Dear Madame Vice President
Dear Madame Vice President:
I’ve been getting a lot of emails from Democratic honchos like the president, his wife, and yourself, Madame Vice President, and a lot of other Democratic honchos, about half of whom I have never heard of before…but they are all e couched in a very familiar, informal form of address.
Your most recent one triggered this reaction. I am posting it here because, as sure as Jesus was a Jew, you will never see it any other way.
Here, someone who knows someone might possibly bring these comments to your collective attentions. I promise you that you will be the better for it. Here are some tips from a thought manipulation professional.
Stop sending me – or anyone else – emails that are designed to suggest that there is some familiarity between us. This informal form of address actually antagonizes your target population who know very well that you don’t really give a shit about us as individuals…because you are incapable of doing so.
So just stop doing that.
You are alienating the very people you need to mobilize. The familiar form of address never works when you are trying to raise funds…or consciousness.
That’s not your fault. It is a function of your role in life. Let me put it this way: I remember very vividly every famous person I have ever met but, because I am not a famous person myself, none of those famous people have the slightest idea of who I am or what I think about the issues of our times.
I have proven this theory to my own satisfaction several times over by meeting the same very famous people at fairly regular intervals over a number of months…and they never remember me.
I’m not surprised. Very famous people are each in the center of their own little universe, called the cocoon by people who know about such things. They are way too busy being famous to actually connect with the few and far between “normals” who succeed in piercing their almost impermeable shields.
When we do that, we’re categories as an annoyance, a hindrance, an obstacle or a threat. The result is that you have probably not met a single real human being in quite some time now.
In the years that I spent as a professional fundraiser, I was on a first-name basis with some very rich and very famous people…until it was time to make the ask, at which point I would immediately switch to a very formal form of address. Trying to gouge a serious donation from anyone using a familiar form of address will not have the desired effect….unless you really have an intimate, peer-to-peer relationship with the target.
So, please stop it. You don’t know me and you don’t care about me as an individual and pretending that you do just makes you appear to be a fool and we don’t need any more fools in politics. We already have enough of them.
Sincerely,
An Independent Voter Registered as a Democrat because what are the efficacious alternatives?
01/14/2022 @ 3:30 am
AMEN!!!
01/14/2022 @ 3:33 am
And again, AMEN!!!
01/14/2022 @ 3:44 am
What did you expect? Moon dust?
01/14/2022 @ 9:27 am
How did she address you?
“Hi Sweetie”
It doesn’t matter to me because I’m not sending them money, formal or not.
01/14/2022 @ 5:36 pm
Too many of Harris’ senior staffers are in over their heads.
I fear that she is as well…
01/14/2022 @ 10:26 pm
I have discovered that the site will allow me to comment without being logged in and identifies me as “Anonymous” as a result…
The problem is I check the ‘keep me logged in’ box to no avail….
01/15/2022 @ 12:16 am
Yeah, well, I think that I threw a switch somewhere because I thought that it might increase comments if people could comment without having to join up or log in. As you can see, I am doing this myself right now.
Is it your opinion that I should track down that switch and switch it back the other way?
01/15/2022 @ 12:18 am
You don’t even have to submit a name and email address. Let’s just see what happens.
01/15/2022 @ 12:44 am
Make name etc optional…
Fix the ‘keep me logged in switch’.
01/17/2022 @ 7:50 pm
I like Kamala’s prosecutorial skills. but she’s shockingly crappy as a pol, much less our veep and very possibly next prez candidate. I guess the party’s hoping Biden will kick the bucket so she might step in and shine as prez. But i think the entire business is doubtful. She lacks -,what? Empathy? Excitement? Something.
01/18/2022 @ 1:36 am
Kamala was a mistake from the jump, a compromise candidate who is way out of her depth. She has absolutely no charisma, nor does she have the legislative skills that Biden was able to give Obama. Biden really was co-president during Obama tenure, handling the legislative end of the business. Now, as president, Biden is still handling the legislative agenda because Harris doesn’t appear to be able to do for Biden what Biden did for Obama.
Unfortunately, the Democrats really do not have a viable candidate for 2024. Cuomo is gone. Gavin Newsome is damaged goods. Sanders is too old. Warren doesn’t have any more charisma than Harris does. None of the other also-rans from 2020 can carry the water in 2024.
The Democrats would be well advised to look for a real outsider for 2024 but I have no idea where they could find someone smart enough to do the job and stupid enough to take it.
01/18/2022 @ 1:09 pm
“…a real outsider… …someone smart enough to do the job and stupid enough to take it.’
Alan, Michelle Obama comes to mind but she falls short of the criteria you articulate…
She’s much too intelligent and smart…
01/14/2022 @ 6:11 pm
The DNC mite bode well to approach the great poet Gary Snyder to compose solicitations. I don’t believe I got VP KH’s letter at issue. No doubt our ‘business not unusual’ requires more sustainability than that proverbial ‘harp from bandanna’.
Curious if the GOP evah paid for all those Rolling Stones songs blared backing up their disingenuous lying rallies.
My pedantic guess: VP KH easily can verbatim ‘Fly Like an Eagle’.
She’s the charismatic, innate honesty of Rep LC to boot! Root Root … Curious whyspellcheckers red lines Liz Cheney.☮
01/15/2022 @ 12:19 am
You know I only understand half of what you write and sometimes it worries me that I understand that half.
01/15/2022 @ 11:00 am
It occurs to me that if I manage to comment Anonymously everyone will think I’m you.
01/15/2022 @ 12:51 pm
And this is a bad thing?
01/15/2022 @ 3:53 pm
That depends on what I’d write, doesn’t it?
01/17/2022 @ 7:53 pm
Not when theres only a handful of posters and all of them are named Anonymous. Its kinda science fictiony and made for a Netflix series if some start disappearing.
Woot.
01/18/2022 @ 7:10 am
Alan, that comment about Harris being “out of her depth” is abysmal. And, can you name for me a single Vice President who had charisma? If it exists, I don’t think the job is designed to display such a characteristic. For that matter, can you name a charismatic President?
“Biden was co-President…”? Do you see a common theme here?
01/18/2022 @ 8:38 am
Vice Presidents with Charisma: Twelve Vice Presidents succeeded their presidents, which seems to be indicative of a degree of charisma. More specifically, vice presidents with Charisma include Thomas Jefferson, who had a hell of lot more charisma than John Adams did, Aaron Burr (the man positively dripped charisma), John C. Calhoun, Theodore Roosevelt, Hary Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Al Gore (the man who should have been president), and, arguably, George H. W. Bush.
As far as my comment about Kamala Harris being abysmal, I don’t even know what that means. What is abysmal about challenging her basic credentials for the job? I had never heard of her before the 2020 election cycle and I doubt that most non-Californians had either.
As far as I can see, her only qualification for the vice presidency was that she had thrown her hat in the ring during the 2020 primary process. She served just four years in the Senate but was busy running for president and vice president for the last 18 months of those four years. During her service in the Senate, she sponsored 132 bills according to Pro Publica but only TWO of those actually made it into law according to BillTrack50 although I don’t trust that source very much. What is clearly true is that Harris didn’t manage to get any landmark bills passed into law that I can remember…and that’s critical. If you can’t remember them without looking them up, they weren’t landmark legislation and landmark legislation is what makes a senator’s bones.
What is interesting about Harris’ legislative career is that most of the bills she sponsored had NO cosponsors unless they were adopted by ALL sitting Democrats.
That’s not my idea of a stellar congressional career.
In fairness, most freshman senators don’t even achieve that much since backbenchers usually don’t get anything passed during their first terms in office. That’s because they haven’t earned enough chits yet to get their bills passed.
So, I stand by my visceral impression. Harris just wasn’t very impressive as a senator, nor has she managed to establish herself as a force to be reckoned with as Biden did when he assumed the vice presidency.
