets Milady and falls under her spell...
When the Catholic Richelieu lays siege to the Hugenot city of La Rochelle, the Protestant Buckingham leads an unsuccessful expedition to assist the besieged. In a house near La Rochelle, Athos and his friends Porthos and Aramis overhear a conversation between the Cardinal and Milady, plotting to kill Buckingham before he can make another attempt.
Even if he is the enemy of France, the musketeers regard Buckingham, the man, as a friend. They commit treason to the crown, and thus warn him of the threat and upon arriving in England, Milady is arrested and imprisoned in a house by her hostile brother-in-law, the new Lord de Winter. She seduces her jailer, John Felton, persuading him that she is a Puritan at heart and that Buckingham is persecuting her because she refused his advances. Felton has his own grievances against Buckingham, whom he blames for his lack of promotion in the army. He thus proceeds to murder the Duke (a real-life event), but after carrying out the murder he is aghast to see Milady's ship sailing away without him. He is later hanged.
Returning to France, Milady carries out the murder of d'Artagnan's landlady and lover, Mlle Constance Bonacieux, when the two happen upon one another in a convent. For her multiple murders, and for the other deaths she has caused, Milady is judged by the musketeers, Lord de Winter, and by the executioner of Lille, the group having proceeded to track and hunt Milady after the death of Constance. The executioner of Lille, who placed the brand upon her shoulder years ago, beheads her in one of the last scenes of the novel after a mock trial.
Don't get ahead of me here. Milady's not a stand-in for Nancy Pelosi, that dumbass Richelieu in the kingdom of Obama. She is, to my mind, far more a symbol of the Washington, DC, culture, that relentlessly corrupting and unscrupulous vortex of near-infallible seduction to the dark side. What is most clear about Milady is that no one is immune -- even those who know full well how terrible and treacherous she is. Even the hero of heroes, d'Artagnan.
Why I'm recommending you read the book, not just the synopsis. The scene in which the musketeers abduct her in the dead of night and (dare I say) frog-march her toward execution is as terrifying as any horror movie you've ever seen. The musketeers assign guards to carry her along, but their fear of her is such that as soon as they detect any conversation between Milady and a guard, they dismiss and replace him. He is tainted, no longer to be trusted. That's the image that came to me when I read the National Review entry.
Do not think that anything has yet been won. The naifs we have elected are just so many earnest Feltons; Milady is a genius at spotting every man's weakness and turning it to her own ends. The watchwords are vigilance, suspicion, and even paranoia. Milady is waiting, and she is an almost unstoppably mesmerizing monster.
Maybe
you can't understand the words, but German is the language of control.
Not to be a downer or anything...
P.S. Don't trust any of the movies. They're all uncomfortable with the idea of multiple armed men illegally herding a woman to her beheading. Somehow, the seductress is always vitiated as a figure of pure evil. Why seduction is never wholly defeated; it is too often too beautiful to slaughter with the coldness it deserves. Only the original gets it right. So much for the illuminating power of the canon. We censor it when it offends our wishful thinking. But we do still have the original to look back to. If we have the will.
posted at
2:00 pm
by
InstaPunk
Tim Wise,
Anti-Racist
SWARTHMORONS.35.9-13.
Time for a fisking. Why bother? (There was a debate at InstaPunk
about it. See the Comments here.)
I wound up siding with DJ Moore (post what you've got so far and quit)
and Brizoni (Kill him...!)
Here's a bio that
should
make most
people sick:
Tim Wise is among the most prominent
anti-racist writers and educators in the United States, and has been
called, “One of the most brilliant, articulate and courageous critics
of white privilege in the nation,” by best-selling author and professor
Michael Eric Dyson, of Georgetown University. Wise, who was recently
named one of “25 Visionaries Who are Changing Your World,” by Utne
Reader, has spoken in 49 states, on over 600 college campuses, and to
community groups across the nation. He has also lectured
internationally in Canada and Bermuda on issues of comparative racism,
race and education, racism and religion, and racism in the labor market.
