So, one day you look down and see your feet in shoes you don't recognize. Maybe you like them, maybe you don't. This is where life begins. Welcome to WSATA, where the Goddess returns.
CNN reports that the developer of the poll application used to create the Should Obama Be Killed Poll knows who created the poll but the name of the culprit has not been revealed. Monday I posted here at this blog and at BlogHer.com on the Should Obama Be Killed Poll and the Secret Service Investigating. When I noticed CNN video update today, I thought this would be a good time to follow-up.
Per CNN video, the developer of the third party application that the culprit used to create the poll is Jesse Farmer. For clarity's sake, Jesse Farmer did not create the poll. He only designed a third-party application that somebody else on Facebook accessed and used to create the Should Obama Be Killed poll.
Farmer is cooperating with the Secret Service and trying to keep a sense of humor about the fact that some misguided soul abused his application to create something so disturbing. As you can see from this screen capture of his Twitter profile, he has on his list of things to do, "Have a phone conversation with an agent from the US Secret Service."
And he tells another person on Twitter, @Williams1977, "Thousands of polls are created per day. I rely on automated systems + user reports to filter."
In addition, as you can see at the bottom of the screen capture, he tells @GottaLaff, the blogger who sent the screen shot of the offensive poll to the Secret Service, how to contact him. He says to others that had she contacted him, he would have taken the poll down and reported to the Secret Service as well.
Facebook took the poll down as soon as it learned about it and suspended Farmer's application developer privileges until he figures out how to monitor the creation of polls better in the application.
GottaLaff, as I reported in my first post on this topic, has received a thank you call from the Secret Service. According to a retweet, GottaLaff said her blog, The Political Carnival, received at least 14,000 hits on Monday because of the Facebook story.
To recap, the third-party Facebook application developer, Jesse Farmer, knows who created the Should Obama Be Killed Poll using his Facebook application, but the name of the poll's creator has not been released to the public.
Please watch the CNN video posted here for information about the law and threatening or appearing to threaten a president's life. You may also read the code at Cornell University Law School.
CNN also reports that the poll created later by someone else and called "Should the Creator of the Obama Be Killed Poll Be Arrested?" became the number one poll on Facebook following more news about the offensive assassination poll.
Looking at the news today I see more death and destruction in Asia, a tsunami, an earthquake, flooding from a typhoon--all in Asia. The news causes me to meditate on the blessing that for the first time in a while, America's Gulf Coast and Florida didn't faced a hurricane disaster this year. I thought about this reality briefly yesterday when I was on the phone with a man who said, "Boy, I bet you're glad about this hurricane season."
"Oh, yes. I'm so glad that I didn't have to evacuate this summer," I said.
Having to evacuate as a hurricane descends is one my least favorite things about living down here in New Orleans, and I was not here in the New Orleans area for Hurricane Katrina. However, I was here for Ike and Gustav, and my family evacuated for Gustav. It's scary having to consider that you may return to a house of mold and memorabilia washed away and worse, that anyone who stayed behind may be dead.
In 2005, when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, it was the hurricane season from hell. It seemed every other week a storm was slamming Florida, or the Islands, and finally the Gulf Coast. Up until this year, it seemed each summer for a time was one to watch the Gulf warily. This year as we watched, however, I was relieved often to hear words from the weather reporter like, "No need to worry about this one. She's disorganized and will probably dissipate."
Yes, Atlanta saw some flooding, and some folks here had more damage from brief floods than anyone would like to have, but this summer has been a walk in the park compared to some others.
Strange how nature takes us through cycles of terror, and that's what it looks like now on the other side of the world: Mother Nature's cycle of terror is busily spinning.
CNN reports at least 111 people dead after a tsunami in Samoa, which was trigged by a "deadly earthquake"; the death toll following a quake in Indonesia is at 75; and Typhoon Kestana now claims more than 300.
Hearing of such devastation all at once--storms, floods, earthquakes bearing down to take hundreds of lives in such a short period of time--I can see how ancient humans developed mythologies and gods with personalities to explain natural disasters. It does seem sometimes like an entity is angry with one area of the world more than another. In some ways it's more soothing to think some god like Zeus sends down his thunderbolts because he is displeased or that we have made a goddess like Kali angry than it is to declare death and destruction are random.
If we can link disasters to some entity's logic or emotional distress, then we can convince ourselves we have some control, that if we behave a certain way or make specific sacrifices, we can control our destinies, stop some mad god from wreaking havoc in our worlds. But life is not that simple.
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Somebody on Facebook created a disturbing poll using the question "Should Obama Be Killed?" reports Huffington Post. Now the Secret Service is investigating, and GottaLaff @ The Political Carnival says she's gotten a "thank you" call from the agency for supplying it with a screen shot, and the agency caller said, "without it, they wouldn't have been able to address the matter." She writes:
Last night I posted about a scary Facebook entry, specifically a poll asking whether Obama should be killed. ... (The caller) thanked me over and over, emphatically, saying that there would be no way for the Secret Service to catch something like this without assistance. The Internets are too vast for that. (Read more by GottaLaff)
The assassination poll's question's potential answers were "yes," "maybe," "if he cuts my health care," and "no," per HP. At one point the poll had more than 730 responses, about 10 percent advocating violence, reports Raw Story.
Raw Story also reports that the "Should Obama be killed?" poll appeared Sunday night, and while Facebook removed it, the social website has not issued a statement.
One Facebook user posted in the poll’s comments area: “What kind of sicko even puts up a poll like this? Where are the moderators of Facebook, don’t they even monitor some of this crap? I am stunned!”
“It’s scary that 10 percent agreed on some level,” another user commented.
As of press time, Facebook had not responded to RAW STORY’s inquiries, and there was no mention of the poll on Facebook’s own Facebook page, or on its press releases page.
I don't think the social networking site has to issue a statement unless this story gets picked up by more of the press asking questions about Facebook moderation. The site's not responsible for some wackadoo posting a crazy poll and has done what it can by taking it down. All any website can do is warn users that if they violate guidelines, the site will remove their content and possibly block them, and then enforce the guidelines. I assume the person has been kicked off Facebook (maybe FB should say that), but getting kicked off FB is nothing compared to the heat the Secret Service will bring.
Asking people to vote on the potential assassination of any president is not a joke, not parody, not satire. The creator should be investigated and if there's a legal penalty, face it.
I'm glad GottaLaff, who first posted on the poll under "This is NOT okay," took action.
The hate speech, the threats have gotten completely out of hand. And those who have incited viewers and listeners-- and you know who you are Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Fox News, etc.-- are responsible for a good part of this horrific activity.
No, it is not "grassroots", not even close. It is a sick, terrifying, dangerous movement toward violence and the worst kind of civil unrest.
I'm glad citizens notified the Secret Service and that Raw Story and HP reported the poll to the larger public.
“The application that enabled a user to create the offensive poll was brought to our attention this morning and was disabled,” Barry Schnitt, director of policy communications for Facebook, told Raw Story. “We’re following up [with] the developer to ensure the offending content has been removed and that they have better procedures in place going forward to monitor their user-generated content.”
