April 11, 2008
Well, this is not the third resignation I wanted to hear about this week. But it’s not surprising, given all the crap Tavis Smiley has taken from Obama supporters:
Tavis Smiley Quits Tom Joyner Show
Activist Said to Be Hurt by “Hate” Over Obama Stance
After 12 years as a fixture on radio’s syndicated “Tom Joyner Morning Show,” activist, commentator and broadcast personality Tavis Smiley has quit the show, Joyner told listeners on Friday.
“He called me yesterday and said, ‘I quit,’” Joyner said on the air.
Joyner said Smiley told him he was working on too many projects, but believed the real reason was that “he can’t take the hate.
“He can’t take the hate he’s taken over Barack Obama. He’s always busting Barack Obama’s chops. They call. They e-mail. They joke. You know Tavis like I do. He needs to feel loved.
“We’re so emotional about this Barack Obama candidacy. If you don’t say anything for Barack Obama, you’re considered to be a hater. . . . It’s just that it hurts so deep when the people you love don’t agree with you.
“He loves black America and black America has been very critical of him,” Joyner said of Smiley. “It hurts. It hurt me to hear black Americans criticize him.”
Joyner said Smiley’s resignation was not effective immediately, but Joyner considered it to be so. “I asked him to reconsider,” Joyner said, and although Smiley agreed to do so, “he had pretty much made up his mind.”
Smiley had been critical of Obama for not attending Smiley’s annual “State of the Black Union” symposium on Feb. 23. Of the presidential candidates, only Sen. Hillary Clinton accepted the invitation. Obama said he would send his wife, Michelle, but Smiley insisted that was not good enough. …
Mind you, for the moment, that Smiley quit because “he can’t take the hate” is just speculation on Joyner’s part. Joyner is probably right (he and Smiley are said to be close friends as well as colleagues) — which would be a damned shame, but perfectly understandable. Tavis Smiley is a rock-solid, independent commentator among the last I’d expect to crumble under the crush of Obamaniac hate, but he’s been hit, hard, repeatedly, unfairly, and without letup — and even the strongest among us have our breaking point. Tavis Smiley is nothing if not passionate, and with passion comes a depth of feeling often overshadowed by an exterior persona of strength and intensity. I have a feeling that’s exactly what we’re seeing with Smiley — or rather not seeing: How badly he’s been hurt.
In any case, we’ll learn the real reason for his departure when Smiley himself talks next Tuesday:
Tavis responds on TJMS
(Calendar) Date: Tuesday, April 15th 2008
Friends and Supporters:
By now, you may have heard of my departure from the Tom Joyner Morning Show.
I am traveling today and am not available to respond directly. I will address what you heard on the Tom Joyner Morning Show next Tuesday at 8:25 AM EST, during my normal commentary on the show.
Warmest Regards,
Tavis
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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April 10, 2008
Obama Talks All Things LGBT with The Advocate
We’ll discuss it in detail later. For now, I’ll just say Barry walks a very thin tightrope, deflects the most important questions with his usual slick doubletalk, and is as disappointing as ever.
And he’ll never, ever apologize for Donnie McClurkin.
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Backstory:
• I take back everything I said about Barack Obama…
• Eric Stern, How Do You Live With Yourself?
From Pinknews.co.uk:
US Presidential candidate Barack Obama has given an interview with leading gay publication The Advocate, just a week after being criticised for “disrespecting” the LGBT media.
The interview is due to be published tomorrow, but AP were given excerpts.
Mr Obama, a US Senator from Illinois, said he supports a repeal of a law that bars openly gay, lesbian and bisexual people from serving in the country’s Armed Forces and is hopeful it can be achieved. …
Senator Obama also told the magazine that he would sign into law workplace protections for LGB people and would like to include trans protections, though he acknowledged that might be more difficult to get through Congress.
“Obama also said he’s interested in ensuring that same-sex couples in civil unions get federal benefits,” reports AP.
Last week Philadelphia Gay News published an wide-ranging interview with his rival for the Democratic nomination Senator Clinton, ahead of the Pennsylvania primary later this month. …
How transparent. Pander, pander, pander.
Oh, and Barry? Civil unions still aren’t good enough.
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Speaking of walk-outs (and we were):
Artie Lange walks off the Howard Stern Show
Howard Stern Show fixture Artie Lange walked out of the studio after an argument and subsequent outburst at his personal assistant on the air.
Lange, who became a part of the show’s daily routine in October of 2001, was spotted disputing with his assistant in the hallways off the air. When it was brought up to Stern, he asked the assistant [”Teddy Microphone”] to come into the studio and discuss the situation on the air. …
As the argument continued, Lange became enraged and physically lashed out at Teddy, but the physical confrontation was apparently defused by other members in the studio.
