Another Minstrel of the Ministry of Truth Speaks Out
October 30th, 2009 at 9:36 am by MicheleThese remarks from Sting just reinforce my belief that artists are fed a load of crap about what the opposition believes, and they’re fine with not delving too deeply into reality. I mean, artists are paid for their ability to live in a fantasyland.
The British singer, who released the seasonal album “On A Winter’s Night” this week, said he’s fascinated by American politics, Obama, and also by Obama’s opponents on the right.
“It’s aggressive and violent and full of fear,” he said of the backlash against Obama. “They don’t want change, they want things to feel the same because they feel safe there.”
“My hope is that we can start talking about real issues and not caring about whether God cares about your hemline or your color,” he said. “We are here to evolve as one family, and we can’t be separate anymore.”
I agree. So why does the left keep making an issue out of color, or religion, or any of the categories into which they like to separate people? It makes me angry to put up with this kind of educated ignorance.
There is a group, called the right, that has studied unadulterated and uneditorialized history, that judges people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, or any of the other identity politics classifications, and have found that character wanting in this particular administration. What’s frightening about this administration is that the books we’re having to study to understand what’s going on right now don’t deal with Franklin and Jefferson, they deal with the Bolsheviks and the bourgeouisie.
I’d like to add, that from today on, I reject the race (class, gender) card and the power it wields. As soon as it’s hurled at me, you are scratched out of my book of reasonable people forever. I no longer consider you a rational member of the human race and will not engage you in conversation. Playing the race (class, gender) card means you fold. Game over. Why? Because that card is played when you have lost the ability to engage in a conversation of the basic values and principles that keep us free as individuals. It’s easier for you to live in a fantasy land where the bad guy is some hater that you have created out of some white sheets, than to realize that you as a person, have fallen, like so many in history, for totalitarian ideology wrapped in the guise of loving kindness. And if you keep pointing an accusatory finger in my direction, no one will point an accusatory finger at you.
October 30th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Greetings:
My father was born and grew up in the very southwest of ireland. One of his favorite expressions was, “It’s a great day for the race.” When queried about what race, his reply was, “The human race”.
October 31st, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Leftists imagine they can change the history and redesign societies. It is good to be afraid of that. Those ignorant of Bolsheviks are not afraid of that change.
November 1st, 2009 at 2:24 am
Who knew “Don’t Stand So Close To Me” was an edict and not simply a personal request by Britain’s most celebrated musical hero for sexual misconduct by an authority figure?
November 1st, 2009 at 3:23 pm
Surely you can’t be oblivious to the delightful irony of complaints about one political side mischaracterizing the position, motives, opinions, thoughts, etc. of the other.
You don’t have to dig too much on this site to find all kinds of nonsense about “libs” who are commie, bedwetting worshipers of the “Obamessiah.” The problem is that there is just as much of a grain of truth to all that crap about “libs” as there is in Mr. Sting’s commentary about closed-minded, racist, myopic conservatives. Both sorts of people exist, and are fantastic fodder for use as evidence of what the “other side” thinks. You may be justified in your intent to draw a line in the sand regarding the race card because you no doubt are not a racist and resent being lumped in with those who are. There are no doubt a plethora of mischaracterizations common on the SMB site that I could equally stand firm against. Truth is, that sort of crap is currency here, and traded in its humorous intent for paranoid stridency years ago.
All that stuff on both sides of the aisle is just unthinking, tribalistic self reassurance, and does nothing to contribute to political dialogue or understanding. So on the one hand, I salute you for taking a stand to reject common mischaracterizations of your point of view. On the other, I feel must caution you about your handful of stones you have at the ready whilst you stand in a very large and ornate glass house.
November 1st, 2009 at 6:48 pm
So says an unthinking tribalist while reassuring himself that he “contributes to dialogue and understanding”.
November 1st, 2009 at 7:08 pm
I stand in no house. I stand in my own skin.
My goal is to contribute to the dialogue. I have asked you to share your values and principles for that very purpose. I’m talking with people here, not cartoons, and I personally don’t use that kind of language. Check my other posts.