So, the ball's in the application developer's court.
PlumLine at Who Runs Gov has confirmed that the Secret Service is investigating and has a statement from agency spokesperson Ed Donovan. I wonder what the poll's creator is doing right now.
I preface what I'm about to write with a message to conservatives that pointing out that the Democratic Party or so-called liberals and progressives are not racism free does not equate to giving conservatives an excuse to continue coddling the racists among them. Identifying racist deeds, racist thinking, racist-tinged policies, etc., may have political implications but doing so is first and foremost an act of sociological analysis, not an attempt to label a specific political party or group as racist. However, some political parties and groups wear racist-tipped shoes more often than others.
In other words, some groups do tend to be more hobbled with racism or "tolerant" of racism than others. The discussion of racism within the major political parties is consequently a study of degrees of racism rather than the intent to declare one group as racist and the other as not racist.
Most adult humans have some level of bias based on racial beliefs. Those who are willing to examine that bias, address it, and attempt to change the behavior when it creeps up, however, fall more in the non-racist camp. Those who actively cultivate the racism within or see it as no big deal or "that's just the way I am" tend to fall into the racist category. You can count on the latter group, the deniers, to never see anything as racist unless it's something like a lynching or setting a little black teen on fire, and sometimes if they identify such heinous acts as racist, they may recant later if it comes out in the news that the person who was lynched stole some money or the teen had on a Malcolm X shirt and was not in his "proper" neighborhood. (a little snark)
What I see as the major difference between progressives and conservatives is that if people of color point to the more subtle racist words or deeds by a progressive politician or pundit, a greater number of white people who call themselves "liberal" or "progressive" tend to step back and attempt to evaluate if the criticism is valid. There may be some disagreement, but at least they will try to understand the complaint. In contrast, if people of color point to the more subtle and sometimes even blatantly racist words or deeds by a conservative politician or pundit, then a large number of conservatives close ranks and declare the words and deeds of that politician or pundit to be not racist or declare that black people need to shut up about racism and "stop playing the race card" as they define it. They tend to see an accusation of racism against one conservative as an accusation against them personally and rather than examine what was said, they say "I am not a racist."
Sometimes progressives and liberals also declare themselves to not be racist and they do so with defenses such as "I have black friends" or "I like rap" or lately "I like Obama" as though some specific deed removes every drop of racism from their spirit. It's very much like some people who go to church regularly thinking that deed makes them incapable of committing sin.
Thanks to a post from Field Negro, I have become aware of an essay at The Nation by Melissa Harris-Lacewell that examines this strangeness under "I Am Not a Racist ... I'm a Democrat." In the article she looks at former President Bill Clinton's "checkered past" on race and concludes:
Racism is not the the sole domain of Republicans, Conservatives or Southerners. Not all racists pepper their conversation with the N-word or secretly desire the extermination of black and brown people. Racism is complex, multi-layered, and deeply rooted in the American story. Name calling is not helpful in uprooting racism, but neither is a false sense of moral superiority. (Harris-Lacewell)
I agree with that statement completely and am consistently dismayed by attempts to narrow the definition of racist to someone who burns crosses on lawns or who wears a white sheet to secret meetings or is a skinhead with swastika tattoos.
Right now I'm thinking of the case of the black kids kicked from the pool in Pennsylvania in which supporters of the club's president, John Duesler, seemed to think he could not possibly do anything racist because he voted for Obama. This oversimplification of race issues and racism that some people promote, the either/or mentality that surfaces when discussing race, is one of the greatest indicators that Americans have not reached intellectual and spiritual maturity on the topic of race and we are far from a post-racial world.
The Obama victory, while it gives us hope that we may move forward toward a better understanding and acceptance of people of color in positions of power, may also have the unwanted side effect of lulling some of us to a state of complacency and the illusion that racial injustice is a thing of the past. This state of mind, a desire to ignore racism and declare ourselves racism-free is dangerous.
Racism is like weeds in a garden. Unless you effectively continue to treat the garden for prevention, then expect unwanted plants to return. As any dedicated gardener will tell you, if you ignore weeds or neglect to rip them out, they overtake the garden, choking the flowers you'd prefer to grow.
But can you effectively weed your garden if you don't know the difference between a weed and a desirable flower? It's only through discussion of what is racial bias that we identify the kinds of behaviors and rhetoric we should denounce and how we educate our children to not adopt the same attitudes. I bring up our children because raising children who recognize racist rhetoric and who believe racist rhetoric is both wrong and dangerous is one of the best ways to wage war against racism.
All this said, I have questions: Why do some people of late object vehemently to attempts to identify and weed racism out through examination and discussion? Why do they see any discussion of racism, especially in conjunction with some of the rhetoric being used by some conservatives, as a personal attack on them? Why is it that some people in this country feel noticing racist rhetoric in the health care reform debate, for instance, is more dangerous than using racist rhetoric to oppose health care reform? Is it possible the discomfort we see or the resistance to examination of our current racial climate is itself a symptom of our racial problem?
It was only this winter that Attorney General Eric Holder sat in the hot seat for observing Americans avoid speaking honestly about race. And here we are this fall watching people scream "I am not a racist" and declaring that race is too polarizing a subject to be examined within the context of politics. Some of us, rather than showing a willingness to sit down and get real about racist rhetoric, both blatant and subtle, go so far as to indulge fallacies such as criticizing a political group is the same as insulting an ethnic group.
What's most sad in this is that there's one thing on which all parties may agree, racism is not new and therefore is not really news that should shock anyone. This is a fact of which no American can be proud.
But I have seen a silver lining, at least some conservative pundits are starting to speak out and say enough is enough when it comes to tolerating or winking at racially charged rhetoric for political gain. Good for them. Good for us.
Photo credit: The 10/09 Time Magazine article Is Obama American Enough?
Here's CNN video of President Barack Obama's interview with John King on this Sunday's State of the Union. King told him that most of the people he'd spoken to want to know, "Where are the jobs?" or when will see recovery in the job market. The president said the following:
"I want to be clear, that probably the jobs picture is not going to improve considerably -- and it could even get a little bit worse -- over the next couple of months," Obama told CNN chief national correspondent John King in the interview, conducted Friday.
The interview covered more than jobs. It also included Obama's answers on whether Republicans are winning the health care war, to which he says "no" and whether the U.S.A. will send more troops to Afghanistan.
The president seems skeptical of sending more troops to that region, per ABC. The POTUS appeared on that network as well this morning where he answered questions from George Stephanopoulos about ACORN, the social justice organization accused of misusing Federal funds after some of its employees were caught allegedly giving advice to conservative filmmakers pretending to be a pimp and hooker. Obama said ACORN should be investigated but otherwise the issue is not taking up his thoughts. He said he was unaware that ACORN was getting lots of Federal funding.
ACORN writes request for federal grants just like any other nonprofit and how much funding it gets would not be something of which a POTUS would be aware. The group's been around since the 70s.
