At RealClear, John McWhorter has a piece about what Barack Obama’s nomination illustrates: racism is in serious retreat. He writes:
Some may mistake me as implying that it would be okay to stop talking about racism. But that interpretation is incorrect: I am stating that it would be okay to stop talking about racism. We need to be talking about serious activism focused on results. Those who suppose that the main meal in the aforementioned is to decry racism are not helping people.
[...]
Yet every time some stupid thing happens – some comedian says a word, some sniggering blockhead hangs a little noose, some study shows that white people tend to get slightly better car loans – we are taught that racism is still mother’s milk in the U.S. of A. “Always just beneath the surface.”
Funny he should mention it. In today’s New York Times there’s a piece about how Obama’s nomination is inspiring blacks. Well, some blacks:
“People hate black people,” said Michella Minter, a black 21-year-old student in Huntington, W.Va., referring to persistent racism in the United States.
“I’m not trying to be racist or over the top but it is seriously apparent that black people aren’t valued in this country,” Ms. Minter said. “In the last 12 months, six kids were being tried for attempted murder for a school fight, an unarmed man got 51 bullets in his body by a New York police officer, died, and no one was charged, and endless other racist unknown acts have occurred this year.”
The “21-year-old student” part is depressing. The racism meme is so calcified in the mindset of American universities that young black Americans with unprecedented opportunity are continually being “educated” into defeatism and victimology. A black man is the Democratic presidential nominee, yet the campus-based focus is on hated blacks and “endless” acts of racism.
As McWhorter writes: “Of course there is racism. The question is whether there is enough to matter.” There’s always enough to matter to a network of universities whose goal is to turn out the next generation of Michella Minters.
Hilarious. From superpower to third world basket case, in one session of Congress. NOw that is Change we can believe in!
When any politician (Democrat or Republican) utters the word “bipartisan,” what they really mean is “by partisan.”
For example: “By partisan efforts, we were able to push through this stimulus package.”
See? It’s a common mistake, but as Duke on the old GI Joe cartoons used to say: “Now you know.”
The next thing on the Democratic agenda is to replace the Dollar with the Euro, then we can be just like the Europeans.
Jennifer is still denying the facts. This is a done deal. Even the mainstream media is reporting that the fix is in.
Republicans know this stimulus package needs to pass, but they also want cover. So here’s what’s going to happen. House Republicans will vote agains the package, which will pass with Democratic votes. Senate Republicans have a deal to amend the bill, which will pass with bipartisan support there. Then the House gets another bite at the amended package.
This is how compromise looks. The Republicans have caved, but they need to look like they are opposed and have done their best to win concessions. Obama gets his bipartisan stimulus package. And anything else he wants, for as long as his popularity is sky high. Republicans know that once they take a genuine stand against this president, bipartisanship ends, and the Democrats will roll over them. Obama wants them on board. He doesn’t need them on board. So get used to Republicans pretending to fight, while ensuring that Obama’s legislation gets just enough support from the GOP caucus.
As usual, the inkwell is perfectly inverted.
I’ve been hearing for 8 long years that Clinton took the country from recession to a balanced budget. So let’s repeat history. The best that could be done with this stimulus is to repeat the fate of the Clinton 1993 stimulus (it never passed).
#4
I hope that the Contentionsistas read your post;it will spare them hours of whining and aggrevation with Republican impotence. The Democrats came back after 6 years of impotence;I’m sure that a Republican will arise that can take the fight to Obama’s successor.
So, do we buy gold bars, or what?
This spending confirms my view that the Democrats are the party of bad ideas, corruption, and irresponsible financial management. None of this spending will help one businessman grow his business or add one job. Welfare payments to non-tax payers is classic wealth distribution and constitute bribes for votes. This is all consumption of wealth, and none of this spending will produce any wealth for our country. It all amounts to payoff for votes and settling accounts with voting blocs and constituents.
The Treasury printing presses are belng lubricated. The only way to “pay” this monumental debt is to devalue the currency. Savings and investments, retirement nest eggs and pensions wiped out by weak dollars with lowered buying power.
Bad, bad, bad. Very typical and predictable behavior, no surprise save the enormous scope of damage to taxpayers and their decendents.
Obama needs the Republicans more than the Republicans need Obama on this bill. Why else would he have made a special trip to Capitol Hill? If he goes back on his promise of bipartisanship now, his approval numbers will start heading South.
