Atrios and Josh Micah Marshal are suggesting that the Rove people now managing McCain's campaign have done him more harm than good. It may be that he won't lose any worse than he would have, but he seems certain to come out of this with both his reputation and his self-esteem destroyed.
JMM seems to be asking whether this is a Rove-Bush vendetta against McCain. My own theory is that the Republicans want the Democrats to be stuck with cleaning up their messes.
I don't remember a Republican campaign in a long time where the surrogates missed the message so often. It was also Rove and his people who forced Palin on McCain, and her problems were evident from the beginning. I don't see how a Rove candidate who Rove wanted to win could have messed up the "suspending the campaign" trick as badly as McCain did, or could have fumbled the bailout question as badly as he did.
On top of that, the campaign seems intended to delegitimize Obama's Presidency and leave the Republican voters in a state of violent rage, and that's also something I think that Rove is capable of.
Not unprecedented: I could name a certain political movement characterized more by hatred of Communism than by any consistent ideology.
Beutler's comments are fucked, BTW.
I think that once Obama is elected (knock wood) with a pretty solid majority in Congress, it will be possible to marginalize some of the more egregious Republican pimps. Obviously it can't be done by government action, but I hope that the Obama administration does its best to gain message control and freeze out the most pimpish media people. Those people do depend on sources.
As it is now, Luskin and the Dow 36,000 pair have not seen their careers harmed at all. There should be a way to end their mainstream careers with high level ridicule. Maybe Obama could start joking about their silliness in his public statements, for example. Maybe the demented fringe Republicans can be made famous.
If this really is a "change" elections, the centrists, moderate Republicans, sane conservatives, and independents have to be persuaded to flatly, blindly, automatically reject wacko Republicans the way that they've rejected us horrible liberals for so long. "Conservative" has to be rebranded to mean "Armageddonist racist Christians who want to abolish the Federal Reserve and dream about killing federal agents". Even though 90% of the consrvatives are not quite that bad.
I don't have clear ideas about how to do this, but it needs to be accepted as a goal.
1: the campaign seems intended to delegitimize Obama's Presidency
Yes, and I think this is consistent with what I have come to term the Rovian Ratfuck Shock Doctrine of politics. Similar to Klein's stuff on economics, it relies on the fact that in any chaotic situation truly unprincipled people are at a comparative advantage.
I do think that an Obama Presidency will be under continual and withering attack starting about March of next year if any one of: credit markets, stock markets, health care, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Georgia, magic pony deficit are not "fixed". I can already hear the smarmy, fuckwit nutters at my workplace coming in daily with, "Aren't we lucky we elected Obama, everything is so much better."
3: it will be possible to marginalize some of the more egregious Republican pimps.
John, you are delusional. Maybe after a 2012 victory. All of our heads are going to explode repeatedly next year no matter who wins.
Take Luskin and the Dow 36,000 guys. If the Dow bottom is found at 10,000 or so, wiping out about a third of a lot of portfolios, it would seem possible to laught those guys off the stage.
And what about Norquist and Gingrich? They have a lot of egg on their faces, but they and their followers don't care. But we have to convince everyone else to care.
And if it's not possible, the situation really is hopeless and we can forget about 2012. Sometimes when I propose doing something, it's because the boat is taking in water and something needs to be done, not so much because I know how to do it.
The wacko right will reassemble in strength within two years of a McCain wipeout unless something keeps that from happening. They will still believe their vicious nonsense as much as they ever did, and they'll be angrier than ever. If they haven't been marginalized, they'll probably win.
And I am finding that the combination of fear and uncertainty about the economy and the tone of the current race is causing increased political tensions at my workplace. (Particularly among those ghastly dickhead boomers who loved to give each other stock tips and had some spreadsheet they updated daily with their "net worth" to better fuel dreams of their golf community retirement.)
During some free floating discussion on the financial crisis during a break at a staff meeting I conspicuously withdrew from the conversation when someone prefaced a seemingly politically-neutral question on the mechanics of tranches and CDOs with "I understand that this is all originally due to banks being forced to lend to minorities and poor people, but what I don't understand is [blah, blah, blah]". I refused to lend any credence to his premise by continuing the discussion and just said that it was neither the time nor place for me to try to correct his misconceptions. (I knew exactly where that discussion would have gone.)
I probably should have just recited Cleese's great ode to Sean Hannity:
Aping urbanity
Oozing with vanity
Plump as a manatee
Faking humanity
Journalistic calamity
Intellectual inanity
Fox Noise insanity
You're a profanity
Hannity
5: Yes, I agree that the best strategy is to attack back and throw some weight around. However, I think it will be a very short honeymoon with even the non-partisan media and they will (mostly inadvertently) lend credence to the whackjob attacks with neutral "things are still fucked, voters dreams of a quick fix under Obama dashed" stories.
3: Even though 90% of the consrvatives are not quite that bad.
You know, even as recently as this year, I used to think this too. But I think we just have to admit that 90% of Republicans are virulently racist, but a lot of them have learned to hide it fairly well.
And after a week in the trenches during the worst financial crisis in 70 years, all I have to say is: remember those internal contradictions we told you about? These is them.
Minneapolitan: the unlikeliest financier. For those of you whp haven't met him, he looks like this.
Even though he talks like this guy.
90% is optimistic. Let's say "most".
10% of 30% is 3%, or perhaps 3 or 4 million voters. That many people can cause an enormous amount of trouble, especially since a lot of them have money and/or guns.
Revolutions and counterrevolutions are not really made by majorities.
John Cleese used to be funny, you know.
Apparently Beutler want his comments to be fucked. I don't know why he doesn't just turn them off, though.
Apparently Beutler want[s] his comments to be fucked.
Sexist.
4,7: Nothing personal, but this is a good example of a deadly failing the Democrats have: deciding who will win before the game is over. Sometimes it leads to overconfidence, sometimes to defeatism. That's the mistake behind the "reality-based" approach, as opposed to the republicans' "reality-making" approach.
A lot of Democrats, especially the leaders, are organization men whose jobs consist of following normal procedures. A lot of the strategists have backgrounds in social sciences where it's assumed that reality, including future reality, has a definite nature and can be known. But future reality can't be known. And you find out if reality has changed by acting as though it's changed, and seeing what happens -- the experimental, gambling, venturesome, entrepreneurial approach. You often lose.
