Monday, October 17, 2011

Say what you like about National Socialism, Dude, at least it's an ethos

John Goodman, the bearish and beloved character actor whose many fine performances have illuminated both big screen and small, has taken a respite from his guest starring role on the hit NBC show Community in order to inform the Negroes that they have a Negro Problem, and then to solve it for them in 22 minutes, with time out for station identification and commercials for Godfathers Pizza.

But wait, this isn't the John Goodman who delighted audiences with his madcap antics on the long running sitcom Roseanne.  This John Goodman is a doctor, by which I mean he has a Ph.D in Milking the Teats of Dyspeptic Billionaires, and serves as president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, "a free-market think tank" which subsists on hand-outs from the Koch Brothers.

He's also smarter than the average bearish actor, because his official think tank bio shyly reveals that Dr. Goodman was Student Body Vice President, and "is a crossword puzzle aficionado, and most days he is able to conquer the puzzles in The New York Times in ink."
"I'll show you the life of the mind...!"

So rather than our usual -- and frankly, impertinent -- habit of snarking at the subsidized opinions of right wing rent-a-scholars, today we will fold our hands in our laps and listen attentively, because it seems that while black people will be black people, Dr. Goodman's unique perspective -- as a man who was not only a heartbeat away from the Student Council presidency, but who is now only a single initial away from being a celebrated character actor -- allows him to see and pinpoint exactly how they're doing it wrong.
USA Today Columnist DeWayne Wickham took presidential candidate Herman Cain to task the other day on the issue of race. His complaints: (a) Cain is vying for white votes rather than black votes, (b) Cain’s claim that blacks tend to mindlessly vote for Democrats is insulting and insensitive and (c) Cain is insufficiently critical of Republicans for pursing a racist southern strategy over the past 40 years.

Now since Cain and Wickham are both black, I’m sure that most non-black columnists will choose to sit this one out and let it be just an intramural squabble.
But this is one columnist who's willing to take up the Non-Black Man's Burden.
I think that’s wrong. All Americans, regardless of color, should find Wickham’s comments offensive for two reasons.

First, it takes a lot of chutzpah for a pro-Democratic writer to criticize a Republican for being insufficiently critical of his own party on matters of race. For all its sins, I don’t believe the party of Lincoln has anything to apologize for to the party of slavery, the party of segregation, the party of Jim Crow and a party that even today routinely uses the NAACP to run election eve, race-baiting radio commercials in order to fan the flames of racial hatred and get out the black vote.
Here's where the sort of free market perspective in which Dr. Goodman specializes proves so illuminating.  The party of Nixon, of the Southern Strategy, of Reagan's "states rights" speech in Philadelphia, Mississippi, of a DOJ Civil Rights Department focused on "voter fraud," is trying to make voting more difficult only because that would make voting more special.  And the rarer a thing is, the more valuable is.  Scarcity creates demand, and by allowing fewer people to vote, more people would want to vote, thereby increasing the perceived value of the ballot for those who can cast one.  It's like the difference between common and preferred shares of stock.

Or to put it another way:  making voting an easy, casual thing would encourage people to vote promiscuously, and some day you'll would look back and regret it, feeling that you cheapened your franchise by casting ballots only because you were drunk, or gave in to peer pressure.  And then suddenly you meet that special someone, perhaps when your Hoverounds collide at a Tea Party rally and comically lock bumpers, and one thing leads to another, and before you know it, you're sitting in a Denny's at 4:00 in the afternoon, exchanging life stories over a slice of coconut meringue pie and a cup of Sanka, and you'll look across that table and see his face fall when you confess how many times you voted, and for how many different candidates

