I’ve been wanting, more and more, to do something I’ve barely yet done: speak about Obama in public, amongst my friends and colleagues. Though I’ve been feeling more and more desire to speak out about Obama - I have held off, for the exact reason neo describes in the words above: it’s the thinking behind the words which is the problem.

Obama has made so many gaffes - incredible gaffes. He’s a gaffe machine. He’s actually, in all sincerity: a laughingstock.

But, it does no good to speak of the gaffes. We all make gaffes. Haranguing someone for gaffes is mean-spirited and actually illogical, most of the time.

Obama is not a laughingstock b/c of the gaffes. He’s a laughingstock b/c of the thinking behind the gaffes. He’s a laughingstock b/c of the thinking and logic behind his words - especially behind his extemporaneous words.

So, if I am to speak out about Obama, I must concisely communicate the flaws in the thinking which is behind his words and his gaffes. Otherwise, I am just chatting a lot of noise which wastes people’s time and maybe even angers them. To me: the “concise” part and the “communicate” part of this task loom as difficult obstacles. Which is why - except for momentary lapses - I’ve remained publicly silent about Obama. Instead, you guys in these comments have been forced to speed skim my venting.

Anyway, it’s how libs operate…

As to this editorial, I think they’re off message.

I am not now, nor have I ever been the “whitey” that is implied by the orations of Wright and Pfleger, but let me tell you: you call me something hateful long enough, I might just grow into what you imagine me to be.

Come on, you knew that neo. African-American’s are incapable of racism, just like women are incapable of sexism. By definition.

How else do you explain the occurances where an African-American specifically targets Caucasian-American, shoots them whilst hurling what would be considered racial ephitaphs and get charged with everything except the hate crimes statutes?

the oppressor class can never be oppressed, and more. they arent telling you the whole thing yet.

under that doctrine, anything that the oppressed class does to the oppressor class that others would call morally bad, would be considered justice. do if a person of an oppressed class kills a member of the oppressor class, they should go free.

now you know why the courts in cases where the woman killed her husband gets much less time! and why there is an organization of judges that seeks to free them after sentencing since thats easier and is less reported in the news (as well as a few other groups).

the other cases where the perpetrator was a victim of some form of abuse and gets to go free is that doctrine in action without explaining it. selling it before defining it in full flower.

oh.. and an oppressor class has no right to defend itself, and no actions of benificience to the oppressed can change their state, they are always the oppressor class till there are no more of them.

similar logic occured in other places… what eventually happens is that a group can attack another group with legal impunity, but the other group will go to jail for defending themselves. either way, it doesnt take very far before it puts one group in the skids.

after all, this is called class WARFARE and at no time were they other side ever not serious.

God help this nation in January onwards…

It’s that Hyde Park thing again. They’re just so much smarter than we are. I remember when the Tribune ran a piece by a University of Chicago law professor addressing the fact that many black people, especially black ghetto people, are wary of police. She said it was because so many black men were in jail.

Her solution? Put more white people in prison.

As to who are “oppressed groups,” apparently Jews aren’t included. When I found that out I had my first good night’s sleep in two thousand years.

The fact that our universities are teaching nonsense like that to people like Michelle Obama is the reason jobs are being shipped overseas. The best thing we can do to level the playing field with our overseas competitors is to start funding massive endowments for Womens Studies, Gender Studies and [name your oppressed group] Studies in Chinese, Indian, and Eastern European universities.

All human beings are prone to faults, failures and character deficiencies. All of the names the “oppressor group” may be called, if true, certainly fall into one or more of those categories. Therefore if someone is patronizing enough to claim that I am incapable of feeling the same emotions as some “higher” group of people I would have to assume that he does not consider me to be fully human. (three fifths maybe?)

Indeed! I read that Team Obama grilled Michelle O. on the possibility. In other words, it didn’t sound farfetched to them.

Nor to me. Though at this point I don’t there is a smoking DVD. From what I could tell it was a last ditch scam from a pro-Hillary blogger who pulled this stunt before, breaking the news that Karl Rove was about to be big time indicted.

Michelle Obama’s senior thesis is dripping with cultural Marxism, if only those with some brains to understand would take notice. Habermas, Gramsci, and Lukacs are right there behind the language of class and race struggle.

It’s a bizarre world now. Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the integration of capitalist economics in China our awareness of Marxism’s permutations seems strangely diminished. And right before us in this upcoming important American election stands a power couple who were weaned on Communism throughout their intellectual formation.

Has the number of smart ass hipsters who think they know more than everyone else passed 50%? If it has, this country is going to deserve the great big kick in the ass it may be in store for.