Wise is the author of five books, including White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son; Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White; Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male; Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama, and his latest, Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity. He has contributed essays to twenty-five books, and is one of several persons featured in White Men Challenging Racism: Thirty-Five Personal Stories, from Duke University Press. He received the 2001 British Diversity Award for best feature essay on race issues, and his writings have appeared in dozens of popular, professional and scholarly journals.
Wise has provided anti-racism training to teachers nationwide, and has conducted trainings with physicians and medical industry professionals on how to combat racial inequities in health care. He has also trained corporate, government, entertainment, military and law enforcement officials on methods for dismantling racism in their institutions, and has served as a consultant for plaintiff’s attorneys in federal discrimination cases in New York and Washington State.
In summer, 2005, Wise served as an adjunct faculty member at the Smith College School for Social Work, in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he co-taught a Master’s level class on Racism in the U.S. In 2001, Wise trained journalists to eliminate racial bias in reporting, as a visiting faculty-in-residence at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. From 1999-2003, Wise was an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute, in Nashville, and in the early ’90s he was Youth Coordinator and Associate Director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism: the largest of the many groups organized for the purpose of defeating neo-Nazi political candidate, David Duke. He graduated from Tulane University in 1990 and received antiracism training from the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, in New Orleans.
Wise has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs, is a regular contributor to discussions about race on CNN, and was featured in a segment on ABC’s 20/20, in 2007.
Wise is the author of five books, including White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son; Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White; Speaking Treason Fluently: Anti-Racist Reflections From an Angry White Male; Between Barack and a Hard Place: Racism and White Denial in the Age of Obama, and his latest, Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity. He has contributed essays to twenty-five books, and is one of several persons featured in White Men Challenging Racism: Thirty-Five Personal Stories, from Duke University Press. He received the 2001 British Diversity Award for best feature essay on race issues, and his writings have appeared in dozens of popular, professional and scholarly journals.
Wise has provided anti-racism training to teachers nationwide, and has conducted trainings with physicians and medical industry professionals on how to combat racial inequities in health care. He has also trained corporate, government, entertainment, military and law enforcement officials on methods for dismantling racism in their institutions, and has served as a consultant for plaintiff’s attorneys in federal discrimination cases in New York and Washington State.
In summer, 2005, Wise served as an adjunct faculty member at the Smith College School for Social Work, in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he co-taught a Master’s level class on Racism in the U.S. In 2001, Wise trained journalists to eliminate racial bias in reporting, as a visiting faculty-in-residence at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida. From 1999-2003, Wise was an advisor to the Fisk University Race Relations Institute, in Nashville, and in the early ’90s he was Youth Coordinator and Associate Director of the Louisiana Coalition Against Racism and Nazism: the largest of the many groups organized for the purpose of defeating neo-Nazi political candidate, David Duke. He graduated from Tulane University in 1990 and received antiracism training from the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, in New Orleans.
Wise has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs, is a regular contributor to discussions about race on CNN, and was featured in a segment on ABC’s 20/20, in 2007.
Sad, sad, sad.
Why do I say that? Because he's a man with a one-note career, and he's a phony at that. Herewith the fisking that proves it
An Open
Letter to the White Right, On the Occasion of Your Recent, Successful
Temper Tantrum
Posted on November 3, 2010
For all y’all rich folks, enjoy that champagne, or whatever fancy ass Scotch you drink.
And for y’all a bit lower on the economic scale, enjoy your Pabst Blue Ribbon, or whatever shitty ass beer you favor. [So everyone who disagrees with you is a drunk. Good to know.]
Whatever the case, and whatever your economic station, know this…
You need to drink up.
And quickly.
And heavily.
Because your time is limited.
Real damned limited. [Do you write books this way?]
So party while you can, but mind the increasingly loud clock ticking away in the corners of your consciousness.
The clock that reminds you how little time you and yours have left.
Not much more now.
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
Tick.
Tock. [Yawn.]
I know, you think you’ve taken “your country back” with this election — and of course you have always thought it was yours for the taking, cuz that’s what we white folks are bred to believe, that it’s ours, and how dare anyone else say otherwise — but you are wrong. [Speak for yourself, John.]
