Posted on 03/22/2008 1:51:22 AM PDT by MartinaMisc
Why can’t Democrats just come right out and condemn discrimination?
Let’s be honest: Barack Obama’s “I Go To Extremes” speech is little more than the “Mend It, Don’t End It” speech of the 2000s. Just as President Clinton could not fully bring himself to condemn racial preferences thirteen years ago, so too can Obama not fully reject the rough rhetoric of his longtime pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. This sort of cowardice will only hamper the further improvement of race relations in this country.
Are Democrats truly interested in racial progress? I’m afraid the answer is no. I’ve felt this way ever since Democrat-leaning pundits made excuses for Louis Farrakhan’s extremist rhetoric in the early 1990s. I still remember being stunned when these pundits rationalized Farrakhan’s vulgar vision and promoted the foolhardy notion that nonwhites could not truly be bigoted. This argument was intellectually bankrupt then, and it’s still intellectually bankrupt today.
I also remember being filled with pride when Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams and Ken Hamblin denounced Farrakhan’s fulminations in their syndicated columns. Sowell, Williams and Hamblin reflected an old-school liberal vision: bigotry was bad, period, no matter who expressed bigoted sentiments. I found it horrifying that the left would try to come up with psychological rationalizations for Farrakhan’s nonsense instead of joining Sowell, Williams, Hamblin and other conservatives in condemning the Nation of Islam leader’s hateful language.
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
Somebody called it his “I Have An Excuse” speech. lol
Hew can’t disown Weight, for the same reason he chose that church...Because it’s where the rich and powerful in the Chicago black community goes...and he needed to see and be seen by, and with, them.
“Why can’t Democrats just come right out and condemn discrimination?”
Because it’s what keeps a lot of Democrats in office.
Because it’s what keeps a lot of Democrats in office.
And where a lot of welfare money goes to keep the democrats in power..
I'm afraid I agree.
I thought Obama, at least, would accomplish a lot by finally demonstrating that we had arrived at a post-racial state in our political history. Sadly, I was wrong. He has turned out to be the same old garbage of bitterness, blame and entitlement.
The left understands that the more folks who think like Wright and Farrakhan, the more Democrat voters there will be. The left could never come out against Farrakhan and Wright because progressives need these figures to spread a message of hopelessness and victimization. If those who listen to Farrakhan’s message day in and day out come to believe that their own efforts will not be enough to stop those “conspiring” against them from succeeding, they will naturally turn to Democrats to help them make it through life.
However, Republicans understand how destructive the Farrakhan-Wright vision is. Their vision is quite similar to Communism in that it is filled with disdain for the individual’s ability to achieve. An individual triumphing over bigotry and inequality through hard work and sacrifice? The Farrakhan-Wright vision holds that this is impossible. Only the state can save the downtrodden; it’s unthinkable for the downtrodden to save themselves.
The Farrakhan-Wright vision is fundamentally evil: it tells people from disadvantaged circumstances that they are not true Americans, merely “victims of Americanism.” It tells those without money or power that they will always be without money or power, always dependent upon government largesse for their daily bread. It teaches people to hate this country and the majority of its citizens. The Farrakhan-Wright social vision is a cancer that must be removed—by any means necessary.
The Farrakhan-Wright vision is fundamentally evil: it tells people from disadvantaged circumstances that they are not true Americans, merely “victims of Americanism.” It tells those without money or power that they will always be without money or power, always dependent upon government largesse for their daily bread. It teaches people to hate this country and the majority of its citizens. The Farrakhan-Wright social vision is a cancer that must be removed—by any means necessary.
Leftism is simply cynicism about endeavor and accomplishment. Since journalists don't do anything, the easy way for them to promote their own significance is to criticize those who do attempt to accomplish things, which means working to a bottom line. For journalists there is no true bottom line, because when things don't go the way they predicted, journalists merely change the subject. In fact the whole system of journalism, and of leftism, is to divert attention away from the big picture, which is the accomplishments of personal responsibility and initiative, and to focus on the individual failures to which we are all subject as if they were all of the story.John Maynard Keynes famously asserted, "In the long run we are all dead." In the long run, certainly, each of us will be dead - but that is not quite the same as to say the we - the human race - are all dead. And indeed, life expectancy of individuals has been increasing, to such an extent that speculation has been raised about "escape velocity" - the possibility that our children's life expectancy might increase by ten years with each passing decade, so that death becomes less certain than taxes. In such a context we have even less excuse than Keynes' contemporaries to avert our eyes from the long-run perspective - the perspective in which personal responsibility and individual initiative are dominant.
