by publius
This is not looking good at all. Even if Obama pulls it out, it’s enough to trigger the “Comeback Kid” narrative. Plus, McCain is now very viable. Not a great night thus far.
UPDATE: Hmm… Clinton apparently won among women 47-34. That’s a lot. Maybe there was a backlash to the post-Iowa bashing. Maybe Gloria Steinem was channeling the Zeitgeist.
UPDATE 2: Josh Marshall provides more anecdotal evidence of a gender-based backlash to the post-Iowa coverage.
UPDATE 3: In the last thread, commenter Redstocking also took strong offense at the perceived sexism of the election. In particular, she focuses on the reaction to Clinton’s choked-up moment. Perhaps the reaction to that has also galvanized women – the last straw perhaps. Anyway, here’s what Redstocking had to say:
I was a radical feminist in the late 60s and 70s. The blatant sexism of this election has radicalized me once again at age 62. . . . Whatever you think of Clinton’s politics, she is a brilliant woman who has devoted most of her life to public service. I can’t think of any political figure who has been attacked as vituperatively as she has. At the very least you should admire her courage. Women should realize that it is not just happening to her; it is happening to them. For 15 years she has been derided as a cold, unemotional robot. She allows herself one moment of vulnerability and suddenly she is unfit to be commander in chief or she faked the emotions to manipulate the voters. Clinton is portrayed as losing it because she got pissed and emotional in the same week. Its only her age that saves her from PMS attacks.
It is perfectly possible to oppose Clinton for president, but speak out against the revolting sexism manifested in this campaign. The first serious woman presidential candidate should not have to laugh off signs that say, “Iron my shirt” without anyone else raising the issue. That bitch was left off the sign is hardly a feminist milestone.
Why isn’t this an important issue? More to the point, why aren’t women of all ages demanding that it become an important issue. I am afraid most women are too exhausted by their personal and work lives to have any energy for feminist protest.
This is clearly something that demands more attention. And obviously, the post title bears no relation to this point, which I only became aware of after my initial post.
UPDATE 4: For the record, if Obama loses, I think it’s devastating for his candidacy. Not over, but it’s very bad. The “comeback” is going to dominate coverage — drowning even McCain.
UPDATE 5: Called for Clinton. Wow. Thoughts later tonight.
Hm. Extra-candidate factors being a decider, hm? Not surprising and something to be aware of.
None of the young skewed precincts have reported yet. Don’t panic yet. Wait an hour or two. 😉
Oh, I can definitely tell you the scorn, derision, and schoolyard taunts aimed at Clinton frosted my shorts as well – as did people dismissing Steinem’s editorial as “old, irrelevant feminism.” Is there a new feminism? Is the “new feminism one that doesn’t mind sexist taunts and double standards? What the hell kind of feminism is that, exactly?
I’m equally pissed off at this Instant Political Obituary nonsense.
Why does a loss tonight have to be devastating for Obama?
Clinton came back from defeat in Iowa to either win or tie for first in NH.
Obama can do likewise.
These are two terrific candidates and the public likes them both.
Why do we have to declare the nomination won or lost before it’s even really begun?
Instant gratification is for video games. Not national politics.
Hear, hear….
I see I’ve made the big time. 😉
I warned my husband not to be around me tonight because I was going to spend the evening cursing and writing polemics. I briefly considered having more than one drink for the first time in 20 years. I am feeling pretty good. Older women don’t blog, so I will have to work much harder to take up the slack. But obviously they vote.
Now NBC’s take is “big girls don’t cry, but when they do, they win.”
Although now that I think about it this might make google searching for my previous comments on here a pain.
The famous Petey is suggesting that this race will go on for a while – not a brokered convention or anything, but a real race. Looks plausable to me. And also suprisingly, Edwards is not getting out of the race – his fundraising has spiked since IA.
I say: OK. I would rather have seen Obama win tonight, because I much prefer him to HRC, but I think there are a lot of issues – feminism being one of them – the Dems need to hash out, and I guess they’re/we’re going to do it. About time.
Publius, I greatly admire your posts. Thank you so much for quoting me. I have only started commenting on political blogs this week since my radical feminism was resurrected.