You have won a small battle in a larger war the meaning of which you do not remotely understand. [Let me guess. You're going to explain why you're smarter than everyone else...]
‘Cuz there is nothing even slightly original about you. [As opposed to the ultimate originality of you. Got it.]
There have always been those who wanted to take the country back. [You must have majored in journalism. One sentence = one paragraph. Congratulations.]
There were those who, in past years, wanted to take the country back to a time of enslavement and indentured servitude. [Who were those people exactly? Please be specific.]
But they lost .[No shit.]
There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when children could be made to work in mines and factories, when workers had no legal rights to speak of, when the skies in every major city were heavy with industrial soot that would gather on sidewalks and windowsills like volcanic ash. [There were those who made up fantasy enemies who embodied all that was worst in humankind and then pretended that their fantasies were all the authority figures they spent their lives rebelling against. So? And there were those who bored the shit out of everybody because they hated their parents and pretended that personal hatreds were synonymous with social justice.]
But they lost. [No shit, again. Are you starting to see a pattern here, Lochinvar? Your worst fears are the same as your fantasies.]
There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when women could not vote, or attend any but a few colleges, or get loans in their own names, or start their own businesses. [Now you're fucking with reality. It's people of your kind who have done more to keep women enslaved than the people you hate. You're the ones who have decided that women who aren't leftists are fair game to be derided as whores, sluts, and worse.]
[TIME OUT. Anaphora is a figure of speech that uses constant repetition of opening phrases as a rhetorical device. "This is a country in which..." "There are those who..." Thing is, it gets really tiresome. It's not writing. It's bad ad copy. Just saying.]
But they lost. [Who's they? Sorry. I'm losing track. Something, perhaps, about the thudding boredom of your prose is putting me to sleep.]
There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when blacks “had no rights that the white man was bound to respect,” – this being the official opinion of the Supreme Court before those awful days of judicial activism, now decried by the likes of you – and when people of color could legally be kept from voting solely because of race, or holding certain jobs, or living in certain neighborhoods, or run out of other towns altogether when the sun would go down, or be strung up from trees. [Let me guess. Anyone who disagrees with you is one of those people.]
But they lost. [Jeez. Do you know anything about pacing, let alone writing....?]
And you will lose. [Good Lord. Did you really write your masters thesis this way? Did you submit in crayon?]
So make a note of it. [I promise. In crayon.]
Tweet it to yourself. [Shit. My tweet thing doesn't have a crayon option.]
Put it on your Facebook wall and leave it there so you’ll remember that I told you so. [Will do. uh, who told me so? Sorry. I forget. Also, I don't have a Facebook page. Does that make me a racist? I suppose it does. So so sorry.]
It is coming, and soon. [WHAT is coming?! You and your hard-on about race relations? Or something else? Have you ever heard of an actual declarative sentence that doesn't consist mostly of antecedentless pronouns?]
This isn’t hubris. It isn’t ideology. It is not wishful thinking. [uh, then what is it, kemo sabe? I was pretty sure it was all three till you told me it wasn't. Now I'm confused...]
It is math. [Math? Really? Like a guy who can't write a simple sentence knows something about math?]
Not even advanced math. Just simple, basic, like 3rd grade math. [Oh. Third grade math? That I can believe.]
The kind of math that proves how your kind — mostly older white folks beholden to an absurd, inaccurate, nostalgic fantasy of what America used to be like — are dying. [You're going to do that with simple addition and subtraction? Can't wait.]
You’re like the bad guy in every horror movie ever made, who gets shot five times, or stabbed ten, or blown up twice, and who will eventually pass — even if it takes four sequels to make it happen — but who in the meantime keeps coming back around, grabbing at our ankles as we walk by, we having been mistakenly convinced that you were finally dead this time. [Oh. Sorry. You weren't talking about math or even arithmetic. You were talking about counting. Damn if I don't feel intimidated.]
Fair enough, and have at it. But remember how this movie ends. [I'll bite. How does this movie end?]
Our ankles survive. [Huh?]