01/18/2022 @ 12:25 pm
“Charisma” is a very small point, and hardly a qualification, but I will stick with it. “Twelve Vice Presidents succeeded their presidents, which seems to be indicative of a degree of charisma…”
Hardly. We have already moved from charisma to “seems to be indicative of…”. And Truman was not charismatic. Not by a long shot. Truman was an example of a President that I was going to use as a very solid President who was absolutely not charismatic. Also, Truman was thought to be, “in over his depth”, and a “compromise”…for party matters. Roosevelt (Teddy), and Lyndon Johnson most closely fit the characterization.
But, Truman is particularly interesting. The high school graduate haberdasher is not only acceptable but an example of desirable in comparison to Harris, a law school graduate, former attorney general, and US Senator? “In over her depth” is a particularly harsh, and in my view entirely incorrect assessment regarding Harris…and the haberdasher wasn’t? A degree in laws and experience in state office as the chief law enforcement officer, and then a term as a US Senator does not provide sufficient “depth”…how does haberdashery provide such sophistication? What could it possibly be?
Truman wasn’t a particularly good public speaker. He wasn’t even all that successful as a haberdasher. Which leads us to Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson was a bit of a hobbyist. He was an intelligent man, and a very good writer, but he was not successful as a planter. The land that he selected for Monticello was very poor land, and he lost money at his business. Jefferson was also considered to not be charismatic. He was a skilled politician, and a skilled courtier, but his judgment was highly questionable. Jefferson’s personal moral failings were also mammoth. He lost so much money at his business, planting, that he frequently had to sell off his most valuable assets, breaking up families, to balance his books. He also went deep into debt throwing lavish parties that he could not afford. He spoke of freedom as a principle and contemporaneously owned people. Call John Adams what you will, but he was opposed to owning humans.
As for whether or not Harris’s senate career was impressive, you have moved the goal posts. I would not have argued whether or not her career was “impressive”. An impressive Senate career is hardly a qualification. What I find abysmal is the notion that she “does not have legislative skills”. You have contributed a laundry list of lack and attributed it to Harris unfairly.
Seeing Black people in office in the United States causes a great deal of upset for some, but it is not because of what they lack. Barack Obama’s election caused a racist ripple that led to the worst president this country has ever seen. The founder of the Oath Keepers decided that Obama’s election was sufficient emergency to create his authoritarian sedition engine. Harris has the additional problem of being a woman. Talk about “seems to be indicative of…”
Hillary Clinton was the most qualified person to ever seek the office, but our absurd electoral college paved the way for absurdly belligerent, cretinous, dope to assume the office, even when the people selected the woman. That archaic institution that favors land over citizens ushered in a pathogen that may do the democracy in. The EC is an institution that presumes to protect the people from democracy, and in doing so may have killed it. The error in judgment is in ignoring or rejecting the wisdom of the many in favor of the preferences of a specific few. This sort of anti-crowd sourcing has its roots in feudalism. The Senate and the EC, an anti-democratic institution and an anti-democratic mechanism, have created the greatest problems that this country has, and they have their roots Revolutionary America, and medieval Europe.
If we are to have freedom and democracy in any way that resembles what Jefferson and his contemporaries wrote about, we have to start thinking of leadership qualifications in ways that are more specifically tailored to education and experience, and not merely membership in exclusive clubs, or haberdasher’s suits.
01/19/2022 @ 10:53 am
Hillary was the most qualified person ever to seek the office of president.
Seriously? In what alternative reality?
Hillary was more qualified than Washington, Lincoln, Grant, T. Roosevelt, FDR, Eisenhower, Truman, or Johnson? (Okay. Washington didn’t actually seek the presidency. It was hung around his neck like a noose.)
More qualified than the man who led the country to victory in the revolutionary war, or the one who saved the Union, or the one who brought the Civil War to an end, or the only president who single-handedly started a war and then won the Medal of Honor fighting in it, or the one who campaigned from a wheelchair, or the one who won the war in Europe, or the one who ran the domestic war effort, or the one who was acknowledged as the “Master of the Senate” and eventually got three of the most important laws ever enacted through Congress…because he was the master of the Senate, not because he was president?
(N.B. The War Production Board was headed by Douglas Nelson (1942-1944) and then Julius Krug (1944-1945.) The War Production Board was supervised by the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, also known as the Truman Committee because he headed it, which was charged with rooting out corruption in the domestic war effort.)
And you think that Hillary stacks up against these guys? What criteria are you using for “most qualified?”
On paper, some of these men should never have been president.
Washington won just two battles during the Revolution and his own officer corps tried several times to get him fired by the Continental Congress. Lincoln was a backwoods lawyer who served for eight undistinguished years in the Illinois State Legislature and one undistinguished term in the House of Representatives. Grant was a cashiered quartermaster captain who failed at every career he tried after he resigned his commission. Teddy Roosevelt never managed to put in more than two years on any job he ever had…until he became president. Franklin served one two-year term in the New York State Senate, one two-year term as governor of New York, and seven years as the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. (Which, by the way, was the exact same resume as Teddy’s, except that Teddy only lasted two years at the Navy.)
Eisenhower was a newly promoted Colonel when World War II broke out, on detached service to the Philippines Army under Douglas MacArthur. Truman was the hand-picked candidate of the Pendergast Machine and was considered a party hack and Johnson…Johnson was a hopeless neurotic goon who stole elections, a coward in his one combat mission, a racist, a warmonger, a womanizer, and a kleptomaniac.
But every one of these presidents was more qualified than Hilliary, who carpetbagged her way into a New York Senate seat, and served eight undistinguished years in that job. During those eight years, she got 16 bills passed into law, nine of which were “naming rights” bills that christened various post office branches in honor of some rather obscure individuals, in addition to a stretch of highway that was named for Tim Russert and a courthouse that was named for Thurgood Marshall. (I won’t bore you with the other laws she enacted. They were very boring.)
Hillary’s rather dubious legislative accomplishments pale next to her two biggest credentials, losing the presidential nomination in 2008 to a relatively unknown newcomer named Barack Obama and then repeatedly getting into hot water during her four years as his secretary of state, leaving that office at a dead run, and leaving behind a series of mistakes that would come back to haunt her when she ran for president in 2016.
I challenge you to remember (without looking them up) Clinton’s three most important legislative accomplishments. Now, try to do the same thing with Kamala Harris.
You can’t because there aren’t any.
Truman was out of his depth? Really? Truman was a truly heroic figure. An effective artillery commander in WW1 who fought his position so well that he brought the German advance to a standstill, the man who kept the entire war effort on track in the American manufacturing sector, and a “non-charismatic” candidate who pulled off the greatest election upset in American history, the man who finally fired MacArthur (who richly deserved it), integrated the military, beat the shit out of an assassin who was attempting to murder him and, arguably, ended the war in the Pacific by making the terrible decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nakasaki.
Charisma is proven by its effect, not how you personally react to a person.
I don’t give a fig about whether Clinton or Harris is a woman, or if Harris is a person of color. I don’t think that either of them was an effective senator. I don’t think that Clinton was a good secretary of state and I really don’t think that Harris is (to this point) an effective vice president.
But then opinions are like assholes. Everybody’s got one but some are more accurate than others.
Back at ya, buddy.
01/19/2022 @ 2:57 pm
Alan, you may make a list of the 44 (at the time Clinton ran against Rage Apricot) presidents. Say them forward and then backward. Hillary Clinton was more qualified than all of them. Let’s not waste time. Just ask, in what ways was she more qualified?
Clinton, by the time she ran, had been a Senator, and Secretary of State. She was a graduate of Yale Law. Her resume stood above every single dude you mentioned. That’s an easy one.
Now, don’t get yourself twisted in the statement “most qualified.” I’m not saying that she was my favorite of all time. She wasn’t. But, that is not the issue. She was the most qualified to ever seek the office. I would go through that list, or any other you would care to assemble and answer in specific detail about what they lacked, but that is not necessary. None of them were as accomplished in jobs that most directly related to the job in the discussion.
And while I am on it, I will address some other points that I just ignored because my previous answer was long enough. On the subject of charisma, GHW Bush was never charismatic. He was famously un-charismatic. I think he was a good president. He had many qualities that recommended him, but charisma isn’t one of them.