I can’t resist teasing you. On my blog, I can change the title of a post even after I publish it. Do you need your consciousness raised:)
yes – but that violates the first rule of blogging – No Takesy-Backseys. You get about a 15 minute window to make edits, but after that, you have use strike-throughs or updates.
and welcome “back”
As far as Steinem’s old-fashioned feminism–
My generation of feminists must have been rather dowdy cylons if they overthrew the patriarchy that had lasted for human’s entire history in thirty years. Most of the human race had to be wiped out in Battlestar Galactica for a woman to be president.
BWAHAHAHAHA!
I think I’ll steal that for my next show…
The race has been called for Clinton.
I’ll say this: if Obama’s supporters lose heart after this, they’re scarcely worth having as supporters in the first place. Hope is a wonderful message and aspiration, but it ain’t a magical incantation. Get up off the ground and keep at it.
Clinton did.
I was a radical feminist in the late 60s and 70s. The blatant sexism of this election has radicalized me once again at age 62.
Will we ever be free of the over-influence of overweening self-involved, humorless (about themselves, anyway) baby boomers? EVER?
Will we ever be free of the over-influence of overweening self-involved, humorless (about themselves, anyway) baby boomers? EVER?
In about 25 years.
Thanks –
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/01/the-return-of-t.html
Last week the story was that America was too irretrievably misogynist to ever elect a woman; looks like this week the story will be that honkey is closing ranks against the uppity negro. As an independent with very strong Democratic leanings, I personally find this to be an embarrassing level of discussion for the campaign to be at given the crucial nature of this election.
But if that is the level of discourse we’re at, let me ask you this- for everyone who’s broken to Hillary in the last week, how can you refute the charge of racism as advanced in Sullivan’s post? What defense can you give that you would have accepted from those you’ve accused of misogyny? And why should I, as an independent, not write this off as the worst sort of identity politics squabbling and begin to seriously evaluate a Republican slate I would never have considered 6 months ago?
CaseyL: precisely.
“Will we ever be free of the over-influence of overweening self-involved, humorless (about themselves, anyway) baby boomers? EVER?”
Win a few elections, dear. Win a few fights.
When your generation can boast the kind of accomplishments the Boomers can boast about – civil rights, environmentalism, feminism – then you can declare them irrelevant.
publius, I think Steinem did call the zeitgeist. Just imagine being part of a demographic that’s 53% of the voters yet gets treated as a special-interest minority. Yes, we *are* mad as hell, and uninterested in continuing to take it anymore.
I don’t really know anything about anything, but I think this could actually benefit Obama. If he wins NH, he becomes the clear front runner, and Edwards and Clinton concentrate their attacks on him. Now, Clinton is a more compelling target for Edwards, and the media scrutiny shifts back onto her. Played properly (which there’s no guarantee Obama will do), this could work to his advantage.
Even the dowdy cylon crack didn’t help. I am not a baby boomer. I was born the day after Trinity and my radiation physicist husband said I was his personal Manhattan Project.
When your generation can boast the kind of accomplishments the Boomers can boast about – civil rights, environmentalism, feminism – then you can declare them irrelevant.
Aren’t the boomers mostly voting Republican (and, by extension, opposing those very same advances) these days?
Aren’t the boomers mostly voting Republican (and, by extension, opposing those very same advances) these days?
No.
Who do you think voted for Gore? For Kerry? For Clinton?
IIRC, the younger generations were the ones who comprised most of Nader’s vote in 2000, and self-righteously didn’t vote at all in 2004.
“When your generation can boast the kind of accomplishments the Boomers can boast about – civil rights, environmentalism, feminism – then you can declare them irrelevant.”
Right. And the very first will have to be a a fight against this sort of patronizing crap–because until we win that one they’ll never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever give us a chance to try the rest.
Seriously: women shouldn’t put up with the kind of crap that Hillary took after Iowa. It lost Edwards my vote. If it’s not politically dangerous it will never stop.
Clinton is actually running on the platform that people like me are naive idiots whose false hopes must be crushed. If it’s not politically dangerous it will never stop. we shouldn’t put up with it.
“Seriously: women shouldn’t put up with the kind of crap that Hillary took after Iowa. It lost Edwards my vote. If it’s not politically dangerous it will never stop.
Clinton is actually running on the platform that people like me are naive idiots whose false hopes must be crushed. If it’s not politically dangerous it will never stop. we shouldn’t put up with it.”