This is one of the many things I harp on, but very few Democrats seem to realize this.
John, they never go away, never change.
1st historical example that came to mind was Henry Ford's virulent anti-semitism/anti-communism, which lasted from at least the 1910s thru, in the John Birch wing, the mid 1960s. And Hofstadter said liberalism had won once & for all. So full of shit.
I'd like to think it was geographical, because that might present a solution. But Sarah Palin shows that the monsters emigrate & breed new generations of monsters all over the nation. How did Sweden & France weaken their monsters? Maybe the worst left, and the rest had nowhere to go.
The more you politically or geographically isolate this transcendental evil of Republicanism, the more active & dangerous they will become. They do not fit into a liberal society, and will always be an existential threat to it. Their means & methods change according to circumstances, they are patient.
pwnd by 10, but it only takes a 5-10% determinedly obstructive minority to wreck a liberal society.
15, 16: The lurkers trolls support me in e-mail comments.
15: I think that's one of the best insights you've ever had, John, and I think of it often.
I don't buy this "Rove is really working to get Obama elected, and that's just awful" idea.
What makes anyone think that the Republicans are capable of thinking more than 2 moves ahead? Did evil genius Rove really engineer a 40% drop in the stock market to ruin Obama's Presidency? The man's a thug, not a Bond villain.
Whose fault is it that McCain doesn't have anything close to resembling a message on the economy? If I had to pick anyone it would be John McCain. If the Republicans could suddenly put together a strong message on economic issues in this environment, they wouldn't be the Republicans would they?
A month ago all the Dems were panicking that Obama hadn't been hitting McCain hard enough, he'd been too afraid of fighting, too willing to compromise, too much of a wimp. Now Obama looks like he will crush McCain and people are panicking because maybe the Republicans are losing on purpose. The common theme seems to be the hand-wringing more than anything else.
The Republicans are leaving a big mess for the Democrats to clean up. If Rove and company were really so smart, however, the mess would never get so large that they'd drop out of power.
Yeah, sure, maybe the problems are so bad that Obama can't do anything about them. But if Obama has a good Presidency, the Republicans could be out in the wilderness for a very long time. All in all, not a smart move by Rove et al.
And yeah, the mob rallies are ways to de-legitimize Obama with the Republican base. This is not the result of a master plan, however; this is the result of not having anything else in the playbook to turn to.
Obama seems to know how to handle the right-wing nutjobs much better than any previous Democrat I've seen. That's not saying a whole lot, but still -- he seems to realize that they'll come up with some inane attack on literally everything he does and to be able to preempt them to a certain degree.
15: if John McCain had had a coherent, well-planned-out message on the economy this election, he would be in better shape.
Making shit up as you go along doesn't always work. See Sarah Palin.
I have a big beef with Hofstadter. To him Sen. Joe McCarthy was the typical heir of the populists. Discussions of populism always leave out the successful, non-fascist populists, such as LaFollette and the Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party. (I joke about Wobegon, but I'm serious about Minnesota political history).
The FL party had its bad guys (Charles Lindberg Jr., Senator Ledeen) and its good guys (the dominant branch of the party). The Party split 1936-1944, with the Communists joining the Democrats and the fascists joining the Republicans. This is not a joke. The new DFL Party purged its Communists in 1946, but remained the leftmost Democratic Party in the nation and led the civil rights fight in 1948 which drove the Dixiecrats into their third party.
What you really had was a very successful meeting of populism, hardline leftism, and liberalism. As time went on liberalism became dominant, and by now Minnesota is a mediocre swing state even though voters here are stll more independent than pretty much anywhere else.
The present Republican core is a confluence of old bigotry and religious fanaticism and new free-market cargo cult economics. Prosperity theology is where they meet (Sarah Palin).
In short, it's new and it's old, but it's not really just the same old thing.
15:I just realized you're thinking top-down again.
The GOP base turned rabid in October will intimidate their Senators in March.
Sausagely talks about working the media.
No more masturbating to Joerg Haider (you freaks).
In 1999, Maddow was supporting herself with odd jobs (she met her partner Susan Mikula after the artist hired Maddow to do yard work)....
Sort of like Lady Chatter;y's Lover, except gay:
Can a sensitive artist find love in the arms of a brawny, earthy common laborer? Tune into our next episode and find out!
25: I've never got your point on this. The Democratic Party is hierarchical, American society is hierarchical, all known societies with more than about 300 people are hierarchical. People from below can rise into the hierarchy or can pressure the hierarchy.
If I saw the popular movements you claim to see, I'd speak differently. been there, done that.
29:Ooh, so experienced. No more Popular Fronts for John.
Who denied heirarchies, who sees movements?
One question:Is McCain leading or following? How about Palin? If they are responsive to their constituencies, why, if he isn't, isn't Obama? Is this a good thing or bad thing? Is this...leadership?
Maybe I just see the world differently, with different assumptions. If we are in Iraq Year 6, that is partly because the leaders want to stay, but mostly because the faction of the people who want to leave don't want it very badly.
All politicians have constituencies, even if only imagined, that control them. There isn't much leadership at all. The point about vanguardism isn't that it's a tactical or strategic mistake. The point is that it's a delusion.
WTF are you saying, McManus? Is this performance art again? When you make intelligible statements, I often agree with you -- that's half the time.
31:I see nothing unintelligible in 30, so I have to presume you have some sort of comprehension problem or or engaging in some sort of performance art yourself.
I think you understand what I am saying. You really have never abandoned your vanguardism.
the centrists, moderate Republicans, sane conservatives, and independents have to be persuaded to flatly, blindly, automatically reject wacko Republicans
Your idea of a liberal mass-market tv network to, what, "educate the ignorant proles who don't understand their own interests and are brainwashed by Chris Matthews...whatever" shows you are still an elitist who loves his heirarchies. As long as you can be near the top.
Fox and Rush aren't controlling their audiences like sheep. McCain & Palin haven't brought out the hidden monsters of their base. Obama isn't the angel of our better natures.
OK, Bob, what is your proposal? That's what I don't get. You seem far more optimistic than me, but I have no idea either why, or what you think we should be doing or saying.
