Blood From a Stone: The Compassion of a Conservative Heart

Read this Slate column by Doug Kendall and Dahlia Lithwick, discussing how the Republican outcry over the "empathy" Obama wants his Supreme Court Nominee to have is kind of fake, full of stickum, considering the way they too (not unfairly, if for underhanded purposes from a liberal perspective) play up empathy for those they consider to be "model plaintiffs" for Supreme Court cases they care about (i.e. "white 'victims' of affirmative action").

So despite this clever snippet from an earlier Slate article by Lithwick

And in a delicious Freudian slip, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama snorted: "I don't know what empathy means." You don't say.

apparently, they (conservatives) do. They just don't empathize with our Obama's desire for empathy because the empathy may not go the way they want it to. (And they'd likely be right, of course, in that an Obama nominee's sympathies wouldn't necessarily be with "victims" of affirmative action or those who want to keep handguns at home. Of course, you never know.)

Hypocrisy: It's ok when I do it.

Good reads

For those interested in racial politics in the US, I highly recommend spending some time browsing Slate spin-off "The Root". I read a bunch of good articles in short order, even though I disagreed with most of them in part. (Which is natural, I'm just being pedantically clear.) But their analyses are, from my point of view, succinct, eloquent, relatively comprehensive in terms of at least touching on the major elements of the story in question, and insightful in a way that makes what may be opaque about African American perspective clear.

So. Read them. Now. Especially D. (Just cuz she's expressed interest in this area and these seem like better than average further primers.)

Addressing and Undressing the Race Problem, Charlayne Hunter-Gaul

A Nash'nul Conversashun 'Bout Race? O-Tay, Jack "Ironically Named" White

The GOP's Next (Black) Idea?, Casey Lartigue

Grand White Party, Dayo Olopade (and the subtitle here bears repeating, perhaps: "Can the Republicans get down with the brown?"

I read these in reverse order that you see here, which I only mention because they seemed especially lucid in that order, but that might be just me.

I recommend browsing around the rest of the Root: I don't like all of their articles, but their average is pretty high quality -- slightly higher than Slate probably. Indeed, "The Root" probably looks something like the print version of what I think NPR's News & Notes should be like (instead of being like a NPR's "All Things Considered" -- or worse yet, like a CNN news/talk show -- with black people. The range of views on N&N is approximately the same as on ATC, and the analyses seem to me to be often be as facile; what's the use of having African American voices if they sound (in types and range of questions) pretty much like Noah Adams and Linda Werthheimer and Tom Ashbrook talking?) I wrote in comments that "mainstream" Slate should have The Root writers and XX Factor Fraysters write the actual articles -- both seem to have better analyses than many of Slate's (and certainly NPR) regulars. (I'm looking at you, David Plotz on the Gabfest.)

I'm (still) afraid of Republicans...

Watching Rudy Giuliani's speech to the Republican Convention, it is awesomely scary -- awesome in its original sense -- to see even Giuliani taken aback by the Republican Delegate audience. Giuliani launches into attacks on Barack Obama, with the same types of caveats the Dems made about Republican John McCain being an honorable man or whatever before they attacked him; ok, fine. But he stumbles several times -- because, for one, as he tries to say how admirable Barack Obama's work as a community organizer was, it wasn't executive experience. But he was cut off as soon as he said "He was a community organizer," and people started chuckling, and chuckling, and chuckling. Giuliani laughed confusedly, just like I threw up in my own mouth confusedly, and then he sort of did the David Letterman thing, looking to the side of the stage and mouthing "What the hell?" (I may be exaggerating a bit.) But he did seem confused as he tried to get through what he thought was a laudatory part of Obama's life, as the crowd laughed -- I can only guess that they laughed because helping people is silly...? Organizing community is a worthless endeavor...? Sure, they may think his experience is laughable as qualification for the President, but it seemed to me more mean-spirited than that. Perhaps I'm just being uncharitable.

But I don't think so... especially when Giuliani praises how Obama was able to make himself a successful man, something "that could only happen in America" -- and everyone laughed. They laughed -- because...? I got the vague impression it's because they view his success as not due to his skill but, what, his luck at being black? Or perhaps his luck at being black in America? Cuz, yeah, that's great shakes. (There're worst places to be, but it's not for nothing that noted black intellectuals and performers moved to Europe when they could naught but a couple decades ago, when either you or your parents were undoubtedly already around.) In any case, RG seemed as confused as I was, and sort of shrugged and moved on.

This redmeat red-state crowd scares the fUCK out of me.

RG complains that the Dems have rarely mentioned 9/11 in this campaign... YIKES. I know 9/11 was the centerpiece of his campaign, but way to turn your demagoguery into a flaw on the other side. Yikesy McYikeserson.

Well, it's back to work. I can't handle looking at the blinding Whiteness on screen jeering at things I believe in and chanting something like "Drill, baby, drill! Drill, baby, drill!"... for energy independence. (Essay question: better or worse than their "Zero" chant for Obama, assumedly representing his supposed zero experience and qualification? How about the "USA USA" chant? Do they think we don't realize it? Are they under the illusion that we're the only democracy and need to celebrate our fortune at not being French. (Probably.))