You may recall that I used the word “commie”. I call a communist a communist based upon an understanding of the practice, from reading about people who have lived under those who wished to achieve a Marxist utopia. Even about my own ancestors who died in the purges, others who were tortured and more who escaped. I don’t use the term commie as a joke. Neither is “racist” a joke. Those kinds of assertions require some proof. Like a person standing up and saying they admire Mao, or that they are in fact a Marxist, or who treat people of non-white races as inferior or a group to manipulate. We can certainly discuss those people as we did Anita Dunn.
I think the slide into totalitarianism isn’t a frightening one, it’s comforting, otherwise people wouldn’t allow it to happen. There is always a group that feels they will be protected by the state, or by some elite angels, from some greater monster (racism, religious fanaticism,poverty,disease etc.) That’s why many people who can escape or stop it decide to remain silent. There are always prescient people sounding the horn when things seem only nominally grim and are often treated as fearmongers, and derided as buffoons. That’s what I think is happening to our country, and what I think the left leaning media is doing to the right.
Have you read Frank Rich’s latest column? Just look at the loaded language. He’s got the platform of the New York Times to spread his venom around about people like me. I’ve got this little Buffet in which to respond.
I may have actually used more words than you this time. Do I win?
November 1st, 2009 at 8:43 pm
My point was intended to be simply this: “There is a group, called the right, that has studied unadulterated and uneditorialized history, that judges people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin…” is as much of a generalization about conservatives as is this: “It’s aggressive and violent and full of fear. … They don’t want change, they want things to feel the same because they feel safe there.”
You may feel that the first quote applies to you while the second does not, and that’s fair. On the other hand, when you generalize about conservatives or ‘the right,’ either or both often apply. While it us evident that you read up on things, it is also evident that many tea party attendees rely on Beck and Limbaugh to read and interpret things like the Constitution for them. Many couldn’t even spell Constitution on their own. Certainly some could, but some couldn’t.
Frank Rich is usually long-winded and tedious, but I took your recommendation and had a look. He took the long way around, via an analogy to Stalinism to say the same thing as what I wrote somewhereon here last week. The Democrats don’t have to worry too much about a Republican resurgence so long as there is an active and vocal right wing that preferes ideological purity over winning elections. I didn’t take the Stalinist reference quite as hard as you did, but then I’m not related to victims of the purges. Interestingly, our different responses to the same language perhaps should make you consider why some people find some aspects of the current conservative rhetoric to feel a little like racism. The stridency of the vitriol aimed at a black President doesn’t take into account the personal histories of some of the folks who hear that rhetoric, and to them it sounds a lot like angry white people who will say anything to degrade that President.
I do want to note that your own thoughtfulness in discourse us quite clear, but the knee-jerk responses of others here can set a tone that creates the glass house I mentioned previously.
November 1st, 2009 at 11:33 pm
That would certainly explain why Joe Lieberman ran as an Independent. After 2004, the Left called for ideological purity and got it. They had no qualm running Ned Lamont against him because he wasn’t “pure” enough. Even now there are constant calls to primary Blue Dogs. Where are you there? Huh? You going on the commie websites to castigate them for for shrinking the Big
GloryholeTent of the Democratic Party?Doubtful.
Now it’s time for the right to do the same.
Evidently, the strident rhetoric against Kerry was okay because he was not of a protected pigmentation that could have insulated him from criticism of the same wrongheaded policies that espouses to this day. He didn’t have a race card to play. He was only a pastily white, haughty, french-looking son of diplomatic privilege hawking a two month tour in Vietnam after cruising the funeral homes to find lonely widows to finance his Senate habit.
After all, for eight years we didn’t listen to angry (insert type) people degrading Bush. Nazi. Bushitler. Chimpy McHitlerburton. Darth Cheney. Preston Nazi Bush. War Criminals. Don’t Care ‘Bout No Black People in New Orleans. Let 9/11 happen to war profiteer and at the call of the bloodthirsty PNAC Jew cabal Yea.