Al Gore…not charismatic. Al Gore was also famously not charismatic. I think a lot of Gore. I agree that he should have been President, but he was profoundly un-charismatic. And after thinking about it, Lyndon Johnson either does not fit the category, or was not charismatic. I have a great deal of affection for Johnson, and even more for what he accomplished, but what he accomplished was as President, not Vice President.So, in that sense he does not strictly fit the category. And if you do include him anyway, Johnson’s chief skill more more like intimidation than charisma. They are not the same things. He was absolutely effective. But, intimidation aided him when and where it could, and it failed him when it could not. Furthermore, if he were actually charismatic rather than intimidating, would he have retired without seeking his own second term? I can’t absolutely say, but I would guess that the charismatic type would have jumped at the challenge to make his case about his shrinking popularity rather than leaving the field to Robert Kennedy and others.
Regarding Truman, I did not say he was out of his depth. I said he was considered at the time to be out of his depth. Truman is one of my favorite presidents. The point I was making is, how the person appears while VP is often not how they are as President, or how they are as people while they are VP. The point of that is, Harris is being judged and underestimated as Truman was, before proving himself worthy. They key point is Harris has not had the chance to prove herself worthy as Truman eventually. Oh, and the fact that Truman was considered in over his depth is not my opinion. It was FDR’s opinion, and General Marshall’s opinion. If I am not mistaken, it was General Marshall who had to get Truman thru his orientation once FDR died, and the war continued. Look into that. I wasn’t born then. I just happen to have read the history. Not my opinion.
I’d be remiss if I did not mention one more thing about Harris. You said it was unlikely that she was known by anyone outside of California before she ran. How shall I say this? Wrong.
Harris was well known as she was working her way up, and before she became Attorney General. I can’t find her 60 Minutes interview, but here she is addressing the 2012 Democratic National Convention. Democrats knew who she was. Black people knew who she was and find her to have quite a bit of charisma. And although I can’t speak for women, I’d say it is a safe guess that Democratic women voters are tired of women, and Black women being considered to be, “in over her depth.”
Once upon a time, you defended Donald Trump’s intelligence. That dude is a stone cold moron. He’s a criminal in many ways, and he seems to be trying to overthrow a valid election. It may be entirely unrelated that you would say that Harris is “in over her depth”, and I could ignore it entirely. Next time, I probably will. And if you had said this about Whoopi Goldberg, or Lil’kim, I might be inclined to agree with you. Being Black does not mean that she is qualified. But, I don’t want to go to my grave not having given a rebuttal to a statement like Harris being in over her depth. I don’t think that can be supported. It reeks. I strenuously disagree, and a rational reading of history supports me.
01/19/2022 @ 3:44 pm
She was a carpetbagger. She was a celebrity senator, not a worker. She was a terrible secretary of state when compared to, say, George Marshall or Thomas Jefferson. If she had not been married to Bill we would never have heard of her. Of course, you might say if that if Bill had not married Hillary he might not have made it to the White House.
I stand by what I said. Donald Trump isn’t stupid. He’s an evil motherfucker, but he’s not stupid. He is, however, willfully ignorant, which is worse than stupid. You can’t help being stupid, but willful ignorance is evil personified. (He’s also an actor but I think the role has taken over the actor.)
When you refer to the opinions of others, as you did about Truman, you now own those opinions as if they were yours to begin with, so when you suggest that Truman was considered to be out of his depth, by reiterating the opinion you must now own it.
As far as women being out of their depth, whether I liked them or not, I could make you a list of women who I think defined their roles. Thatcher. Meyer. Gandhi spring to mind. Americans: Barbara Jordan, Shirley Chissolm, STACY ABRAMS….
I can’t speak to who knew from Kamala Harris and who didn’t. I didn’t and since I don’t think I am unique I expect that many other ofays didn’t know from her either.
And here’s an interesting question to ponder. If Roosevelt thought that Truman was out of his depth, then why did he pick him as his successor, since he knew he was dying when he did so? Was it a brain fart?
01/19/2022 @ 4:27 pm
That is a good question about choosing Truman. I don’t know. It has been asked quite a lot. I think the answers lie with FDR and the various party officials who helped him make the pick…in their graves.
FDR met with Truman once a week for lunch and barely knew him. By all accounts, he thought very little of Truman. Truman had to be informed about the hydrogen bomb after FDR died. He was kept out of everything. I can’t answer as to why, I just have read that that was how it was handled. Truman performed very well. Truman was up to the job. “Thought to be out of his depth” means perception, not reality.
Harris is “thought to be…”. Whether she is or not remains to be seen. I am comparing the perception (by some), of the current VP, and the perception of Truman before he became President. Apples to apples.
In a similar vein, qualifications are about resume and education. To be more clear, my definition of qualification is in a meritocratic context. I don’t want to characterize your definition of qualification, but it is different from mine. Neither way of looking at it is purely predictive of how one will function in the role, but I am quite clear about how the chips stack when one eliminates elements that don’t mean much. (Spell check wont let me type fuckall as one word, so I changed it to much).
What one accomplished in the way of legislation as a Senator doesn’t mean much when it comes to being President, in my view. I am tempted to say that it means nothing, but I am willing to concede that it means very, very, very, very, very little. Being Senator is not the preparation for being the executive that governor of a state is. And Presidents don’t pass legislation.
Lincoln is my favorite president. I think he was our greatest. He was far from the most qualified…relating specifically to credentials and experience that can be placed on a resume. On paper, he was not the best candidate. In office, he was our greatest, in my view. When thinking about qualifications, it may help to consider that as how I stack the concepts.
“Carpetbagger”. How specifically are we hoping to consider legislators who live in one state and moved to another? Lincoln did it. McConnell did it. Obama did it. Bernie Sanders did it. Robert Kennedy did it. George HW Bush did it. Does it really matter that a legislator moved from one state and ran in another? To that, I say hell no. There is no constitutional ban to the practice. Why would anyone give it the slightest consideration. I do not.
When I think of it, “carpetbagger” does not exclusively apply to politicians. It could apply to anyone who was born in one state and moved to another for financial or political opportunity. Do you, and have you always, lived in the state of your birth? Et tu…carpetbagger? “Carpetbagger” is a term created by a bunch of sour secessionists who got their asses whooped, and resented northerners for moving in and making money. I don’t think you should dignify such a term. And, again…Bernie Sanders is from Brooklyn, not Vermont.
I will concede your point about Trump and stupidity. I see stupidity as something slightly different…and you are right. Trump is ignorant. That is a far more accurate statement. The way I see it, Trump allows himself to be ignorant for nearly 80 years, and he is dishonest. The failure, or the choice to remain so ignorant as to refer to Prince Charles in writing as the “Prince of Whales”, while he was President of the United States, is so ignorant for a man of his age, that I see the distinction as being of zero importance. Somehow, in over 70 years, he never absorbed that one of the countries in Great Britain is Wales. I find that astonishing. It is not an obscure fact. Yes, I concede that this demonstrates ignorance and not stupidity, but it is so deeply ignorant that I don’t see a useful distinction in this case. And there must be something that I can’t name which has allowed him to remain so for so long…but you are right. It is not purely the ability to comprehend.
Let’s see…”celebrity senator”. What of it? She was well known, having been the First Lady. I presume that is what you mean by that. If you mean something else, I’ll consider that. But, as to qualifications, whether or not she was well known…a “celebrity” is not a knock against her qualifications, nor should it be. It is sadly ironic that you considered it a criticism of Harris that she was not a celebrity outside of California before she became a Senator. And it seems you want to take away that qualification from Clinton and condemn her with it. Do I need to say that is not fair…or can you see it without me saying it?
I’m glad you said that about Stacy Abrams. I thought about asking, but I was afraid to read your answer. I am relieved that I was wrong in that assumption regarding her. I also find Abrams impressive.
P.S. I had a suspicion and just looked this up. I listed several Senators who could be called carpet baggers, and noticed that I only listed Republicans and Democrats. (I know Sanders goes back and forth, and I basically consider him to be a Democrat.). I looked up Angus King. Is anyone really from Maine? Well, as it turns out, Senator King was born in Virginia. So…he’s a carpet bagger too. And although I know you are independent, and not {I}ndependent, that as close as I can get.