These two paragraphs are non sequitors. And I’m not precisely sure what part of Clinton’s platform calls people like you naive idiots who must be crushed. Can you give me a reference?
Look, I didn’t want to get into a generational pissing contest. I just don’t get why y’all feel you have to raise yourselves up by tearing Boomers down. I surely don’t know how it happened that Hillary Clinton became – not just someone whose foreign policy votes Gen Xers disagree with, but The Enemy, who they would rather sit out an election or vote for a fringe candidate than pull the lever for.
There are three men in this contest that I admire:
Candidate Romney wants the drastic pay cut because he is hyper-competitive. Nothing wrong with that.
Candidate Paul wants the job, as far as I can read, out of respect for the Founding Fathers and the Constitution that their minds created. That is honorable, but it won’t win in the pure democracy that we have become. He could win with a 1789 electorate though, given the current field of candidates. Maybe he’d lose to Romney.
Candidate Obama appears to still believe his own lies. He may still think that we can afford free health care and college for all. He probably believes that he would be able to tell big money what to do because he would be the President of the United States of America. And tell China to stop taking our jobs, the ones with health benefits. Maybe even tell Ahmedinejad to get along with us now that we’ve got a President who will listen. Sit across the table from Putin. I admire his idealism and want him to win. He would be a fascinating accelerant.
I hope he can get his campaign in order.
i’m just tired of the Clintons. maybe there’s some unconscious sexism lurking beneath, but i don’t think so. i’m just tired of them. i’m tired of listening to them.
she’ll be fine, but she’s not going to accomplish anything big. and she probably won’t even try.
i also don’t think you should be awarded the presidency after 4 years of radio silence on iraq, torture, and everything else. edwards is also dead right about the lobbyist stuff. there’s a legion of old-clintonites (an admin-in-waiting) just rubbing their now-fat paws, eager to get their hands back on teh government purse. nothing new here. if anything, those clinton establishment types have grown far more entwined with the K street agenda.
i just feel like all the wind has gone out. i’ll obviously support her, but with Kerry-esque levels of enthusiasm
Inter-generational sniping? Racial sniping? Sexist sniping? Shouldn’t we at least get into power before starting to emulate the Republicans?
Jesus Christ, publius, it’s only January. There are a lot of states between now and then; a lot of votes between now and then.
Send money to Obama, work your tail off for Obama, and stop with the defeatism, for pete’s sake.
Who do you think voted for Gore? For Kerry? For Clinton?
Good question. Unfortunately, I can’t find any good age-related statistics. But IIRC, it actually had a lot more to do with where they live and what their income status is than it did with their age.
But I will say (can’t speak for anyone else) that I was misusing the term “baby boomer” a bit; I was putting the age range at 55-70, when in fact it’s actually 43-61. (The “boomers” were born between 1946 and 1964.)
And I’m not precisely sure what part of Clinton’s platform calls people like you naive idiots who must be crushed.
I wouldn’t say it’s part of her official platform, but in her remarks (generally when obliquely attacking Obama) she has certainly given the impression that those who favor the “inexperienced” are naive.
Look: I’m sure there are plenty of good reasons to support/vote for Clinton. I’m also sure that “to spite the media for their treatment of her” isn’t one of them.
A couple possible contributing factors. Indie voters are told by pollsters and pundits that Dem primary is done deal for Obama, so they vote in GOP primary (for McCain) instead. Then there’s the possiblity that this is the first appearance of the dreaded Bradley Effect. Here’s hoping that’s not true.
“also don’t think you should be awarded the presidency after 4 years of radio silence on iraq, torture, and everything else.”
bingo.
I feel utterly & completely betrayed by the D.C. dem establishment on “war on terror” issues. My bitterness knows no bounds. The subtext of her campaign is: that way of doing things is the only way–all attempts to change it are “false hope”.
I was working on that stuff during her radio silence, & it’s because of naive idealists like me that she now finally has broken that silence. Now she’s arguing that naive idealism is worthless? That if you’re too young & haven’t been in Capitol Hill you don’t know about hard work & changing things? Well. To hell with that.
Politics is all about identity, it turns out. Doesn’t mean it plays out in predictable ways.
Jesus Christ, publius, it’s only January.