As far as my face to face contacts with The Folk, there's one guy I'm trying to convince that not all niggers are the same. There's another guy I'm trying to convince that Obama isn't LBJ, the guy who sent him to Vietnam, and not McGovern either. I've been hoping against hope WRT my cougar sister and niece, but I think they're gaga over Palin. I hereby confess my bafflement as to how to deal with The Folk, but I have no idea what you are proposing.
I'm better able to communicate to the intelligentsia and the Democratic leaders and future leaders, and that's what I do. I think that the Democratic topdown elite and the media topdown elite could do better jobs than they're doing, to the extent that they're even trying to do the right thing. I think, for example, that having Olbermann and Maddow on cable is a good thing, and I'd like to see more of that.
The left blogosphere is funny on this problem: on the one hand, calling on McCain to "calm down" his base or otherwise holding McCain responsible, and on the other hand, full of redneck-in-the-street interviews and anecdotes to show how horrible these people really are.
Make up your minds, although the radical liberal premise that all people are basically good, they just need some empathy & edakation to learn their real true interests and feelings will always be in the way.
The Shia in Iraq didn't try to convert the 5 million Arab Sunnis.
Bob, I've been saying for months that the Republican base is not poor people, but mostly-well-off Christians, bigots, and anti-tax fanatics. And I just said here that the 30% Republican base should be isolated, not persuaded.
I've been talking about persuading the 50% mushy middle, especially the independents, undecideds, and low information voters, and about how they might be reached via different part strategies and a different media.
Make up your minds
I don't see the contradiction there that you do. Telling McCain to calm them down reinforces the idea that they're a bunch of drooling jackals, and the media has helped that narrative right along. Discredita McCain and discredits the base. I'm not sure how it could have worked better, really.
I've been talking about persuading the 50% mushy middle
I don't think anyone is persuaded, ever, John, which is not to imply that people don't change, just that we don't change them. What you do is distract, make a deal with, or overpower your opposition. Or change circumstances.
Vietnam (and buchu pork) was the price LBJ paid to moderate Republicans for Civil Rights & the Great Society.
I think Obama gets this. He doesn't 'listen to the opposition" in order to convert them. I 'spect, like all great negotiators, he is listening for the trade, the best deal.
Any leader can play to his base's worst instincts or to their best instincts. Those are the kinds of thing leaders do. A racist sitting at home grumbling and cursing is a good racist. A racist hanging a black man from a lamp post is a bad racist.
All the evidence is that in most areas lynchings were not spontaneous, but were organized by respected leaders of the local community. Around 1964 a friend of mine met the leader of a north Florida lynch mob, a prosperous landowner who was a friend of his father's.
Up until a couple of days ago, McCain and especially Palin were letting the dogs out, and they may not have quit. Are we wrong to talk about this?
Bob, as I explained, Obama has to convince some people. Not the opposition, but the others.
I don't think anyone is persuaded, ever, John,
Oh, come one.
Oh, come one.
I told you I thought we had different world-views.
There are processes that we observe and perhaps misunderstand. They may involve a re-ordering of internal priorities to fit a social circumstance, for instance. Followed by rationalization. Long story, and I am getting tired
The trade-off thing is what tempers my enthusiasm. There is not a doubt in my mind that Obama is a dealmaker, and will make deals that are unacceptable and tragic. UHC for another war. SSTF for energy. Abortion for gay rights. Whatever, good stuff coming, but I don't feel like partying. I think I would rather have a civil war. Actually I'd rather emigrate.
(Rorty was not abhorred only for his relativism, but because he abandoned persuasion.)
I don't think anyone is persuaded, ever,
God help me, I'm actually going to quote David Brooks.
The political effects of this trend have been obvious. Republicans have alienated the highly educated regions -- Silicon Valley, northern Virginia, the suburbs outside of New York, Philadelphia, Chicago and Raleigh-Durham. The West Coast and the Northeast are mostly gone.
The Republicans have alienated whole professions. Lawyers now donate to the Democratic Party over the Republican Party at 4-to-1 rates. With doctors, it's 2-to-1. With tech executives, it's 5-to-1. With investment bankers, it's 2-to-1. It took talent for Republicans to lose the banking community.
I guess I'd like to see your world-view in some detail rather than in a spray of provocative statements. I even offered you a chance to do so on my own blog, which you turned down. I'm just trying the figure out what the "there" is from which you send your contempt our way.
40:The Enlightenment framing is pervasive, and very comforting to those who need to believe they know why people do the things they do.
I certainly can't deny that professionals may blame Bush for the decline of their portfolios. Better than blaming their brokers, or golly, accepting that there is really no way to predict or control their fortunes.
Stupid Woody Harrelson poker movie last night, every single hand was a flush or straight completed on the last card.
I'd like to see your world-view in some detail
Here it is, the world, the insoluble lump.
Good day.
Seriously, Bob, bring something to the table or shut the fuck up. Nietzsche and Heraclitus were smart enough to speak gnomically and still be interesting, but as far as I know you aren't.
Bob has no interest in communicating with anyone here and should not be taken seriously. I apologize for having argued differently in the past. Ari was right. Lots of people were right.
He's not crazy, he's just a histrionic, nasty shit. He actually knows some things and has some interesting points of view, but for him Unfogged is just a stage to prance on. He has nothing but contempt for anyone here. Let us pray that he finds a new venue somewhere, and new people to piss on.
In his mind I am proving myself to be a hated liberal with no theoretical or practical understanding, but Bob's theory is a hodgepodge of zingers and his practice is sixties nostalgia. Screw him.
My apologies for ever having stuck up for that piece of shit.
Just curious, Bob, what grand tradeoff do you see FDR as having made for the New Deal?
48: Common cause with the Dixiecrats? While FDR wasn't personally notably racist, the New Deal programs were certainly far from racially equitable in the way they were administered, and my understanding is that that was a conscious tradeoff.
And Emerson, chill. Someone is always Wrong on the Internet. I don't get Bob myself, but some of it's interesting, and some of it's clearly shtick, and worrying too much about which is which will only drive you insane.
48, 49: As I have done before, I highly recommend this book on that subject.
48: Internment was carried out for domestic political purposes. That one pops out at me.