Where did we find all the glazers to construct our glass houses? It seems they had been building Crystal McMansions for commies like you for the last decade.
Your contrived, passive-aggressive thoughtfulness ruse has been a source of mild entertainment this weekend. Hopefully, after a few more hundred word rejoinders, Michele will suffer fools less gladly.
November 2nd, 2009 at 6:32 am
It’s not the word “Stalinism” that irks me. It’s the fact that an old theater critic has a platform in one of America’s most influential papers to expound recklessly on politics, while clearly brilliant minds like Thomas Sowell(rtwt)must be found in Town Hall, which is respected but less widely read.
Being informed that the folks who get their news from Beck and Limbaugh couldn’t “spell Constitution” on their own is a huge insult, shows how unwilling you are to investigate your beliefs. And so does this:
“vitriol aimed at a black President doesn’t take into account the personal histories of some of the folks who hear that rhetoric, and to them it sounds a lot like angry white people who will say anything to degrade that President.”
It shows me that you look no deeper than what you are told, and it saddens me. We had four speakers at Knoxville’s first Tea Party, two of which were black. I challenge you to call up Harold Black and ask him if he can spell “constitution”.
The idea that conservatives must placate people’s feelings at the expense of our national safety will kill this country, and that’s where the “obamessiah” references come from. It’s blasphemy to robustly criticize the president
without being admonished for injuring some imaginary victim from the protected whiner class. We’re expected to buy indulgences from liberals for our sins of appearing too virtuous, and when we stumble there are always media lackeys to go straight for our jugular, and we’re supposed to lay down and take it without using mean words? We’ve actually done pretty well.
November 2nd, 2009 at 8:43 am
I’ll try again, using fewer words.
Saying all conservatives are thoughtful and virtuous and all liberals are knuckle-dragging commies is as goofy as saying all conservatives are racist pinheads and all liberals are brilliant and moral sages.
Go dig around in the back of your closet to see if you can find where you left your sense of humor. You may find it somewhere between your winter boots and your self-awareness.
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:24 am
Did I say all liberals are knuckle dragging commies?
My point is that CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times, celebrities et al ad nauseum, spend a great deal of time painting conservatives as “racist pinheads” and themselves as, not liberals, but simply morally and intellectually superior. That is the overarching theme in mass-consumed pop-politics. An unfair political fight where dicks in doo-rags outside of town hall meetings serve to represent conservatives against some intellectual from the AP, and the true conservative thinkers end up on the editing room floor.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Funk, thank you for using fewer words. And for being so condescending…
I am one of those tea-party supporters who watch Glenn Beck (I do not listen to Limbaugh). Not only can I spell “Constitution”, I’ve actually READ the Constitution.
Oh…and the Federalist papers as well. You’d be surprised at what I have been able to read despite my liberal educators focusing more on shaping my world view instead of developing my critical thinking skills.
Typical of allegedly well-read liberals like yourself, you show clear disdain for those who may not have the time to do the reading you and I do. Working families, at-home mothers, retirees who would actually like to relax in their golden years…yet these are the folks who attend tea-party rallies. Perhaps they allow Beck and others to interpret the Constitution for them…but their concern is genuine.
How can our government continue to spend, spend, spend without mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren?
Why pass a 1,900 page “health care” bill that hasn’t even been read and “only”
will cost us a little under a trillion dollars…all for the sake of less than 10% of the populace that is underinsured?
Why continue to allow escalating corruption in a government that grows larger by the day?
Well, let’s not listen to valid concerns. Let’s just write these people off as ignorant followers of radio talk show hosts. And don’t actually address the points these hosts make on their shows…just call them crazy, racist and hate-filled.
I feel I’ve drifted “off-topic” here. Oh well…
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Sorry Nigel, we’re not doing actual adult political dialogue today. The topic is our regular honors class in advanced “Poo-Flinging”.
Please come back tomorrow.