When Lange returned, he said Teddy would be “dead” had he reached him and he would be in jail. …
Stern apparently dressed him down (good for you, Howard), and ultimately, Lange “offered his resignation,” which Stern accepted.
Just before Lange left he told Stern: “I’m not a good person … I gotta leave … I love you”
More on the mess that is Artie Lange:
Artie Lange: When the Heroin Goes In, the Truth Comes Out
In case you weren’t convinced that Artie Lange is a hopelessly terminal jerk…
This is shaping up to be a good day. Now if only Michael Savage Weiner would leave the airwaves and never return, it would be a great day.
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Only Jessica Heslam at the Boston Herald has this up so far — but expect the Obamantion blogosphere and message boards to be abuzz over it for the rest of the day… week… year:
Randi Rhodes signing off
This statement just in from Air America chair Charlie Kireker and president Mark Green:
Last week Air America suspended Randi Rhodes for abusive, obscene language at a recent public appearance in San Francisco which was sponsored by an Air America affiliate station.
Air America Media was informed last night by Ms. Rhodes that she has chosen to terminate her employment with the company. We wish her well and thank her for past services to Air America.
We will soon announce exciting new talent and programming that will accelerate Air America’s growth in the future.
And expect ObamaWorld™ to throw Air America into the Pit of the Condemned (along with Joe Wilson, RFK, Jr., Elizabeth Edwards, et al. … oh, and me, of course).
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April 9, 2008
The latest excuse for Barack Obama’s stubborn refusal to grant even one, single, lousy interview with any member of the gay media, from the Philadelphia Gay News to the Dallas Voice to the San Francisco B.A.R. is this, courtesy of Obama apologist-lackey (a.k.a. “a leader of Obama’s National LGBT Leadership Council”) Eric Stern:
“Obama is talking to mainstream audiences about issues of importance to our community. While Hillary is attractive, she is making her appeal almost exclusively to gay audiences. That is not a postmodern approach.”
Holy Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Mary, who do you think you’re fooling? So speaking exclusively to “Christianity Today, [a] local Philadelphia sports radio station, Grist and Paris Match” is a “postmodern approach” — whatever the flip that’s supposed to mean?
Hey, Stern, since I’ve never been a whipping boy myself, tell me: How much does a homo have to hate himself to make excuses for a boss that continually craps all over his (read: your) own people? Or is it about the money? How much does Obama pay you to sell us out?
Are you sure you’re not a Log Cabinite masquerading as a Democrat, Eric? You know, we have a name for Log Cabinites… but considering how your boss has slapped the RACIST™ trademark on every other word in the English language (oops! is the word “English” too Eurocentric for the postmodern ObamaWorld™ now?), I wouldn’t dare use it.
But you know what it is.
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Barack Obama has taught me that racism — even faux outrage over nonexistent racism — is worse than the most egregious sexism or homophobia.
Always. Without exception.
I’ve also learned — from Obama supporters — that the word “urban” is racist. (And for nearly half a century, I thought “urban” meant “of or pertaining to a city,” as opposed to the country, or the suburbs. Silly me!)
I’ve also learned — from professional Obama shills (waving at Donna Brazile and Chris “Tingle Leg” Matthews) — that the phrase “fairy tale” is racist. But only if it’s used by Bill Clinton to criticize Barack Obama’s foreign policy positions, of course.
I’ve also learned — from some backwater ‘burb (oops, sorry! is “‘burb” racist, too?) in Illinois called Carpentersville — that saying a couple of kids are climbing a tree “like monkeys” is racist. (That would have come as a surprise to my dearly departed grandfather, whose pet name for me was “macaca” — and not in the George Allen sense, either. As much as I detest the idea of agreeing with Tony Blankley on anything, even the weather, it’s true: “macaca” is indeed an Italian term of endearment expressing good-natured exasperation with a mischievous child; it means “clown,” or “goof.”)
From yesterday’s Chicago Sun-Times:
Moving to nip in the bud some potential bad press, White House hopeful Barack Obama’s campaign persuaded a delegate to step down after she was ticketed for calling her neighbor’s African-American children “monkeys.”
Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski, a Carpentersville village trustee, was elected as an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention. She sports an Obama sign in her front yard.
On Saturday, two neighbor children were playing in the tree next-door to her house.
Ramirez-Sliwinski “came outside and told the children to quit playing in the tree like monkeys. The tree was not on Ramirez-Sliwinski’s property,” Carpentersville Police Commander Michael Kilbourne said.
Ramirez-Sliwinski admitted she used the word “monkeys,” but said she did not intend racism. She said she was only trying to protect them from falling out of the tree.
“Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski said she saw the kids playing in the tree and didn’t want them falling out of the tree and getting hurt. She said she calls her own grandchildren ‘monkeys,’” Kilbourne said. The mother of one of the children did not see it that way, noting she and Ramirez-Sliwinski have clashed before.