You do not. [Come again. If your ankles survive, everything important survives? Well... maybe... given the level of intellect you've shown so far, maybe your ankles are as smart as the rest of you.]
Michael Meyers, Freddie Kreuger, Jason, and that asshole husband in that movie with Julia Roberts who tracks her down after she runs away and changes her identity–they are all done. Even that crazy fucker in Saw is about to be finished off for good. Granted, he’s gonna be popping out in 3-D to scare the kiddies, so he isn’t going quietly. But he’s going, as all bad guys eventually do. [uh, what? I confess it, dude. You've totally lost me here.]
And in the pantheon of American history, conservative old white people have pretty much always been the bad guys, the keepers of the hegemonic and reactionary flame, the folks unwilling to share the category of American with others on equal terms. [Which follows from which particular antecedent proposition exactly...?]
Fine, keep it up. It doesn’t matter. [Keep what up? Our incredibly extenuated suspension of disbelief that you can actually write, have something to say, and will ultimately get to some point us lowly ignoramuses might actually recognize...? Good luck with that.]
Because you’re on the endangered list. [Aw. What endangered list?]
And unlike, say, the bald eagle or some exotic species of muskrat, you are not worth saving. [Because bald eagles, unlike white males of European extraction, aren't stone killers who live high above their prey, looking for any any opportunity to swoop down and eat the most helpless prey they can find. Right.]
In forty years or so, maybe fewer, there won’t be any more white people around who actually remember that Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Opie-Taylor-Down-at-the-Fishing Hole cornpone bullshit that you hold so near and dear to your heart. [uh, I challenge you to diagram this sentence, er paragraph. I grant you it's fiery. It's just not a sentence.]
There won’t be any more white folks around who think the 1950s were the good old days, because there won’t be any more white folks around who actually remember them, and so therefore, we’ll be able to teach about them accurately and honestly, without hurting your precious feelings, or those of the so-called “greatest generation” — a bunch whose white contingent was top-heavy with ethical miscreants who helped save the world from fascism only to return home and oppose the ending of it here, by doing nothing to lift a finger on behalf of the civil rights struggle. [Let me get this straight. Accuracy increases when the people who actually remember the times in question are no longer alive to question your historiography. I see. One small example of your logic: the Republicans you despise so much were not "ethical miscreants who" didn't "lift a finger on behalf of the civil rights struggle." They're the ones who passed the Civil Rights bill by a greater margin than the Democrats were able to muster. Perhaps that's the rewriting of history you have in mind? But why?]
It’s OK. Because in about forty years, half the country will be black or brown. And there is nothing you can do about it. [uh, as long as they're Americans, who gives a flying fuck what color they are? Oh. That's right. You do.]
Nothing, Senõr Tancredo. [You must have me confused with somebody else. Almost all of us are not named Tom Tancredo. Funny how that works.]
Nothing, Senõra Angle, or Senõra Brewer, or Senõr Beck. [You've got your accents wrong, The mañana should be on the 'n,' not the 'o.']
Loy tiene muy mal, hijo de Puta. [Thanks. Reminds me of my favorite song...
And by then you will have gone all in as a white nationalist movement — hell you’ve all but done that now — thus guaranteeing that the folks of color, and even a decent size minority of us white folks will be able to crush you, election after election, from the Presidency on down to the 8th grade student council. [Absolutely, positively right. Unless Marco Rubio, Governor Martinez, and Governor Sandoval can talk some sense into us in the interim.]
Like I said, this is math. And numbers don’t lie. [Of course they do. Like all tools, they're sibject to the person using them. In your case they lie like rugs.]
Bottom line, this too shall pass. [Which is where we're going to cut you off. You go on and on and on about absolutely nothing. You're a monomaniac with nothing to say. Nothing. Whatever. And everything you do say is wrong. Here's what's really sad. You've wasted your entire life on a delusion. You fucking majored in White Guilt. Guess what? You're a pea-brain. Nothing can save you from that fate. Not even being the lone white man who feels the pain of all the minorities. Your only claim to fame is based on the white superiority you everywhere disdain. Your views about race and equality are supposed to matter more than others because you're a white man saying it. Pitiful.]