It's unclear whether the Republican push to stop government funding of ACORN is based on actual government dollars at risk from ACORN using the funding itself or is this all just more political huffing and puffing, right wing blowhards manipulating a bad situation. Conservatives have been gunning for ACORN for quite some time. Since the organization is so sloppy in its hiring practices, it's been an easy target for scandal. The gist of it is that Republicans attempt to make it look like ACORN has some vast plan motivated by corruption when the truth is ACORN has consistently been mismanaged, buckling under messy, undisciplined business practices.
Actress Halle Berry appeared on NBC's Jay Leno show Thursday night and told the world that she is not pregnant, so nix the rumors. In addition, as you'll see in the video here. She told a funny story about shopping with her daughter Nahla in a supermarket. The 16-month-old spotted a picture of her mother on the cover of a magazine and said, "Mama." A customer tried to tell her the woman on the cover was not her mother. And, well, watch the video. It's a cute story.
“Nahla says, ‘Mama! Mama!’ And the lady gets, like, indignant about it, [and said], ‘No, honey, that’s not your mama. That’s Halle Berry.’ And I couldn’t take it any longer so I whipped off my glasses and turned around and I was like, ‘No, I am her mother and I am Halle Berry and she knows what she’s talking about!’ It was one of those great mom moments.”
She told Leno her relationship with Nahla's father, model Gabriel Aubry, is the longest one she's ever had. He's pictured with her here in a 2006 photo.
What if this were your child, champion South African runner Caster Semenya? News reports say she's been put on suicide watch since her gender has been debated in the public, her blood's been drawn and studied in a lab, her genitalia have been examined and photographed in private as part of gender testing, and some people have labeled her with the offensive word "hermaphrodite." Earlier this month she withdrew from a race because of the speculation about her gender. Should we lay blame in how horribly her case was handled? If so, where?
Caster Semenya, the South African runner at the centre of a gender dispute, has been placed on suicide watch, according to a report in the Star newspaper in South Africa.
The report, published last week, said Semenya is being cared for "round the clock" by psychologists after unconfirmed reports that the 18-year-old is a hermaphrodite.
"She is like a raped person. She is afraid of herself and does not want anyone near her," Butana Komphela, chairman of South Africa's sports committee, told the paper.
"If she commits suicide, it will be on all our heads. The best we can do is protect her and look out for her during this trying time."
South African athletics officials said Semenya is receiving trauma counselling at the University of Pretoria. (CBC sports, Canada)
When I first heard about the Caster Semenya story in August, folks questioning her gender and charges that it was racism, I went in search for video of the South African track star. This is what I found on YouTube.
I know my sisters at BlogHer have been debating this, whether it's homophobia, sexism, or racism and also use of the insulting word "hermaphrodite" with questioning gender, and I'm sure these discussions are valuable and valid, but for me, a black woman who considers herself a womanist/feminist, when I took a look at Caster, I thought, "Is this a male or a female?" There's nothing sexist, racist, or homophobic about that question. Humans are classified by gender. Whether we should be is another debate completely.
I concluded privately, without confirming test results, that this is a child who was probably born with testicles on the inside. I figured that she was more like a boy but was raised as a girl because on the outside her genitalia look female. It happens sometimes, and as an ordinary human, I frequently make judgments based on what my eyes alone tell me. If I didn't, I couldn't get through life. Hmm, looks looks like a red light, but is it? Not too wise to stop and question everything you see along the way.
But if I were an official involved with rules of track and field competition based on gender, I'd have to do more than believe my eyes only when it comes to evaluating a runner whose appearance, demeanor, and voice seemed more like a male than a female. I'd require a test. I hope, however, that if I were a sports competition official, that I'd show the athlete involved and her family more compassion than South African sports officials have shown Caster Semenya. News sources say these people hid information from Semenya regarding questions about her gender and their decision to test her, that rather than have the guts to sit down and talk with her and her parents face to face, they let the challenges blow up in the press. (Photo from Daily Mail story)
Scientists say Senenya's condition is the result of a birth defect. You can look this up online. I'm sure there are people with the condition who could reasonably argue that perhaps it's not a birth defect, that it's just one more state of human existence, and in this politically correct world, I'm sure they'd gain support. How can we argue with states of being human?
On matters of race it must be said that Semenya's condition is not something that only happens to Africans or people recently of African descent. In fact, the more well-known cases that have been publicized have involved people of European descent. Is it more common in one group than another? I don't know. That's what scientific researchers are for, telling us what's common and uncommon in certain groups.
Racism, homophobia, and sexism chatter aside, sometimes I think we get out of hand with asking people to disbelieve their own eyes. If it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, your eyes tell you it's a duck. If you put the duck in a competition with geese and insist what looks like a duck is in fact a goose, I think to be fair to the geese and the ducks, somebody needs to test the competitor that looks like the duck. That's just me with my momentarily simple, overtaxed mind.
Now all the other stuff that's gone on in the Semenya case, the leaked story calling Semenya a "hermaphrodite" (correct word is intersexed), the lying South African official regarding test agreements, and pushing Semeya to pretty up for a magazine shoot were nasty stupid human tricks. But looking at and listening to Caster Semenya and wondering is she male or female--reasonably human question, not racist. What I mean is, I'm pretty sure some of the people who wondered about her gender are racist people who insult black women in general, perhaps Michelle Obama in particular, but that doesn't mean Caster Semenya's appearance--shape of her face, lack of a waistline, narrow hips, non-effeminate mannerisms, and deep voice--don't beg this question: girl or boy?
Her condition is something her parents may not have noticed until she reached puberty, if they noticed at all. Once you've accepted that your child is one gender, it's hard to convince yourself that you and the doctors may have been wrong--that she many be more male than female or, in the case of the intersexed child raised as a boy, vice versa. You, as an ordinary parent, may have never considered that perhaps some people have to choose gender or may choose to present themselves as genderless. Being a parent more likely renders you incapable of absolute objectivity about your own child when it comes to addressing preconceived notions.
Parents dream of having a specific bundle of joy and some can't handle the child who doesn't fit the fantasy image. Think about the parents out there right this moment berating a daughter for being fat. They wanted Halle Berry or Taylor Swift and nobody in their family, they say, has ever been fat. Furthermore, as in the case of obesity sometimes, I imagine in certain kinds of cultures, having a child that does not fit into a neat little box holding societal expectations may knock parents down notches on the social ladder.
When it comes to the intersexed, this isn't necessarily a statement about African cultures. There are towns in America, I'm sure, where having an intersex child would make your life difficult and the child's life a living hell. Remember the two children earlier this year who killed themselves after being bullied with the word "gay" based on appearance and personality. That happened right here in the U.S.A. They seemed different to their peers and their peers persecuted them for it.
I don't know much about Semenya's parents. Early in the story last month, I think her father was quoted insisting that Caster is a girl, his cherished daughter. I hope she remains cherished, that they are the kind of parents who will love her no matter what, and while this public examination of their child must be a difficult period for them, I hope they have the spiritual strength to love Caster more fiercely because of it.