Lots of people are wrong, LB, but Bob is a shit. It's personal now. I have now joined the anti-Bob faction after a considerable period of decreasingly rewarding attempts to communicate with him, which ended just now when he blocked my attempt at off-blog communication by e-mail.
53:And like the other members of the anti-Bob faction, Emerson lies.
I have blocked nothing, and rarely touch that computer. Have no idea what he is talking about.
But Emerson started lying way before that.
John, I don't disagree with you at all about 1948 and the Minnesota democrats. Just wanted to add something: I recently heard an excerpt from Alben Barkley's speech to the 1948 convention: it's evident that the Minnesotans were not alone, and you really have to appreciate the courage of a southerner, on the national ballot, to take that line.
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53:Ahh, now I get it.
Just a notification that you recognize no boundaries, have no conscience or qualms for winning a fight. It was an threat, using email brings it "closer to home" so to speak.
Very well, I have family to protect that I will not allow be endangered for the sake of standing up to an "ari" or "eric" or Emerson.
Not that I can be sure that leaving makes them any safer from an enraged drunk.
53: Reach Damascus yet?
48: John is right; it's not about being wrong, it's about being abusive. Check out 730-end of this thread. I'm ashamed to say that, before that episode (in more than one sense), I was pro bob, probably because he hadn't turned on me yet. I failed to empathize with the targets of his abuse. Worse, he inspires rancor in others: John and Tim got into a cussing match that same day over bob-related matters. It's a shame, because he clearly has important things to say, but the "man" is pure blog poison.
56:Emerson, try mousing over my name. That is not the address you successfully used last time.
Can everyone tone it down? I'm sick and in no condition to mediate a blog fight. A little more charity towards everyone, please.
Now I'm going to go lie down and pass out.
Your family is safe from me, Bob, as you know and as you knew. It was not a threat, it was an attempt at off-blog communication. At that point I wanted to try not to burder the people here with our pissing match.
But yes, the blocked address is an old one that I had in my database, rather than Bob's current email address.
Has Bob decided yet whether Jimmy Carter or Benito Mussolini is a better historical precedent for Barack Obama? He seemed quite torn the last time I was paying attention.
Bob is an interesting AI project, but it's ireally nteresting watching people engage seriously with him, and then suddenly discovering that there's no there there. When I read Emerson's comments in this thread, I feel like I'm watching someone talking to a lamp who's getting more and more agitated during the course of the "conversation." Eventually he picks up the lamp and smashes it against the wall. Damn lamp.
60: I'm not interested in a blog fight, just relating my personal experience with the issue. I honestly bear bob no animus; the comment that sparked the screed linked to in 58 was intended as praise for bob's having skin thick enough to say the things he says. So, while uninterested in fighting, I'm even less interested in pretending everything's ok when the subject comes up.
Barbar, Bob has said a lot of interesting things that you apparently have missed. But then he has his unbearable schtickI just got tire of dealing with the gameplaying and accusations.
Am I the only one who keeps mentally anagramming this post title to Scob McManis?
27: No more masturbating to Joerg Haider (you freaks).
Yay! What a nice surprise!
"And we'll never rest again,
Until every Nazi dies!"
Do you think John McCain ever goes to Vietnamese restaurants? The vast majority of Vietnamese-American people I know are here because they backed the wrong side, so in one sense, he'd be among friends. And it's not like he probably got a lot of delicious phở in the Hanoi Hilton.
Sometimes, the side with fewer guns wins. Remember Ä?iện Biên Phủ!
I don't get Bob myself, but some of it's interesting
Do you mean "interesting" or <air quotes> interesting</air quotes>?
Curiously, last night I met a man who knew Bill Ayers. He said, basically, what most people who know Chicago politics know already, that it is practically impossible for someone to be politically involved in Chicago, especially in public education, without encountering Ayers.
Most boring thread topic evah:Bob
It isn't as if I go out of my way to abuse fm or AWB; I generally do not attack personally if not first attacked. And even then I ignore most insults, only trying to correct statements falsely attributing stuff to me.
In matter of fact, I might "fight" less than most around here.
What I don't do enough is engage in the socializing, confirming/affirming, trust-building conversations.
Forget it, Bob. You've burned plenty of bridges during your time here.
John, you're offended because I wouldn't pack my rancor and move into the ghetto you built for me. But I found that "invitation" presumptuous, offensive, and manipulative.
But note:I initially declined with humorous self-effacement, in a desire to avoid giving offense.
It apparently didn't work.
Do you feel humiliated before the crowd that the dog wouldn't heel?
I like to burn bridges by soaking them in oil.
Yeah, bob won't move to the back of the bus!
Bob will overcome!
"Let's burn that bridge when we get to it" is my favorite thing to say in a meeting.
We are made for larger ends than Bob can encompass. Oh, let us be true to our exalted Bob.
Bob, my undelivered (through no fault of yours) email was headed "My turn to be crazy now".
Yes, it's indeed sort of crazy for me to blow up at you right after trying to get you to post on my site. After the crazy act you've put on here you might be a little more accepting of the craziness of others. I thought that you might show better with your own venue, rather than sniping reactivelt and flinging accusations here, but what can I say? Crazy.
I reject your interpretation of my original offer, but the camel's back is pretty definitively broken, so who cares?
73 - Really? Mine is "That's the fire alarm - we all have to go now."
I always distrust people who know so much about what Bob wants them to do to their fellows.
Unfogged leaders worry more about making money from the profits they get from Bob that they turn the other way when Bob is being destroyed right next to them. Their Bobs are being murdered, but they only make calculations for their own Bob.
Certainly we disagree with the Bob Party, as we disagree with other political Bobs who are trying to maintain the Unfogged way of life.
Let there be no inscription upon my Bob; let no man write my Bob: no man can write my Bob. When my Bob takes her place among the Bobs of the earth, then shall my Bob be vindicated, then may my Bob be written.
FDR integrated the south into the american economy. If that didn't happen, there wouldn't be a 'southern strategy' or anyway for southerners to take control of the national government. When the 'new south' happened, it didn't just change the south for the good, it changed amerca and made it more like dixie. it wasn't till the 'new south' happened that southerners started being president, and thats what we've had the last 16 years.
The important compromises aren't the logrolling, they are the ones you make with reality.
and i generally like bob; partially because i don't get in fights with him. But thats because i don't quite believe anything, i only hold ideas as hypotheses and have some irony; i don't have any real thing at bottom.
