The insanity and enduring racism of the American right - Matthew Norman; The Independent »
Posted By gamahuche 4 months ago in Political OpinionOn the eve of the nine-month anniversary of Barack Obama's election, America obsesses about the President's birth, and specifically his birthplace.
The gestation period for any conspiracy theory is far longer than that for human infants, of course, or even elephants. It tends, in fact, to be endless. It is 45 years since JFK was murdered, 40 since the first moon walk, and almost eight since the Twin Towers fell, and while the various notions (second gunman, studio mock-up, Mossad plot) were conceived almost immediately after those events, they have yet to deliver anything more substantial than lovingly nurtured insanity.
That rag-tag coalition of shock jocks, publicity hungry attorneys, the credulous and simple-minded, plain nutters and above all frustrated racists collectively known as "the birthers" have spent a year banging on about Mr Obama's arrival in this world, and their successors will be banging on about it long after he's left it for the next.
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gamahuche
"I would rather be a square peg than fit in a pigeon hole" -
an essay which won me the "Lamb Essay Prize" at the Religious ...
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gamahuche4 months ago
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Its quite incomprehensible to European understanding how a few nutters can keep this crazy debate running when the "accusation" has been proven to be entirely without merit.
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I guess its similar to the modus operandi that condemns people to death and then keeps them on death-row for decades..
Or the "Its never over till its over stance of a team which is 50 points behind 3 minutes before the final whistle.
Or any other political insanity in some Banana Republic or 3rd World Dictatorship..-
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Beau78904 months ago
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Its quite incomprehensible to European understanding how a few nutters can keep this crazy debate running when the "accusation" has been proven to be entirely without merit.
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As more careful reporting from serious journalists and more credible news outlets die out from the mainstream, and more people reject or ignore sources they don't trust and select sources with whom they already agree from the unstoppable internet, you can expect to see the numbers of those nutters grow in the future--both in the US and everywhere else. -
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mark-stevens3 months, 4 weeks ago
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Republicans are angry people... maybe not all, but enough. From that anger springs irrational thoughts... racism, NASCAR... did you know that NASCAR is second only to dog fighting as the most disliked sport... country western music, where it's actually rock music from 20 years ago
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I saw on Johnny Carson a person that believed and could prove that the Earth was flat, he had a following of hundreds... probably Republicans!!
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beavith14 months ago
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this guy writes of a caricatured america. forget right or left wing.
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do i understand him to say that "Skip' Gates was arrested in his own Washington home?
he points out all our faults as if he was somehow above them.
i can't remember the last time i heard anyone use the term 'uppity ^^^^^^'.
and you lefties lap it up.
have some self respect.
i can't drop this article enough times.-
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lum-chate3 months, 4 weeks ago
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Crowley did his job. Gates was seeing "Dragons appearing in the field" conjuring up real or imagined old grievances from the days of Malcolm X, knowing that Reverend AL
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or Jesse Jackson would give him 2 thumbs up! The saddest participant in this silly episode was
Obama!
A snap judgement offered by BO assessing that the police were acting "stupidly" followed by an illfated BEER SUMMIT that sent this trivial matter into a national frenzy. We only have a little over 3 years of this BO silliness. My hope hope is that BO's propensity to snap judgements doesn't really come to haunt the country in matters that are not trivial.
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lskywkr664 months ago
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The answer is very simple and uncomplicated. Barak should order all birth documents be publically aired. If not the controversy will continue.
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Also there's the passport question and this is another that can be easliy answered. He traveled out of this country prior to his 18th birthday. DID HE TRAVEL with an American passport.
Obama and th democrats continuously speak TRANSPARENCY yet they are the very ones who refuse to be transparent.
What is OBAMA afraid of. Apparentlyhe's a liar and not transparent. America , you wanted change now you got it. Lies and deceit.-
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wtagg4 months ago
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jakesguile4 months ago
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Hey now Isky, I traveled out of this country at 16 with nothing more than a California ID card - granted this was 2005 and I was going to Canada when restrictions were looser but still. There isn't a passport question.... if there is it's new to me, another conspiracy?
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dunkirk3 months, 4 weeks ago
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Maybe you can elaborate on how making his birth certificate public hasnt cleared this up, despite the State of Hawaii and several independent verification organizations claiming its authentic. THe birth certificate is available to look at yet the right wing birthers continue to claim its not authentic. ROFLMAO, and you wonder why the rest of the world looks at the right as looney?