But what about the rest of us? "An intersex organism may have biological characteristics of both the male and female sexes," per Wikipedia. An intersex human in the news causes us to rethink views of gender, reevaluate what does it mean to be male or female. What if it were your child being scrutinized?
I'll leave the deep analysis of what is homophobic, sexist, or racist on this topic to passionate advocates who especially address gender and GLBT community issues, and while the story may have elements of racist ideology worthy of examination, I'll pass this time. Who has the energy to examine every neuron of the racist mind?
My only real comment is that I feel sorry for Caster Semenya, not because she appears to be an intersexed human but because her physical nature--whether she is male or female--was discussed worldwide in the press before she had a chance to explore her own feelings and determine who she is for herself, because she is a young one who's been thrust into an arena of wolves while the ignorant mob gawks in the stands.
I fault South African sports administrators for Semenya being shoved into the burning glare of the public spotlight. They made all the wrong moves at Semenya's expense.
Extras:
See related AP story, "Wrong turns worsened Semenya's ordeal," that examines how officials of the International Association of Athletics Federations and others handled the Semenya case.
Book recommendation: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. "The narrator and protagonist, Calliope Stephanides (later called "Cal"), an intersexed person of Greek descent, has 5-alpha-reductase deficiency."
This is what you call a cocktail conversation piece, in my opinion. Converse away. I found this video, "Date an Asian Man" at Liprap's Lament. It's intriguing satire, and warning, it has the "F" word. Certainly plays to satirical use of stereotypes. My daughter, who studies Asian culture, cracked up.
TMZ got the recording of President Barack Obama calling Kanye West a "jackass." You can hear on the audio that the prez realized his comment was probably caught and asked the journalists to cut him some slack. No such luck, but only harshest critics will probably give him a hard time on this one considering it was said "off the record" when he was supposedly not being recorded and because Kanye is wearing out his welcome in civil society after acting up in Taylor Swift's face on the MTV Music Video Awards.
I can tell Kanye's wearing out his welcome because the hits to stories about him have dwindled here. Also, he keeps apologizing. I don't think he realized how many people like Taylor Swift and even those who don't buy her music have been offended by his stealing her moment. It's a good thing Beyonce was there.
In journalism corners they're discussing whether the CNBC reporter was right to "tweet" an off the record comment. One journalist is calling it a "teachable moment" in journalism.
I'm not that concerned for the president here because his remark resembles Kanye in the way calling the comic cat Garfield "fat" resembles him. Toure joked on Twitter, "Barack Obama doesn't care about Kanye West," alluding to West's infamous Hurricane Katrina benefit outburst, "George Bush doesn't care about black people." And then Kanye made a song, "George Bush doesn't like black people," in which he sampled himself, his own song "Gold Digger," which featured Jamie Foxx.
I sometimes wonder did Kanye learn the wrong lesson from that Bush moment. Maybe he thought that's a good way to get attention and didn't realize that outside the context of a devastating event like New Orleans flooding when so many people in the nation were outraged, speaking out of turn, insulting people who mean you no harm, is not a good idea.
I guess nobody's going for the song this time. The good thing in this is during Kanye's Jay Leno interivew, it sounded like he may have decided to get some help, take a break, and assess himself. Perhaps during his quiet time he'll recall the lesson good mothers try to teach their children, that words are like toothpaste in a tube. Once they're out and heard, you can't stuff them back in.
Jay Leno thanked Kanye West last night when the rapper appeared on the first episode of Leno's prime time NBC talk show. West sounded contrite, again apologizing for his Taylor Swift incident on the MTV Music Video Awards Sunday night. He said it was "rude period." His earlier apology, a statement online in all caps, had not been well received.
West was speechless when Leno asked him how his late mother, a college professor, would have felt about what he did, going on stage during a major awards show and telling the winner she did not deserve to win for best video by a female, that Beyonce did. The rapper implied that he has not really recovered since his mother's death. She died in 2007.
It may be that extended grief is a factor, but people who've watched Kanye know that he was behaving badly before his mother's passing. A full year before Donda West died from surgery complications, West acted out at the 2006 MTV Awards in Europe. He rushed the stage shouting about his own video back then.
Leno commended West for appearing during the controversy. He said a lot of stars would have cancelled. Following his chat with Jay, West performed with Rihanna and Jay-Z.
This is CNN video showing Kanye West going up on stage Sunday Night and embarrassing the talented, and pretty Taylor Swift, age 19, who won an MTV Video Music Award (VMA) for “best female video.” He said she didn't have the best video, but Beyonce Knowles did. Beyonce looked mortified and did the classy thing when she later won for Video of the Year, a more prestigious win. She brought Taylor on stage to give Swift her moment. Showbiz Tonight interviewed Swift backstage, and this video includes that clip as well.
I never have anything nice to say about Kanye West following award shows on which he's appeared. So, last night when I heard he'd made an ass of himself at the MTV Music Awards by disrespecting Taylor Swift, I was not surprised. Since last night I've heard he apologized in all caps--"I'm sooo sorry"--after being shamed by Swift's mom backstage. Good for Taylor's mom!
I also heard that Beyonce, who was dragged into the mess by the mention of her name, behaved graciously, obviously embarrassed by Kanye's crassness.
"I remember being 17 years old, up for my first MTV award with Destiny's Child, and it was one of the most exciting moments of my life," she said, referring to the girl group with which she had her start. "So I would like for Taylor to come out and have her moment." (CNN)
The Beyonce and Taylor Swift photo comes from an MTV story.
Last November I wrote the following about Kanye, who seems to me not a man but a little boy lost.
Jimmy Kimmel alluded to Kanye West being God (or perhaps wanting to be God) in the host's opening routine at the American Music Awards on ABC tonight and also made a crack about West possibly throwing a tantrum. Sadly, West has developed that kind of reputation.
He may be talented, but he has a mental problem of some kind. I keep hoping he gets the help he needs and can certainly understand why people from his own generation are saying he gives black entertainers a bad name.
I just heard this tidbit, that a website's been started with a domain name aka URL that offends Fox conservative talk show host Glenn Beck. Yes, it's accusing him of horrible deeds without proof and suggesting it must be true because there's no denial. Sound familiar?
Now, the website's content makes no direct claim that Glenn Beck raped murdered anyone. In fact, its author writes in an intentionally Beckian fashion that:
We're not accusing Glenn Beck of raping and murdering a young girl in 1990 - in fact, we think he didn't! But we can't help but wonder, since he has failed to deny these horrible allegations. Why won't he deny that he raped and killed a young girl in 1990?
But Beck has a pretty good claim that the domain name itself is defamatory - so says Paul Levy of Public Citizen, writes Ars Technica: (Read more at Citizen Media)
Levy's saying that the domain name, glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com, should have a question mark after it. That won't work for coding reasons, I think; however, I'd say if the site wanted to play it more safely, then the domain could be www.glennbeckrapedandmurderedayoungirlin1990satire.com or better www.glennbeckrapedandmurderdayounggirlin1890.com, the kicker being that anyone who takes the website seriously doesn't read well or may be unreasonable since Glenn Beck can't possibly have done anything in the 1800s.
