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Jim Webb's identity-based populism, The potential vice-presidential candidate.
the Guardian (UK) ^ | Friday June 20, 2008 | David Boaz

Posted on 06/20/2008 7:27:08 PM PDT by PotatoHeadMick

Richard Just at the New Republic magazine is not impressed with Virginia senator Jim Webb as a running mate for Barack Obama. Webb is fundamentally illiberal, he writes, a misogynist and an ethnic nationalist and "something of an apologist for the Confederacy." So why do lots of liberals like Webb, Just asks. "In the years since he left the Republican party, Webb has found his way to certain policy stands that liberals correctly find attractive. He was right about Iraq, and, on economics, he is right to criticise the disparity between rich and poor." Just can't figure out how a fundamentally illiberal Scots-Irish nationalist can arrive at all those good liberal tax-hiking, big-spending, trade-restricting positions that "liberals" like. But in fact Webb's liberal positions on economic issues stem directly from his self-image as an oppressed working-class white man. When I read his book Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America, I was struck by how it burned with a passionate hatred of the English in both England and America, who in Webb's view had been keeping his people down for hundreds of years. Throughout the book he complains about "the Wasp hierarchy" and the "Cavalier aristocracy" from which the hard-working Scots-Irish have been systematically excluded. Just notes that too: "Perhaps the most unappealing thing about Webb's worldview is that it seems to be built largely on resentment. In his book Born Fighting, you can practically feel the resentment coming off the page." Webb complains that affirmative action "focused only on the disadvantages that had accrued to blacks," while "the white cultures whose ancestors had gained the least benefit from the elitist social structure" were "grouped together with the veneer that had formed the aristocracy."

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Virginia; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: 110th; 2008veep; boaz; bookreview; bornfighting; jimwebb; scotsirish; va2008; webb
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I loved Webb's book "Born Fighting", I had no idea Obama was considering him for VP
1 posted on 06/20/2008 7:27:09 PM PDT by PotatoHeadMick
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To: PotatoHeadMick

They left out racist and rabid anti-Semite.


2 posted on 06/20/2008 7:30:25 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

are you series?


3 posted on 06/20/2008 7:34:27 PM PDT by ken21 ( people die + you never hear from them again.)
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To: ken21

Hughly series.


4 posted on 06/20/2008 7:35:47 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

thanks,

i did not know that.


5 posted on 06/20/2008 7:36:27 PM PDT by ken21 ( people die + you never hear from them again.)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

Maybe that is why he agreed with putting the Islamic School in Virginia that is payed for by the Saudi’s.


6 posted on 06/20/2008 7:36:56 PM PDT by RC2
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To: fieldmarshaldj

News to me, I had no idea, can you post some links?


7 posted on 06/20/2008 7:40:49 PM PDT by PotatoHeadMick
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To: PotatoHeadMick
Just notes that too: "Perhaps the most unappealing thing about Webb's worldview is that it seems to be built largely on resentment."

Huh? Resentment and envy are the Democrats' raison d'etre.

8 posted on 06/20/2008 7:43:41 PM PDT by Trailerpark Badass (Happiness is a choice!)
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To: PotatoHeadMick

Muslims love Webb; Obama wants to keep them in his corner.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/oct/01/muslim-group-touts-local-political-clout/


9 posted on 06/20/2008 7:43:49 PM PDT by VOA
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To: PotatoHeadMick
Webb primary campaign flyer.
10 posted on 06/20/2008 7:52:47 PM PDT by Stentor (Obama supporters. Letting the little void do the thinking for the big void.)
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To: PotatoHeadMick

You’ve been here since ‘05, this was well discussed during his Senate run, so it should be right there in the old FReeper discussions. He ran a Jew-baiting campaign both against his Dem primary opponent and against Sen. Allen, a true statesman. He was also accused of having driven around Watts back in the ‘60s during shore leave pointing guns at Black people. If this pond scum had been a Republican (which he was up until after Reagan fired his ass as Navy Secretary), we’d have never heard the end of it from the media. As soon as he slinked back to his rodentry roots, all was forgiven. After all, if a Klansman can serve in WV as a rodent, what’s a racist, anti-Semite Socialist author of pedarism with a notoriously violent temper serving in VA if it means bringing down George Allen ? Macaca ain’t got nothing on pig vomit.


11 posted on 06/20/2008 7:57:36 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

I don’t think there’s anything I can add to that. :-)


12 posted on 06/20/2008 8:30:04 PM PDT by Corin Stormhands
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To: fieldmarshaldj

Right got it now, I am not American so perhaps I didn’t pay such close attention to that particular race, I remember the “macaca” controversy but I didn’t connect Webb with the author of “Born Fighting” which I had read a few years earlier. I now see there’s a helluva lot more to the man than the simple author of one book.