Go to hell, Tim Wise. It's where you belong. You're a racist,
pontificating sonofabitch with a third-rate mind. And you've never
written a decent, compelling paragraph in your life.Posted on November 3, 2010
For all y’all rich folks, enjoy that champagne, or whatever fancy ass Scotch you drink.
And for y’all a bit lower on the economic scale, enjoy your Pabst Blue Ribbon, or whatever shitty ass beer you favor. [So everyone who disagrees with you is a drunk. Good to know.]
Whatever the case, and whatever your economic station, know this…
You need to drink up.
And quickly.
And heavily.
Because your time is limited.
Real damned limited. [Do you write books this way?]
So party while you can, but mind the increasingly loud clock ticking away in the corners of your consciousness.
The clock that reminds you how little time you and yours have left.
Not much more now.
Tick, tock.
Tick, tock.
Tick.
Tock. [Yawn.]
I know, you think you’ve taken “your country back” with this election — and of course you have always thought it was yours for the taking, cuz that’s what we white folks are bred to believe, that it’s ours, and how dare anyone else say otherwise — but you are wrong. [Speak for yourself, John.]
You have won a small battle in a larger war the meaning of which you do not remotely understand. [Let me guess. You're going to explain why you're smarter than everyone else...]
‘Cuz there is nothing even slightly original about you. [As opposed to the ultimate originality of you. Got it.]
There have always been those who wanted to take the country back. [You must have majored in journalism. One sentence = one paragraph. Congratulations.]
There were those who, in past years, wanted to take the country back to a time of enslavement and indentured servitude. [Who were those people exactly? Please be specific.]
But they lost .[No shit.]
There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when children could be made to work in mines and factories, when workers had no legal rights to speak of, when the skies in every major city were heavy with industrial soot that would gather on sidewalks and windowsills like volcanic ash. [There were those who made up fantasy enemies who embodied all that was worst in humankind and then pretended that their fantasies were all the authority figures they spent their lives rebelling against. So? And there were those who bored the shit out of everybody because they hated their parents and pretended that personal hatreds were synonymous with social justice.]
But they lost. [No shit, again. Are you starting to see a pattern here, Lochinvar? Your worst fears are the same as your fantasies.]
There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when women could not vote, or attend any but a few colleges, or get loans in their own names, or start their own businesses. [Now you're fucking with reality. It's people of your kind who have done more to keep women enslaved than the people you hate. You're the ones who have decided that women who aren't leftists are fair game to be derided as whores, sluts, and worse.]
[TIME OUT. Anaphora is a figure of speech that uses constant repetition of opening phrases as a rhetorical device. "This is a country in which..." "There are those who..." Thing is, it gets really tiresome. It's not writing. It's bad ad copy. Just saying.]
But they lost. [Who's they? Sorry. I'm losing track. Something, perhaps, about the thudding boredom of your prose is putting me to sleep.]
There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when blacks “had no rights that the white man was bound to respect,” – this being the official opinion of the Supreme Court before those awful days of judicial activism, now decried by the likes of you – and when people of color could legally be kept from voting solely because of race, or holding certain jobs, or living in certain neighborhoods, or run out of other towns altogether when the sun would go down, or be strung up from trees. [Let me guess. Anyone who disagrees with you is one of those people.]
But they lost. [Jeez. Do you know anything about pacing, let alone writing....?]
And you will lose. [Good Lord. Did you really write your masters thesis this way? Did you submit in crayon?]
So make a note of it. [I promise. In crayon.]
Tweet it to yourself. [Shit. My tweet thing doesn't have a crayon option.]
Put it on your Facebook wall and leave it there so you’ll remember that I told you so. [Will do. uh, who told me so? Sorry. I forget. Also, I don't have a Facebook page. Does that make me a racist? I suppose it does. So so sorry.]
It is coming, and soon. [WHAT is coming?! You and your hard-on about race relations? Or something else? Have you ever heard of an actual declarative sentence that doesn't consist mostly of antecedentless pronouns?]