If Inkwell is right and the Republicans cave after being promised bipartisanship, they’re going to look weak and pathetic, and they’ll be in the minority for some time to come, and they’ll deserve to be there.
#5.
Behold, prelude to a cave. From ABC News today:
“The Senate is designing a version that totals about $900 billion. Encouraged by Obama’s outreach, both sides are hopeful that more Republicans will support the final version when differences in the two bills are negotiated by the House and Senate.
“The president was clear that he was going to continue to reach out to us, continue to listen to our ideas and I think we have to remember we’re at the beginning of this process,” House Minority Leader John Boehner told “Good Morning America” today.”
So you see, the deal has been struck. The Senate will amend. The GOP will give Obama enough votes for him to notch a win for bipartisanship.
If Commentary were interested in principle, instead of partisanship, it would be attacking the GOP leaders for selling out, rather than praising them for pretending to mount an opposition. You might at least have a chance of shaming them out of this betrayal.
“If Inkwell is right and the Republicans cave after being promised bipartisanship, they’re going to look weak and pathetic, and they’ll be in the minority for some time to come, and they’ll deserve to be there.”
They don’t look weak and pathetic, they ARE weak and pathetic because there aren’t enough of them. The U.S. population, being human, have fallen for the same kind of marketing scam that sells bottled water and organic food. The Republicans do deserve their fate in the sense that they have failed to point out the inevitable end of utopian policies. But would it have mattered? Probably not.
The U.S. political and governmental family is now being run by the teenagers. As we all know, there’s nobody smarter and with more answers than a teen age boy. That’s the intellectual branch of the utopians. Teen agers have a different system of values than mom and dad, too. They want to borrow the car to go to the rock concert but they don’t have any money for gas or tickets. ” How about it, Dad?” Those $150 sneakers? “I gotta have ‘em, all the guys do.” Complex problems have simple answers in teen world. Well, the people running the show now haven’t grown up. The country is being run by mental teen agers.
Part of the problem with education in this country is that individuals like “Inkwell” are unable to receive refunds for the faulty conjectures stuffed in their brain.
If the Republicans get some permanent tax cuts and some real stimulus through defense spending, then they will have gotten all that they can. They were never going to get any more than that, but if they don’t even get that, then they should get good and comfortable in the minority.
“The Democrats came back after 6 years of impotence;I’m sure that a Republican will arise that can take the fight to Obama’s successor.”
You’re against repealing term limits and making Obama President-for-Life? You’re saying Obama is mortal? Why are you a racist?
Republicrats like Snowe, Hatch and Specter, flattered by Obama’s attention, will certainly belly up to the ‘bipartisan’ utopian bar, while our Founding Fathers and Ronald Reagan spin in their graves.
Might want to hold your fire there, pardner. We don’t have a Department of Pre-Crime yet. How about attacking the leaders as “sellouts” after they’ve actually sold out?
We’ll see how the Senate Rs react if it’s true that the House GOP, under the same John Boehner whose happy hopenchangey bipartisany talk was quoted above, give the bill “0″ votes or something close to it. We’ll see exactly what O & the gang come up with for the sake of their desired 80 votes. If it’s a sellout, I’m confident that the Commentariat will have little difficulty saying so.
As things stand, it’s already, if not a defeat, then certainly much less of a victory than Mr. No Red States or Blue States wanted: Pelosi has exposed herself again, always a painful experience for all concerned, and national cynicism about politicians, a much more deep-seated reflex than hopenchangey lockstep, has been re-awakened on schedule.
By the time whatever bill is conferenced out, everyone will have reason to hate it. Might want to frame those 70% approval ratings or whatever it was you were all so excited about, because, unless there’s a good war, you probably won’t ever see them again.
Eric Cantor is going to be on Rush at 1:30pm. You can get it streaming at http://www.wmal.com. He may have a more accurate update on the House GOP.
You probably have heard of “security theater“.
This “stimulus bill” is “economic security theater”
The politics of fear continues.
I can see that this is the first of many installments to come in a TV series to run for at least the next eight years, called When Republicans Whine. You people crack me up!
I see the Republicans are opposing the stimulus bit I don’t see them proposing anything beyond tax cuts-that’s worked well- or suggesting that the economy has bottomed out and the invisible hand will sort everything out. Why do the wealthy know so much about finance and so little about economics?
George Goil,
why do you think tax cuts haven’t worked, the Republicans said things they clearly did not and that the Republican party is richer than the Democrat party?