Point taken. 🙂 But we’ve seen this movie before, you know. Democrats as a group have a “wonderful” tendency to nominate Blah candidates. (Frankly, the “conventional wisdom” in the Democratic party establishment sucks.)
I should point out that my opposition to Clinton is for a simple reason, having nothing to do with her gender, or even with her last name. Instead, it has to do with her politics. Of the three viable Democratic contenders, she’s the least progressive, and the one with the worst record on Iraq.
Mind you, I’d still vote for her in a heartbeat over anyone in the GOP field. It’s just that I wish we could get a true progressive for once.
CaseyL – normally i would agree with you, but you have to remember the immense, hierarchical infrastructure that clinton has going. to say she is the establishment candidate is an understatement.
that’s not necessarily bad (depends on what you think of the establishment), but it does mean that the odds of winning become much harder if you don’t knock them off early. it’s really hard to beat an establishment candidate – and it doesn’t happen very often.
obama could have won and the race would remain far from over. but it’s a much bigger deal for the establishment candidate to fight back “the revolt” in a critical early state. ESPECIALLY given the expectations going in.
Yes, i’ve written before about how mathematically meaningless it all is. but in the real world, this is a serious body blow. and frankly, i think it’s over. sure, things happen. but this is a very big deal.
& that’s why my generation loses. But some of us are more stuboorn than others.
obama could have won and the race would remain far from over. but it’s a much bigger deal for the establishment candidate to fight back “the revolt” in a critical early state. ESPECIALLY given the expectations going in.
I don’t think I could have read the situation more differently than you if I’d tried. An Obama win would have increased the Clinton pile-on in the media, and the pressure would have been for her to pull out before Super Tuesday, and if you think the sexism was out in force before New Hampshire, imagine what would have happened if she’d lost badly here.
Now we have a race between the big two–I’d love to see what their respective money situations look like, but that information is probably crazy-secret. Edwards is still lurking, and can really play a factor in the remaining debates–he knows how to stick a knife in delicately when necessary. I think he’s done as a serious contender for the nomination, but he can still play a role.
I don’t get it. Obama is 1 & 2. Hillary is 1 & 3. Why is this devastating for him?
I am sick of baby boomers myself. I think we f**ked up bigtime and are endlessly fascinated with ourselves. The latest fantasy that baby boomers can defeat aging is absurd. I hope everyone plans an open casket so the mourners can admire how young we look.
Generational politics is a huge obstacle to genuine progress. In the 20th century expectations of women changed so many times that women wind up devaluing their mother’s experiences and advice. I was far more guilty of that than my daughters are. They take me seriously enough to argue with me. I figured out if I read the same books and blogs my daughter reads, I might offer some useful ideas on raising my grandson.
I am very conflicted about supporting Clinton, for exactly the reasons that publius and Katherine cite. I don’t share their optimism that Obama would be much better, but I would be delighted to be proven wrong. I do hope Hillary will be better than her husband. If Obama wins, I will support him enthusiastically.
As a grandiose young woman, I knew I didn’t have the personality to be president, but I fantasized about being a Theodore Sorenson type–a speechwriter, behind the scenes advisor. What would I advise a woman candidate? Would Hillary be a shoo-in for the nomination if she opposed the war? Or would she be unelectable because a dovish woman could never be perceived as tough enough to be commander in chief?
I understand that most of you wish that the first viable woman candidate wasn’t Hillary. I agree. What disturbs me is that no one seems to be able to suggest an alternative.
I
“Of the three viable Democratic contenders, she’s the least progressive”
Except on health care, unions, children’s and women’s issues, choice, and gay rights, probably, and (if it counts) sticking it to the other side. And any actual differences are hard to gauge since she’s been running for the general, while Edwards has strategically at least had to occupy the left/populist niche, while Obama has needed to attract independents.
It seems to me that if you’re voting on over-my-dead-body leadership on the torture issue etc., then you need to pick another candidate – one not running for president. I had been planning to vote for Dodd after he stood up on telecom immunity, but oh well. I doubt there was a practical right path on those other issues for a single actor given the senate and the electorate and the media.
More “don’t always assume the worst about the electorate–that is what has brought us to the pretty pass we’re in. Once, just ONCE try changing their minds”. Obama’s not an “over my dead body” guy on the torture issue but if YOU are, a vote for him makes some sense. A vote for Clinton makes none.