This isn’t hubris. It isn’t ideology. It is not wishful thinking. [uh, then what is it, kemo sabe? I was pretty sure it was all three till you told me it wasn't. Now I'm confused...]
It is math. [Math? Really? Like a guy who can't write a simple sentence knows something about math?]
Not even advanced math. Just simple, basic, like 3rd grade math. [Oh. Third grade math? That I can believe.]
The kind of math that proves how your kind — mostly older white folks beholden to an absurd, inaccurate, nostalgic fantasy of what America used to be like — are dying. [You're going to do that with simple addition and subtraction? Can't wait.]
You’re like the bad guy in every horror movie ever made, who gets shot five times, or stabbed ten, or blown up twice, and who will eventually pass — even if it takes four sequels to make it happen — but who in the meantime keeps coming back around, grabbing at our ankles as we walk by, we having been mistakenly convinced that you were finally dead this time. [Oh. Sorry. You weren't talking about math or even arithmetic. You were talking about counting. Damn if I don't feel intimidated.]
Fair enough, and have at it. But remember how this movie ends. [I'll bite. How does this movie end?]
Our ankles survive. [Huh?]
You do not. [Come again. If your ankles survive, everything important survives? Well... maybe... given the level of intellect you've shown so far, maybe your ankles are as smart as the rest of you.]
Michael Meyers, Freddie Kreuger, Jason, and that asshole husband in that movie with Julia Roberts who tracks her down after she runs away and changes her identity–they are all done. Even that crazy fucker in Saw is about to be finished off for good. Granted, he’s gonna be popping out in 3-D to scare the kiddies, so he isn’t going quietly. But he’s going, as all bad guys eventually do. [uh, what? I confess it, dude. You've totally lost me here.]
And in the pantheon of American history, conservative old white people have pretty much always been the bad guys, the keepers of the hegemonic and reactionary flame, the folks unwilling to share the category of American with others on equal terms. [Which follows from which particular antecedent proposition exactly...?]
Fine, keep it up. It doesn’t matter. [Keep what up? Our incredibly extenuated suspension of disbelief that you can actually write, have something to say, and will ultimately get to some point us lowly ignoramuses might actually recognize...? Good luck with that.]
Because you’re on the endangered list. [Aw. What endangered list?]
And unlike, say, the bald eagle or some exotic species of muskrat, you are not worth saving. [Because bald eagles, unlike white males of European extraction, aren't stone killers who live high above their prey, looking for any any opportunity to swoop down and eat the most helpless prey they can find. Right.]
In forty years or so, maybe fewer, there won’t be any more white people around who actually remember that Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Opie-Taylor-Down-at-the-Fishing Hole cornpone bullshit that you hold so near and dear to your heart. [uh, I challenge you to diagram this sentence, er paragraph. I grant you it's fiery. It's just not a sentence.]
There won’t be any more white folks around who think the 1950s were the good old days, because there won’t be any more white folks around who actually remember them, and so therefore, we’ll be able to teach about them accurately and honestly, without hurting your precious feelings, or those of the so-called “greatest generation” — a bunch whose white contingent was top-heavy with ethical miscreants who helped save the world from fascism only to return home and oppose the ending of it here, by doing nothing to lift a finger on behalf of the civil rights struggle. [Let me get this straight. Accuracy increases when the people who actually remember the times in question are no longer alive to question your historiography. I see. One small example of your logic: the Republicans you despise so much were not "ethical miscreants who" didn't "lift a finger on behalf of the civil rights struggle." They're the ones who passed the Civil Rights bill by a greater margin than the Democrats were able to muster. Perhaps that's the rewriting of history you have in mind? But why?]
It’s OK. Because in about forty years, half the country will be black or brown. And there is nothing you can do about it. [uh, as long as they're Americans, who gives a flying fuck what color they are? Oh. That's right. You do.]
Nothing, Senõr Tancredo. [You must have me confused with somebody else. Almost all of us are not named Tom Tancredo. Funny how that works.]
Nothing, Senõra Angle, or Senõra Brewer, or Senõr Beck. [You've got your accents wrong, The mañana should be on the 'n,' not the 'o.']