01/19/2022 @ 5:31 pm
You know, this has turned out to be very interesting grist for the mill. Scanning over it, I found something else.
“Charisma is proven by its effect, not how you personally react to a person.
I don’t give a fig about whether Clinton or Harris is a woman, or if Harris is a person of color.”
You said the above. I have at least two problems with that. First, charisma is not entirely measured by the effect. Charisma requires some characteristics of behavior. I was originally of your view. I went to see the film “Gandhi” with a couple of friends in my college dorm. I was spellbound by the 3 hour film, and referred to Gandhi as “charismatic” afterwards in a discussion. One of my friends was shocked and said, Gandhi was not charismatic. I was of the belief that it was determined by the effect. If that were the case, Gandhi could certainly be considered such. It isn’t, though. There have been people with great followings, and loyalty, but were not charismatic. Fred Rogers of “Mr Rogers” fame is one example.
The second problem is about charisma being determined by the effect, in light of the examples that you gave. Washington, Eisenhower, T Roosevelt, etc., managed to demonstrate however one might characterize them in ways that were not available to women, generally. Washington and Eisenhower were not particularly great students. Women were not allowed in combat. How exactly would a woman demonstrate charisma…or whatever, and be still appropriate (in your view) for the American Presidency? (I failed to mention earlier that Angela Merkel, also one of my favorites, is seriously brilliant, and about as charismatic as moss.)
To sum it up more succinctly, listing people who gained prominence as warriors, and blending in a preference for charisma by effect as a consideration, is to construct a set of qualifications that is disadvantageous to half of the population. It is a discriminatory mindset.
01/19/2022 @ 8:48 pm
“ When you refer to the opinions of others, as you did about Truman, you now own those opinions as if they were yours to begin with, so when you suggest that Truman was considered to be out of his depth, by reiterating the opinion you must now own it.”
This is not the first time I have quoted you. I certainly don’t agree or “own” that opinion. That is quoted to show how wrong it is, not my ownership. And like how Truman was underestimated as VP, saying that he was “thought to be in over his head” is not acquiring that opinion by pointing it out. It is saying that that was wrong in exactly the same way as the current view is wrong.
Quoting an opinion as a premise in a larger point means accepting the quote because the premise must be true for the argument to be true. Conversely, quoting a flawed premise to show a flawed conclusion does not mean endorsing the premise that you claim is flawed. Truman being underestimated was a flawed premise…at one time. Harris being underestimated is a flawed premise now.
01/20/2022 @ 12:24 am
“Charisma is proven by its effect, not how you personally react to a person”
Actually, I don’t think so. Charisma has zero to do with accomplishment and everything to do with effects on people personally. We might need a dictionary definition here.
Hillary might be the most qualified candidate we’ve ever had but I’d be tempted to say that about George H.W.Bush. He also had quite a resume.
01/20/2022 @ 1:05 pm
I would have at least checked a dictionary or two before deciding that Bitey’s position is incorrect.
01/20/2022 @ 2:48 pm
Art, what makes you think that I don’t own several dictionaries or that I don’t know how to use them?
The problem with consulting dictionaries for opinions about the implications of words is that the implications of a word are conditioned by the context in which the word is used. For some people, charisma is a BAD thing, and others think it is a good thing.
I think the goodness or badness of charisma has everything to do with the cause in which the charisma is employed. Hiter was an astonishingly effective charismatic. So was Ronald Reagan and, yes, Donald Trump. (If you don’t give the devil his due, you can never defeat the devil. You have to know who and what it is you’re fighting.)
Bitey, when you quote or allude to a statement made by someone else without clearly disavowing the import of the quotation, yes, you own import of that quote. Don’t expect others to infer what you only implied.
There were 44 references to charisma in this thread, before this comment was added and when I used the word, I was thoroughly aware of the dictionary definition: Charisma (according to the OED) is: a “compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others.” Eg: “she enchanted guests with her charisma.”
At no point did I suggest that charisma has anything to do with getting things done…but I did imply that it was difficult, if not impossible, to be an effective leader without charisma…but charisma must be identified and evaluated in terms of its effect on the consumer of the performance.
In addition to being, at one point, the wealthiest man in the Colonies, George Washington was also, at six feet two inches tall, one of the tallest men in his generation, when the average height was around 5’6″. (Granted Jefferson was 6’2.5 and Monroe was also a six-footer. Madison at 5’4″ was the shortest president and was often knocked for lacking charisma.
Height correlates with charisma because it creates an impression of importance since you have to look up at a taller person to make eye contact. People will usually step back from a taller person in order to establish and maintain eye contact, This opens up a naturally occurring space around such taller people that enhances the appearance of power. When smaller actors, like Tom Cruise, are filmed, in addition to wearing lifts and sometimes standing on milk crates, camera operators usually shoot them on a slight upward tangent to create the impression of height, and thereby helping their charisma along.
Charisma is connected to appearance, not ability, but charisma is also linked to effectiveness since the more charismatic speaker will often win the argument. (We tend to forget that Lincoln was only powerful on paper. His public speeches were marred by his high-pitched voice, which was why he actually “lost” the Lincoln Douglas debates.)
So, Kosher, you are dead up wrong when you say that charisma has nothing to do with accomplishment. Some people acquire charisma through accomplishment, adding the aura of their natural energy. Anything that makes other people want to be near you adds to your charisma.
I said that charisma is proven by its effect and that’s exactly what the OED says too.
If no one will listen to you because you have no charisma, you are unlikely to accomplish anything, which is why I am counting pennies in my old age.
01/20/2022 @ 4:30 pm
Charisma is a tool. It’s a nice tool to have but in terms of getting anything done it is a tool. Height may be somewhat correlated to charisma but that’s about it. Ross Perot was far more charismatic than George H. W. Bush and, just as a point of comparison, way more charismatic than Al Gore. And than Hillary Clinton But in the cases of Gore and Clinton, they are both introverts who are uncomfortable in crowded social situations and neither has learned to fake it. I’ve known some introverts who are great at faking it, my wife included. That was also Nixon’s problem. And, from what I know, quite possibly Madison’s.
01/20/2022 @ 4:31 pm
Trump is certainly charismatic.
01/20/2022 @ 4:45 pm
Alan, this puts me in an impossible position. You’re really wrong. And you are following being wrong with attitude, and more incorrectness. I just deleted a stiffer 500 word response, and will replace it with a milder, briefer one.
There is much written about charisma. The subject is covered regarding executives and CEOs of major corporations. Charismatic CEOs are the exception, and not the rule. Charisma is not all good, nor is it all bad, but it is by no means necessary.
“If no one will listen to you because you have no charisma…”. (Your quote.) The problem with it is, this relates to nothing being discussed. You’re trying to swim both ends of the pool at once. (By that I mean, you are trying to prove ‘a priori’ with posteriori knowledge.) You dislike Harris. That doesn’t mean “no one will listen to her.” (Your quote). Clearly she is listened to. She was more known than you realize. You did not know her. What you know, and what is known are two different categories of knowledge. Don’t conflate them.
Her mere presence on the ticket refutes your claim in the modern way that VPs are chosen as compared to when Truman was.
Look, if I had said, Truman was considered to be out of his depth, and meant that as my opinion, that would be a tit for tat response. That’s like saying, oh yeah, your mom is fat. Now, if you think that is my level, you have vastly underestimated me. That’s not my style, my inclination, and my ability to deliver facts…FACTS…to support my assertions goes way beyond making a statement like (opinions and assholes.) I don’t mean for that to hurt. I only point that out to say that what you perceive is your reflection rather than my style, history, intention, or ability.