November 2nd, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Crap Michele, I’m really good at “poo-flinging” too…I wish I had worn my poo-flinging jeans…
Do me a favor and send me a heads up on Facebook the next time we do that…
November 2nd, 2009 at 6:52 pm
First you complain that I’m too wordy, then when I edit it down, I’m condescending and allegedly tossing poo about. Y’all are a bit testy here to be running around on a site named after the Shoney’s menu.
Michele, I was just trying to point out that you seem willing to generalize in some cases and take offense at generalizations in others, and, speaking of generalizations, all the while it seems that you and others on here like to put me into a box based on your preconceptions about ‘the other.’ For instance, I wrote, “Many [tea partiers] couldn’t even spell Constitution on their own. Certainly some could, but some couldn’t.” From that you went with “Being informed that the folks who get their news from Beck and Limbaugh couldn’t “spell Constitution” on their own is a huge insult, shows how unwilling you are to investigate your beliefs.” Now see, I said some of the folks could spell and some couldn’t, and you ignored half of it. When you point out that Harold Black can indeed spell ‘Constitution,’ you’re only providing evidence for one-half of my point. (Does Harold Black get his news from Glenn Beck?) I’m reasonably sure that some time spent on Google image search would yield evidence of tea partiers who can’t spell that word, or at least some others, being equally suggestive of limited depth of understanding. That would prove the other half of my point. None of that suggests that both types aren’t fully due their rights to free speech.
You want so very much for my argument to be a negative generalization about conservatives or at least a dismissive generalization about all conservative viewpoints, because you’re ready to take me to task about that with articles, charts, and eight-by-ten color glossy photographs with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one. Unfortunately, you’re arguing against a position I have not taken.
You wrote: “My point is that CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times, celebrities et al ad nauseum, spend a great deal of time painting conservatives as “racist pinheads” and themselves as, not liberals, but simply morally and intellectually superior. That is the overarching theme in mass-consumed pop-politics. An unfair political fight where dicks in doo-rags outside of town hall meetings serve to represent conservatives against some intellectual from the AP, and the true conservative thinkers end up on the editing room floor.”
I could cite any number of specific examples from those news sources where they have put out info critical of the Obama Administration and favorable to conservatives, but I won’t bother. I’ll take your point at face value. But you know what? You’ve got Fox News, Limbaugh, 90% of talk radio, the Wall Street Journal editorial page and half a gazillion web sites like this one putting out info favorable to positions you prefer. Conservatives have their own set of celebrity pontificates, some of whom even take the extra step and use their celebrity status to run for office. Hell, Fox News (both editorial shows and ‘news’ shows) actively recruited viewers to participate in the many tea party events. The meme that conservatives have no voice, that the ‘mainstream media’ is monolithically liberal (while Fox is “fair and balanced!”), and that you’re out there all alone is laughable. So what if Frank Rich has “the platform of the New York Times to spread his venom around about people like [you, and that you've only] got this little Buffet in which to respond…”? Peggy Noonan has the Wall Street Journal, and I have to await moderation (and completion of your rejoinders) before I get a say on here.
Oh, crap, I’ve gone all wordy again.
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:56 pm
WTFITS?!? Someone let this liberal spambot’s comment out of moderation without their witty reply poised to strike it down like the Hammer of Fucking God???
I demand to see the manager.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:26 pm
If anyone is interested, the last paragraph in the original post was written in the first person, meaning I spoke for myself. That’s what I meant when I said just me in the Buffet. One person considering how politically charged words from an unstudied perspective can color the mindset and relationships of people who just skim the news for what their favorite celebrity says. I’m speaking for myself about what constitutes and informed discussion, and why Sting’s comments were shallow.
Go read Bono’s NYT op-ed. It’s refreshingly thoughtful.
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:57 pm
Answer a fool according to his folly, or he might think too much of himself.
Don’t answer a fool according to his folly, or else you too may get caught up in his folly.
Ugh. TF is determined to win by wearing everyone down. Last word does not equal best word. (Ironic though that may be.)