Loy tiene muy mal, hijo de Puta. [Thanks. Reminds me of my favorite song...
My favorite
because my mother loved it. She, of
course, was a white supremacist from way back.]
course, was a white supremacist from way back.]
And by then you will have gone all in as a white nationalist movement — hell you’ve all but done that now — thus guaranteeing that the folks of color, and even a decent size minority of us white folks will be able to crush you, election after election, from the Presidency on down to the 8th grade student council. [Absolutely, positively right. Unless Marco Rubio, Governor Martinez, and Governor Sandoval can talk some sense into us in the interim.]
Like I said, this is math. And numbers don’t lie. [Of course they do. Like all tools, they're sibject to the person using them. In your case they lie like rugs.]
Bottom line, this too shall pass. [Which is where we're going to cut you off. You go on and on and on about absolutely nothing. You're a monomaniac with nothing to say. Nothing. Whatever. And everything you do say is wrong. Here's what's really sad. You've wasted your entire life on a delusion. You fucking majored in White Guilt. Guess what? You're a pea-brain. Nothing can save you from that fate. Not even being the lone white man who feels the pain of all the minorities. Your only claim to fame is based on the white superiority you everywhere disdain. Your views about race and equality are supposed to matter more than others because you're a white man saying it. Pitiful.]
End of lesson.
posted at
5:25 pm
by
InstaPunk
Thursday, November 04, 2010
All Right. A Little
Gloating.
Sarah's
a
pistol.
Scratch
that. She's a bear.
JOY IS ITS OWN REWARD EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE. Okay. We're human, too. The job ahead of us is daunting, but we did have a big victory. For example, Jon Stewart felt compelled to treat Chris Wallace of Fox News like a human being.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - Chris Wallace Extended Interview | ||||
|
||||
He even plugged Fox News Sunday. (For the wrong reason, of course, but still...)
And there's this gem from the Glenn Beck Show. Take the link. It's worth enduring their clunky software. You'll be laughing out loud. It's really reminiscent of Mad Magazine back when it was just zany and, uh, funny.
There's this, too. Kanye West apologizing to George W. Bush.
The former commander-in-chief revealed
in an interview that he recalls the hip hopper's 2005 charge that Bush
"doesn't care about black people" as a low point in his tenure as
president.
"It was one of the most disgusting moments in my presidency," Bush said in an interview with Matt Lauer of the moment he heard about West's comments during a benefit telethon for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Bush explained that he interpreted the comment as a clear accusation of racism.
Bush reportedly blasts West in his new memoir, Decision Points. "I didn't appreciate it then. I don't appreciate it now...I resent it, it's not true," he told Lauer of West's accusation.
But after hearing Bush's recent reaction to his comments, West says he can relate to the former president.
"I definitely can understand the way he feels, you know, to be accused of being a racist in any way, because the same thing he happened to me," West said Wednesday in an interview with 97.9 "The Box," referring back to the aftermath of his outburst against country princess Taylor Swift.
West was vilified as -- at best, a bully -- and at worst, a racist, after he stormed the stage at the 2009 Video Music Awards to declare that Beyonce should have gotten the best female video ward instead of Swift.
The public outcry prompted the newly "more sensitive" West a year later to write a song for Swift and to express his regret over the incident in a long Twitter soliloquy a year later. It's the Swift saga, an experience that he told New York radio station Hot 97 was "bigger to me than the Bush moment," that gave him empathy, West said.
"I think we're all quick to pull the race card in America," the hip hop mogul observed of his run-in with Bush. "And now I'm more open, and the poetic justice that I feel, to have went through the same thing that he went [through] - and now I really more connect with him on just a humanitarian level."
"It was one of the most disgusting moments in my presidency," Bush said in an interview with Matt Lauer of the moment he heard about West's comments during a benefit telethon for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Bush explained that he interpreted the comment as a clear accusation of racism.
Bush reportedly blasts West in his new memoir, Decision Points. "I didn't appreciate it then. I don't appreciate it now...I resent it, it's not true," he told Lauer of West's accusation.
But after hearing Bush's recent reaction to his comments, West says he can relate to the former president.