You put a lot in that comment. Most of it is deeply flawed if not entirely wrong. Yes, height can correlate to charisma, but it is not determinative. There are tall people without it, and short people with an abundance of it. Danny DeVito is neither tall, nor attractive, but he is charismatic. Judy Garland…short and charismatic. Bruno Mars…charismatic. Napoleon…charismatic. Audie Murphy…war hero, Medal of Honor recipient, actor…and 5’4”. Height and charisma can not be linked as a rule or a principle. They can only get notice, but it must be carried off by the individual. Richie, Potsy, Ralph, and Fonzie…which character was charismatic? The shortest one, Fonzie. Which continues to have an acting career…albeit small…the shortest one. Sammy DavisJr was 5’5”. Bette Davis was 5’2”. Joan of Arc is estimated to have been 5’3”, and while that was not particularly short, it is not all that tall, especially since she wore a suit of armor and fought in battles with and against men. Height is not determinative.
01/20/2022 @ 7:36 pm
“…Truman was out of his depth? Really? Truman was a truly heroic figure. An effective artillery commander in WW1 who fought his position so well that he brought the German advance to a standstill, the man who kept the entire war effort on track in the American manufacturing sector, and a “non-charismatic” candidate who pulled off the greatest election upset in American history, the man who finally fired MacArthur (who richly deserved it), integrated the military, beat the shit out of an assassin who was attempting to murder him and, arguably, ended the war in the Pacific by making the terrible decision to bomb Hiroshima and Nagasaki.…”
The above is your statement. All of it happened when Truman was President, not Vice President. These are facts known by experience. After the fact. The context was what was thought about him a priori…before experience. One does not think he is out of his depth after he has proven that he isn’t.
Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer was…thought to be…out of his depth. THEN…Santa asked him to help him. He said, Rudolf, with your nose so bright, wont you guide my sleigh tonight. Then…THEN…all the reindeer loved him. And they shouted out with glee…etc.
See how that before versus after works now?
01/20/2022 @ 8:28 pm
Bitey,
I appreciate your contributions over the last day or so.
K/S made a shoot from the hip determination the other day that the reason I said I didn’t want to be here was because he took a “different side” than I did. It was so self-absorbed as to be laughable. That’s the nicest thing I can think of to say about it.
I was weary of the insufferably bigoted and demeaning replies that were presented to a number of my comments. Often they included a demand that I go back in time and find them as defense for my limited understanding and expression. I’m neither on trial nor in a class I will fail without improvement.
Your writing has always made me think. I keep up when I can, but recognize your intellect as something different than mine. However, you have never to my recollection ever demeaned my expressions.
Alan found himself in a twist about dictionaries and one’s ability to use them, aiming his answer at me.
I wasn’t even addressing him.
I was addressing K/S.
While I have lurked, it wasn’t my desire to comment again because it feels ridiculous to parry and thrust with people who cannot step back from themselves long enough to read and understand.
Maybe I’ll change my mind.
I just didn’t want to be somewhere that
01/20/2022 @ 10:39 pm
Art,
I have always been disappointed that you did not contribute more. Your intellect doesn’t need to defer to anyone’s here, and certainly not mine. I don’t see how mine should defer either.
With that said, there does seem to be an acrid smoke of cultural disrespect here. I have affection for everyone here, but I am shocked by some of the things I see written at times. I wonder why, while I try to gently shake them into some self reflection. Saying Harris “in over her depth” was freakin’ filthy. Saying that it was abysmal should have been enough. I have ignored at least as much as I have called out, only to stew on it and come back with…another thing. That has to stop. I’m sick of doing it, frankly. And I will…right after I add one more thing.
I had the term “ofay” used in a comment directed at me. I gotta tell ya, I found that so offensive as to…. Well, I saw it, and then skipped past it as if it burned my eyeballs. I wanted to pretend he had not actually said that. I think that was yesterday. It wasn’t until this evening that I began to ponder it. Does anyone know how offensive that is? Is the defense that it is a derogatory racial term for white people, so a white person saying it is ok…when said to a Black person? Is that the justification? I don’t know. That’s the closest thing I can think of as a possible justification for the filthy foul. Here’s the thing though. That won’t suffice. In a conversation that later included a goofy explanation about inferences that I expected, and a subtle warning about being dismissive about Black women..what the hell is this inclusion of “ofay”? Does he imagine that Black men sit around saying this about white people? Foul. Low. I thought he was a better man than that. I was a bit taken about by the opinions are like assholes comment. That sounds about clever in 4th grade, and a bit childish for 5th. “Ofay” is light years from that.
I’m sick of waiting for regular Americans to show basic decency. This past couple of years has been exhausting. 52 Senators can’t even support voting rights. “Ofay”? Are you fucking kidding me?
I have a great deal of respect and affection for K/S. Admittedly, he has stunned me at times. I spent the last 6 months away from here, not planning to be back. I thought it had closed, and I was not going to look to see if it had. Quite accidentally, I received an email. It was then that I discovered that inane takedown of the VP.
I think everyone here is a fine person individually. I hope I am not wrong there. I also see that no one is holding anyone else to standards of decency. This comment thread, and the justifications for the many unsupportable statements are just ridiculous. That statement about owning a quote is beyond bizarre. The racial slur…bizarre. But, what I discovered in the past 6 months is that I had this society/country all wrong. I was wrong all of my life, and that is kind of hard to take. I do expect a little more decency, and it is just lacking. People are out for what power they can wield, and ethical statements and conduct are rarely a consideration. What does a white man think when he utters a racial slur to a Black man, NO MATTER WHOM it is meant to describe? What could they possibly be thinking? What saddens me is, it is nowhere near what the Black man is thinking.
Oh, and my wife had never heard the term “ofay”. We are the same age. I read it to her thinking that she had, and then had to explain it to her, and who had said it. So…thanks for that…epithet person.
01/21/2022 @ 1:13 am
I don’t know if you were wrong all your life or if people have changed. Politics certainly has. The Republicans of 1980 or 1985 would be utterly horrified by the Republican Party now. They were driven by factors in addition to an overwhelming emphasis on us vs. them. I was aware of a close friendship between Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch. That wouldn’t happen now. Hatch would be considered a traitor for having that kind of relationship even though it was a real help to governance. That’s a Newt Gingrich innovation, the replacement of civil governance with partisan enmity, the idea that it is far more important to win than to govern. We’ve just watched that principle reach its logical conclusions, first with McConnell and then with Trump. What’s socially acceptable? Those guys all changed that in their own ways. McConnell first really showed it when Obama was elected and when he declared that Job One was to make sure Obama didn’t get a second term – before he had a clue how Obama would govern. As it stands, Obama governed with astonishing conciliation, all of which was thrown in his face.
What were you wrong about? I have at least one guess. My guess is not that you found people hated you as a Black man but that they really didn’t give a shit about you and you assumed that as their neighbor you were worth more than that. It’s a horrifying thing to learn. You learned that when the Gestapo comes that people who socialize with you lightly aren’t willing to hide you in their attic on principle because their principles aren’t strong enough for that. They’ll vote for Hitler and say, truthfully, that their vote is not about you. The problem is oddly analogous to the cheating husband (or wife) who says to their spouse: She means nothing to me. But of course that’s not the point. The point isn’t what the mistress means, it’s what the wife doesn’t mean at that moment, that the husband’s pleasure is worth more to him than the prevention of profound pain to the woman he ostensibly loves and should be protecting. And it’s scary to find out what you don’t mean because out of common decency your neighbors meant that much to you. But part of common decency is the obligation to think and to question: Is this feasible? If you think this out could it possibly make sense? But that obligation, that responsibility, that responsibility in the cause of both decency and citizenship has been abandoned by millions and millions and it’s scary as Hell to watch and also deeply, deeply disappointing. Myths become “facts” and as long as they’re comfortable and self-serving they stay facts. It’s a weird, frightening laziness that both you and I find unrelatable. We can’t get there from here. We can’t physically shut our brains off enough to get there. We can’t lie to ourselves like that, even if we want to we can’t. We can’t stop drawing logical conclusions from what we see. it’s too profound a failure of both honesty and compassion. It would make us hate ourselves or, perhaps worse, it would make us not respect ourselves. But that’s what we see now. For you it’s probably worse than for me because you’ve devoted more to your country than I have. You were a Marine and a police officer. You put your life on the line for people who can’t be bothered to think a little. What kind of commitment to their country is that? What kind of commitment to their own integrity is that?