Because the problem is, Americans of the black persuasion don't value voting, otherwise they wouldn't require race-baiting radio commercials to get them to the polls.  Naturally, this principle applies to all radio advertising, which is why I consider the commercials for Sit 'N' Sleep, a local discount mattress chain, to be the moral equivalent of The Turner Diaries.
But more is involved here than misplaced chutzpah. Wickham is simply wrong about the two parties’ roles in modern politics. I know. I was there. I grew up in Waco, Texas, in the 1950s and early 1960s. At that time, virtually all the elected officials in Waco were (a) racist, (b) segregationist and (c) Democrats.
Now they're only two out of three.
Whether mindlessly or not, the black voters in my city did tend to vote for the entire Democratic ticket in election after election.
I don't want to accuse Dr. Goodman of "tolerance," because I know where he comes that's regarded as little more than a liberal euphemism for "pussy," but I do think it's nice of him to give his black neighbors the benefit of the doubt and allow as how they might have minds, albeit stupid ones.
"You vote for a Democrat for President just because he's black, but you never stopped to think that John C. Calhoun was also a Democrat before he died a 160 years ago?!  You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!"
As in many places today, the black church was the principal institution through which the party organized the black vote. Think about the incongruity of that. Racist politicians and black Baptist ministers delivered votes in election after election to candidates who did little or nothing to help blacks and who went around assuring whites of their dedication to segregation!
I don't want to commit a brazen act of intellectual lése-majesté, Doctor, but I don't think civil rights activists risked prison, injury, or death just to secure the right of Black people to vote for White supremacists.  I suspect that the Southern Democrats who did attract support in Black communities were the ones who weren't bigots -- in other words, the ones who didn't become Republicans after Goldwater -- if only because it doesn't make a lot of sense that segregationist Democrats would work so hard to preserve Jim Crow, just to keep black folks from voting for them.
How did the national Democratic Party respond to their Southern comrades? They welcomed them at the national Democratic conventions with open arms. By “they” I mean the Kennedys, the Byrds, the Gores and other mainstays of the Democratic Party. Further, a lot of people are unaware of the fact that the 1964 Civil Rights Act received more Republican than Democratic votes in Congress.
I share the Doctor's outrage.  Personally, I find it shocking how many people in this country remain ignorant of the basic made-up facts about our own history.  True, government schools and liberal textbooks go out of their way to suppress untruths like this, and people who actually lived through the Civil Rights Era (many of whom now spend their days sucking vampirically from the Socialist Security Trust Fund like it was some kind of blood money bank) may offer argumentative "memories" about how "things" actually "were," but still, there is no excuse in the age of Fox News and AM radio for anyone with half a brain to remain uninformed about bullshit of such historic significance.

But just for the record:  In the House, Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act 153-91 (63%–37%), while Republicans voted 136-35 (80%–20%), so while a higher percentage of the fewer Republicans in the house voted yea, it's not true that the bill"received more Republican than Democratic votes."
Now a lot of Southern Democrats switched parties and became Republicans through the years. Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina is an example. But the behavior of these politicians as Republicans differed markedly from their behavior as Democrats. The difference was not merely a difference of degree. It was a difference of kind.
Yes, they began acting more like the existing Southern Republicans, as we see from the regional breakdown of the vote tallies of the 1964 Civil Rights Act:

By party and region

Note: "Southern", as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America ... "Northern" refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states.
  • Southern Democrats: 7–87   (7%–93%)
  • Southern Republicans: 0–10   (0%–100%)
  • Northern Democrats: 145-9   (94%–6%)
  • Northern Republicans: 138-24   (85%–15%)
The Senate version:
  • Southern Democrats: 1–20   (5%–95%)
  • Southern Republicans: 0–1   (0%–100%)
  • Northern Democrats: 45-1   (98%–2%)
  • Northern Republicans: 27-5   (84%–16%)
So the Republicans who voted for the CRA were the kind of Northeastern RINOs and country club elitists the bulk (which is to say, the Southern faction) of the current Republican party hates.

Dr. Goodman then dares us to find "a single Republican candidate openly endorsing racial segregation."  He then mumbles an aside about David Duke, hastily adding that he doesn't count, nor do all the Dixiecrats who joined the Republican party after 1964.
Most Americans today are anxious to put party aside and race too, for that matter.
Except for Eros, who still can't believe that a group of people could actually be so swayed by media propaganda that they would vote against their own economic interests.  He'll be appearing on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning to discuss the matter.
What we should want to know from Herman Cain is what he wants to do for the future, not what he thinks about politics of the past. 
 And especially not what he thinks about certain large rocks that may, in the past, have sat beside the entrance to a hunting ranch which was, many years ago, leased by Rick Perry's family, and which was previously, at some point in the forgotten mists of yesteryear, emblazoned with a word which was, in the past, commonly used to describe the heads of people who were stupid enough to vote Democratic had they actually been allowed to vote.  Nobody cares about excavating all that ancient history, Herman.  We're not frigging archaeologists over here, man.
And on that score, Herman Cain looks really good — especially if you are black and out of work. Cain’s 9-9-9 plan (9% personal income tax, 9% corporate income tax and 9% sales tax) would do much more to get the economy moving than anything being proposed by the Obama administration.
 People who are better educated than I have pointed out that this sounds less like a cogent economic policy and more like a Meal Deal, so I'll just say this: what little I've seen of Cain's plan suggests that it's not the bread that's crazy.

12 comments:

heydave said...

One point of solace is that this asshole goes through life staring at so many faces, suddenly dropped and crestfallen, as they realize "Oh, you,re not who we thought you were." And that's before they even read your shit.

And just once more: a country is not a fucking business, much less a shitty pizza chain.

Robert said...

Blacks in Waco in the 1950’s did not vote Democrat or Republican; they didn’t vote at all if they wanted to stay alive.

Brian Schlosser said...

It takes a certain ballsiness to criticize someone for suggesting the Southern Strategy is proof of Republican racism by talking about Southern voting habits and party affiliations up to 1960.