"I definitely can understand the way he feels, you know, to be accused of being a racist in any way, because the same thing he happened to me," West said Wednesday in an interview with 97.9 "The Box," referring back to the aftermath of his outburst against country princess Taylor Swift.
West was vilified as -- at best, a bully -- and at worst, a racist, after he stormed the stage at the 2009 Video Music Awards to declare that Beyonce should have gotten the best female video ward instead of Swift.
The public outcry prompted the newly "more sensitive" West a year later to write a song for Swift and to express his regret over the incident in a long Twitter soliloquy a year later. It's the Swift saga, an experience that he told New York radio station Hot 97 was "bigger to me than the Bush moment," that gave him empathy, West said.
"I think we're all quick to pull the race card in America," the hip hop mogul observed of his run-in with Bush. "And now I'm more open, and the poetic justice that I feel, to have went through the same thing that he went [through] - and now I really more connect with him on just a humanitarian level."
Which is more appropriate than he knows, given the slam-dunk rebuttal by outcome of Dem accusations of racism against Tea Partiers and Republicans this cycle.
After the 2006 midterm elections, many
in the chattering class declared the GOP had been reduced to a
“regional party” – white, male, and Southern. Since President Obama’s
election in 2008, the Leftist mainstream media has worked diligently to
paint much of the opposition to his policies as the bigoted and
deranged spasms of a marginalized, racist conservative base. The tea
party movement represented “racism, straight up” according to political
philosopher Janeane Garofalo. Maureen Dowd, Frank Rich, Eugene
Robinson, and Bob Herbert practically took turns writing weekly columns
slandering conservatives using flagrant race baiting, including an
embarrassing election-day screed from Robinson. Chris Matthews
complained that the political Right was “monochromatic” for his taste.
And the Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wondered aloud how
anyone of Hispanic descent could possibly be a Republican. Then came
the 2010 elections.
The midterm election not only busted the myth that the GOP is a regional party – seeing Republican gains in the Northeast, Midwest and West – it also puts to rest the notion that Republicans are a lily white party whose base won’t embrace a diverse slate of candidates. In eight prominent contests, Republicans nominated and elected excellent candidates and fine conservatives who also happen to be people of color
The midterm election not only busted the myth that the GOP is a regional party – seeing Republican gains in the Northeast, Midwest and West – it also puts to rest the notion that Republicans are a lily white party whose base won’t embrace a diverse slate of candidates. In eight prominent contests, Republicans nominated and elected excellent candidates and fine conservatives who also happen to be people of color
Definitely and absolutely read the whole thing. It spells out the diversity of the conservative electorate, and the only thing it's light on is the extraordinary number of women who competed, withstood horrifying slanders, and won nevertheless. To hell with all the damn hypocritical, soul-sick liberals, who are tolerant until some minority pawn tries to step out of his or her assigned box.
Watch
the whole thing. But the part I was looking for was the scene, only
alluded to at the end, where referees try to fix the outcome. "Not another
yard" is the central idea. Bearing in mind that the conservative team now
consists of men, women, African-Americans, Indian-Americans, Mexican-
Americans, Puerto-Rican Americans, Cuban-Americans, and, well, Titans.
alluded to at the end, where referees try to fix the outcome. "Not another
yard" is the central idea. Bearing in mind that the conservative team now
consists of men, women, African-Americans, Indian-Americans, Mexican-
Americans, Puerto-Rican Americans, Cuban-Americans, and, well, Titans.
Sometimes, a little gloating is a confrontation with truth. And there's also something about the "little people," who just might be "stronger" than the elites, no matter how big or small or male or female or white or black or brown or red or yellow they are. Otherwise, we wouldn't do it. Unless we would anyway. Because it feels so good.
P.S. Speaking of George W. Bush, I still can't get over this scene. He and his dad at the Texas Rangers Game 4 of the World Series. Such a casually great strike thrown across the heart of the plate. (Can't find the Fox Sports footage that proves this, so the following will have to do.)
It was a good pitch. Unless you saw it for yourselves, you'll have to take my word for it. Something about how life is.