Neo-neocon, what would it have said about your thinking if we had found a videotape of you calling successful blacks “uppity n***ers” while sitting next to David Duke at the fundamentalist megachurch of Rev. John Hagee?

Not that any such tape exists. But if it did, what would it say about you — since some of the things you have said in the past show ample evidence of resentment towards successful black women such as Michelle Obama?

What would it indicate about you if there were a videotape of you cheating on the SAT? What would it indicate about you if there were a videotape of you mistreating a puppy? Not that any such tape exists, of course.

Can you offer an argument that my 4 year old nephew can’t claim as his own

AHAHAHAHAHA!

Did they unceremoniously kick you out of the ballet troupe for that?

“Ask Michelle Obama if she thinks that the rest of us would have access to lucrative jobs if we majored in Sociology and African-American Studies in college.”

If we lived in a just world, no one with either would have jobs… except maybe fry cook.

Sociology…shudder…if it didn’t exist, the other social sciences would have to invent it… to make them look more serious….

“I read there’s a tape of John McCain raping a goat. Don’t know if it’s true, but if there were, what would that say about his thinking?”

I don’t think that’s how the argument goes. If we kinda sorta thought it might be true… then that would say something.

If you do want a fair example, I heard a rumor he cussed out his wife in public. While most everyone around me wrote it off, considering what I’ve heard about his temper I couldn’t rule it out as bogus… even today, wouldn’t surprise me a bit if it turned out to be true… so, that says something about his rep…

If your gonna use “tu quoque” forms of argument, then the analogies you use should be constructed using more than just a pro forma approach.

But, I guess our education system has indeed devolved to the point where college graduates today would never pass the classic regimen from another era.

It is very likely that Michelle Obama holds the belief that black people in the present are victims of oppression. If you object to this belief, fine, let’s hear your argument for why this is false. But you are also saying that her holding this belief is just as offensive as her hurling racial slurs at white people generally. I think this is a mistake.

I do not take offense at someone laying out her objections against what she views as an unjustified victim mentality. But I would take offense if in the course of doing so, she used hateful language that showed she held black people in categorical contempt. You appear to argue that there is no difference between Michelle Obama holding political beliefs on black oppression that differ from yours, and naked hatred of whites. This would be analogous to me arguing there is no difference between your substantive opinions about race relations on one hand, and the unhinged spouting off of racial epithets on the other.

It would have been an indication that anger against whites, and a victim mentality about blacks, was still a potent factor in her life and in her psyche. It would … have indicated that she might share some of the deeper rage against both whites and the US

Again, I think you are overstating your case. If I read about you deploying hate speech to rail against blacks, I would also be able to extrapolate your political opinions about minorities claiming oppression and maybe even guess at something about the rage in your psyche. But I would not make the leap from there to say that the very fact that you deny the existence of contemporary black oppression makes you an odious racist.

Disagreement about race relations is not tantamount to hate speech. Asserting that it is chills meaningful discussion.

I don’t care what anyone says, that Obama woman just has “uppity” written alllll over her. Who the hell does she think she is, saying that the blacks can’t be racist?

She didn’t say that? Well, I’m sure she BELIEVES it, anyhow. And I bet she thinks she’s better than normal people, too.

but beside that, i think many are missing that these are belief systems which are shared by many. while most treat it as the quirk of the individual… its a desease of a collective mind in which the individuals no longer can think their way out. if they can accept such as valid logic, then they cant get out of the system they have taken in as it has redefined their world view.

they believe what their contemporaries believe, just like most of us. yet we believe that they could have a totally different view, and yet do nothing but surround themselves with the same ilk.

which is another thing pople arent noticing, the ilk all share the same desease, and it takes collective believe to suspend reality to believe so differently you create this hegelian alterior world view.

they look to the people to define their world view, most people look to the feedback look that is participating with the world. they use the collective as a proxy for experience and feel what the collective feels. (or tells them to - nihilism /lack of culture, blurs the edges of the self)

Stunningly interesting comment. But the larger question is, aren’t we all doing that?

(Even/especially right here, right now, on these blogs?)

That’s not the point anyway. If there had been such a tape, it would not have shown an active plan for extermination of masses of people. I agree there is no plan. It would have been about what this says concerning neo-neocon’s state of mind.

Such a tape would have indicated a certain unbalanced death wish, projected onto the entire world. It would have indicated a need to feel powerful through destruction, despite neo-neocon’s peaceful, safe upbringing, and easy, priviledged life. This would have belied neo-neocon’s claim to care about spreading democracy. It would have indicated cravings for vicarious violence to balance a strange inner feeling of weakness. It would even have shown a strange unbalanced thanatos that is not susceptible to reason.

The reason this story is so believable is that neo-neocon has said so many other things that suggest she harbors just such feelings, or similar ones.