The inability to read and comprehend is a consistent problem with right-wing extremists; however, and so, I'm sure using the year 1890 instead of 1990 would not stop Glenn Beck from playing wounded here. So ...
My Letter to Glenn Beck
Dear Mr. Beck: You, like the people who you target in your show, are a public figure. In fact, you are even more of a public figure than Van Jones, the man who you chased around with the word "communist." The website with the nasty joke about you can hide behind the word "parody" under right to freedom of speech, just as you can hide behind the phrase "freedom of the press" under the right to freedom of speech, when you declare "Barack Obama is a racist."
Parody. If you are unfamiliar with these satire or parody cases and freedom of speech, please refer to the infamous Jerry Falwell vs. Hustler Magazine SCOTUS case.
Facts of the Case: A lead story in the November 1983 issue of Hustler Magazine featured a "parody" of an advertisement, modeled after an actual ad campaign, claiming that Falwell, a Fundamentalist minister and political leader, had a drunken incestuous relationship with his mother in an outhouse. Falwell sued to recover damages for libel, invasion of privacy, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Falwell won a jury verdict on the emotional distress claim and was awarded a total of $150,000 in damages. Hustler Magazine appealed.
Question: Does the First Amendment's freedom of speech protection extend to the making of patently offensive statements about public figures, resulting perhaps in their suffering emotional distress?
Conclusion: Yes. In a unanimous opinion the Court held that public figures, such as Jerry Falwell, may not recover for the intentional infliction of emotional distress without showing that the offending publication contained a false statement of fact which was made with "actual malice." The Court added that the interest of protecting free speech, under the First Amendment, surpassed the state's interest in protecting public figures from patently offensive speech, so long as such speech could not reasonably be construed to state actual facts about its subject.
Decisions (on Hustler case): 8 votes for Hustler Magazine, 0 vote(s) against Legal provision: Amendment 1: Speech, Press, and Assembly (Oyez)
You can't get much more offensive than saying a preacher had a drunken, incestuous affair with his own mother," and the SCOTUS let that slide because it was "a joke." A tasteless, crass, unforgivable joke in the minds of some members of the public, including me, but a joke nonetheless.
And while I'm pretty sure the website about you, Mr. Beck, has malicious intent, the same kind of malicious intent you had when you went after Van Jones in revenge for ColorofChange.org going after you for injecting racist rhetoric into the health care reform debate, I'm also sure you may have a problem getting the courts to see you as severely injured by the "Beck is a rapist" parody website. Consider this SCOTUS reasoning from Falwell's case: "... so long as such speech could not reasonably be construed to state actual facts about its subject" it is protected speech. Sadly for you, the very fact that your supporters will shout on your behalf that the website is a lie goes against you. They prove that they don't believe the site's content.
Hmm. The offensive website's title code, the name people see when they Google the information, is "DidGlennBeckRapeandMurderaYoungGirlin1990.com." It is not a declarative statement but an interrogatory. The name of the URL is secondary; it's an address. For instance, most people don't know my blog by its URL but by its title, "Whose Shoes are These Anyway."
Finally, now that the website has added a huge disclaimer declaring its content to be parody, then well ... sorry, Glenn. For the record, I think it's horrible what that website is doing to you because it's possible somebody who doesn't know the meaning of parody and who is willing to believe you're a no-good, shady character may believe the rumor. However, I also thought the way you went after Van Jones and some of the statements you've made about health care reform, such as health care is reparations for slavery, are pretty darn horrible too.
Perhaps you'll see that sometimes, in our quest to exert power over others, we start a chain of events that we can't stop. Karma's a bitch on crack, Glenn, and when she shoots pool the balls fly where they will. That's life. Have a nice day.
Sincrely, Verite Parlant
I think the website lampooning Beck is horrible. Just horrible. But, honestly, I won't lose any sleep over Beck's discomfort.
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives should discipline South Carolina Republican Joe Wilson, who behaved like an a**hole during President Barack Obama's nationally televised health care reform speech to a joint session of Congress. Joe's breaking bad now and dancing on the money he's raised for disrespecting the Office of the President.
Wilson said he already apologized to Obama and that the president accepted it. However, he insisted that Obama "was misstating the facts," and that Democratic leaders in the House were "playing politics" by continuing to focus on the issue. (CNN)
In the meantime, fellow Republicans are stepping forward to tell us what a decent, nice, sensible fellow Wilson is, and he appeared on Fox News today, oiling the machine for claims of his crucifixion. Undoubtedly he's fantasizing daily about rising to a higher political office for behaving like an idiot. So, once Wilson's disciplined, this is what will happen.
1.)Paranoid far right-wing conservatives will jump up and down saying the Obama administration is like Hitler and wants to deny Wilson his right to free speech. (If you're not crazy but you are a conservative then don't whine to me to stop calling you "paranoid." If you're not part of the paranoid, crazy side of the conservative camp, then I'm not talking about you. If, however, you think Joe Wilson, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, etc., tell the truth, then ... you're it.)
2.) Conservatives will a.) either ignore that the House of Representatives is not the Obama administration or b.) declare that every member of The House who is a Dem is a socialist or communist.
3.) Conservatives will scream foul and ignore the following information. Wilson crossed a traditional line of respect and decorum at a formal event.
So when he (Joe Wilson) blurted out what many other Republicans probably were thinking, he crossed an invisible but firm line of decorum on the House floor. Under House rules, you are prohibited from casting aspersions on the motivations of your colleagues. There is even a procedure for punishing those who do. You can be stripped of your right to speak for the rest of the day on the floor if your words are taken down and ruled out of order.
No such specific prohibition exists in the House for when a president is speaking because, well, it is just not done. Members understand that presidents, no matter who they are, deserve respect. (Words of conservative Republican John Feehery)
An informal apology to the POTUS should not be deemed sufficient by conservatives who claim to love tradition, rules, and decorum. They should be talking to Joe, saying "The loss of the right to speak on the floor for one day is hardly anything to sob about. You've got something to say, Joe? Say it the next day. Be a man, Joe, and take your licks. After all, unlike Van Jones, you'll get to keep your job." But tradition, rules, decorum will be ignored in favor of their playing their self-fabricated martyr roles.
4.) It will be obvious, but not to paranoid far-right wing conservatives, that there are parallels to Van Jones's situation and the Joe Wilson insult. Van Jones was forced to resign as the "green jobs czar" because he signed a petition requesting an investigation into potential U.S. government involvement in the bombing of the WTC on 9/11. The petition indicated belief in a government conspiracy and by extension implied that former president George W. Bush lied. Joe Wilson yelled "You lie" at the sitting POTUS, also suggesting the government, under the Obama administration, is involved in a conspiracy to commit fraud by using tax dollars to give free health care to illegal immigrants.
Van Jones called Republicans "a**holes" during a Q&A segment following one of his own relatively unimportant speeches and his language meant Republicans are pushy and will run over efforts to build consensus. As a result, he lost his job. Joe Wilson called the POTUS a liar during a presidential address. As a result, he's being rewarded with more campaign funds and more air time.