My guess is that this is a longer conversation and also I might be barking entirely up the wrong tree.
I was always bugged by the reaction to Rev. Wright, the pastor of the Obamas who said in a sermon “God damn America.” People asked: How could the Obamas follow a guy like that? Here’s what they didn’t ask: What could bring a former Marine to an attitude like that? What the Hell did he experience that turned him from a guy putting his life on the line for his country to a guy vilifying his country in sermons? What his change tells us is that something is wrong. Why aren’t people asking what? Because they’re not comfortable knowing? Because looking out for their country isn’t worth that?
I don’t know. It’s scary, partially because of the abandonment of basic responsibility and partially because of an education system that has gotten bad enough that questioning isn’t automatic.
01/21/2022 @ 10:16 am
Bitey,
I was too focused yesterday on my toes having been stepped on to comment myself on the term “ofay”.
Seeing it in print where half a dozen intelligent people seek each other’s contributions was disarming. My first visceral reaction was that it was the stuff of white guys who want to appear to be hip. “Hip” as opposed to enlightened, it seemed to be clumsily carved from a cracked marble boulder and then presented as artful. In the ’70’s very un-hip men would affect what they believed was the rhythm and cadence of what their impression of the way black people speak. They peppered their conversation with such terms, smoked Kool cigarettes, wore fedoras with brass headbands and made a little “snick-snick” noise in lieu of laughter. Complete failures. On these pages it seemed to be an attempt to appear above the fray but failed miserably.
01/21/2022 @ 11:40 am
You read into things too much. I will soon be publishing a series of articles that will really make your head spin if you are married to orthodox political correctness.
Let me tell you a story. A true story, although the dialogue is approximated from a dimly remembered converation.
Back in the day, when I was a young man, I became the director of development for a network of social service agencies. I was the only white man in the organization for years at a time. (Karen Pressman, another Jew from West Virginia, was the only white female.)
The organization was founded and was led by a member of the Nation of Islam, Nathaniel Hakim Askia. Our administrative headquarters was in what used to be the hebrew school of the synagogue that used to be across the street and was now the Nation of Islam’s Mosque #11. (I believe I may have told this story before somewhere or other.)
So, there I was, a white Jewish boy surrounded by murderers, thieves, pimps, pushers, prostitutes and pimps….and they were the staff, all of whom had graduated from the client population.
One day, during lunch, one of my colleagues called out to me from the other end of our table. He said, “Hey, Nigga, pass the salt.”
He said it as a joke. He had a salt shaker right in front of him.
A few days later, I asked him to do something for me and when he tried to decline, I said, “Come on, nigga. I thought we were friends.”
He got very cold.
He said, “We are friends, and that’s why I’m not going to beat the shit out of you.”
I said, “But you called me a nigga.”
He replied, “Well, you’re obviously not a Negro, so it was clear that I was speaking in jest. However, when I call you a nigga, that’s a mark of respect. We like you. You’re an important part of this community. We know you have our back and you know we have yours.”
I said, “So, when you call me a nigga, that’s a mark of respect but when I call you nigga, it’s an insult?”
“That’s the way it is. Because I am a nigga and you’re not, I can call you a nigga but because I’m a black man and you’re not, you can’t call me a nigga.”
He paused.
“Right here, right now, we would let you get away with it but, as big as you are, outside in the world if you made the mistake of calling a black man a nigga, it could get you killed…so don’t do it, even in jest.”
Martin’s gone now, like virtually all of the men and women I worked with during that period of my life. He fell off the wagon, robbed a bank, got sent away and died shortly after he got out again from diabetes and asthma.
The moral of the story is that I will use ofay if I feel like it, and I won’t if I don’t.
01/21/2022 @ 11:58 am
That was already apparent.
Have you quit smoking Kool cigarettes?
01/21/2022 @ 6:02 pm
That’s right. Every drop. It is a failed attempt at humor. The thing of it is, the situation did not call for that sort of humor. Bad form. And the “political correctness” bit as a defense makes it even worse. I don’t even particularly like political correctness. This is reason number two that I told a professor once that PC was a bad idea. The first reason is that you wont be able to tell as easily who the shitheads are. The second reason is that the shitheads can use it like that as a way to deflect. I never cite it as a principle, just like I don’t use “woke.” Progressives abandoned “woke” as soon as the undercover bigots found out what it meant, and started using it in exactly the same way. Now, when you hear anyone use those terms in such a way, you know who you’re talking to.
Now, within the discussion of the first Black Vice President of the US, if you seek to develop or expand understanding and acceptance with tactics like those, you’re making a huge error. Read the room, comedian. The subject of the woman’s “depth”, given how it is being addressed, and the specific issue with it, racial humor, or even ex-con bonafides is not an appropriate lesson.
Picture going to lecture a room full of rape victims and telling the joke about, “how about we get a pizza and fuck. When she looks shocked you add, what, you don’t like pizza?
I’m not saying not to use off-color language ever, but just read the room/circumstances. It takes a good comedian to take risks in touchy situations. And some situations exceed any comedian’s ability. If you say the first Black VP is in over her depth, you need to wait about 7 or 8 years before you use any racial epithet, or humor. And when you do, you should be in a room all alone.
01/21/2022 @ 6:28 am
What I was wrong about is far bigger than race. It certainly is far bigger than me. What I was wrong about is the main thrust of human endeavor. I thought humans/people were basically good. They aren’t. They are basically hungry, horny, avaricious…rinse and repeat. Expecting more from people generally is foolish. I read yesterday that January 20th was the 80th anniversary of the “Final Solution”…decided at the Wannsee Conference. I learned that it took only 90 minutes to work out a plan as to how this evil plan was to be accomplished. The story of this comes from one of 30 copies that survived, found by a US soldier.
It is hard to characterize what this new view of humanity is, but it is just from the removal of a general belief that people will generally do the right thing. People are actually more like what I would have described as reptilian. In our country, people invest a lot of energy and fabric in saluting and singing to a flag the size of a football field, and making a federal case if someone does not stand, but just a few years later we are looking at what they are calling the possible fall of democracy. Women are getting into fist fights over masks in fast food restaurants, as if this is a freedom issue, but their stewardship of actual freedom is nowhere to be seen.
I’m old enough now to see the absurdity of the new wave of consulting in big business. Companies like Deloitte are sending emails advising “on-shoring”. They are telling corporations and financial institutions that it is advantageous to build factories in this country, closer to the market that they intend to sell to. Genius! I’m now old enough to have watched the idiocy of “outsourcing”, and those who believed that it would inspire “insourcing”, only to see the collapse of our productive capacity. I have watched our society and others around the world reject basic public health strategies, basic economic strategies, the abandonment of general diplomatic strategies which brought us out of world war, and maintained our imperfect world, such that it was. I thought that the world was more like the adults in my life when I was a child. It isn’t. It is a world full of Josef Stalins and Imelda Marcoses.
I grew up believing that no one was above the law in the US. I thought historical events like Watergate demonstrated that, even though Nixon did avoid criminal prosecution. He did ultimately resign because of a general respect for law all along the spectrum. That view has died. It is gone. It would be ridiculously naive to say that no one is above the law. A goofy criminal bastard like Donald Trump can run the GOP like a criminal organization, and watching the attempts to hold him accountable show the limitations of our system. It was never designed to hold certain people accountable. It was all a lie. This isn’t about racism. It is much deeper than that. This society is coming apart.
01/21/2022 @ 10:51 am
Community standards change.
I don’t know if it’s a question of human nature or not because I don’t think human nature is that consistent. It depends on time, place, circumstances, education, and community standards. The thing about democracy is that it only works if the participants are committed to the model. It also depends on who has control of what resources when. One thing that’s happened is that due to a number of factors wealth distribution has put immense power into the hands of people who face very few consequences for increasing their power and wealth at public expense. And so we’ve reached the point where the little video of three guys sitting next to each other with the rich guy stealing cookies from the middle guy and blaming it on the poor guy has become how we work.