“She felt it was racist because of the fact the children were African-American,” Kilbourne said.
Told of the incident Monday by the Sun-Times, Obama’s campaign called Ramirez-Sliwinski and persuaded her to step aside as a delegate because the campaign felt her remarks were “divisive and unacceptable.”
“Given the incident, she is stepping down as a delegate and will be replaced,” said campaign spokesman Ben Labolt.
Let’s recap:
• Calling Hillary Clinton a “big f*****g whore” and Geraldine Ferraro “David Duke in drag” is not “divisive and unacceptable” enough for Obama to dress down Randi Rhodes (hey, ya think Obama returned the money raised at Randi’s Hillary-bashing event?)…
• Preaching about evil, children-killing gays is not “divisive and unacceptable” enough for Obama to fire Donnie McClurkin before handing him a microphone and giving him free reign to spew his hateful, “ex-gay” tripe (hey, ya think Obama returned the blood money from that fundraiser?)…
• Condemning America to hell, blasting mythical “rich white people” for all the evil in the world, making appalling cracks about “stemen-stained dresses,” and slurring Italians as “garlic noses” is not “divisive and unacceptable” enough for Obama to stand up and walk out on the bigot he calls his pastor, “spiritual mentor” and “role model” who “helps keep his priorities straight and his moral compass calibrated,” Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. (ya think Obama plans to take back the tens of thousands he’s tithed over two decades?)…
• Consorting with such organizations — established for the sole purpose of demonizing and legislating gay and lesbian Americans out of existence — as Americans for Truth and Focus on the Family, calling various mayors “slave masters” and certain politicians “house n****rs,” warning “white people who believe in Jesus” that “I will stand on top of the Sears Tower and call every one of y’all racist” is not “divisive and unacceptable” enough for Obama to cut ties completely with another of his “closest religious advisors,” Rev. James Meeks…
• Expressing the desire to “rip Bill Clinton’s eyes out” is not “divisive and unacceptable” enough for Obama to take his own wife aside and tell her to chill the anti-Clinton crap, her condescending reluctance to back Hillary as the Democratic nominee, and the grim view she takes of America, at least when she’s representing him in public…
…but saying a couple of kids were climbing a tree “like monkeys” is “divisive and unacceptable” enough for Obama to kick Ramirez-Sliwinski to the curb?
So, now what? If you call playground equipment “monkey bars,” are you a racist? I guess so, since anything and everything — as long as it suits a pro-Obama agenda — can and will be deemed racist.
(It’s also not lost on us that Ramirez-Sliwinski was an elected delegate, more beholden to the wil of the people than to the will of any candidate.)
What’s more, you read that first line in the story right: Ramirez-Sliwinski was ticketed — cited and fined — under the stupidest ordinance we’ve heard of in a long time. From the Chicago Tribune:
Carpentersville Trustee Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski vowed Monday to fight a citation she received over the weekend for a comment that apparently offended her African-American neighbors. …
Ramirez-Sliwinski, who is Hispanic, was issued a citation alleging that she violated a village ordinance prohibiting disorderly conduct. The ordinance bans conduct that disturbs or alarms people, and one of the boys told police he was scared by Ramirez-Sliwinski’s comment, Police Cmdr. Michael Kilbourne said.
The citation carries a fine of $75.
“She was not arrested. She was not fingerprinted. It is a local ordinance violation,” Kilbourne said.
“Conduct that disturbs or alarms people”? Remind me to stay the hell out of Carpentersville then. The way this stupid law is worded, I could be cited if my “Christian Right is Neither” T-shirt “disturbed or alarmed” somebody.
(On the other hand, I could go to Carpentersville and lodge a criminal complaint against every right-wing church that preaches anti-gay rhetoric from the pulpit. Now that would be fun. And it would also trigger an emergency meeting of the town council to repeal that stupid law, quick-smart.)
The Trib piece also provides more detail on the “monkeys” incident, in Ramirez-Sliwinski’s own words:
[Ramirez-Sliwinski] said the parents were outside, but she intervened because she was concerned about the boys’ safety and because the small magnolia tree was being damaged.
“I went over to the kids and told them to get out of the tree,” Ramirez-Sliwinski said.
The father of one of the boys told her it was none of her business, she said, and “I calmly said the tree is not there for them to be climbing in there like monkeys.”
There has been friction between Ramirez-Sliwinski and her neighbors in the past. She said she has told them to turn down loud music and has instructed them on how to properly use the village’s new garbage bins.
Ramirez-Sliwinski said she intends to contest the citation in an effort to force the neighbors to talk to her. …
Attempts to reach the neighbors for comment were unsuccessful.