Van Jones, referring to his anger about the 1992 acquittal of white police officers who beat Rodney King in 1991, said he was a a communist back then. He was 24 years old in 1992. Conservatives see his honesty about his shifting beliefs as some kind of treason even though Jones's expression is devoid of allegiance to another nation. Joe Wilson, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans, has defended American fascism, the cousin of an ideology the U.S.A. fought in World War II. In addition, his declaration that the Confederacy was "honorable" indicates that he supports the overthrow of the U.S. government for the purpose of asserting white superiority and the abolition of rights for people of color. (You can't penalize someone for saying "I was a communist" who is not really a communist and applaud someone who is actually a member of a group that idolizes the Confederacy and calls its deeds "honorable.")
White Southerners who cling to the "values" of the Confederacy like to say the war was about their rights:
The citizen-soldiers who fought for the Confederacy personified the best qualities of America. The preservation of liberty and freedom was the motivating factor in the South's decision to fight the Second American Revolution. The tenacity with which Confederate soldiers fought underscored their belief in the rights guaranteed by the Constitution. These attributes are the underpinning of our democratic society and represent the foundation on which this nation was built. (Sons of Confederate Veterans website)
They ask us to conveniently forget that an assertion of their rights meant the right to hold black people captive, and very much like ultra conservatives today, they will tell you that nothing about their beliefs indicates racism. In addition, Republicans wink at the Sons of the Confederacy re-imagining their working to overthrow the government for the purpose of asserting white superiority to be not treasonous but heroic.
5.) Conservatives will do a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, claiming Obama is treated like a king but that he's a socialist who pals around with radicals. In the midst of all this right wing fervor, the fact that Joe Wilson is wrong regarding health care tax dollars going to illegal immigrants under current proposed health care reform bills will get lost:
Obama was correct when he said his plan wouldn’t insure illegal immigrants; the House bill expressly forbids giving subsidies to those who are in the country illegally. Conservative critics complain that the bill lacks an enforcement mechanism, but that hardly makes the president a liar. (FactCheck.org)
Furthermore, that Wilson himself appears to have voted in 2003 to give tax dollars for the health care of illegal immigrants will never be addressed.
What we have here is a failure to communicate the true nature of right-wing hysteria to the right wing, and that may be because they have their fingers in their ears. Certain white conservatives lay outrageous requests on sane people to look the other way when white people who champion the historic figures who fought to keep black people enslaved also show blatant disrespect for the Office of the President in which a black man sits at the moment. They call Confederate soldiers who fought to keep black people in chains "heroes," but declare the sky is falling because a black man expressed in his youth anger over proven wrongs to people of his ethnic group. Furthermore, they get away with persecuting that black man while comforting rebels in their midst.
What is this burden that's placed on Americans, in particular African-Americans, to turn the other cheek for patriotic impostors and ignore the symbolic lynching of anyone who has a legitimate objection to actual oppression?
We are a dysfunctional nation, perhaps the incubator of a new Confederacy of Imbeciles. Consequently, if the House of Representatives disciplines Joe Wilson, the actions and behaviors I've listed will materialize, and the fact that Joe Wilson is an a**hole will swiftly be swept under the Confederate flag. That's the way it is.
After reading around on the Net lately, I'm convinced that not only do some white conservatives need our prayers to regain their sanity but also that some of the saner ones who are crazy like foxes won't be happy until this country repeats the McCarthy era, perhaps even slips into another Civil War with a race war cherry on top, the battle the KKK keeps predicting. Maybe that's what they really want.
These people are obsessed with the idea that socialists and communists are taking over the country, that there's no racism in their protest simply because they say so, and that they are an oppressed people persecuted by "reverse racism." The whole reverse racism argument indicates most of them don't know the trappings of racism beyond lynchings and calling people of color ugly names.
Here's one comment from Examiner.com on my post saying people can't understand domestic politics well without knowing more about African-American history and race relations. I didn't call anyone racist in the post, so one should ask why did so many anti-Obama people show up to say that they're not racist.
Van Jones and Obama are racist communists working tirelessly to destroy the miracle that is America.
You are right; race is important to many racists. How many Americans already work in the race and poverty industry? How many racists continue profitting from dividing Americans?
Everyone knows that most black voters consistently vote for the BLACK candidate. Some call that voting as a block. Some call it racist politics of hate and envy.
White Americans obviously do not vote as a racial block. White Americans gave Obama a chance, and enough rope to hang himself. They ignored his lack of experience, his association with anti-American racists such as Rev. Wright, his association with communists and terrorists, and his deep-seated hatred of white people.
There was a day when racists dominated blacks. Today, racist communists dominate all Americans. Obama must be stopped before he makes himself emperor for life!
Thank God for the voices of liberty. (Duke MHA)
I'm sure some conservatives would declare that I only chose the nuttiest-sounding conservative commenter on that post, but a sane person reading the comments would see there's plenty of nut to go around in that camp.
And here's another one of their thoughts from comments on a post at BlogHer.com by American Princess. The blogger herself didn't make this comment. Someone calling him or herself NoFreeLunch did while wholeheartedly agreeing with the CE's take on the Van Jones incident.
In my opinion, the only people that support Obama who are truly well educated and politically astute are other radicals, Marxists and people who favor heavy socialism in government. (written by NoFreeLunch on BlogHer.com)
Scary. The person seems to be believe that anyone who is "truly-well educated" and supports Obama is a Marxist and radical. The sentiment expressed in the commenter's direct quote could have been written by Joe McCarthy himself, except he's long dead and we're supposedly in a more enlightened era.
The following commenter, GroovyMarlin, is seeing what I'm seeing in right wing rage:
It's crazy AND kind of scary. As I posted on Twitter today, I'm no fan of Republicans, but it still took me a few years of George W. Bush being in office to go from indifference to rage (basically, an unjustified invasion of a sovereign country was enough to do it). It seems like these right-wing loonies went straight to rage about two weeks after the inauguration. Of course there will always be irrational people, but what's scary is the level of vitriol in evidence, not to mention how fond of guns many of these same wingnuts are.
It makes me kind of depressed, actually. (GroovyMarlin @ BlogHer.com)
I've thought more than once to leave a comment on some of the more conservative extremists' so-called "engagement" in blog forums asking them what do they want?
How long will it be before they're either trying to officially impeach Barack Obama or moving off to a hub in Montana, loading their guns? Asking them a real question is sort of like poking a rabid dog. I've been feeling sorry for some of them the way you feel sorry for an angry, pathetically insecure man who fears erectile dysfunction.
Some of these screeching conservatives seem to distrust formal education, all media, (unless it's Rush Limbaugh or a clone) and anyone who doesn't think exactly as they do. There's a psych term for this mindset.
In addition, they seem to have trouble comprehending any argument that's more complex than a simple addition problem. As I read the thoughts of some right wing Americans, especially the thoughts of those who consider themselves clever, it becomes obvious why they hate education; it threatens them. The existence of people who sound well-educated, but did not get a degree from a "Christian" college, those who can see the grays and frayed ends of life and draw from history and sociology to drive home a point, make then feel small, perhaps less than smart.