Some of what you think you’re wrong about you may have been more right about at the time. What we look like now is not what we’ve always looked like. And some of what things look like are cyclical, dependent on anything from which kind of generation is in charge of what to what inflation cycles look like. I’m slowly reading a book called The Great Wave that Rob Wittmann sent me and I’m learning that economics like we’re seeing now happened among other times in the Middle Ages in Europe, that a lot of the same mechanisms were in place producing similar results. I”m not far enough in to really understand what drives it all but I suspect that understanding what drives it all increases the probability that some of these factors can be addressed if the right people care to address them.
Right now we’re watching an American horror story. It helps to remember that Hitler got elected. I don’t think we’re looking at Naziism here per se, I don’t expect to see death camps, but we’re looking at an undermining of democracy that is that ruthless. We’re looking at a population gaining power that really, really doesn’t care what the majority of the public wants. Like Hitler, they’re using democracy to undermine democracy. Fifty-two Senators just voted against voting rights. They got into office because of voting rights. Democracy isn’t being respected as a system but as a series of loopholes. And, like Hitler, they’re doing everything they can to undermine trust in actual news. Their messaging trumps sense. I’ve been involved in argument during the last twelve hours on LinkedIn concerning masks and vaccinations and I’m hearing the most naive ridiculous shit. “My wearing a mask protects me, it doesn’t protect you.” “People who get vaccinated get COVID and people who don’t get vaccinated get COVID.” Just how badly informed to you have to be and how badly do you have to abandon critical thinking to reach this point?
Maybe it is generational. That’s actually a real possibility. I don’t know. It’s not all politics. One of my more depressing realizations here on line is how little community standards have mattered in our own online communities, and those communities have been mostly liberal and educated. In the amount of time I’ve been online I’ve only seen a group of people in a thread almost universally react to bigotry expressed there once. I don’t remember the woman’s name. She was Asian or half Asian and she wrote erotic fiction and some guy on the thread made a crack calling her a dog eater. She was so shocked she didn’t react but everyone else there at the time jumped down the guy’s throat. I watched this and I thought “this is how it’s supposed to work.” But it doesn’t. It just doesn’t. Even in a format where many are anonymous and we’re physically safe from each other people either don’t have the guts or the conscience to stand up. Why not? Your being targeted was the most obvious, consistent, and severe example of that but you’re not alone. When I hit antisemitism or when Amy hit homophobia most reactions were just missing. I reacted when I saw it and I was often alone, which didn’t make me a saint but made everyone else shit. Where’s the baseline? And what can we expect from the rest of the country if we don’t react in our own community? I”m not talking about PC here, I’m just talking about the basic idea that you blame someone for what they do but not for who or what they are. It’s why I will never talk about tiny hands.
01/21/2022 @ 1:45 pm
Hey, Art. Do me a favor. Try not to use sarcasm in these discourses and please don’t bother to tell me that wasn’t sarcasm.
01/21/2022 @ 3:17 pm
After a number of your statements, I’m rather surprised at your admonition.
Your treehouse, your ladder.
01/21/2022 @ 5:14 pm
People who say, “you read into things too much”, or you think too much…or anything similar need to taken apart cell by cell, and then sub cellular particle by particle, have the cytoplasm suctioned out and diverted to the center of the largest, hottest, and farthest away star, the cell walls 180º in the opposite direction to the nearest black hole and deposited there. There must be something good to do with the material, but I have never seen good from it here on Earth.
Nothing personal. Don’t read too much into that.
01/21/2022 @ 5:34 pm
Didn’t you once work as a person helping former convicts or something? It’s good work. It needs to be done. I think, somehow by your environment and surroundings, you have come away with a profoundly low view of Black people. I get it, but I don’t think you do. The ones who say things like “nigga” are of that circumstance. You may have established notions that you are not even aware of. I don’t know why you are where you are mentally on this, but I’ll tell you something. Thinking is not a vice, or an illness. Thinking is one’s way out of the hell that people drunk on racial privilege present. It can’t be done with guns and bayonets. We’re surrounded. We have a special path to tread. We can’t be drunk on stupid. My dad knew it. He walked it. He was quite successful at it. I had a dad who approved of my thinking. Don’t try to replace him. You’re out of your depth there.
It’s funny, I read your first paragraph to my wife. She threw her head back in laughter. You didn’t know, but she knew, that you might as well have slapped me in my face. It’s also funny that you say something like that after saying, the people/assholes/opinions bit. If you think about it, they mean almost the opposite. But…there’s that thinking again. You see, Alan, thinking is good. Everyone should do it. They are entitled to their results offered as opinions, but they should certainly do it. And when you come to conclusions that contradict themselves, and you try to direct someone else doing it clearly, you should stop and do it some more. I’ll give you one little example of thinking too little. In the little thought experiment re: qualifications, you chortled heartily about the notion that Clinton could be considered most qualified before the fact. In your morass of being more of an ass, you included Lincoln saying something like he never should have gotten anywhere near the presidency…given his qualifications. Alan, that supported my point, not yours. You are applying the accelerator, and the brake at the same time, you’re in the back seat, and you’re trying to steer with an ashtray. Practically everything you said could have used a little thought.
01/21/2022 @ 6:25 pm
I was finally able to read through that entire tragic comment without throwing up. That is not the moral of the story.
Alan, those were not Kamala Harris’s circumstances, and they are not mine. Most Black people do not communicate like that. Sadly, television has told a couple of generations of Americans that such equivalencies can be made. They can’t. I don’t even do it.
Terms like you used so poorly is not about respect in the way that you imagine it. And the people using it for you were not offering it to you. And I do not doubt that they were your friends. They were just striking back with a micro aggression in a world that still contained it, using a bit of the familiar among them, and setting you as an outsider. Telling you that it is a term of respect is just letting you down easy. It is not true, and it certainly does not apply to all situations. Trying to use it is just the blindness from privilege.
Further, we were not discussing the term “nigga”. We were discussing “ofay.” The two are only superficially analogous. You should not try to flip it for a point in your defense for many reasons. “Ofay” doesn’t refer to an oppressed class, and you are not being oppressed no matter how many times someone tries to use it. It is a false equivalency. AND AGAIN…it should be miles from a discussion of the first Black VP of the United States. I get that you don’t get it. Believe me, I do. But, out of respect for Black people, don’t use derogatory terms for Asians. Out of respect for Jews, don’t use derogatory terms for Methodists. Out of respect for Iranians, don’t use derogatory terms for Astronauts…etc. That is most especially so during a grown up discussion of respect. You have received a dividend of easy path in America by being a white man. Enjoy it. But, don’t say that Black woman is in over her head in the same lifetime that you whitely defend Donald Trump as anything of value.
Oh, by the way, if you remember your really, really poor discussion of implications and inferences, you tried to hang that process on me. Well, your use of “ofay” insinuated into that conversation was an imagined epithet coming from me to you. You were referring to yourself that way, and I was the only other person. AS SUCH, that implication is about me. And I am telling you now, it is insulting. You think too little.
01/21/2022 @ 6:37 pm
Damn. I wanted to leave this alone, but I forgot this, and this is huge, albeit clearly unintended on your part. But, it makes the point that you should think a little more. Maybe a lot more. You wrote the following two paragraphs with NO segue between them. Dig this.
“The organization was founded and was led by a member of the Nation of Islam, Nathaniel Hakim Askia. Our administrative headquarters was in what used to be the hebrew school of the synagogue that used to be across the street and was now the Nation of Islam’s Mosque #11. (I believe I may have told this story before somewhere or other.)
So, there I was, a white Jewish boy surrounded by murderers, thieves, pimps, pushers, prostitutes and pimps….and they were the staff, all of whom had graduated from the client population.”
You need a paragraph between those two. Can you see it? Leaving out entirely that you used “pimps” twice, you essentially equated what you said in the first paragraph I quoted to the list of criminals you made in the second paragraph. Holy shit, man. Think.
01/21/2022 @ 6:48 pm
Bitey,
Touche’.
Glossing over the offensiveness of using “ofay” in a conversation that includes two black men, as an imagined hip nod to the sometimes offensiveness of PC language, then taking it further to a schoolyard “I’ll say it if I wanna” seems to pale in comparison to sarcasm.