I’m not seeing the “antisemitic” thing though and besides your allegation about something he may or may not have done years ago there doesn’t seem to be too much evidence of racism given that he’s married to an Asian woman with a mixed race child.

However I clearly need to do a lot more reading up on this character.


13 posted on 06/20/2008 9:08:40 PM PDT by PotatoHeadMick
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To: PotatoHeadMick; Corin Stormhands; Impy; darkangel82; Clemenza; JohnnyZ; NewRomeTacitus

Yup, a lot more to the guy. Here was some early fun back during his first year in office:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/26/AR2007032602102.html

Again, if a Republican pulled a stunt like that, somebody would’ve done a stint in prison.

The anti-Semitic thing was pretty blatant, his Naziesque cartoons and his supporters baiting George “Felix” [emphasis] Allen, hounding Allen into admitting his Jewish heritage on his mother’s side (as if it was something he should be ashamed of). It was disgusting. There’s a substantial strain of vicious anti-Semitism on the left (yet the irony a majority of Jews support the Democrat party, much like chickens voting for Colonel Sanders), often why today’s Democrat party isn’t too far afield from the Nazi party, their leftist cousin. Of course, this isn’t the first time the Dems have run contests like this (they ran a similarly ugly gay-baiting contest in MT for a Senate race and a race-baiting contest against J.C. Watts for the House — frankly, these guys have been the master of gutter politics all the way back to the Adams-Jefferson Presidential race of 1800 and murdering Black Republicans during the Reconstruction era, no doubt something Webb would’ve readily participated in had he been around then).

And just because he’s married to an Asian woman (perhaps his only redeeming quality, I can’t fault his taste, as my former was Asian, too) doesn’t mean he isn’t racist. As a Southerner, I well know a lot of White trash that have relations with non-Whites and still harbor hateful racial superior attitudes (of course, a lot of Northerners do too). After all, many slaveowners, while thinking of Blacks as half-animal, would think nothing of taking their women into their bedrooms (or elsewhere) to copulate and have children with them. I’m rather ashamed to share a similar Scots-Irish background as Webb.


14 posted on 06/20/2008 9:41:12 PM PDT by fieldmarshaldj (~"This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps !"~~)
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To: PotatoHeadMick

Geez, it wasn’t that long ago that we were treated to article after article by RATS about how Rudy Giuliani was unelectable because he is on wife #3 and was not exactly the perfect husband.

Now it’s Jim Webb for VP despite him being on his third marriage and allegedly having more marital skeletons in the closet than Rudy.

No way is Webb going on the RAT ticket. He has less experience than Bambi. His approval rating isn’t even 50%. He’s not a particularly good campaigner. And he is just plain radioactive among too many constituencies ... feminazis, gun control wackos, etc.


15 posted on 06/20/2008 11:25:22 PM PDT by freespirited (A Democrat is a person who lives in fear that someone, somewhere is proud to be an American.)
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To: fieldmarshaldj

Very interesting, thanks for the info, I agree that if the man was a Republican the media would be claiming he was the second coming of Adolf Hitler.

Like I say I first heard about Webb after reading Born Fighting, which I thoroughly enjoyed (what part of Ulster did your people come from by the way? I’m originally from Derry but I’m 100% the ‘other side’). Today has been quite educational for me.

I agree with your thoughts on Asian wives, mine’s Indonesian.


16 posted on 06/21/2008 5:05:12 AM PDT by PotatoHeadMick
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To: fieldmarshaldj

They also left out that he received the Navy Cross. Unlike Kerry, Webb is an authentic war hero.


17 posted on 06/21/2008 5:12:44 AM PDT by kabar
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To: fieldmarshaldj
He ran a Jew-baiting campaign both against his Dem primary opponent and against Sen. Allen, a true statesman.

BS. Harrison Miller tried to pull the "religion card" and lost. FYI: The Washington Post endorsed Miller over Webb in the primaries. Allen's mistake was his repeated abject apologies on the macaca issue. Allen ran a poor campaign despite going into the race with a huge lead. If he had used the immigration issue the way many of us urged him to do, he would still be a senator and possible Presidential candidate. Webb didn't beat Allen. Allen beat Allen.

18 posted on 06/21/2008 5:18:29 AM PDT by kabar
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To: fieldmarshaldj
bttt #11
exactly right...
19 posted on 06/21/2008 5:24:16 AM PDT by firewalk
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To: kabar; fieldmarshaldj

Indeed, Webb had an admirable military record (unlike Kerry).

But, the fact that he went nutz later in life doesn’t make him any less looney, angry and dangerous.


20 posted on 06/21/2008 5:37:22 AM PDT by Corin Stormhands
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