“My take on this is that it is really being blown out of proportion,” Village President Bill Sarto said. “To a great extent, you have to take the remarks and put them in proper context. The trustee saw children playing in a tree, and she made an observation that they should be careful because they are acting like monkeys. Had they not been in a tree, it could be inappropriate.”
Something stinks. Something really, really stinks.
Hey, but what do I know? In Obama’s book, I’m just another “typical white person.”
Here’s the last word, from Village President Bill Sarto, quoted in the Sun-Times piece):
“Frankly, I don’t see a law that was broken here,” [Village President Bill Sarto] said. “I think this entire thing has been blown out of proportion. She’s a good neighor. She went over to caution the children to be careful not to fall out of a tree.
She has never indicated to me any prejudice whatsoever. We have a trustee who has been convicted on four counts of domestic battery and refuses to resign from the board. He beat his wife with a baseball bat. This seems far less egregious to me.”
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Randi Rhodes
On Jay Leno making another homophobic crack, then apologizing for it, then canceling himself out by whining about those mean ol’ homos getting mad at him, here’s Melissa McEwan at Shakesville:
Well, after apologizing last week for asking Tonight Show guest Ryan Phillippe to give the camera his “gayest look,” Jay Leno spoke with KMXB radio in Las Vegas about the controversy on Friday and swiftly undermined any value his apology had with a series of pathetic excuses and justifications. …
Aside from undermining his own apology with the tired non-apology “if I offended anybody,” he completely misses the overall point about how that kind of humor facilitates intolerance, offering “I never made fun of gay rights or even gay marriage,” as if making fun of being gay isn’t a bigger problem. See, if the premise weren’t that merely being gay is somehow intrinsically funny, the joke would be “give me your best soap opera look,” not “give me your gayest look,” or even “gayest soap opera look” as Leno is now trying to reframe it. Who does he thinks laughs at a joke like that — people who aren’t homophobic? Yeesh.
Then, after casting us as oversensitive hysterics in the classic self-defense maneuver of insensitive and obtuse idiots everywhere, he gets to the best part in which he obliquely accuses us of deliberately misrepresenting what happened on the show to gin up outrage. I mean, I really wonder where, exactly, Jay read at “the blog” that he went on an anti-gay tirade — because not only does it not say that anywhere, or anything close to it, it also includes video of the actual exchange, so no one would have to rely on our subjective interpretation of it.
I believe that’s called projection, Shakers.
Bill Press on Randi Rhodes, and the generally revolting behavior of Barack Obama supporters:
…Randi went over the line in calling Hillary Clinton “a big f***ing whore.” Sure, she’s got a right to say it. But it was not right to say it, especially not right for someone who represents Air America and all of progressive radio.
Unfortunately, as I’ve learned on my radio show, too many Obama supporters don’t understand that in order to love Barack Obama, you don’t have to hate Hillary Clinton. They don’t think it’s good enough to build up Barack Obama. They think it’s necessary to destroy Hillary Clinton, too.
And that’s just wrong. Being passionately and enthusiastically for Barack Obama doesn’t mean you have to say ugly things against Hillary Clinton. In fact, it’s counter-intuitive. In politics, it’s much more effective to be FOR somebody, than to be against somebody.
Carol Lloyd on Rhodes’ suspension, and the larger issue of playground bullies (a.k.a. Obama supporters):
With progressive pundits like Randi Rhodes, who needs wingnuts? …
Thursday Air America Radio announced that Rhodes had been suspended because of the comments, so good for it. Yet such suspensions won’t offer but a drop in the bucket against our wasteland of media vitriol. Forget sex and violence; I think playground cruelty is the source of the most obscenity. Have you seen the outdoor ad campaign for the new romantic comedy “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”? The black-and-white billboards proclaim: “I’m So Over You, Sarah Marshall,” “You Suck Sarah Marshall,” “My Mother Always Hated You, Sarah Marshall,” and “You Do Look Fat in Those Jeans, Sarah Marshall.” It’s the first time I’ve wanted to shield my daughter’s eyes from a spectacle in the city.
Ironically, the person who has been most articulate about the current mean streak in American culture is Barack Obama, Rhodes’ apparent favorite. But as someone who also favors the senator from Illinois, I’ve become increasingly queasy about the tone some of his supporters are willing to take. At a recent brunch, I heard a sweet elderly woman wearing an Obama button talk about “just hating” Hillary Clinton. …
As ad hominem insult has become normative political speech, professional bloviators like Rhodes seem to have to go farther each day to retain their “edge.” Still, why does Rhodes need to be so misogynist when she’s carving up her victims with her tongue?