Is such speculation warranted? It would be irresponsible not to speculate!

I think it holds up, don’t you?

I have a better one

STFU

Maybe you confuse us with Leftists who seek out personal info and use it to destroy people.

(Not that I even believe the crap you just wrote)

Conservatives don’t do that.

Bye

No, we’re pretty sure you’re conservatives who are too goshdarn lazy to even find personal info in order to destroy people, and have therefore resorted to simply making stuff up.

most people dont take years to have the ‘rules’ of the system learned.

for most, the rules of astrology are enough… what these people are practicing is an ideology whose approach is being refined over 100 years to capture the key people and ignore the rest selling things as half truths.

however the kind of thought that is required is not natural. its not natural to see the world only through a power dialiectic. its not natural to create a youthful population that works, gets meds, but at old age gets removed in favor of more young. when they mate, they give their kids to the state, and go back to work. or hasnt anyone taken a step back to see what this model is imposing?

the broken logic also is a test… if you spout the nonsense you are on that side, if not or you question it, you are against that side (ergo the attacks).

got to get ready for work… sorry..

Mitsu, what’s the big idea? Why say sane, reasonable things? C’mon, you’re ruining the joke!

Mitsu — This is a false equivalence. Michelle Obama’s college thesis was about her feelings as a black separatist. For years she has been attending what I would call a black racist church in which whites and America are demonized from the pulpit as the congregation claps and dances and cheers. McCain has no such converse history from the white side.

Obama’s team certainly took the charge seriously and reportedly grilled Michelle Obama at length on the possibility she had been caught raving about “whitey” on tape. I doubt they would have been surprised and neither would I.

If the “whitey” tape showed up, it would only be the final smoking gun for MO’s negative feelings towards whites.

Cool. Frankly, I think the rest of the self-identified liberals of the world are somewhat relieved.

Now please, continue on with your being a neo-con. It’s so much more entertaining.

of course this is couched as a public service message for the terminally pathetic…

Yeah, yeah, I know it goes on from both sides, but I’d say overall more so from the left side of aisle. I used to be a liberal too and at the time I assumed that was the side of open-mindedness, fairness, and rationality. I’ve changed my mind about that too.

You already do. You and the rest of this whiny bunch of losers.

Actually, I heard the tape of neo-neocon was her getting gangbanged by several large angry black men and screaming “Put your big n***** d*** in my tight white c*** and f*** me like I’m your slave masters racist daughters you big black N*****!!!” while her tiny-dicked husband watched and masturbated.

I haven’t seen it but it totally would fit her perdonality, so I believe it.

Drive by snark is the only appropriate response to a conspiracy minded racist cooch and her tiny band of readers.

If you’re gonna use the phrase “tu quoque”, you should first make an effort to understand what it means.

But, I guess our education system has indeed devolved to the point where college graduates today would never pass the classic regimen from another era.

Indeed. But congratulations on your recent graduation anyway!

I have had my disagreements with “mitsu” but I will concede that he is mostly civil and does try to hold up his end.

But, I guess we are just going to have to endure the months ahead, as the Obama Kiddies are out beating the bushes and being Don Quixotes at our sites.

I apologize to neo for getting away from the topic of this thread. I have already put in my $.02 worth for what I think about Michelle Robinson Obama. She needs to get a life, get a grip, and realize her good fortune. Stop complaining about whites. If I had been a student at Princeton when she was there and if we had crossed paths I would not have shunned her because she’s black. My best friend at the Catholic boarding school I went to in high school was a black kid from Somerville, MA. But maybe I would have told her to get rid of the attitude and think of other people for a change. The world does not revolve around her and her “grievances.” My friend in high school had no such attitude at all. He was very comfortable in his skin and we were completely comfortable with him. We all could laugh at ourselves, and make jokes about each other’s ethnic backgrounds all in fun, not meanness. When I was in the Army, there were guys, black and white, who had decidedly racist dispositions, but overwhelmingly most of us just mixed, worked together, and had fun together.

And that is how I think most of America NOW is. South Chicago is NOT typical of most of the country. For the record, when I was a Jesuit seminarian at Loyola of Chicago back in ‘86-’87, I did some volunteer work down on the South Side. South Chicago, in all of its environs, including the University of Chicago, is not in any way typical of most of America. It is a hard, gritty, nasty place. Also, you know, even back then when I was a Leftist seminarian, I was not comfortable with some of the WHITE activist types down there. There was something just a bit too intense and weird about them.

To take one’s experience of South Chicago or the snubs of some immature, white college students at Princeton and then project that on to the rest of the country is just stupid.

A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often….

Can you please provide a link these such “records”? Much thanks.