When the 'new south' happened, it didn't just change the south for the good, it changed amerca and made it more like dixie.
What are you talking about? How did the the rest of the country get "more like dixie" in the administrations after FDR?
I'd just like to point out that you've driven Jesurgislac completely insane. Good job, everyone!
68: You attacked me personally a month or two ago, Bob. It surprised me at the time, because up to then I thought I had generally been polite to you.
What are you talking about? How did the the rest of the country get "more like dixie" in the administrations after FDR?
The cities in the north became full of poor Southern black people living in completely segregated areas, as had been the case in the south forever. That's the only factor that comes to mind right now.
Am I the only one who finds the direction of this thread strangely fitting in light of the substance of the post?
The cities in the north became full of poor Southern black people living in completely segregated areas, as had been the case in the south forever.
As I recall the large numbers of blacks migrating north started well before FDR. Heavy recruiting for workers during first world war and such.
85: No, I just happened to be exceedingly drunk.
Okay, so we just drove you to drink. I feel better!
The New South, ultimately made possible by FDR, was pretty recent, and has led to the Southern domination of the Federal government.
73 - The whole schtick is:
"Let's burn that bridge when we come to it."
"Don't you mean cross?"
"OK, let's burn that cross when we come to it."
92: If you drove me to drink, you could at least have driven me back again, and I could have bought a dozen bottles. This wine was on sale, and very nice it is too.
But thats because i don't quite believe anything, i only hold ideas as hypotheses and have some irony; i don't have any real thing at bottom.
Not to be overly argumentative, but that does seem an odd position to take, no?
Taking disagreement lightly, I can see. Not really being in disagreement with anyone because you don't believe anything seems ... odd.
Fruther to 97.
It's a bit like never being criticised for having 'bad taste' through the mechanism of only liking things 'ironically' and never committing to liking anything.
it might be odd. lots of people think i am.
And i'm willing to commit to stuff long enough to be criticized for them.
Back to the post topic, a video of McCain telling a supporter that Obama's not, in fact, "an Arab".
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On the teevee right now I can watch college football, NASCAR and soccer, plus a variety of other garbage. What I can't watch is game 2 of the ALCS. WTF? What kind of nightmarish dystopia has this country become?
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There's a place where people get cable, but don't get TBS?
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git sucks.
(Perhaps a bit less than most open source, but still.)
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102: I don't get cable. My teevee set will soon be obsolete without a digital converter box, and given that for several years it has been used exclusively for postseason baseball and presidential debates, I may just indulge the juvenile temptation to toss it out an upstairs window.
The whole schtick is:
"Let's burn that bridge when we come to it."
"Don't you mean cross?"
"I wouldn't be cross if you didn't dispute everything I say."
Google says someone named Jerry Bittle came up with that gag. Never heard of him. If he wasn't dead already, I'd fight him for ownership of it.
Now that he has demonstrated himself as unreliable, I will now ignore everything pdf23ds has to say on every subject ever.
104: ooh, interesting. I've been trying to figure out what to do with my TV, and that's right tempting.
Also I'm loving these TB pitchers.
106: OK, then you tell me why git-gc doesn't work across submodules like it's supposed to.
I don't understand all this talk about throwing TVs out windows. Don't any of you own a playstation or an Xbox?
Be sure to set the TV on fire first, as per the M-rules for M-fun.
it wasn't till the 'new south' happened that southerners started being president
Except for, you know, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, and probably a few more whom I've forgotten, being sort of drunk at this moment.
Maybe I'll come back and try git again in a year. After all, subversion was like five years old before I started using it.
git has a crappy, crappy interface and problems are impossible to track down through absurd messages and six different cross-language boundaries. Perhaps try Bazaar or Mercurial, which suck a whole lot less. bzr especially is a pleasure to use.
Don't any of you own a playstation or an Xbox?
No and no. Plus the sound of a big CRT meeting pavement is really satisfying. I should record it if I decide to go through with this.
This is why I still use CVS. I understand its limitations. No surprises.
111 cont.: Or watch DVDs, for that matter? Cable television is like the worst possible thing you could use a TV set for.
118: anything I watch I pretty much watch on my computer.
That's true, though it's kind of hard to cuddle up on the couch in front of the computer monitor and watch a film.
Someone please change the mouseover. This comment would be fine.
Actually, I rather like the mouseover.
Except for, you know, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Woodrow Wilson, and probably a few more
Clicking on bios, I also see Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Andrew Johnson...
On the teevee right now I can watch college football, NASCAR and soccer, plus a variety of other garbage. What I can't watch is game 2 of the ALCS. WTF? What kind of nightmarish dystopia has this country become?
If you are desperate, then you can go to www.mlb.com and at least get a live stream of the pitcher-battter camera (unfortunately, you don't get a shot of where the ball goes). However, between that stream, the "Gameday" featrure (which includes video clips of the big plays), and a radio broadcast, you can kind of piece together what is going on.
Still lovin' TB? Who will rid us of this troublesome pitcher? Not done soon enough.
The event referred to happened after the Civil War, an important event in the nation's history. The exception (1860-1976) was Wilson. The Southernization of the US started to happen after 1968 and was made possible by the New South greater prosperity and increased population, which in turn was made possible by the New Deal, etc.
That's the argument, as I understand it.
before carter, zachary taylor was the last southern elected. thats over a hundred years. truman maybe is the exception. wilson was from new jersey more than anywhere else.
125: I am desperate, and I've got Gameday and the streaming radio broadcast. It'll have to do. WOO BAY!
Is Bob now going to join Stras as a regular at The Weblog?
WOO BAY!
Is that where you auction off surplus joy? But seriously, 129, you're not missing much. Last night was the best pure pitching performance I've seen in 23 years of baseball fandom, and I've seen Eckersley and Ryan pitch in person. Tonight is just a bunch of sloppy pitching and monster home runs.
wilson was from new jersey more than anywhere else.
Yoyo, I hope you hold that idea as a hypothesis only, because for most values of "more than anywhere," you're wrong.
"Thomas Woodrow Wilson was born in Staunton, Virginia in 1856 ...