So true...

Why, MSM, that's the nicest thing you've ever said!

Timothy Noah of Slate.com writes Lay off Ralph Nader in yesterday's Slate. In what is likely to be the nicest MainStream Media article about him for the next decade or so, Noah acknowledges that while he doesn't believe there are no pertinent differences between the two parties, he does believe that Nader believes it (and thus the talk about ego trips and vanity in terms of his presidential bids are a bit off). I agree with Noah, and I'm glad someone else has said it.

There are two things I don't think people understand about Nader (that I'm presuming I do):
a) if you do believe there isn't an important difference as I mostly do and he almost certainly does, then it isn't egomaniacal to keep running; it is more like Rudyard Kipling's poem "If": "If you can keep your head while all those around you are losing theirs, and blaming it on you... [you'll be a man, my son]." I guess I'm sensitive to this charge because I've been on the business end of it a couple times, just for believing in what I believed in despite the opinions of others around me. While it does take a certain amount of ego to believe you're right despite many, many detractors, it isn't about your ego. Egomania and vanity are about loving yourself excessively -- this is too often confused, I feel, with the passion and genuine belief and conviction in ideals that we praise in legend and song but seem to punish in real life.
b) If you believe in the evils of American Empire, including numerous deaths abroad (i.e., one million Vietnamese soldiers and 2-5 million civilian casualties compared to 60,000 US dead, courtesy largely of JFK and LBJ -- as I've said and presented evidence for before, Democrats have caused an equal or greater number of deaths from imperial ambitions in the past decades as have Republicans), and you believe the science on the environment (especially Global Warming), it is morally unconscionable to continue or compromise with the program of empire that has killed so many for less-than-noble reasons, and simply unwise and not in anyone's best interest to compromise on the environment, which simply put will not compromise with us -- we'll do what's right, in time, or we won't, and we'll make it worse for everyone. Of course, in case of increased environmental degradation the rich will still survive -- it's the poor who will suffer.

So Noah doesn't believe in Nader's uncompromising stance because it is simply not a politically realistic one. The question that I think is more pertinent though is, are politically realistic stances enough to stave off environmental and imperial catastrophe? I think the answer is no...

Side note: I had an extensive argument, well, with numerous people over this, but memorably with J-colleague EON. EON called my views that under a Dem OR Republican, environmental disaster seemed unavoidable and deaths from imperial efforts would continue practically unabated cynical. She also viewed as cynical (but didn't disagree with) my observation that the poorest and most discriminated-against Americans are among the groups who, for the most part, don't vote, likely because of the realistic analysis that the poorest's fortunes have changed little under whichever party. Both parties target the middle-class, with the poorest rarely seeing substantive help. Her response was whether I thought the comparatively small number of middle-class people who would be helped in a marginally better Democratic administration were unimportant -- I replied that they weren't unimportant, just not more important or even as important as the larger number of people who don't see material changes in their welfare under either party. I.e., the fore-mentioned poor and foreign nationals who, for example, starve to death under Democrat-imposed sanctions that do nothing to weaken their dictator. She continuously challenged my interpretation of history (i.e. that any President will do what they have to in order to stay in office, i.e. FDR & the New Deal occurring only with the genuine threat of rebellion by the poor and socialist upsurges in the 20s and 30s, and that political movements were more powerful, important, and largely independent of party, i.e. Nixon and Ford's civil rights work that they were forced to do and their arguably much better record on civil rights than JFK, etc.), without offering a competing interpretation. So, the question is, as I asked my dad the other day, why is it cynical to believe that the "Best of Two Evils/Obama's Not Evil" Plan will not work, and that the only morally and environmentally correct choice is to generate an alternative system -- that no two-party system is ever going to stave off environmental collapse or empire? I believe breaking the US' two-party system is doable, and real change within it is not. *I'm* cynical because I believe your method will fail but *my* approach that *you* don't believe in has a chance? What kind of weirdworld logic is that?

With all due respect to Sir David Bowie, I'm afraid of Republicans

Actually, I'm afraid of Democrats as well, as readers of the J Continuum know. (Yes, even Obama. Deal with it.*)

But anyway, a forwarded e-list of Republican beliefs came my way, and I'm sharing it with you (on the presumption that it isn't misattributed copyrighted material):

To be a Republican you need to believe:

1. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton

2. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's Daddy made war on him , a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

3. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

4. The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

5. A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational drug corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

6. The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

7. If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

8. A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our longtime allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

9. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing health care to all Americans is socialism. HMO's and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

10. Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

11. A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

12. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet .

13. The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.

14. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

15. Supporting "Executive Privilege" for every Republican ever born, who will be born or who might be born (in perpetuity.)

16. What Bill Clinton did in the 1960's is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80's is irrelevant.

17. Support hunters who shoot their friends and blame them for wearing orange vests similar to those worn by the quail.


Friends don't let friends vote Republican.

*(Every time I think, use, or see this phrase, it reminds me of this. Note: We don't hire dirty centaurs.)