Taking self-proclaimed progressives to the woodshed: Earl Ofari Hutchinson, who really ticks me off, because he’s a right-winger, and he’s making sense, and he’s not ripping up either candidate to do it (unlike — guess who? — the Obama supporters):
The objection here is not that progressives shouldn’t level a reasoned, principled, and critical dissection of Clinton positions. There are legitimate policy issues and positions to take her to task on. Unfortunately, that got tossed and Clinton’s left side critics have found it much easier, and more fun, to engage in juvenile delinquent wolf ticket selling. They then pivot and froth, fume, and rail at Fox for doing the same thing. And Heaven forbid if anyone dare utter any criticism of Obama. That’s deemed treasonous and the name calling kicks in with a vengeance against the offender.
The reasons for the juvenile delinquent name calling by Rhodes and company boil down to this. Clinton initially backed the Iraq war and refused to apologize for it or claims as Obama wrongly does that he was an outspoken anti-war guy from day one. Two, she supposedly is a back room, deal-making, opportunist Democrat who has been a shill for big money, corporate donors.
Her greatest sin, though, is that she pig headedly stands in the way of the coronation of Obama. A subtext to that is that by blocking the supposed inevitable, she, not Obama, is tearing the guts out of the Democratic Party and is making it that much harder for Obama to coast into the White House. Putting aside for a moment this wishful thinking fantasy land knock, nowhere, and I mean nowhere, have I seen the progressive Hillary baiters itemize exactly what they think they’ll get out of an Obama White House that will be radically different than what they’ll get from any other top Democrat who’s backed by big money corporate interests, pockets money through the back door from corporate special interest lobbyists, is lauded by defense industry top brass, hailed by centrist Democratic Senators and governors, and fawned over by hard nosed GOP conservatives, headed by former Bush political strategist Karl Rove, as Obama is. Tell me? …
The desperation of progressives to get someone in the White House who will quickly reverse the monumental damage of Bush’s policies is understandable. If progressives would simply stick to challenging Obama and Clinton to speak out boldly and clearly about their stance on Supreme court appointments, criminal justice reform, immigration, failing public schools, the HIV/AIDS crisis, and a specific plan for ending the Iraq War, among other seldom heard discussed policy issues then there would be no argument that both need to be hammered for ducking and dodging these thorny issues. But that’s far different than acting like 13 year olds and shouting out vile names at one candidate and only one candidate.
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April 8, 2008
About that Randi Rhodes…
She shouldn’t have been suspended. She should have been fired.
And, nope, it’s not because Rhodes is an Obama supporter, and I’m not. When Rhodes turned her show into an Obama-Love Hillary-Hate fest, I stopped listening. That’s what I do when a celebrity starts doing or saying something I don’t like: I stop supporting them, which, when enough of us do the same thing, sends the clearest message of all. I think Terminator 2: Judgment Day is one of the coolest movies ever, but since Arnold Schwarzenegger opened his big yap and started denigrating Democrats as “girlie men” — and then proceeded to deny us gay folks the right to get married (twice), and has turned California’s once-vibrant economy into that of a third-world nation, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera — I have withdrawn my monetary support from him by abstaining from the purchase of any product with his name on it.
When Randi Rhodes starting drinking the Kool-Aid by the gallon — and vomiting it back, in tenfold volume, over the airwaves — I turned her off. In fact, I turned off Air America Radio altogether; I changed the pre-set button on the car radio to something else… a Spanish-language station, I think. I don’t really listen to it — I don’t speak enough Spanish to understand much — but it was important to get Air America off my car radio, and I didn’t particularly care what replaced it, as long as it wasn’t a Christian station.
Mind you, I rather enjoy listening to the most fire-breathing Christian talk stations from time to time — the end-of-times soothsayers make for especially surreal entertainment — but if I actually left one of those nutball stations pre-set, it would be just my luck that the next mechanic who worked on the car would flip the radio on while he was working, hear Rev. Apocalyptus McFreaky spouting dire warnings of boil-covered frogs from the sky, and would think I was some sort of whackjob myself.
Ironically, that’s pretty much the reason I felt compelled to take Air America off the pre-set button: I’ve become quite embarrassed about any association with people and institutions which which I was once very proud to be allied. I’d hate to think my auto mechanic — or anyone else — would assume I must agree with the maniacal ravings of Randi Rhodes.
Sadly, I used to love Randi. But she’s come to represent the worst of— well, everything the Right has demonized the Left as: a bunch of wild-eyed radicals who hate, and spew the most toxic vitriol at, everyone who disagrees with them.
As I’ve often said (and probably written more than a few times), I expect irrational hatred from the Right, and I expect it from the Left aimed at the Right — but I don’t expect it from one faction of the Left aimed at another faction of the Left.
Well, OK, I do expect it these days. I’m just not entirely accustomed to it yet.