... Wilson's parents moved South in 1851 and identified with the Confederacy. His father defended slavery, owned slaves and set up a Sunday school for them. They cared for wounded soldiers at their church. The father also briefly served as a chaplain to the Confederate Army. Woodrow Wilson's earliest memory, from the age of three, was of hearing that Abraham Lincoln had been elected and that a war was coming. Wilson would forever recall standing for a moment at Robert E. Lee's side and looking up into his face.
Wilson's father was one of the founders of the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) after it split from the northern Presbyterians in 1861. ... Wilson spent the majority of his childhood, up to age 14, in Augusta, Georgia ...
... During Reconstruction, he lived in Columbia, South Carolina, the state capital, from 1870-1874, where his father was professor at the Columbia Theological Seminary.
In 1873, he spent a year at Davidson College in North Carolina, then transferred to Princeton ...
In 1879, Wilson attended law school at University of Virginia for one year. ... His frail health dictated withdrawal, and he went home to Wilmington, North Carolina where he continued his studies. ... [etc., etc.]"
132: Yeah, I think he's over-remembering the Princeton connection.
Wilson joined the faculty of Princeton in 1890 and was there for 20 years. I don't know if that counts as "from New Jersey more than anywhere else", but it surely counts as something. Before that he lived in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland....
Really, "where are you from?" is something of an ill-defined question, no? I always answer with "originally? or now?"
Wilson was a cracker, big time. No other way to put it.
before carter, zachary taylor was the last southern elected.
Do the letters "L", "B", and "J" mean anything to you, yoyo?
I think the idea of Wilson as a Southern president is sort of but not really right. Let's not slight Wilson's southern background or racism, but he was Governor of New Jersey before running and his national political reputation rested on that position (although I think he lost NJ in 1916). He certainly wasn't an unambiguously "southern" candidate the way that in the way Jimmy Carter or even Bill Clinton was. It would have been difficult or impossible for a completely sectionally-identified southerner to have won either a national party nomination or election at the time.
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You know who's not buying the hockey mom schtick?
Hockey fans.
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Woodrow Wilson beat out Bob La Follette for "Whitest American Ever" with the Palmer raids. He would hold the title until a shock upset in 1982 that saw Garrison Keillor claim the belt.
138: I'm not hearing the booing. Maybe it's just flooded out by the triumphant soundtrack?
Central Casting should not send out Alaskans named Gomez. Does not fly. (Is he legal?)
The Southernization of the US started to happen after 1968 and was made possible by the New South greater prosperity and increased population, which in turn was made possible by the New Deal, etc.
I'm just wondering what "Southernization" is referring to, outside of things like increased popularity of country music and NASCAR.
142 -- seriously. I think the northernization of the south was a much bigger deal. There were plenty of northern conservatives before, during, and after the new deal, too.
143: People were hoping that the New South would be improved, but it was just slicker and more influential.
Every President in the last 45 years has either been a Southerner or has pandered egregiously to them. Congress 1994--2006 was controlled by Southerners of the worst kind. These facts strike me as sufficient explanations of the term "Southernization".
144 -- Yeah, but you forget that Congress 1939-1964 was also controlled by southerners, they just called themselves "Democrats" and part of the "conservative coalition" and partnered up with their equally odious conservative republican brethren.
I didn't forget anything. Congress 1939-64 had influence from several directions, with nothing like the Southern stranglehold 1994-2006.
I'm just wondering what "Southernization" is referring to, outside of things like increased popularity of country music and NASCAR.
The shift to Southern social norms in policy. The New Deal was basically following the Northern policy thread that runs back through the Revolutionary War, but it left a hole for the South to do its number on its own. That hole collapsed with the Great Society, and then the South went to the R's. The left was moving off to the left, and so was the right, actually, but Southern plantation-owner types appealing to Southern populist sensibilities moved in and captured the working-class voters that had formerly been led by Northern types. Whereupon, Southern plantation sensibilities became the default set for judging policy.
The policy set we have is sunstantially identical to the policy set that Southern Democrats of 1880 (or 1832) would've supported. Minus the slavery, of course.
max
['The labels have changed but the game remains the same.']
146/147 -- The southern stranglehold over Congress was severe enough between 1939 and 1964 to marginalize efforts to reform segregation, allow right to work, permit the HUAC to run rampant, and kill off universal health care, all of which I'd say is pretty powerful. Yes Gingrich sucks but let's not romanticize the past. And much the same coalition dominated, although in a weakened and shifting form, from 1966 to 1994.
Obviously, southern politics are now a lot different than they were before the civil rights movement, including that: (a) northern conservatives and southern conservatives identify now identify more closely than they did prior to 1968; (b) the Republican party is now largely a southern party and (c) it's now possible to have a southern president, which wasn't true in the days of the "solid" democratic south. But the explanation for all three phenomena are simple: the civil rights movement meant that conservative democrats could and did join up with their conservative bretheren in the party of Lincoln to form an ideologically-unified conservative party. That's pretty different from a southernization of America, it's really a unification of conservative forces. And we haven't had an actually liberal Democratic congress until our present one, with the exception of 1964-66.
Also, as crappy and disappointing as the politics of the new south are, it still really, really beats the old south, and it's a great thing to have the old south (largely) done and gone.
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OK, I spent a week trying git, didn't work out. Next I'll try Mercurial. Looks like it has better windows support, which is good because I use Windows.
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You really shouldn't have tried git in the first place then, it just isn't very good there and probably won't ever be - the posix mindset is pretty ingrained in the design, so there are a lot of fairly ugly hacks on top to make it even mostly work.
Mercurial and especially Bazaar have been built with that more in mind. Monotone works ok as well (or darcs, modulo its other problems). Reputedly Bazaar works best of those on Windows, but I haven't ever used it that way personally. They'll all function better than git though.
The southern stranglehold over Congress was severe enough between 1939 and 1964 to marginalize efforts to reform segregation, allow right to work,
I just said that.
permit the HUAC to run rampant, and kill off universal health care,
I'm dubious that either of these is due to Southern influence.
all of which I'd say is pretty powerful.
Powerful, but not powerful enough to overcome tariffs, (quasi-)Keynes, heavy banking regulation, support for industrialization, etc. etc. The South may have won some battles, but they lost the war.