Rilkefan: And any actual differences are hard to gauge since she’s been running for the general, while Edwards has strategically at least had to occupy the left/populist niche, while Obama has needed to attract independents.
Being “hard to gauge” as an electoral strategy is a big reason why a lot of progressives get so frustrated with the Clintons in the first place.
Is Obama actually any better on torture etc. than Clinton? I haven’t seen any indication that held up on reading quotes in context. If one thinks that Clinton has a more realistic approach to change and will get more done, then she’s better on such issues. I don’t have a sense of the most effective way to govern, but that matters to the argument.
Well, so much for the Democrats winning the presidency this year. Probably lose the House of Representatives too since Democratic freshmen who were narrowly elected in conservative leaning districts will be slaughtered by the anti-Clinton surge at the general election. Heck’uva job, Granite State voters!
‘Being “hard to gauge” as an electoral strategy is a big reason why a lot of progressives get so frustrated with the Clintons in the first place.’
This is I think a cost-analysis argument. See the above list of important progressive issues she’s good on in this company (all of which are incidentally very important to me).
I think the biggest reason to vote for Obama or Clinton is because of their respective approaches to dealing with the System. Perhaps some people are informed and smart enough to reliably analyze what’s best there, but I’m not.
I sure hope a lot of this angst is disappointment at the way NH turned out and not an actual declaration of I Didn’t Win So I’m Not Gonna Play Anymore.
Because if it’s the latter, boy, did y’all just prove Clinton’s point.
Can we get beyond the rhetoric of who’s the more or less progressive candidate, especially at a time when traditional left wing factions like labor often don’t support traditional left wing causes like the environment? In terms of positions on domestic issues, all top three Democratic candidates are astonishingly similar, which raises the question, which one is best suited to set the agenda for the country from the bully pulpit of the Oval Office. Clinton’s speech tonight convinced me yet again that she is not the one. Much of what the pundits are lauding as authentic, such as her line about finding her own voice, struck me as plastic. But above and beyond that she showed she’s showed she’s someone who will strike and divide. I couldn’t believe her line about the young people of NH voting “with their hearts” pregnant pause “and their minds.” Yikes, that’s mean–in a victory speech no less. I guess that makes me a mindless voter.
Publius, dude, you need to quit feeling like the election’s been decided after each primary or caucus.
I don’t actually favor Obama – I have an irrational preference for Hillary – but the man is far from out b/c he finishes a little behind in NH. He’s likely to win SC, no one cares about Nevada, and then there’s the big round of primaries — and this far out, ain’t no telling how that’ll go.
If I’m not mistaken, turnout for the Democrats, including among independents, was fantastic and after two primaries we have a woman and a black man jockeying for the nomination, with lots more to go.
What’s not to like?
It’s exciting, for a change.
I’m not so hot on Hillary the individual and Obama the individual has lots to prove, but it’s a little early to put the blindfolds on for the circular firing squad.
For the moment, I’m putting aside my weariness with the Clintons.
Bill, on Ron Paul:
“He could win with a 1789 electorate though, …”
Yes, he could. But do I really need to unpack what that means?
I agree with you on Obama.
As to the intergenerational crap raising its ugly head, I’ve seen all this before. I was guaranteed by someone older than me about five minutes ago (in baby boomer time) that I (we) would f##k things up just about as well as they did.
That guarantee is fully transferable to the next generation, and you can have it.
And judging from my 18-year old and his buddies who know just about everything, they think everyone is full of sh*t.
Have fun with that.
CaseyL–well, if that’s a reference to me you’re not reading. In general, I agree though.
“I don’t have a sense of the most effective way to govern, but that matters to the argument.”
Right: her approach is based on one assumption about the electorate. His is based on another. I think hers suck & are a direct cause of the betrayals on war on terror issues & his are a plausible & far better alternative. I could argue specifics too–duh the Iraq vote, it’s old news but she has to earn my vote & trust back & hasn’t tried to do so–but that’s the strongest factor.
Also: I like the criminal justice stuff in Illinois. Like it quite a lot. I like his advisors much better. etc. But admittedly, there’s a lot of tea leaf reading & if not for the overall political vision I might just vote on other issues.