Maybe you confuse us with Leftists who seek out personal info and use it to destroy people.

(Not that I even believe the crap you just wrote)

Conservatives don’t do that.

Bye

John Kerry might disagree. John McCain too, now that you mention it. Also, Valeria Plame and Joseph Wilson.

I can keep going if I need to; I got plenty more.

What a joke.

Carry on, reich wingers.

ROTFLMMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

HUAHAHAHAHA!!!! OMFGORZ!!!!11!!two!!

Please. Stop. Teh. Stoopid.

BTW, I was previously a bitter, irrelevant newt for my entire life. Until I got better.

So I’m sure you’ll be providing factual backup for such a heft accusation, right?

Don’t try to give me the runaround either, for I am aware of all internet traditions, and this ain’t one of em!!!

By the way, some of you above pay no attention to sloppy writing. Misspelling, poor grammar, etc. It’s all the product of the “dumbing down” of our education system that ideologues like Bill Ayers, and his fellow-travelers in education theory, have presided over. The fact that you people do not look under Obama’s hood for a true picture of who he is testifies to the fact that your educations have not been worth shit.

But I do want to add…..”

Somebody call the Waaaah-mbulance!

Seriously, if the reich wing had even a microscopic schred of the toughness they like to pretend they have, then why are they always pissing and moaning wghen people call them out for their bullshit?

Probably the same reason they’d rather hole up in their houses with plastic wrap and duct tape hiding under their beds rather than signing up and fighting in Iraq.

Please provide just one single, solitary line in her thesis wherein she extols the virtues of Marxism.

You’re so full of shit, and your $5 words do not disguise the fact that you’re just another 0.50 reich wing sheep who preys on fear and who needs to be coddled by the “big, strong father-figure” right wingers to protect you.

In other words, you are weak sauce.

Well said. I’ve driven through the outskirts of South Chicago, one time. I hadn’t recently thought of how different it is - how much more hard-edged - from most of the rest of nation. I hadn’t thought of how the elite schooling/Hyde Park residence vs. South Chicago experience might still be impacting Barack and Michelle’s thinking. I will not overstate the impact; but, also, I’m glad you reminded me of this.

South Chicago’s relationship to government largesse reminds me a bit of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward relationship to government largesse. None are perfect comparisons, but: look at the way Mississippi pulled itself up after the Katrina damage with a minimum of griping and blaming; look at the way Iowans are shoving into their boots and dealing with their flooding with a minimum of griping and blaming. It is an American ethic: pull yourself back up, do not gripe and complain - with which Barack and Michelle may not be as familiar - due to the frankly Democratic/Leftist ethic of South Chicago and Ninth Ward New Orleans - in which much citizenry looks to government solutions for problems, and in which much citizenry feels the path to salvation is through public outcry for more government help. Don’t get me wrong: Mississippi and now Iowa will certainly benefit from government help. However, the mindset of middle America is different from the mindset of Dem/Left outposts like South Chicago and Ninth Ward New Orleans.

Oh, and BTW: if any visiting commenters read this and leap to racial conclusions about me - for you, I hereby issue a pre-emptory FU. I didn’t write in code words, and I’m not unconscious. I meant exactly and only what I wrote with my eyes wide open.

“I found it shocking that such scholastic mediocrity can be so rewarded by an Ivy League school. ”

and then added

“It appeared to be the psychological Rhorshark results of a sophisticated, yet out-of-control psyche.”

What is this “Rhorshark” you post about? As I am aware of all internet traditions, I know that credit must be given where it is due, and Dr. Hermann Rorschach would appreciate you getting his name right.

Is this merely scholastic mediocrity, actual ignorance, intellectual laziness, or a crime against metaphor as well?

It’s a clear lack of intelligence disguising itself as intelligence.

Not much different from the reich wingers who talk tough and try to feminize their opponents and yet are the first ones to cry and moan when they are called out on their bullshit. “But, but, youre swearing!!”

Or, the same pseudo tough people who tell people to spy on their neighbors and lock themselves in their houses, board the windows with duct tape, and reminisce about the good old days of bigotry and Pat Boone. When men could be men, damnit!!

Have any of the Leftist loons above read any part of Michelle Obama’s senior thesis at Princeton?

Yeah…. yawn… no big deal. She was aware of racism. What a surprise.

And what about her comment that she was not proud of her country until her husband decided to run for office did you people not get?

Proud before, “really proud” that day. Easy.

Or, her comments to the effect that this country needs change of the kind that is often left unspecified by a power couple that share an affinity for Marxism?

WTF???

But much of “the context” suggests to us that such alleged statements would not at all be out of character for Mrs. Obama.

And when did you stop beating your wife? Geez, this is the lamest sh*t I’ve ever seen.