But the explanation for all three phenomena are simple: the civil rights movement meant that conservative democrats could and did join up with their conservative bretheren in the party of Lincoln to form an ideologically-unified conservative party.
That's what the conservatives think. This is working out to be a Southernization of the R's, rather than a unification of conservatives. UNLESS you strictly identify the typical political motifs of the South with the moniker conservative. It doesn't look like conservatism to me (much like 'third way' Clintonism didn't look like liberalism to me), or the sort of Republicanism practiced by Lincoln (or the Whigs, actually), it looks like a modernized Dixiecratism.
That's pretty different from a southernization of America, it's really a unification of conservative forces.
Yeah, that was temporary; it's already blowing itself apart.
Yes Gingrich sucks but let's not romanticize the past.
I'm not romanticizing the past.
max
['WTF?']
147 is so right, it's humbling. I'd like to think that were I sober, I'd say the same thing, but I was recently, and I didn't.
Huh? I don't understand 147 at all. The America of today would have been unrecognizable to a Southern plantation owner of 1832 or 1880.
Looking upward, yeah, the South is key, but the two key Presidents who implemented the GOP realignment were Californian (Nixon and Reagan). I would argue the Bushs are not exactly Southerners either, they represent the migration of east coast old money to Texas.
The Southern influence at the Presidential level has been seen on the Democratic side, where since 1960 no Democrat who is not a Southerner has won the Presidency. (This will change in T-3 weeks).
One of the costs of the Southernization of the Republican Party was the destruction of their fiscal conservative / little government / libertarianish wing, because Southern Republicans are authoritarian pork barrlers.
The America of today would have been unrecognizable to a Southern plantation owner of 1832 or 1880.
No one would deny that such a person would not have predicted the internet.
I imagine 158 said in the same tone as "Look kids! The ice cream truck!"
Obama was born in Hawaii -- far to the south of the South itself.
If you guys control some worthless financial assets, your lucky day has come! If you don't, you must be a taxpayer or something!
No one denies that there is more southern and conservative influence in the Republican party today than in the past. The question, I think, is whether it's true that the country as a whole is "more southern" or "panders to the south" more than before 1968. Since we no longer have a political system in which southern congressmen form a regional block that exercises a decisive veto to protect white supremacy, that seems demonstrably false. You can come up with some idiosyncratic theory about the eternal geist of southerness if you want, but that strikes me as more hand-waving than explanatory.
Also, I'm never quite sure about who all these wonderful non-southern fiscal CONSERVATIVES are supposed to have been. Dirksen? Goldwater? In practice, the con has always been the same -- talk about cutting spending, while actually cutting taxes and boosting military spending. That the Republican party used to contain liberals who weren't wholly on board with this platform but no longer are Republicans doesn't mean that the party is more southern, just more conservative.
No one denies that there is more southern and conservative influence in the Republican party today than in the past. The question, I think, is whether it's true that the country as a whole is "more southern" or "panders to the south" more than before 1968. Since we no longer have a political system in which southern congressmen form a regional block that exercises a decisive veto to protect white supremacy, that seems demonstrably false. You can come up with some idiosyncratic theory about the eternal geist of southerness if you want, but that strikes me as more hand-waving than explanatory.
Also, I'm never quite sure about who all these wonderful non-southern fiscal CONSERVATIVES are supposed to have been. Dirksen? Goldwater? In practice, the con has always been the same -- talk about cutting spending, while actually cutting taxes and boosting military spending. That the Republican party used to contain liberals who weren't wholly on board with this platform but no longer are Republicans doesn't mean that the party is more southern, just more conservative.
One of the costs of the Southernization of the Republican Party
And that's what my perception of the change has been. That civil rights led to the Southernization of the Repubs, rather than the New Deal leading to the Southernization of the country.
Yeah, but the New Deal made the more prosperous and more populous New South possible, which meant not only that the Republicans were Southernized, but also that the Southernized New South Republicans controlled the executive 1980-2008, and Congress most of the time 1994-2006. Which would be the Southernization of the US.
I'm not completely sure about the New Deal / New South link, but that's the argument that I think was made.
At one time it was thought that the New South would be much nicer than the Old South, and there have been (mostly involuntary) improvements in areas like voting rights and lynching, but the New South has been an enormous disappointment.
The more prosperous and more populous New South also no longer contained any states that were majority black.
the New South has been an enormous disappointment.
Give it a bit more time. When a black presidential candidate is ahead in the polls in places like Missouri and North Carolina, and only behind by single digits in Georgia, that's a good sign.
Today's Unfogged reading assignment: Faulkner's Snopes Trilogy (The Hamlet, The Town, The Mnasion). Flem Snopes triumphant == the New South.
Fucked up headline of the day. Just saw it in passing, so no idea what the article says but the cover read "The Economy Trumps Race". WTF? So I guess if it were good times we'd all be naturally voting for our own kind.
Is the South mainly a shorthand for "everything we don't like about America"? The Republican hegemony was just as much about the Sun Belt and Texas. As I said above, California was key in the movement during the 60s through the 80s.
Speaking of the Old South, very interesting Senate race in South Carolina. Lindsey Graham -- McCain's best friend, loyal neocon -- is only 9 points ahead of self-described "Ron Paul Democrat" Bob Conley. Conley is against the bailout and for rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq *and* Afghanistan. Actually, he's pretty close to Ron Paul's views generally. Also against abortion rights, but what do you expect in SC.
Texas is in the South. Much of the Sun Belt is in the South.
i was trying to read 'The sound and the fury', a lot of howling and hushing, it's really messing up with my grammar
i'm going to quit it maybe
the most difficult book i ever read i think
170, I'm still trying to work out who my own kind are.
Read, the first part is the worst. It's told by a severely retarded brother of the other characters. Read the other parts first and come back to the first part, when it will be clearer. Faulkner was being mean to his readers in that book.
Alternatively, "As I lay Dying" is a somewhat similar book that's easier to follow.
Alternatively gendered aliens?