A lot of human rights people I know lean his way–that may be based on a more detailed knowledge of their records than I have. But it might just as easily be because his beliefs about how you improve things & their beliefs are correlated.
And, it’s not universal: there are also others who don’t trust either of them & vote on other issues.
Why not be pragmatic about this?
I, personally, don’t really think there is enough difference between them for my political preference to overwhelm my strategic preference for the viable candidate.
Gosh, darn it, even though it is unfair, HRC is intensely disliked by close to half of the country. Dems only get to choose one nominee. Why take the risk?
Redstate poll: “Hillary Clinton’s first 500 abuses of the PATRIOT Act and Phone surveillance program will be against which group?”
How can they be suggesting that the Patriot Act and warrantless surveillance are bad things, when Our Leader still has a year of using them to go?
Ara, I hear you. I have a lot of sympathy for Clinton for the sheer viciousness she’s had to face for the last 15 years, and it pisses me off mightily that the VRWC succeeded so well in demonizing her… but the election in 2008 isn’t about personal validation or revenge against the VRWC. It’s about getting the country out of the hole it’s in, and I don’t know which one, Obama or Clinton, is likelier to accomplish that.
I do think a long nominating process, where they spend a lot of time debating each other and drawing distinctions between each other, will be a good thing. A very good thing.
We really f**ked things up if our children don’t do better than we did. That is the one thing in my life I got right. In every way they are more highly evolved beings and have been my best, most persistent, teachers. They have always been allowed to say, “f**k you mom,” if they could then elaborate their excellent reasons in more specific detail.
We all need to regain some perspective. We did not just lose the election to Rudy Guliani who was strong enough not on cry on 9/11.
I am happy as a clam bake. Some positive thoughts:
1. Record turnout. Over 500 grand with 95% reporting. 55% Democratic.
2. Seriously flummoxed press. What, I ask, is better than a seriously flummoxed press?
3. Edge-of-the-seat primary. Who will be voted off the island? It’s the only way to lengthen the American attention span.
4. RedState debate about whether they’ll be able to keep 41 Senate seats, or whether it will be worse than that.
5. Clinton and Obama both rock. Sorry, they do. Clinton’s a wonk. When was our last wonk? Obama’s a uniter. When was our last uniter?
So I think the four words that sum it up are happy, happy, joy and joy.
Also, I have to say that as a GenX-er, I *love* the boomers. It is their scrappiness that paved the road to a nurturant liberalism that I’ll probably get to see in action before I die. Clinton is the twilight of scrappiness, but who knows — we might still need it. I’m not averse to flogging the horse for a couple more years. Just to make sure it’s really dead.
At first I was disappointed with the result tonight. Then I tried to console myself with the thought that it was only a few percentage points.
They I thought — hell, this is actually pretty awesome. I still think Obama can pull it out — and man am I hoping he will — but then I remembered that my nightmare scenario was Hillary coasting to the nomination and then get annihilated in the general election, a la Kerry. And now that we might be facing a nicey-nicey evangelical nutbag again in Huckabee (Bush has convinced me that you can’t write off the fundamentalist freaks, nor the cravenness of the rest of the party in supporting them) or someone who’s not a complete windbag in McCain (not that I agree with most of his policies, but he’s not a dunce), that becomes very important. I wasn’t even that comfortable with Clinton versus The Romnoid or Giuliani The Conqueror, so the prospect of a mildly threatening candidate is even more of a concern.
But right now that worries me less than it did just two weeks ago. Kerry’s problem — and Clinton’s too, up ’til this point — was not engaging, not being human, working off polls, etc. Gore made the same mistake. Clinton finally, blessedly, got something of a clue, and that shifts the whole dynamic of the race. This is about the Presidency, after all. Clinton a month ago didn’t stand a chance in the general; Clinton in the last week could actually win the Presidency. In retrospect, I feel like her unfavorables might have been less about Hillary-hate than revulsion at the robotic brand of politics that’s typified so many ridiculous Democratic losses.
Both Obama and Clinton raised my opinion of them in the last week; since I was already gaga over Obama, now I’ve essentially devolved into worshipping him (and wow do I want him to win), but it feels so. Incredibly. Relieving. To feel so less worried about bobbling the general election by nominating a genuinely good person who for some reason acts like a robot when put in a race, like we did in ’00 and ’04. I feel that if Gore or Kerry had been given a fright like Clinton was in Iowa, they would have taken a more humanized approach to their campaigns and things would have turned out very differently.