When the planes hit the towers on September 11, 2001, I lived in New Jersey and was out running an errand. I arrived home and had a strange message on the phone from my mother about war on the television, bombs in the towers. Whatever she said, I thought she was mistaken.
A message from my brother, who live in Staten Island at the time followed, "Hey, Nordette. Tell Mom that I'm o.k. because she's probably watching the news and will be worried about me, but I'm o.k. I didn't go to work today." Had he gone to work he would have been on a subway under the towers when the planes flew into them.
I wrote a tribute that's about six years old that's no longer on the Net. I should repost it. Remember how some of us couldn't tear ourselves away from CNN and other news sources? I was one of those people riveted to the television until the swish and thud of the bodies hitting the pavement, those of people who jumped from the buildings to avoid being burned alive drove me to a sobbing mess.
For months after I had nightmares. Today, eight years after that tragic day, I still choke up when I see shots of the New York skyline without the towers. I hope we never see anything so horrible again.
The comment following this paragraph was posted at BlogHer.com tonight in response to someone presenting the conservative argument that Democrats objected to a George H. Bush speech to schoolchildren in 1991. Yes, Dems did object, but not under the circumstances of recent conservative objections to Obama's education speech, which the president delivered today without incident or hidden agenda. As frequently happens in political stories, this week's conservative blogging of the attack on Bush senior's 1991 speech at Alice Deal Junior High in Washington D.C. has spin that requires fact checking.
I'm starting to see another advantage of getting older: You've actually lived through historic events and know what really happened as opposed to spin done nearly 20 years later.
First, I'll concede that this was political game playing on the part of the Democratic Party. However, unlike the complaint against Obama, the Dems were not objecting to Bush being in schools as some kind of infringement on parental rights. Please see this paragraph from the article you posted:
With the Post article in hand, Democrats pounced. "The Department of Education should not be producing paid political advertising for the president, it should be helping us to produce smarter students," said Richard Gephardt, then the House Majority Leader. "And the president should be doing more about education than saying, 'Lights, camera, action.'" (emphasis added by me so readers will see the motivation of the complaint)
It was an election season leading up to the primaries when Dems hoped to get more attention on their challengers to incumbent G.H.W. Bush. GHW's ratings were dropping in the polls due to economic issues, but he was the best the Republicans could offer and so he was running for a second term.
The objection was that Bush was using the Office of the President and Department of Education resources to make him look good to voters and to pitch his education plan to voters so he would be re-elected.
The objection was not a challenge to any president ever speaking at a public school nor a declaration that presidents should never be allowed to talk to children nor that Bush was corrupting the minds of children nor indoctrinating them to his beliefs, but that Bush was using his appearance as a photo opportunity to sway the minds of adult voters.
This is a common argument waged against incumbents during election season, not just presidents but also governors, regardless of political affiliation. Presidents have the advantage of looking presidential, a benefit the challenger cannot have simply because he/she is not the president.
I realize some readers may not trust this information. The best way to check it is to get access to the Washington Post archives and read the old clips within the context of the election year.
Furthermore, Bush's speech was televised and since it's clearly stated in the clip provided in your comment above that the GAO ruled there was nothing improper about George H. Bush's action even though it was given in election season, less credibility may be given to Obama's opponents who believe his speech today was improper.
On another point, please consider that while conservatives are very upset that Obama White House spokesperson Gibbs called conservative objections more of "silly season," the New York Times of 1991 reports Republicans had similar language for Dems back then:
The President's spokesman, Marlin Fitzwater, responded by denying that Mr. Bush's talk to the schoolchildren had been a political event and calling the criticism "nonsense."
News delivered without the context of history or the state of the nation at the time, such as it being on the cusp of an election year, can be misleading. And of course, election season is the season for silly objections and investigations, but we're not in election season at the moment.
Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411. Her thoughts are her own. BlogHer.com is non-partisan.
DonnaK4 commenting at BlogHer.com on PunditMom's post, "What are Conservatives Really Afraid of When the President Talks to Schoolchildren?," offered an olive branch to progressives/liberals or maybe it was not an offer to progressives/liberals but a suggestion for everyone. In any case, I wrote a long, easy-going response that you may read farther down. She was respectful and seemed sincere.
I know some white conservatives honestly believe conservative economic policy and a Republican social agenda is best for this country. The people are nice enough, church-going, not rabid screamers who love Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter. They wouldn't consciously discriminate against a black person and have some black friends, and so they honestly don't see the more subtle shades of racism in the conservative agenda.
They also work at soup kitchens and give money to homeless shelters. Consequently, they don't accept that some of their views are narrow and classist. I'm not speaking of DonnaK4 here because I don't know her. I'm talking about people I've meet in person. I try to hear where these people are coming from, even though I'm inclined to believe their minds can't ever be changed if they don't at least consider this fact: most of us lean toward subconscious messages based on our culture and upbringing. These messages influence our decisions, and so, sometimes we may not base our decisions on reality according to a bigger picture but on what we've experienced in our small worlds.
I can talk to such people when they at least consider that they may need to look beyond the white picket fence. However, I lose patience with people who drop by blogs, hit and run like this person, who speaking of Obama said, "Also, I'll agree that the comparisons to Hitler are unfair, since by all accounts Hitler actually loved his country." Otherwise, I'm usually patient with people who have issues with the president and his policies, which deserve questioning, based on what may or may not be good for the country.
We Are Americans First Alot of conservatives feel that Obama is not your usual liberal. He has changed alot of things in a very short time. Please, look beyond the left/right paradigm, and see how he is fundamentally changing our country. We need to work together as Americans and not be divided as democrats or republicans. We should try to be tolerant of other people's views, and possibly even try to understand them. I have learned that people always feel they have a good reason for what they do, even if I don't agree with it. And we shouldn't call each other names. (comment from BlogHer)
I answered with the following that is long enough to be a blog post, and so I didn't post it there but here at my own blog.
How Do We Get Along?
If what you've said is correct, that Obama "has changed a lot of things in a very short time," then would you please help us along by listing what you think Obama has changed, the sources for your information, and what you believe is wrong with the change? Is it a change that will fundamentally mutate the nature of America and how its government operates or is it just something to reject based on ideology such as "no new taxes ever under any circumstances."
I mean this sincerely. The only thing I ask is that you please consider the sources you select to support what you say. Fact checks and objective sources are more credible than people whose jobs are to push for one thing or the other. I've personally seen conservative pundits and bloggers use bogus information, including hoaxes, to support their claims, and I've also seen extremists on the left exaggerate or buy into bogus information sometimes because it supports what they'd prefer to believe. I'd appreciate your elaborating.
If I had to recommend anything to conservatives, I'd say--if they wish to have the kind of unity for America you suggest in your comment--I'd say please back away from people like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, and Glenn Beck who foment racial distrust with blatant lies that many conservative Americans don't seem to be able to distinguish from fact. By extension these lies overheat political discussions and distract from life and death matters. How do they expect thinking people to not assume the worst about them regarding goodwill and race relations if they remain silent as their mouth pieces lob such lies with a black man in the Oval Office and then deny any racial intent?