Has anyone linked to the video of Sarah Palin getting booed as she dropped the puck at a Philly Flyers game? A heartwarming storm of loathing! Go Philly!
aha, thanks, JE, sorry to interrupt
last week i read Milan Kundera's Ignorance
before i've tried to read on that, lightness of being, thought it's kinda boring and didn't read it further, maybe the translation was not very good
so i read it at first very critically, like, yeah, all the horrors of the soviet invasion, right, and nothing about the nazi occupation, it must be was like beyond comparison, and people he described were so selfish and unsympathetic, and what condescending tone towards his compatriots etc
but i kept reading like what he has to say on ignorance after all
then there was about a suicide attempt by one of his heroines and it described exactly what i thought once, how it would be to go to sleep peacefully into the cold nature
so she losed her ear and spent her whole life alone
spooky
Lindsey Graham -- McCain's best friend, loyal neocon -- is only 9 points ahead of self-described "Ron Paul Democrat" Bob Conley.
Aside from a few commercials, Conley's appears to have done very little actual campaigning and he's received little to no active support from the state Democratic party, so it's nice to see him do as well as he has. But he's eccentric and I'll very surprised if he wins. This is a shame, because '08 is the best year yet to unseat Graham and the state party people couldn't pull their thumbs from their asses and find someone to run a real race.
I'm not sure Conley would be any better than Graham--he's a libertarian flying under Democratic colors, basically--but I doubt that he'd be any worse.
If you feel communism is dead you're badly mistaken. Ayers has, apparently, stopped blowing up buildings but the philosophy is still deep in his soul And he is teaching your kids at the college level. Ayers and his communism are a bad influence where ever he is.
The ONLY difference from then and now is the explosions.
Yeah, man, those were the days. Once we get Obama in the White House, The Man is going down! I'ma going to get my copy of the Anarchists Cookbook out, and go to town with it.
It's true! I was personally indoctrinated with Marx at the University of Chicago! And I liked it.
180: you know that book is just not as useful as it's cracked up to be. You can find better bomb-making instructions on the internet.
Ayers would have seen this.
Don reminds us that we've all been assuming that Ayers has stopped blowing up buildings, but we don't really have any proof. Before we go any further, that has to be established one way or the other.
Let Ted Kaczynski, Harvard PhD, be a model for all of us. His manifesto will provide meaning for out lives!
182: Hey, why do you think St. Al brought us the internet, if not so that we could better blow shit up, thereby bringing The Man to his knees? It's all part of the plan.
180: You know, the bits about what to do if you're being tear-gassed are pretty useful. (Or is that Steal This Book? Both?)
And he is teaching your kids at the college level.
I have children? And they're college-aged? Crazy.
Dude, you lose track of trivial shit like that after taking too much of the brown acid. Don't sweat it,though, Prof. Ayres has the indoctrination covered. (You should see the size of his freshman classes.)
One of the first uses I put the Internet to was in fact to read Ted Kaczynski's manifesto. Once again we see that the circle of life leads us in its merry dance to kill whitey.
The ONLY difference from then and now is the explosions.
I would have thought this was sort of a big difference--
It's so hard to get your reading done when the explosions are going on.
190: so that's why I'm procrastinating.
The ONLY difference from then and now is the explosions.
And that's hardly a difference at all!
Ayers really let down the side when he quite blowing shit up. I mean, trying to blow shit up. He's a bourgeois liberal now, and Obama should shun him.
From the Tone-Deaf Politician Hall of Fame:
Republican John McCain vowed Sunday to "whip" Democratic rival Barack Obama's "you-know-what" when the two presidential candidates meet Wednesday in their final televised debate.
I'll be generous and assume the same guy who opposed the MLK holiday (until that stance became an embarrassment) and supported South Carolina flying the Confederate flag over their Capitol (until after he lost the SC primary anyway) wasn't *actually* intending to refer slyly to slavery and might have used that phrasing with any opponent. But.
194: I would follow that with a joke about Sarah Palin whipping Obama's "you-know-what" ... but it would be WRONG!
Not to mention Biden whipping McCain's "you-know-what", which would be .... (Is "old guys on old guys" the least watched possible porn combination in the world?)
Is "old guys on old guys" the least watched possible porn combination in the world?
From when I worked for a... business, no, it's remarkably popular. Much more so than old woman on old woman, by a factor of three or four. Neither of them is close to the least-watched though, that would be one of the many more rare combinations.
This information will be useful the next time you play Trivial Pursuit.
To John Emerson # 23...
You need to check for the total truth as to who will inherit the mess in the White House! Actually by contacting CSpan who televised it or the Democratic Party that Freddie (what ever called) had been turned in for fraud in regard to money close to two and half years ago..and it was let go by the DEMOCRAT'S investigation as a "cry of wolf"!!! That tells us there is "CORRUPTION in BOTH parties"!!! And YES... the lady leader (name?) of the Democrats who YELLED that this was not to be a bail out to everyone who would vote on this...already KNEW this!!! Check all this out...for I write truth!!!
Now John, I'm assuming you are a native of Minnesota..so I now ask you to contact any of your friends that had the opportunity to watch WCCO TV's segment on "Women Unionizing" that had just won the right to say prayers on the clock, from their employers...WITH PAY!!! Next these UNIONIZED WOMEN boasted about getting Obama elected in the Minnesota Primaries due to their UNIONIZING!!! (one would think it to be " illegal to pull that segment from this TV station's site", but that's the truth and this was the very first week of March that this was aired!) What else is FISHY is that Obama made his acceptance speech in the SAME Convention Center about six weeks BEFORE that Nat'l GOP Convention in the SAME Convention Center! huh?
Remember that Germany wanted CHANGE and voted in Hitler! And, I now rest because you bunch of "nasty's wouldn't recognize TRUTH if it hit you in the face"!!
Please key in this site to find out just how close we in the USA are to freezing to death and starving, called...International Trade Ships Seizing up due to Banking Crisis!
attp://www.nakedcapitolism.com/2008/10/international-trade
Next...PLEASE start each a petition to President Bush stating..."We the People Demand a Spending Freeze Immediately", to have money for payment of our ships from international trade to come into our ports!
When this petition reaches the number you call for...ask them to forward the petition to....Petition for President Bush to...
comments@whitehouse.gov
Know also that our senators have already passed giving "aid to illegal aliens" so please add that ..."We the People do NOT choose to reward lawbreakers with our money as aid to them" and we demand Congress Not to pass this bill!
PRAISE GOD for the internet to help us..."We the People" now have a voice to be heard!
(I doubt we'll even make it to the election date of Nov.4th.)