James Briggs Stratton "Doghouse" Riley said...

most days he is able to conquer the puzzles in The New York Times in ink.

Big deal. I'm pretty sure I could beat the snot out of Will Shortz with my bare hands.

As for the rest of this warmed-over claptrap--I'm pretty sure that bit about "more Republicans than Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act" was stuck into the mythos at some point the way Rand McNally invents bogus cities to catch anyone plagiarizing its maps--I guess "growing up in Waco in the 50s and 60s" exempts one from knowing anything about the 1948 election, or Truman desegregating the armed forces, but what's the excuse for missing the fact that the minuscule Republican party in the South until 1964 consisted mostly of blacks who could vote? The fight over seating its delegates happened right there on th' teevee an' ever'thing.

pajzilla said...

I can't touch this right away. But congratulate you on your analysis.

As John Lennon once wrote: "Imagine There's No Pizza."

Jay B. said...

[Wickham says](c) Cain is insufficiently critical of Republicans for pursing a racist southern strategy over the past 40 years.

It's 2011, this is important to remember, because a couple of paragraphs later:

Wickham is simply wrong about the two parties’ roles in modern politics. I know. I was there. I grew up in Waco, Texas, in the 1950s and early 1960s. At that time, virtually all the elected officials in Waco were (a) racist, (b) segregationist and (c) Democrats.

2011 - 1955 = 55 years. 1963 > 45 years ago.

Again, Wickham: Cain is simply ignoring the racist bullshit the GOP has puked out for the past 40 years.

Goodman: Pfft! I was there more than a decade and a half before that, so there. Now help me lift this goalpost.

We live in a world where Lee Atwater admitted to all of this 20 fucking years ago and it was hardly a secret before that. On top of that, Southern whites appreciated their prejudices being catered to — that's why so many of them switched parties in the first place. So the motherfucking devil laid out what he meant, the South went Republican just as LBJ predicted and we still have to put up with this hapless revisionism.

Party of Lincoln, Jesus that's funny.

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Um. Uh.

The stoopid.

It hurts.

Smoke? What smoke?

...wait, lemme go check this out...


... *POOF!*...

...***BLAMMO!!!!!!***...


~
~
~

(cue Emily Litella)...nevermind...

jackd said...

Herman Cain looks really good — especially if you are black and out of work. Cain’s 9-9-9 plan (9% personal income tax, 9% corporate income tax and 9% sales tax)...

Yeah, if there's anything that looks good to the unemployed, it's the chance to pay an extra 9% for every damn thing you buy.

Townhall: proving over and over again that Stupid/Evil? is not an "or" question.

Stacia said...

What we should want to know from Herman Cain is what he wants to do for the future, not what he thinks about politics of the past.

Oy. This from the guy who just spent an interminable amount of time telling us what he thinks about politics of the past and how said political past means Cain is the right guy to vote for.

Maybe Eros is right. Maybe all of us on Earth ARE idiots. How else are we to explain why this cocksleeve gets paid for writing this?

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Stacia, thank you so much for your last line.

I was beginning to think that I was the *only* person who saw huge, gaping rends in the space-time-continuum fabric, as there is NEVER going to exist, in ANY plane, an adequate reason or excuse for cum-bubbled wads of fecal-flavored Astro-Glide TO BE "GAINFULLY" (ah-ha-ha-HEM!!!) "EMPLOYED" at anything described as (gag-retch-heave-choke-dry-heaves-from-the-bowels-of-hell!!!) "WRITING"!!!!!!

Yes, I know, I am to a simple thanks what Tammy Faye Bakker is to "the natural look," but take an ol' drama queen's word for it, you hit that fuckin' ten-penny nail RIGHT on the fucking HEAD. For that, I express my gratitude.

Stacia said...

You're too kind, Anntichrist. And you look a hell of a lot better in Maybelline Lasting Drama Eyeliner than Tammy ever did.

Anntichrist S. Coulter said...

Bless you, Stacia, and your loverly pre-talkies avatar pic, which is most endearing. And dear heart, I have NEEVVVVVVVERRRR worn ANY kinda cosmetics even REMOTELY resembling those shellacked onto that dwarf-sized she-beastlet. I *am* currently missing my antiquated Merle Norman dusty-purple eyeliner (yes, it's several years old, 'cause I can no longer afford ANY makeup, let alone the EXPENSIVE SHIT!!!), which somehow makes my blue-green-mixed eyes glow with an unnatural flame of pure emerald fire, accented by golden flecks that I could never perpetrate on my OWN.

Pisses me off, too, 'cause nobody else has ever made that color, and I can't afford a replacement, either!

Shutting the hell up now. G'night.

Judgemental secret word? GRESE SHE. Annnnnd fuck YOU very much, too!

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