(Gore especially — more than anything else watching that Spike Jonze video of him before the election and seeing that warmth that he didn’t display until he’d lost; what a wonderful man. It makes me sad on a personal level that he lost. He has such a good heart and he was treated so unfairly, largely because he couldn’t break out of his own shell…)
Anyway, if nothing else Obama has clearly altered the political landscape already — it seems to me that his approach has almost forced Clinton into acting the way she should have been acting all along. And he did it in a way that’s kept the discourse civil; the flip side of the robo-candidate strategy has been the ever-present circular firing squad, and Obama’s managed to raise the level of discourse beyond that somewhat, and Hillary, to her credit, stepped up to the challenge. Now that’s some hope right there.
I’m actually looking forward to the rest of the primary. On one hand, if the Clinton campaign returns to politics-as-usual, I don’t think they’ll beat Obama regardless. But if they step up to the plate, it’ll be good for the party as a whole. Either way, the Democrats win.
*getting annihilated in the general election
Oh, and to add to dkilmer’s list:
6. The GOP race is still completely fubar.
McCain won tonight, but didn’t get a mandate, and he’s probably not going to replicate this success in SC.
And Romney’s got tons of money and has placed 2nd twice so far, so he’ll be sticking around for a while. Consequently the non-evangelical vote will probably remain fractured.
Huckabee will continue to do well in Southern states and generally give the Republican establishment the howling fantods.
Giuliani will stick around long enough to mess with Feb 5 and siphon off some of McCain’s jingoist support.
Paul will continue to cause general chaos. Based on preliminary responses, his supporters’… somewhat questionable defenses of those racist comments should make for quite a fireworks display. Plus he has money to burn messing with people.
In general, I think there’s going to be a lot of unproductive bitterness and mayhem over there, and not in the good trial-by-fire way that I’m hoping for from the Democrats, but the bad-blood backstabby way that destroys party unity and certainly any sort of coattails for the nominee.
Yee-ha!
Obama only lost by a few thousand votes.
I’m really sick of a media whose polling methodology is flatly broken pretending that these kinds of events (the New Hampshire victory) cause some seismic shift in the electorate. I’m really sick of these nitwits in general. Election time is the time when you see the most codification, the most knuckleheaded generalizations from the press. Everybody trots out these generalizations that have not much backing, because there’s this pervasive sense that elections follow these ineluctable patterns or rules. People don’t know much, but say it with authority on the boobtube. I get just as annoyed when I catch any of the Wall Street shows, but I exercise my prerogative to stay away from those.
I’m not sure there’s any shift going on at all. The battle seems set: younger voters are breaking for Obama. Older voters are going for Clinton. Women seem to be going for Clinton, and she seems to have more of the traditional Democratic base of unionized workers and so forth. Obama has independents on his side.
I wonder if the perception that Obama was going to be the runaway victor but that McCain’s election was closer caused independents, trying to maximize the impact of their vote, to switch from Obama to McCain.
Since I am, in fact, old enough to remember race riots in my high school, it pleases me no end that a black man is holding his own in the run for the Democratic nomination.
There’s no good reason to despair, Publius – this is the balance that will make a real race of it, and as a side effect, may just bring an assortment of racists out into the light for appropriate ridicule, derision and dismissal.
As to Ms. Clinton, I am sorry, but the moment Rupert Murdoch hosted a fund-raiser for her, I was done. For my part, that was way too murky a connection to ignore.
Now, if the Dems make slightly fewer mistakes this time…
Obama re Kenya – admirable.
Ara’s 100% right. Even sportswriters know that being a game behind on May 1st doesn’t mean anything, and you have to work hard to be dumber than a sportswriter.
By the way, am I the only one here who has no idea whatsoever what Steinem is talking about when she says:
How was this published? Where did this come from? What does it mean?
What???
I don’t at all think this cripples Obama’s candidacy – more just indicates that it’s going to be a long fight. Keep in mind that in order to win here, Hillary and Bill engaged in some tactics that may lead to serious blowback with African-American voters down the road in states where they are more significant portions of the electorate (e.g. seeming to belittle MLK at the expense of… Lyndon Johnson?!?) That’s potentially a much bigger deal than a couple of delegates and “comeback kid” stories dominating the media for a few days.