My grandma, my mom and my wife have all told me at one time or another to back away from sarcasm.
Maybe this is the upbraiding that will sink in.
01/21/2022 @ 7:10 pm
Know everything Google, I thought my process 8-tracking to patience, revenge discarded as an unholy whine, bitter no doubt with man’s inhumanity to man, wanting to point out that Carl Jung and Erica Jong’s surnames differ only by O-U, and hey what would either genius go-figure regarding Premier Putin’s current machinations? Ukraine’s population: 44.13 million! It’s no surprise that our triumvirate of super nations winds up with these high risk 3 card monte blunt threats … for the love of God such grandiose military madness requires vital wealth and sweat equity and finite resource. Energy that ought be devoted to these challenges of dark despair and macho vs macho hysteric kung foo chicanery and one upmanship whilst the third world is inspected solely for commodities. My goodness what the hell is it costing in fuel alone to keep threatening Ukraine? Great that we have free speech and leaders like President Biden and Vice President Harris. Bitey you are an invigorating writer. My wish is that you don’t succumb to this most recent still water of nihilism. Maybe drop the nom de plum, relocate to Churchill Downs, KY. Run for the U.S. Senate,
01/22/2022 @ 9:56 pm
JP,
You want to understand Ukraine? This is all about Ukraine considering NATO and NATO considering Ukraine. And it’s about the US completely blowing diplomacy with Russia ever since the Soviet Union fell.
When the Soviet Union fell, the most important thing to understand was that Russia stopped exporting a revolution. That meant the biggest threat coming from Russia was eliminated because they had no ideological reason to be aggressive. The second most important thing was that in giving up the Soviet Republics Russia became a much more minor country than they were during the Cold War, even though they were still a major military power, particularly from a nuclear standpoint. The US had no reason to continue the Cold War but we basically did it anyway. Instead of helping Russia with their economy and democratic institutions, we took advantage of their weakness and bought out Russian assets, in essence taking advantage of them. We should have brought them into the fold rather than treating them like an enemy, even though they’d stopped threatening us. And when a country gets more minor, it is very important to avoid attacking their pride, because doing so makes them wish for the good old Soviet days when they were a big deal. Remember that Putin is a Soviet, high up in the KGB. That’s what he represents to Russians.
So what specifically is the problem with Ukraine? When it comes to Russia and NATO, Ukraine is a buffer. Putting military assets into Ukraine constitutes a partial encirclement of Russia. Do you know what happened last time Russia ended up with a military disadvantage on the ground? They lost twenty million people, a whole lot of those murdered and starved to death, courtesy of the Nazis. They lost more people than any nation ever had. In this respect they’re a lot like the Israelis: they take existential threats very, very seriously because they’ve lived through a huge one (and partially died through that one). When the Russians say that Ukraine will never join NATO they are dead serious. They will go to war over that because they do not see themselves as having a choice.
The US is in a very different position. Not only are we more powerful, we are way more insulated. In order to attack us, you’ve got to cross an ocean or come down through an ally (or up through one). We don’t worry about our borders. There’s nothing hostile within a thousand miles except in Alaska and we hardly have any people in Alaska. Russia has potential hostiles everywhere, like former Soviet states. It probably didn’t help that within the past year China told the Russians that Vladivostok really belonged to China (it used to over a century ago).
There is no negotiating with Russia over this. Their position is way more firm than ours is. Turning up the heat won’t do any good because to them it’s a question of survival. We may not see it that way but they absolutely do. The US is again going to utterly blow relations with post-Soviet Russia.
Also understand Crimea. Crimea is traditionally Russian and populated with Russians. The Soviets gave it to Ukraine (when Ukraine was a Soviet Republic) to administrate for geographic reasons. Because Ukraine was internal to the Soviet Union, there was no reason to look at that as Russians giving Crimea to Ukrainians. Ukrainian independence changed things. The Crimea is both strategic and Russian. It is not really Ukrainian.
I didn’t like what Trump allowed the Russians to do to American governance but I thought he was right about strengthening ties with Russia. That was the right move. With Trump the reasons were often wrong and the execution was often way wrong but he had the right idea here and he had the right idea as to who the real threat to the US is and it isn’t Russia.
I don’t think NATO or the US in particular get the mindset of the people they’re dealing with. It’s amazing there aren’t people at State screaming their heads off that this is all wrong. It’s amazing there haven’t been since the Soviet Union fell. Foggy Bottom has really blown this one for years.
01/23/2022 @ 1:46 am
An old corporate bard once told me it’s about intellectual stamina. Nowadays, it’s been said that the kids’ obsession with AI gamesmanship is a bellwether for the ‘death’ of form–rather a paradigm ‘alteration’ from what the old folks have readily defined as literature. Indeed, if information doubles every 18 months, TNBT might be thought. Some of my predigital (fascinating, predigital spud to predictable) involved a flash fiction chess match by snail mail wherein of course the paradox winds up with a crux / dilemma as the player likely to ‘win’ vanishes. Legend has it Bucky Fuller went silent for a year and then one fine golden morning a soap bubble inspired our geodesic dome (pause applause). Your piece yesterday IMHO ranks as highly as Cheever’s SS of two men in a bunker strapped with 45s. Sorry to be expeditious. My Sharper Image ionic air cleaner gave up the ghost and it’s about time, baby’s hungry. Also, please check out Hugh Laurie’s award winning ‘House’ finale 21MAY12. (Pleasure of the puzzle. Kind of a make believe Joan of Arc) … Eons prior to our kitchen table ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ And who’s it? Ivan Turgenev’s
oxygen aphorism. Learned earlier: there’s an Oracle, AZ. And even yesterday morning unmanned aircraft are as translucent as tiny bubbles. Nothing like a Sunday👍
01/21/2022 @ 7:22 pm
Thanks, Mr Hart. I wouldn’t live in Kentucky, even if the mansion came with indoor plumbing. As it is, I may move away from Ohio. We love where we live, and we love working on this old house, but we are seriously looking into moving to Vermont. Traveling there this past Summer was delightful, and the Union is so much better than the Confederacy. Sadly, Ohio is becoming part of the Confederacy. And on a more serious point, if this country does descend into civil war, I’m guessing that New England is the safest place. I’d like to buy a maple syrup farm and tap trees in the late winter, and make my own label. We’ll see how it goes.
01/21/2022 @ 7:37 pm
“Stop sending me – or anyone else – emails that are designed to suggest that there is some familiarity between us. This informal form of address actually antagonizes your target population who know very well that you don’t really give a shit about us as individuals…because you are incapable of doing so.
So just stop doing that.
You are alienating the very people you need to mobilize. The familiar form of address never works when you are trying to raise funds…or consciousness.”
I get it. This was all performance art. It was irony. You just lectured Kamala Harris about, emails using “informal address”, and antagonizing your target, etc. Then in the comment thread you are addressed about a similar thing, only your “informal address” involves truly vulgar terms, instead of merely friendly ones.
Everything is illuminated! You were joking. NOW…I get it.
01/22/2022 @ 9:13 pm
jpHart, I have given a lot of thought to this. Rest assured, there is no chance of me becoming a nihilist. The disappointment I cited involves my disappointment at the discovery that most people are nihilistic, or at least, far more people than I had originally thought.
01/23/2022 @ 11:16 am
Right now on MSNBC is a story analyzing whether or not VP Harris has been treated fairly. They question whether or not misogyny and racism are at play. (So far, thankfully, no one has injected “ofay” into the conversation). They did raise an interesting point, however. I wasn’t aware of this fact, and saw no mention of it in this takedown of her friendly style of greeting people in emails. The fact related is, Harris is the first VP in US history with a dedicated press corps. I had no idea. You think that might have a little to do with how her scrutiny is playing out?
And, another thing. This administration didn’t have a normal transition, due to our genius former sexual assaulting, tax dodging, malapropism creating, random capitalizing, make-up wearing, under scrutinized white man. You think that might have hurt the function of her staff, you know, the direct destructive actions by the man still trying to subvert our electoral system?
04/26/2023 @ 12:33 pm
It rained a good while until I thought of you.