Anyway, speaking of the right wing (and I was), I do read what the tighty righties have to say (as Sun-Tzu said, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer”), and I don’t like the truth in what they’re saying lately.
To wit: Yesterday, Mark Steyn (and you can’t get more right-wing than Mark Steyn) over at The National Review (and you really can’t get any more right-wing than The National Review) answered the question “How did we reach the point where Air America calls Hillary a ‘whore’?” thusly:
Indeed. Randi Rhodes agrees with Hillary Clinton and Geraldine Ferraro on everything — abortion, health care, climate change, you name it. Yet the first is “a f***ing whore” and the second is “David Duke in drag” merely because they disagree on which Democratic senator would make the best president. The people applying these deranged epithets to the Clintons are in large part the very same people who spent the Nineties applying equally deranged epithets to anyone who disagreed with the Clintons.
There’s something rather heartening about this for those of us on the right who’ve been on the receiving end of the left’s vehemence: Apparently there really is nothing personal about it. You can be a chickenhawk warmonger racist homophobe mysogynist Bush shill or a pro-feminist pro-gay pro-black icon of progressive politics for a generation, but, if you cross the likes of Randi Rhodes, you’re all the same and you merit the same four-letter words and KKK slurs. The left’s Discoursometer is like one of those shower units where the slightest nudge turns it to scalding.
Ouch.
The only point with which I can reasonably disagree is that the “people applying these deranged epithets to the Clintons are in large part the very same people who spent the Nineties applying equally deranged epithets to anyone who disagreed with the Clintons.” Some are, to be sure. But a great many are not; for a great many of Obama’s “movement,” this is their first election, indeed their first foray into politics at all.
The screams of “You’re so done! Get out of the way!” you hear from the Obama camp are not only directed at Hillary, you know. Why do you think Obama himself dismisses the political activism — and activists themselves — of the 1960s?
Yes, partly because he himself is so detached from the 1960s — and not due to his age; as I’ve often noted, he is exactly my age, and I am quite beholden to the peaceniks and feminists and gay “lib” activists who came before me. But I have perspective Obama does not, and can never have; as I wrote in January:
[Neither Obama nor I] can recall the Civil Rights era as clearly as our elders (Obama and I were both two-going-on-three in 1964), yet I, at least, remember dim news images of firehoses in the streets of Birmingham, and attack dogs unleashed — and, much more clearly, my first, timid step approaching a black child at a playground. While I didn’t understand what it was I understood, I understood there was a difference between us, and that there were some very bad people in this world who would be very angry about my playing with a black child (or, as we were taught was the proper word at the time, a Negro).
Despite his skin color versus mine, I am not at all convinced that Barack Obama’s ties to the Civil Rights era equate with mine; when my snow-white third-grade class was being introduced to our first black classmate, Obama was living in Indonesia. We both attended Catholic school — but somehow, I cannot imagine that young Barack was inundated by the issue of American race relations (on the news, in the movies, on the cover of newsweeklies, and in lengthy class discussions — yes, even before my age reached double digits) as I was.
The issue was all around me; no one my age was allowed to forget the vast divide between whites and blacks in the United States. Was Obama, insulated literally on the other side of the planet, as aware at the same tender age of the volatile schism between black and white “back home”?
I wasn’t quite four when the Watts riots exploded — and exploded with such repercussion that I remember them as well as I remember the endless news footage of the Vietnam War, and the nightly body count out of Southeast Asia.
Does Obama remember any of this? Did he even hear about it before he returned to the U.S. at the age of ten — when even the Summer of Love was a quickly-fading memory?
But the lack of vital cultural milestones is not the sole reason he marginalizes and discounts the Baby Boomers; he does it because it strikes the chord of unleashed rebellion in every angry youth — and we were all angry youths at one time or another, cocksure that we knew it all, that our parents’ generation was irrelevant, that they had screwed up the world, and we were the only ones who could save it.
Obama gives his supporters cohesiveness by using the most basic, classic technique employed by all “movements.” No, I won’t use the word “cult” — this time — although this technique is essential to cult unanimity: a group identity defined by a common enemy.
I’ll let Chris Hedges explain it; he’s talking about fascism vis-à-vis (fundamentalist) evangelical religious movements — but then, what is Obamania but an evangelical religious movement? And why do you think Obama employs the speech and manner of a tent revivalist?
Because it works.
Hedges introduces American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America with an excerpt from Umberto Eco’s 1995 essay, “Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt.” Substitute “Obama movement” for “nation,” and “Clinton supporters” for “Jews” (stop rolling your eyes and just do it) as you read point number seven:
[T]he only ones who can provide an identity to the nation are its enemies. Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. … But the plot must also come from the inside: Jews are usually the best target because they have the advantage of being at the same time inside and outside.
