Saturday, November 03, 2012

The Klein bubble...

Rarely have I wobbitta-wobbitta-WHAT?!?-ed as hard as I did this morning, reading a piece where Tom Scocca described the voting patterns of his fellow Slate writers, and tried to preempt accusations of Pauline Kael-ism  with the following assertion:
People will look at this list—Obama, Obama, Obama, Obama—and they will say, Look at the Slate writers, inside their bubble. And they will be wrong. 

There is a real, airtight bubble in this election, but it's not Obama's. As a middle-aged white man, in fact, I'm breaching it. White people—white men in particular—are for Mitt Romney. White men are supporting Mitt Romney to the exclusion of logic or common sense, in defiance of normal Americans.
When did white dudes get defined out of the part of the Venn diagram describing "normal Americans", you Manhattan-dwelling freak?

Hey, Tod Lubitch, I don't know how to break this to you, but statistically speaking, "white men" are closer to the definition of "normal American" than any other group except for "white women"; demographically, this is still largely a cracker country.

I normally avoid the politics of race because they are dull and stupid and not based in anything like reality, whether you're talking about Jeremiah Wright or one of his photographic negatives in Couer d'Alene, but damn, dude, I haven't seen such comical white guilt pinned to a shirtsleeve since Avatar.

40 comments:

Anonymous said...

His photgraphic negatives moved to Oregon.

Tam said...

I was torn between that description, or referring to him as "J.B. Stoner with a tan" but figured the Couer d'Alene reference was more accessible.

Reno Sepulveda said...

"in defiance of normal Americans" Hoo boy I haven't felt this subversive in years!

Panamared said...

When the President's representative identified me as a potential terrorist, simply because I am willing to prepare for disasters, read my bible, and own guns, I knew there was no reason to ever consider voting for him. A vote for Romney is simply an admission that voting for anyone else is doing less than everything possible to remove Obama from office.

Borepatch said...

I'm always amazed that the people who think that they're the "Vanguard of Progress" leading the Great Unwashed to the New Jerusalem the same ones who identify with being on the 50 yard line, politically speaking.

That's quite an intellectual balancing act.

Eric said...

"I haven't seen such comical white guilt pinned to a shirtsleeve since Avatar." - which is why I will never watch it.

RL said...

Eric

You should borrow a copy if only to see the spectacle of new-age warrior space smurfs of apparent Amerindian descent and the expensive cartoonification of liberal dogma.

AnarchAngel said...

Tam, I get that you were going for the reference, but it's more than a little out of date at this point.

Firstly, the white supremacists were in Hayden not CdA... not that there's much difference.... But they got chased out of here 12 years ago or so... Starting right after Ruby Ridge actually, but it was the SPLC lawsuit, along with a a slew of local lawsuits; that really pushed them out.

They moved just across the border into Montana, and down to Pennsylvania and Florida.

As it happens I live almost exactly equidistant from both Ruby Ridge, and where the white supremacists used to be in Hayden.

AnarchAngel said...

Oh and there's the "christian identity" idiots; but they were started elsewhere, and MOVED up here, as some kind of stupid symbol.

I think there's maybe 30 of them? They're a joke even to other hate groups.

Anonymous said...


So deep in the bubble that the event horizon is not allowing logic to penetrate without being twisted into unrecognizable colours and shapes.

Bubblehead Les. said...

Well, since "White American Males" are no longer part of the "Norm," I guess that makes me a "Minority."

And since I'm now considered a "Minority," where do I go to get my Free Housing, Free Phone, Free Health Care, Free Food, Free Heating Oil,etc.?

After all, it's TOUGH being part of the 47%!

SiGraybeard said...

The "wobbitta-wobbitta-WHAT?!? was so severe I have whiplash. And a headache.

I love how he's trying to say he's so much smarter than anyone who would vote for Romney. "White men are supporting Mitt Romney to the exclusion of logic or common sense". He's just so smart and so intellectually rigorous that he's going to support Obama in spite of being middle-aged white dude.

I wonder what color the sky is on his planet?

jbrock said...

"christian identity" idiots ... started elsewhere, and MOVED up here ... maybe 30 of them? ... They're a joke even to other hate groups.

I'm a Florida native and Boundary County (Idaho) transplant-in-waiting, with strong first-hand knowledge of the faction you're talking about here, and I can vouch for every word of this.

