Methinks that Obama outmaneuvered and outflanked the republicants and their teapartymadhatters. Reassessing the last few months, I think that Obama’s calmness and strategy have once again outsmarted the party of ‘No’.
I’m starting to believe that the administration clearly planned a campaign based on the negative knee-jerk mentality of the madhatters. He orchestrated the whole thing, creating doubt, building the oppositions negativity, his procrastination, the ‘waffling’ democrats… everything. He got the republicants committed to a trap. They fell for it and are gonna get burnt in November. Woohoo!
It’s like Muhammed Ali’s ‘Rope-a-doping’ George Foreman in Zaire. The republicants are standing before the mirror trying to scrub ‘DOPE’ from their foreheads.
They stand in disarray, doubts clouding both their past and their future. Having bedded the teapartyers, the GOP is locked in a death embrace with the group of angry, toxic, maniacal, frothingly rabid, openly bigoted, abusive, extremely violent lunatics threatening armed insurrection, death and destruction to anyone not falling for their brand of fanaticism. That is not the American way.
The republicants couldn’t control the crazies, now they can’t denounce them. They have now taken on their persona. Look for many elected republicants to be frantically distancing themselves from the teaparty. There will be an internal massacre soon enough. If not now, then in November.
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My blog on the census has gotten me involved in several discussions. I’m not against the census as I have been accused. I intend to fill out the forms. My problem is the section with regards to race.
I remind people that the census is an official government document. You can take that to mean what you want, but I believe as such it out to represent accuracy, and ought not to be entrenching an odious discriminatory system by the encouragement of racial labeling. Worse still, when the labeling is so flawed.
Race historically meant specific things. Even if we disagree we have to start somewhere and early anthropological definitions isn’t such a bad place. In that sense, the main races are specific, African/negroid, Caucasian, Asian, Mongolian and Australoid (referring to the aboriginal people of Australia). Obviously these are broad brush strokes and have been subject to change over time, but only so after careful, intelligent study. White is not a race, nor for that matter is black.
I accept that there are reasons where such designations are useful… for example, to show demographics when creating or soliciting a business. But overall, I not convinced that is necessary, especially in the light of how the census handles it. And I refuse to be signatory party to something that is self-demeaning.
Think for a bit. #5 states that “For this survey, Hispanic origins are not races”. Ok, cool. But if Colombian and Venezuelan are not races then why are Korean and Samoan? Clearly they are all nationalities.
In the Asian section, there are many ‘racial’ choices with even the ability to add more… eg, Tongan, Fijian, Hmong etc. You even a choice to make something up, yet there is no such diversity with whites. Whites are just whites… or are they?
Doesn’t the American government want to know how many white Canadians are resident in the country as are Thais? Irish as Cambodians? English as Laotians? What about Russians?
Here is another thing. Many nationalities would from their cultural perspective, correctly select White. Pakistanis and Indians for example.
My editor pointed out to me that in the Dominican Republic, if a citizen can trace even the minutest amount of white ancestry (blood) in them, they consider themselves white. That is bound to skew the census. Just imagine when a very dark-skinned Dominician tells a very white census taker that he is white. I wonder what would eventually be submitted?
Curiously, there is no reference to the middle east in the survey. So we are not interested in counting the numbers of people from the region where most of the world’s ‘terrorists’ come from?
The issue perplexed me to do some more digging (yes, I have too much time on my hands, but I do it so you don’t have to). My search turned up a census document claiming that according to federal regulations (google- federal regulations on race), there are 5 race categories. I doubt if this leap into anthropology American style is shared by many reputable scientists.
These racial categories are American Indian (not native American) and Alaskan native (wonder if someone born in Alaska isn’t a native), *Black or African American, *Asian(representing most of Asia including India and Pakistan), *Hispanic or Latino (covering mainly central and South America. Interestingly, this document claims Latinos/Hispanics as races) and *White (Europe, middle east and north Africa). Beautiful.
So who’s gonna tell Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck that Osama bin Laden is a distant relative, and that the ‘murdering religious fanatics’ are second cousins to Ronald Reagan?
Are you seeing the conundrum as yet?
What the census office is doing, is muddying an already murky pool. Yet, we can safely assume that those who concocted the document are intelligent people… there must be some rationale, but not necessarily a positive one.
They use race-based allocation of resources as an enticement for our so-called civic leaders to push for our support. But it really has little merit.
Really, shouldn’t resources be allocated based on needs or population density rather than race? Do you really think that those whom allocate funds say “Let’s put a little more money in that area, because there is a higher concentration of blacks”? Certainly, history and current observations don’t support that. Black schools and majorities still receive greatly inadequate funding.
Me? Well, I consider those racial segmentations to be foolish, divisive and unnecessary. And I certainly am not going to create a new race… Jamaicans… because the census department says ‘Yes, we can!’.
I am certain I am Homo sapien, commonly known as Human. That’s all the census office needs to know about my ‘race’.
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Ever tried to convince a black American that hip hop music came from Jamaican influences? Tough isn’t it.
Well, google ‘DJ Kool Herc’, and its all laid out for you. Even DMC of the group Run DMC credits Clive Campbell aka Kool Herc with ‘fathering’ hip hop music.
