President Obama signing a proclamation declaring a Cesar Chavez day. Seems like he's been inflated in importance cause hispanics needed their 'own' civil rights figure, but the UFW accomplished very little, waged an ineffective strike and boycott, and were supported by, and used rhetoric inspired by outright communist.
The sort of divisive idiocy spewed by the UFW and groups like La Raza and MEChA damages the lives of those hispanics that buy into their anti-assimilation, anti-american and anti-business rhetoric. Naturally, Obama supports that sort of nonsense, it fits right in with his various mentors like Ayers and Wright.
Above is a hilarious clip (I found it through Boing Boing, they tip their cap to Arbroath), it also contains much NSFW language, as well as raised voices, sobbing, and enough identity politics to choke an elephant. I recommend following all the Boing Boing links, they're instructive. YouTube took it down (though they still have Prof. Shanahan's reply, but it's not exactly a reply, it's a deleted scene from a doc on debates, but he does seem to be replying to a question about the incident recorded above), but LiveLeak will likely leave it up, so enjoy. For a bit of background Inside Higher Ed has you covered.
It has nothing to do with a potential Obama administration, obviously, and yet I think it does offer a clue as to the storm roiling beneath the liberal and academic minded wing of the Democratic party, and the kind of divisions and discussions that Obama would bring with him to the White House should he get elected. He's the first candidate immersed in postmodern theories on the construction of identity. He's also the first candidate who seemingly embraced (at least) the rhetorical angles of marxist theory. Doesn't make him a commie, doesn't automatically make him anti-market, but it does suggest (as have his own words) that for Obama, he views most things in life through a dialectic materialist framework where there is a constant oppositional tension between those that control the means of production and those that do the producing, or a constant class struggle if you will. That also suggests that he sees America as having rather static classes like 19th century Europe, and not the fluid Horatio Algerized dynamic view of class that I believe a majority of Americans still believe in (at least those that didn't take too many marxist theory courses in college).
I've always found that framework ass-tastic, personally, I also find all identity politics equally ass-tastic, so when a couple of professors blow their tops at each other, I'm not surprised that underlying the tensions that came to the surface there seems to be all sorts of victim group politics at play. The language of the left is all about 'reconciliation' and 'understanding' but in effect and practice that language is used to exclude the ideas of which they don't approve and deny legitimacy to anyone who doesn't think or speak in the ways that meet the ever more limited 'speech codes' that have been proliferating throughout campuses across our land.
I don't know that this was about that, it might just be two hot heads in a bad moment, but from reading some comments of people who were there, and reading between the lines, the hippie looking professor blew his top when an insinuation of racism was made, and the other professor (it'd be racist of me to identify her as the 'black woman'; and ironic or sad that one of the courses Prof. Reid-Brinkley teaches is "Interpersonal Communication"?) knew full well that she was insinuating that Prof. Hippie was a racist, but she wasn't going to own up to it in plain and clear language.
Forensics is a beautiful thing when done honestly and with respect, but honesty and respect are viewed with contempt on a lot of campuses, lately (those are just lies told by hegemonic old white men, you know, they never lived up to their old ideals, so those ideals are a product of a false consciousness, and therefore aren't something that should be adhered to, but it's OK to use them, twist them, and reshape them as you see fit in the service of a greater cause to disrupt the old order, cause that's like deep, man).
But back to a potential Obama White House. You just know that he's going to surround himself with ivory tower types, eggheads, and ex-radicals. That's who he's associated with privately and professionally throughout his adult life, why would he change as Commander in Chief?
So, behind closed doors, I wouldn't be surprised at all if more than a few policy sessions become seething cauldrons of hurt feelings, victimhood passion plays, and coalition building based on identity and ideology rather than what's best for the country. He's already stated that he wants to bring together many voices with many ideas and let them hash it out and present him with opposing views. Of course, he never said he'd actually respect all those points of view, just that he'd bring them into the process.
Yeah, should be fun times, fun times, indeed.
(or not, McCain might actually win this thing, whodathunkit?)
To sum up this Slate "Sports Nut" (they have the nut part right) post, 'white refs like white players (and by extension, hate black players).
There's so much stupid in this article, I don't know where to begin. First, it uses its point of departure a ridiculous study that attempts to quantify racial bias in NBA officiating. The study itself is deeply flawed.