If you can’t see how that applies directly to what I’m writing about today, then either you have never seen a group of Obama supporters in action, or you are an Obama supporter.
Eco continues:
8. The followers must be humiliated by the ostentatious wealth and force of their enemies. When I was a boy I was taught to think of Englishmen as the five-meal people. They ate more frequently than the poor but sober Italians. Jews are rich and help each other through a secret web of mutual assistance. However, the followers of Ur-Fascism must also be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.
That’s the Obama supporters’ war on Hillary Clinton — and Clinton supporters — in a nutshell.
From Eco’s starting point, Hedges explores the origins of religious fascism — in short, the sum is greater than its parts; diversity within the group is trumped by the common unifying theme of disillusion and despair and a desperate need for hope (it’s not lost on us that the mantra of the Obama campaign is “hope”) and certitude of deliverance — and anything that threatens the illusion of the force greater than the individual must be destroyed.
Noting (on page 32) that such movements by their very nature inevitably lead to a “collective suicide,” Hedges writes (pp. 35-36):
The pain, the dislocation, alienation, suffering and despair that led millions of Americans into the movement are real. Many Americans are striking back at a culture they blame for the debacle of their lives. … They speak of numbness, an inability to feel pain or joy or love, a vast emptiness, a frightening loneliness and loss of control. …
They have replaced the world that has failed them with a new, glorious world filled with prophets and mystical signs. They believe in a creator who performs miracles for them, speaks directly to them and guides their lives, as well as the destiny of America. They are utopians who have found rigid, clearly defined moral edicts, rights and wrongs, to guide them in life and in politics. And they are terrified of losing this new, mystical world of signs, wonders and moral certitude, of returning to the old world of despair. They see criticism of their belief system … as vicious attempts by Satan to lure them back into the morass. The split in America, rather than simply economic, is between those who embrace reason, who function in the real world of cause and effect, and those who, numbed by isolation and despair, now seek meaning in a mythical world of intuition, a world that is no longer reality-based, a world of magic.
Those in the movement now fight, fueled by the rage of the dispossessed, to crush and silence the reality-based world.
Later, on page 151, in discussing the ministry of Ohio megachurch pastor Russell Johnson, Hedges again hits on a chilling parallel to the common characteristics of the most fervent Obama supporters:
In rallies like those in Johnson’s Ohio tour, friends, neighbors, colleagues and family members who do not conform to the ideology are gradually dehumanized. …
This new, exclusive community fosters rigidity, conformity and intolerance. In this new binary world segments of the human race are disqualified from moral and ethical consideration. And because fundamentalist followers live in a binary universe, they are incapable of seeing others as anything more than inverted reflections of themselves. If they seek to destroy nonbelievers … then nonbelievers must be seeking to destroy them. …
When people come to believe that they are immune from evil, that there is no resemblance between themselves and those they define as the enemy, they will inevitably grow to embody the evil they claim to fight.
And there, friends, you have it: A longer, more detailed answer to the question: “How did we reach the point where Air America calls Hillary a ‘whore’?”
As Nietzsche said: “When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.”
Oh, and about Randi Rhodes: I guess I should explain why she should have been sacked instead of given a “time-out.”
The fans (or perhaps in this case I should use the word “fans” comes from: fanatics) rushing to her defense with cries of “Free speech!” are the ones missing the point.
Rhodes’ right to free speech was not violated. Rhodes’ right to free speech would not have been violated if Air America had fired her outright. Rhodes has every right to say anything she wants.
But Air America has every right to decide whether or not it wants to continue to pay her for saying anything she wants.
Businesses — smart businesses, at least — fire people who add nothing to the bottom line, or, worse, diminish the bottom line.
If Randi Rhodes’ childish, misogynistic name-calling were adding to the bottom line (or at least not diminishing it), Air America wouldn’t have even suspended her. So it’s reasonable to conclude that Rhodes is either adding nothing, or actively diminishing company revenue by her behavior.
I know her behavior well before the “whores” remark drove me away. Progressive radio being what is is today (that is, on life support since day one), Air America cannot afford to lose many more like me.
Rhodes’s “time-out” is a fair indication that Air America is losing, or is in danger of losing (measurable by the number of listener complaints) a lot more listeners like me.
And that’s the bottom line.
Posted by: Sapphocrat
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April 7, 2008
…not being a homophobe. He is a homophobe.
How many times have you heard one of the anti-gay brigades (oh, I don’t know — just pick your favorite gay-hater, like Pat Robertson, or some idiot from the American Family Association) protest, “I am not homophobic!” quickly followed by the explanation that a “phobia” means you’re really a-skeered of something? “I’m not homophobic,” they say, “because I am not afraid of homosexuals.”
You know, and I know, that that’s just so much horse puckey, as the definition of “homophobia” has evolved to mean an aversion to — and usually outright hostility toward — homsexuality, and gay people.