The evil of the Farrakhan-Wright vision is fundamentally that it is a dishonest attack on the individual initiative and personal responsibility which has produced a geometrically increasing standard of living for Americans. An attack, that is, on what has made the modern American secretary so well situated that she would be ill advised to trade her circumstances for those of the fabulously wealthy Queen Victoria (1819-1901) of Great Britain.
WOW!!!
BTTT
The phrase may have been used first by Michael Bell in his column of March 19, 2008, Revving a wrong spin
“The Farrakhan-Wright vision is fundamentally evil: it tells people from disadvantaged circumstances that they are not true Americans, merely “victims of Americanism.” It tells those without money or power that they will always be without money or power, always dependent upon government largesse for their daily bread. It teaches people to hate this country and the majority of its citizens. The Farrakhan-Wright social vision is a cancer that must be removed—by any means necessary”
Good post.
For no less than four decades - two full generations - blacks have been preached a rhetoric of “division” and “apartness” by their leadership.
This has transmogrified American blacks into “dark-skinned Palestinians” on United States soil. The lines of divisiveness have been drawn in such a manner that rational dialogue has become almost impossible between blacks and whites. No matter what whites may say, if it is critical of black behavior, it is “racist”. On the other hand, because blacks are “powerless” (so say their leadership, and our light-skinned apolgetic elites), they can say ANYthing they wish about whites, because those who are powerless cannot be racist.
It is blacks - NOT whites - who have succeeded in creating a “new apartied” in America. This is no longer merely an matter of economic division or Jim Crow water fountains, but a cultural apartied that is evident in the ever-declining standards of black behavior (witness their rate of crimes and imprisonment) and a system of values (idealized in such things as rap music) that is repugnant when viewed by any standard of white culture.
The upbeat theme - even amongst conservatives - is that these widening divisions could be healed if only there were frank dialogue between the races.
That will come just after we begin seeing frank, open and reconciliatory “dialogue” between the Palestinians and the Jews. Don’t hold your breath.
- John
“Bill did us just like he did Monica Lewinsky” - Reverend Wright
Far away from the rhetoric and generalities are the individuals that make the rhetoric and generalities possible. When you name names (give individual examples) you are getting to the root cause of what is troubling your mind.
Preach it brother!
Vast Wright-Wing Conspiracy? /sarcasm
Why is it that the 1 truthful statement is not being amplified by the DBM or NEW MEDIA?
Run Hillaryous Run!
Interesting article. Thanks for posting.
Thanks for the ping, c_I_c.
There must be at least subliminal confusion among blacks listening to anti-white screeds that there has obviously been a lot of intimacy with whites among their ancestors, some very near, like mothers and fathers or even themselves.
The upbeat theme - even amongst conservatives - is that these widening divisions could be healed if only there were frank dialogue between the races.
That will come just after we begin seeing frank, open and reconciliatory “dialogue” between the Palestinians and the Jews. Don’t hold your breath.
It will come when journalism loses its franchise to prevent it.
It will come when it is forced unavoidably into the conversation.It is happening now, to a certain extent, because a black is seriously contending for the Democratic nomination, against a Clinton. And it would happen in earnest if McCain were to nominate a black conservative VP to his ticket. It is in his gift to do that - and the Constitution indicates that identity
The Electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselvesand not merely competence is to be taken into consideration in the selection of the VP candidate. McCain could wreak havoc in the Democratic Party today by announcing the name of a black conservative VP. That would make it impossible for the Democrats to keep Obama off the ticket, and would probably force the Democrats to nominate Obama for president. And it would put in place a national candidate whose very existence in the race would be a rebuke to Farrakhan-Wright cupidity and responsibility aversion.
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