Second, sounds like it's just a Boston fan making pre-emptive excuses as to why his team is going to lose this series in 5 games (in summary, they lose tonight, win Sunday, get swept in L.A., Kobe celebrates Father's Day with a 4th ring).
The 'white players' in the NBA are mostly not 'white', but rather European and South American. For the most part, those players play a different type of game than their American counterparts. Maybe the reason that Radmanovic will be called for less fouls in the upcoming series compared to Paul Pierce, isn't because white refs are happy to see a white face on the court, but because he plays an entirely different kind of game. Why not parse the results even farther and apply a 'coffee and cream' filter to the data? Almost white black guys like J-Kidd (a lot of cream in the coffee) compared to very black guys like K. Garnett (no cream, and just a little sugar), who gets the calls, who doesn't? Why not parse the data based on percentage of exposed upper body area covered in tattoos (bet there'd be a tendency to call those players more, too)? Why not parse the data based on years played in the NCAA (bet players with more than 2 years of NCAA experience get called for fewer fouls)?
If you parsed the data as 'International' players versus 'Native-born', bet you'd see nearly the same evidence of bias they found when parsing the data through a racial filter. It's quite possible, given the completely different player development systems that foreign-born players and American players play in as pre-teens and teens that American players are intrinsically more likely to commit fouls than foreign born players. Foreign players have a reputation for being soft (less earned than it used to be), and that reputation might color officials decision making when making a close call (it goes both ways, foreign players may get away with a little extra contact, but given the reputation for flopping, have a hard time drawing charges on defense).
The LA Lakers won't win or lose because they have a lighter skinned regular rotation than the Boston Celtics, they won't win or lose because of the officiating, they will win or lose based on the games both teams put out on the floor.
If both teams played flat out the best they can possibly play for 48 minutes at the same time, I think the edge would go to Boston, given that at their core they have a strong line-up. But there's an ebb and flow in basketball, and the Lakers are better able to survive the times they aren't playing their best, and better able to capitalize on the moments when Boston shows weakness, that's why this is going to be a short series, with only one or two close games.
Michelle Obama gives a speech, not about "hope", but about "hopelessness". Maybe that's not what she meant her speech to stand for, but when you break down what she says, that's what it comes down to. In essence, she states, 'unless you are a white male from a wealthy background, you are screwed'.
Her own life experience, and that of her husband, her family members, and most Americans in general, would seem to show the obvious flaws in that conceit, but that conceit still sells well in front of the kinds of audiences that Sen. Obama must sway to earn the Democratic party's nomination for President.
Pastor Jeff does an excellent job of breaking this down even further, read what he has to say on the subject.
First, they're right, race/gender issues have no place in the discussion about Sen. Obama versus Sen. Clinton. Of course, both have used their uniqueness amongst previous serious candidates for the presidency as a major selling point. Identity politics and the Democratic party go together, whether they like it or not.
Chickens. Home. Roosting
(go ahead, make that some sort of veiled racial reference, I dare you!)
Second, they're right, yet more expansion of Indian Gaming on non-Indian land would be a bad thing. Not for the reasons they state, though. I think this picking one tribe over another as to winners and losers is ridiculous, all these compacts, and deals, and treaties are a sham. Americans want gambling, they want it close by, but generally they don't want it down the street.
The whole reservation system and the fiction that these "Nations" are sovereign within the United States is a comfortable fiction that serves a few interests well, but fails the majority of the descendants of our continent's first residents. End the whole sham now, in the long run that would be the best solution for this mess of convoluted laws, compacts and 'treaties'.
I think I've made it pretty obvious that I'm pro-gambling, but anti-monopoly. People want to be able to gamble, state governments are addicted to gaming revenue, let's quit all the hypocrisy and open up the business of gambling to business interests and communities willing to come to an accomodation without some 'poor disposessed native group' fronting for professional gaming concerns.
Maybe this wasn't so historic, I agree with their conclusions, not how they got there, their reasonings are as fuzzy and wrong-headed as always. But besides being a conservative/libertarian, I'm also a pragmatist, if a liberal newspaper is willing to agree to the results I'm also looking for, who am I to argue?