But the tighty righties do have a point. If we’re going to do a Greg Brady and live by exact words (or definitions), then technically the gay-haters of the world are not homophobic — they don’t (usually) run screaming in fear at the sight of k.d. lang.
So, until now, I’ve been, yes, defending Barack Obama as not-a-homophobe. In truth, he fits the non-literal, right-winger definition of a homophobe — one who is averse to gay and lesbian people, but not necessarily scared of us.
Well, I take it back. Obama is scared of us. I’m certain of it.
What happened to make me so certain occurred a few days ago, but I’m glad I waited to blog about it, because some other interesting stuff has come to light since.
I’m talking about the April 4-16, 2008, issue of the Philadelphia Gay News. Here’s the front page:
The headline says: “Clinton talks; Obama balks.”
The little box in the middle of the big white space says (misspelling of “Barack” deliberate or not): “It’s been 1,522 days since Sen. Barak Obama has spoken with local gay press. See EDITORIAL, Page 11.”
And on page 11, we find:
At this point in the Democratic presidential campaign, we’re able to view the candidates by their actions. And we have found that Sen. Barack Obama would rather talk at the LGBT community than with it. While Sen. Hillary Clinton has been accessible to the local LGBT press with numerous “no rules” interviews, Obama simply has not. The fact is that Obama has spoken with the gay press only twice, and one of those interviews, which appeared in chicago’s Windy City Times, was in 2004 before he became a U.S. senator. The other limited interview occurred after controversy erupted when his campaign added an anti-gay minister to his tour of the South. It has now been 1,522 days since Obama has been accessible to our community. The question is now this: Is he trying to play it safe or has he become a managed candidate?
But there’s more to this story.
The LGBT press, which has been fighting for respect since its inception, expected this to be the year that candidates would respond to us as they do to the Hispanic, black and other community press… The local gay press is to our community what churches are to the black community — our lifeline for information. The local gay press now has a national weekly audience of some 2.2. million readers, not including our Web sites. Collectively, we reach more LGBT people than any other source. While Obama has issued numerous statements, he has only granted one interview in this campaign. This begs the question, is he uncomfortable with the LGBT community? …
So whom has he spoken with in that time? Christianity Today, local Philadelphia sports radio station, Grist and Paris Match. Guess he’s going for the French vote.
After giving PGN the runaround, PGN complained to Obama’s communications director that the campaign’s “actions, not just to PGN, but to the entire LGBT press, have been disrespectful,” noting that Republicans Bob Casey and Arlen Specter (no friends to the gay community, they) and even “nightstick-carrying” former Mayor Frank Rizzo have granted interviews to PGN.
“The last candidate running for office that refused an interview with PGN,” the paper reminds us, “was Sen. Rick Santorum.”
PGN then speaks directly to Obama, whomping him over the head with this hard little truth: “We were treated with more respect by Republican John McCain’s campaign than yours.”
The lone interview Obama has given during this campaign was to The Advocate, in which he made a pitifully lame attempt to defuse the outrage over the Donnie McClurkin insult (and during which he stepped even deeper into his own doo-doo by suggesting that queers and Democrats — as if the two groups were mutually exclusive — are “hermetically sealed from the faith community”).
And that interview was six months ago.
(And, for the record, the pandering, meaningless campaign ads he took out in gay print publications just prior to the Ohio and Texas primaries do not count as “interviews.” Neither does his appearance at the LOGO debate; for one thing, his absence would have been more than conspicuous, and for another, the questions lobbed at him weren’t even softballs, but wiffle balls.)
So what, you say? So, Obama hasn’t given an interview to the gay media (even the outlets that support him) since.
And it’s not like he hasn’t been asked. Repeatedly.
Which brings us to Gay People’s Chronicle reporter Eric Resnick, whose guest article for The Bilerico Project — written a full month before the PGN story — details his exasperation with the Obama campaign’s genuine homo-phobia:
Immediately following the February 18 Wisconsin presidential primary, I began, on behalf of the Gay People’s Chronicle, to work on getting interviews with Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. …
Both candidates were approached for interviews through multiple routes, including calls and e-mail directly to their Ohio and national press offices, through the Ohio Democratic Party, and through LGBT individuals working at high levels with the campaigns.
Initially, both campaigns were thrilled to be asked for interviews.
The Obama campaign stopped being “thrilled” after Resnick laid out two simple ground rules: no surrogates, and live interviews only — “no written statements or written questions.” (Resnick reflects: “Having candidates only speak through open letters and privately to small groups offering endorsement does not build confidence.”)
That was Wednesday. On Thursday, the Obama campaign offered an open letter in lieu of an interview. I told them no. I can’t ask a letter questions. Then they suggested written question