The funny/scary thing is that most other Identity factions tend to consider this bunch insufficiently hateful because they teach that Jews are only the spiritual spawn of Satan, rather than the physical result of Eve's aardvarking with the serpent in the Garden.

Speaking of hate, do you have any idea why my network admins' filters have your blog blocked as containing "Racism and Hate"? (Their reasons, if they're what I think, are--of course--complete BS.)

Tam said...

"Speaking of hate, do you have any idea why my network admins' filters have your blog blocked as containing "Racism and Hate"?"

Mine, or Chris Byrne's?

jbrock said...

Chris Byrne's. Sorry about the ambiguity.

Ron said...

That article isn't just the most insulting this I've read this year; it's easily the most insulting thing I've read since the last election - and that covers a multitude of sins.

Anonymous said...

Bubblehead Les asked "where do I go to get my Free Housing, Free Phone, Free Health Care, Free Food, Free Heating Oil,etc.?"

Reminds me of the call and response chant-

What do we want?
Free-Dumb!

When do want it?
Now!

Anonymous said...

What about the percentage of black Americans voting for Obama. I believe it is around 95%. How is that not blindly following race over actual policy choices?

Tam said...

Anon 2:52,

No, that's because (at least in broad generalities) they serve as a captive market for the Dems in much the same way as gun nuts do for the GOP.

Justthisguy said...

I saw what you did there, Ma'am. I immediately thought, "Klein Bottle."

Justthisguy said...

P.s. I hang out on some White Nationalist blogs. I think White Nationalists will never succeed, because why?

Because the favorite sport of White guys from Northern, and even Southern Europe, has always been getting together in large groups, armed with the latest weapons, and killing those other groups of well-armed White guys.

Yeah, we did manage to conquer a large part of the world, but that was more an afterthought, or for amusement and distraction from the Serious Business of killing each other.

I'm just as bad as the rest of us, believing that Wogs Begin at Calais, and being of entirely English extraction. I'm with Sergeant York; I don't care for Germans even when they're not being Nazis. As for the French? Well, they do cook some good food.

Tango Juliet said...

I beginning to believe those who claim liberalism is a mental disorder are correct.

Justthisguy said...

P.p.s. I think of my former Archbishop, a Tutsi, who had to leave Rwanda to avoid being chopped to death by Hutus. The Africans are just like everybody else, in a way; they'll use the slightest ethnic difference as an excuse to do some killin'.

This is why I thank God for my touch of autitude; I just can't work up any visceral emotional ethnic hatred, my particular form of ethnic particularism being mostly aesthetic and intellectual.

NotClauswitz said...

When I was an incipient Lefty and comfortable with my mental defects and lilly-pad on the pond, I used to drink the Green Bile like him, and just like a Stropharia cubensis mushroom it sure-as-hell makes you hear colors and see musical notes...but it's not kool-aid and it gives incredible indigestion - but mainly it's loaded with ass-burn worse than a burrito full of scotch bonnets...

AnarchAngel said...

@JBRock

That's websense. They stuck my blog in "weapons" and "racism and hate" category years ago. They did the same to a bunch of other gunbloggers, milbloggers, and conservative/liberatarian polibloggers as well (particularly Ace of Spades, which is why you can get to that blog from a bunch of different URLs).

You can get around it by going to http://www.anarchangel.blogspot.ca or .co.uk instead (or whatever other regional domain you feel like).

Anonymous said...

I read the article. Drivel. Why does he even have a job? He passes off his opinions as facts!

Ulises from CA

Unknown said...

Ulises,

For progressives, facts are much like neutrinos - all around but have no effect. They just pass right though without a trace.

-----

If the pro Obama people are normal then I'll happily where the badge of Not-Normal. For some reason people who play the race game always strike me as more racist than not. If you treating one racial group as special and giving them preferential treatment then you are treating another group worse. Which is sort of the definition of racism.

Unknown said...

arrgh. wear not where. I hate it when I do that.

NAVIGATOR said...

'WOG"AN IRONIC ACRONYM FROM 18TH- 19TH CEN BRITISH ROYAL NAVY LOG KEEPING STANDS FOR "WORTHY ORIENTAL GENTLEMEN" AS IN LOG ENTRY "ARRIVED AMOY BAR 0800 5 WOGS CAME ON BOARD WITH THE PILOT"

XENOPHOBIC USAGE IN VICTORIAN ENGLAND
DEVOLVED LATER THE "INTOLERANT BRIT SAYS WOGDOM COMMENCES AT CALIS WHEREAS THE TOLERANT ONE SAYS ITS NAPOLI"

Justthisguy said...