In addition, when the conservative base defends comments like "I hope Obama fails," which certainly suggests they keep fingers in their ears with hopes that a specific ideology triumphs whether it's good for America or not, they hardly promote any kind of unified effort to examine exactly what Obama's policies may mean for this country.
If I had anything to say to "liberals" that would be that politics by nature involves compromise. How do they expect Obama to reach across the aisle without a willingness to compromise? You can't lead well and regularly cater to the extremists in your group. See George W. Bush's history, including speeches to the general population.
As for name calling, what I'm seeing increasingly is that people can take any word and combine it with a tone that turns that word into an insult. The word "liberal," for instance, is being tossed around like it's synonymous with "demon" and it's used to define anyone who doesn't agree with the Republican platform. And if that wasn't enough, the words "socialists" and "communists" have been added as though these words mean the same thing as "pedophile" or "serial killer" or "Nazi" and are used to take people down like Van Jones.
"Wing nut" is definitely a nasty name, however, some people earn that name such as the people drawing Hitler mustaches on the president's pictures or who buy into statements like "health care reform is Obama's reparations for slavery" or embrace the notion that Obama is taking over the world because he wants to give a speech to school children. However, you can make wild accusations and launch "grassroots" movements that cater to white fear in this country and still keep your position in public office.
So, they get called a "wing nut," which is not very nice, but they also get to keep their positions of power or their jobs. In other words, sometimes a nut is a nut. But I understand what you're saying, it's not productive to call the person a nut.
Speaking of speaking to children: Reagan and George W. Bush both spoke to children in public schools and the so-called "liberals" who've been supposedly brainwashed by a "liberal media" did not not yank their kids out of school on those days.
Bush told the children that "We're going to change America one heart and one soul and one conscience at a time" and lectured parents about responsibility. Reagan, whose speech was broadcasted, told students that this nation was great because its leaders believed in God and low taxes.
So, I'm for everyone getting along, but can we speak honestly and ask why is it okay for Reagan and Bush to talk to school children but Obama is considered to be a socialist taking over the minds of American children because what, his administration suggested a lesson plan asking students to write letters about how to help the president?
Can we really get along if conservatives go for drama over things such as this?
And then there's the "r" word, and I don't mean "racist." What I see, such as in my post at Examiner on race and politics, is that certain people who identify themselves as conservatives don't want to discuss race as a factor in anything, ever. They start foaming at the mouth if anyone mentions the word "race" and assume the next step is to call them a "racist" even when no names are mentioned, only behavior is examined within the context of history. In the case of politics and race, they're angry over book suggestions. I find this tendecy to plug ears and sing "la la la la," the absolute resistance to look at another's point of view, to be most disturbing, definitely not conducive to working together on anything.
So, I appreciate what you say, but I have a bad feeling that America may self-destruct before people learn work together if how conservatives deal with Obama in office is any indication of where we're headed.
Nordette Adams is a BlogHer CE & you can find her other stuff through Her 411. Blogher.com is non-partisan. Nordette Adams's opinions are her own. So ends my comment to DonnaK4 at BlogHer.com.
Link to original BlogHer post here. The picture on this post comes from George Bush's archives. He was speaking to a classroom of children who appear to be mostly black and other students of color instead of an empty classroom, missing students whose parents kept them home.
The White House says that it did not force Van Jones's resignation. Jones was an Obama administration "czar" focused on "green jobs" and he resigned late Saturday night.
He is also a co-founder of ColorofChange.org with James Rucker. ColorofChange.org works to mobilize African-Americans for political action and on social justice issues. It started in the wake of the Bush administration dropping the ball on Hurricane Katrina.
Directed by Rucker (given Jones took a position with the Obama administration and before that became more interested in environmental justice), the grassroots group has been targeting Fox conservative talk show host Glenn Beck, causing his show to lose major advertisers. They charge Beck is infusing the health care reform debate with racism because he called Obama a racist and said health care reform is reparations for slavery. Sounds like Beck wants more of Rush Limbaugh's market share.
In retaliation to Colorofchange.org, Beck launched a campaign against Jones, calling him an extremist and "a devout communist." Most of all, however, Jones could not withstand the furor over his signing a 2004 petition at 911Truth.org that said the 911 tragedy was the result of a government conspiracy. Yes, someone dug that up, and the website's staff has issued a statement denouncing media requests asking them to explain Jones's "strange behavior." Jones says he disagrees with assertions in the petition and didn't carefully read it before signing it.
On NBC's Meet the Press today, reports CNN, David Axelrod, one of President Barack Obama's senior advisers said the president did not order Jones to resign. "Absolutely not -- this was Van Jones' own decision," he said.
(CNN) The chairman of the House Republican Conference, Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, had called for Jones to resign or be fired.
"I think Van Jones did the right thing," Pence said Sunday about the resignation. "His extremist views and coarse rhetoric have no place in this administration."
Jones has frequently been dubbed a "green-jobs czar" for the administration.
"The president should suspend any future appointment of so called czars while the administration and the Congress carefully examines the background and qualifications of the more than 30 individuals who've been appointed to these czar positions," said Pence, speaking to reporters. "And the Congress ought to initiate a thorough inquiry into the constitutionality of this practice which has spanned Republican and Democrat administrations." (CNN)
The CNN story has a lot more about Jones's past. What I see is white conservatives flexing their power, pushing for a pissing match every five minutes, and seeking revenge any time anyone tells the truth about their antics. By that I mean ColorOfChange.org challenging Glenn Beck's stupidity and racist, divisive propaganda. It's all about payback and sour grapes over losing the election. At this point, losing to a black candidate is almost secondary. They'll stoop to the lowest level, even McCarthyism. So much for their love of free speech, the right they tout when calling Obama Hitler, Nazi, or socialist.
The Los Angeles Times leads the story this way:
Reporting from Washington - Responding to a firestorm that raged almost entirely on conservative talk shows and websites, the White House today announced the resignation of a top environmental advisor who had made fiery remarks about Republicans and signed a petition questioning whether the U.S. government had any role in planning the Sept. 11 attacks.
Van Jones, a prominent Oakland community activist, issued a statement decrying "lies and distortions" and a "smear campaign" that had been waged against him by the right.
But despite his defiance, Jones had been forced to apologize in recent days for some of his past statements, including a speech shortly before his appointment posted on YouTube in which he used a vulgar term to describe Republicans.
White House officials never rose to his defense, and took pains over the weekend to distance themselves from Jones' statements and decisions about his employment status. (LAT)
I'll bet Jones felt excrutiatingly paniful pressure to get the hell out of Dodge. So, he fell on his sword in the name of nixing distractions. And Fox News, a fortress of conservative idiocty, is getting it right on this one because they helped orchestrate it. The network reports this story through a victory lens, that now Obama's critics will be bolder about hitting him. Score one for rats who know how to milk public opinion and have the power to expedite dirty tricks at will.