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4daysaleComment removed: Hard Banned19 Replies
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calitennflo4 months ago
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capecoralMComment removed: Retracted by user7 Replies
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noonrock-34Comment removed: Spammer, Hard Banned1 Reply
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gamahuche3 months, 4 weeks ago
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One big difference is that Obama was unquestionably legitimately elected - which cannot be said of either of GWB's electoral "victories".
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Which is presumably why the desperate ultra-rightists have to plumb the depths of desperation with this insane babble.
I suppose the strategy is that if you repeat anything often enough there are bound to be some people who believe it..
"Oh - I heard that before somewhere - it MUST be true".
First principle of propaganda - whether from extreme right or extreme left: repeat the same lie often enough and some people are bound to believe it!
Worked for the Nazis, worked for the Communists.-
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gamahuche3 months, 4 weeks ago
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Above all its such absolutely self-deteating politics!
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The "birthers" just make the Conservative "team" look like dangerous deluded idiots, clinically insane.
Any intelligent Con with a grain of sense should be doing his/her utmost to tensure that they tape their mouths tight shut, refrain from written communication..
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lloydm653 months, 4 weeks ago
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I'll criticize a politician,and that includes Obama the absolute biggest racist,and the biggest mistake America has made in my seventy five years,so criticize I can,and will.I vow to stay alive until he is just a memory of a nightmare,and a lesson learned.Know the salesman before you buy his wares.
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donald513 months, 4 weeks ago
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Wow, were you asleep during the Bush presidentcy? Historians have Dumya as one of the worse in the past century! Forget that Dumya's 8 years of deregulation, war, deficit to 11 trillion, and abuse of the Constitution/international law will take a lot more than 6 months of Obama to correct.... but, Obama is gradually correnting the awful un-American Bush ills!
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Or, perhaps you just have no conscience or scruples to began with...
OK, both options are probably right in your case, floyd!
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jimdoze3 months, 4 weeks ago
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This article is simply one in a whole series that will hit the latest, au courant, left wing talking point, e.g. racism. Note that there was feature in Salon yesterday. Look for Frank Rich to have one in the New York Times for the weekend, the esteemed left wing economist Paul Krugman is expected to weigh in and look for a prominent name on the left to have something in the LA Times in the next few days.
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FairNBalanced3 months, 4 weeks ago
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Gates has emulated the countless other academics and politicians who encourage black people to blame whites for problems that no white person alive today did much to cause or has much power to fix. As professor Amy Wax, of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, has written in a penetrating new book, Race, Wrongs, and Remedies: "Although these problems can be traced to historical mistreatment and although discrimination still persists, discrimination's role in perpetuating black disadvantage is now minimal as compared with factors that lie within the control of blacks themselves.
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"Behaviors such as low educational attainment, poor socialization and work habits, criminality, paternal abandonment, family disarray, and nonmarital childbearing now loom larger than overt exclusion as barriers to racial equality."
Gates stresses the shockingly high "percentage of black men in prison" -- while ignoring the shockingly high black crime rates that land them there. Gates stresses "the number of black children living near the poverty line" -- while ignoring the evidence that "patterns of conduct and thinking [by black parents] now have a far greater role in perpetuating inequality than the racism and bias that dominated in the past," as Wax explains.-
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donald513 months, 4 weeks ago
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fair (what a lying moniker), why do you creat counterpoints to Gates' comments that obviously a college professor would be knowledgeable of , but you say otherwise! Obviously you are just spinning lies in your coninued ignorance and true racism - like Hannity, Beck, Oxycontin Limpball and Coulter, all truly un-American!
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donald513 months, 4 weeks ago
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liar Fair, read the statement Gates released after his White House visit and see that it totally refutes your comment.... he states a braod awareness and need to support the police, regardless! You are such an un-American puke hiding behind a false avatar!
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mark-stevens3 months, 4 weeks ago
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Fairandbalanced has hit that on the nose!! I'm a white guy and my wife is white and we are worth decent money and a home that shows it.
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We have been through more than once, far worse crap than Gates went through, on our property, only to have the charges dropped... and $30,000 lighter in the wallet from attorney fees -
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