Umm, Navigator, (decapitalizing) authorities differ on where and how we got that "wog" word. I am always suspicious of what seem to be backronyms.

I must consult the housemate. He has two degrees in languages, and what amounts to a third one from the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, as well as a ton or two of reference books, which can be annoying to trip over, he having filled up the entire house with them. Let me just go and see if he is still awake.

He is still awake, but just barely, and not willing to paw through his books at this time.

According to what I can find with duckduckgo, "Worthy Oriental Gentleman" is most likely a backronym, and the first printed appearance of "wog" was in 1929, according to the OED. It was obviously in use by British soldiers long before that, as a Sergeant famously said in September 1914, "Remember, men! Wogs begin at Calais!"

Justthisguy said...

On the etymology: Yahoo seems to think it's probably short for "golliwog".

Golliwog is, I think, a traditional mythical beast invoked by British Mommies to scare their children into behaving correctly. Sorta like the Mommies in Panama scaring their kids for a hundred years or more after he was dead, with the threat of Sir Francis Drake coming after them.

Tom said...

Maybe we're voting for anyone but Obama because the greatest compliment the author can muster for our Prez is "a difficult but largely competent first term". Huh? Wasn't Obama going to transform not just America, but the world? Wasn't he the post-racial Messiah? If you're an Obama voter who isn't disappointed in the guy -- even if you're still voting for him -- you're delusional.

Will Brown said...

@ Justthisguy,

According to my now-ex second wife and the rest of her British family, "wog" is a contraction drawn from the golliwog doll which experienced a severe wave of social disapproval in GB during the mid-to-late 1970's (which is why it became a topic of conversation at all - she and I met in '77).

There was (and I assume still is to a muted degree) spirited dispute over just how "racist" the doll was ever intended to be, but the 1970's opinion was that the contraction always was intended as a race-based slur aimed at anyone who didn't look similar enough to the speaker. Hindu, Indonesian, Egyptian, Bantu, didn't matter; if a handy slur was needed, wog would fit.

Justthisguy said...

Oh, yeah, Will. As I wrote above, as far as I know, my ancestry is entirely English. (There is always the chance of an Irishman in the woodpile.)

As I wrote above, and expand upon now, I wish to encourage people who resemble me to get together and look out for each other. That does not necessarily imply getting all mean and nasty on people who don't resemble me.

I am a fan of real diversity; that is, various human groups should maintain their identities, be they European, Asian, African, or whatever. If everybody mates with anybody, we'll end up with all of us looking pretty much alike. I am opposed to that on, at the very least, aesthetic grounds.

I like diversity in humans. A good-looking African guy does not look the same as a good-looking European guy, or a good-looking Chinese guy. I will not write about the wimmin and their looks in this comment, so as not to offend anyone.

Justthisguy said...

P.s. Yes I do understand that I am kinda pissing into the wind with my comment above. Everybody does seem to mate with anybody, these days. It's that boy-and-girl thing, or something.

Steve Skubinna said...

A point to bear in mind is that leftists, right up to where they become actual Communists actually seem to sincerely believe that they are centrists.

Oh, but it's not a bubble. They're the "Reality Based Community."

Steve Skubinna said...

Justthisguy, I have to disagree with you on mixing "races." Some of the most beautiful women I have ever seen are white/asian and black/asian mixes.

Although I also have to admit that crossing paths, in Singapore for instance, with a woman who is ethnically Indian or Chinese and who speaks with an English accent gets me all stirred up.

But the only real erogenous zone is the brain, so YMMV.

Brad K. said...

I am a white guy, though past what most consider middle age. And I am as determinedly against what President Obama wants to do now, as I was when I first heard him.

http://bradsworldview.blogspot.com/2012/11/tam-at-view-from-porch-found-quote-that.html

Brad K. said...

There is another aspect to voting -- political marketing. Seth Godin presents a cross-wise view of why you should vote.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2012/11/why-vote-the-marketing-dynamics-of-apathy.html

Do it, because you *can* change the tactics.

Stretch said...

"Wogs begin at Calais." - unknown BEF Sergent 1914.