If Hillary does win the nomination, though, and is up against McCain in the general – batten down the hatches and prepare for four more years of Republican rule, my friends. She’ll get creamed.
I don’t at all think this cripples Obama’s candidacy – more just indicates that it’s going to be a long fight. Keep in mind that in order to win here, Hillary and Bill engaged in some tactics that may lead to serious blowback with African-American voters down the road in states where they are more significant portions of the electorate (e.g. seeming to belittle MLK at the expense of… Lyndon Johnson?!?) That’s potentially a much bigger deal than a couple of delegates and “comeback kid” stories dominating the media for a few days.
If Hillary does win the nomination, though, and is up against McCain in the general – batten down the hatches and prepare for four more years of Republican rule, my friends. She’ll get creamed.
Obama re Kenya: anything that will help that situation is great – I’ve visited and loved the country, always wanted to come back.
But I didn’t know that Odinga was Obama’s uncle. Him being related to both Odinga and Cheyney makes me grin.
What strikes me about how people see Obama is that they both see him as a uniter and as a ‘game-changer’. I don’t think that you can both unite with the conservatives and have a radical change in policies.
Obama’s candidacy is in deep trouble, not because NH put it there, but because it already *was* in deep trouble and NH will undo the boost from Iowa. Obama has always been down 10-15% in national polls vs. Hillary. In the intense environment of Iowa and NH, he was able to reverse that and bring both states to roughly a draw. But starting Feb 5th, there’s no way he can put in the kind of effort *everywhere* to create that kind of swing. So Hillary will win more than he does, and lead in the delegate count. I think Obama will win know only via a huge blunder on Clinton’s part or a deal with Edwards in a brokered convention.
Dutchmarbel: What strikes me about how people see Obama is that they both see him as a uniter and as a ‘game-changer’. I don’t think that you can both unite with the conservatives and have a radical change in policies.
Getting folks who ordinarily vote for conservatives to vote for an unabashed liberal in spite of their policy differences is the very definition of game-changing. Perhaps you are underestimating the extent to which American politics is driven by personality? (Not that I imagine it’s any different elsewhere, of course.)
Back on the subject of Hillary’s late surge, if it was meant send a message to Chris Matthews, job well done. Personally, when I want to send a message to the media that I think they are total schmucks, I don’t change my vote, I stop watching their schmucky programs and reading their schmucky articles. Is that really such a counter-intuitive approach to media shmuckiness?
Oh, and to Rilkefan:
This is I think a cost-analysis argument. See the above list of important progressive issues she’s good on in this company (all of which are incidentally very important to me).
No, it’s a reason I and, I think, others like me, see Obama as a superior alternative to Hillary Clinton. Cost-analysis would be saying I would never vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election for this reason.
Gromit: Getting folks who ordinarily vote for conservatives to vote for an unabashed liberal in spite of their policy differences is the very definition of game-changing.
Not if the “unabashed liberal” is actually conservative enough to make the conservative voters very happy while he’s in office. Tony Blair was a perfect example of someone whom we all thought “hey, he’s just talking the conservative right-wing talk to get elected”… who turned out to be really quite damned conservative while in office. (Which is to say, by American standards, he was unelectably far to the left: but for British politics/policies, he veered to the right – far enough to get into bed with George W. Bush and get screwed by him.)
Oh, and WRT the above bit about ignoring stupid media, media critics get a pass, obviously. It’s those of us who make up the bulk of the media audience who justify Chris Matthews’ paycheck, and could make it disappear, or could at least frighten him into being a responsible human being, if we had any @#$! sense about what media we consume.
Jesurgislac: Not if the “unabashed liberal” is actually conservative enough to make the conservative voters very happy while he’s in office. Tony Blair was a perfect example of someone whom we all thought “hey, he’s just talking the conservative right-wing talk to get elected”… who turned out to be really quite damned conservative while in office.
I don’t follow the comparison. What light is this comment meant to shed on Obama’s candidacy?
Gromit: Thanks for that great C. Matthews link. That’s just abominable.
Gromit: What light is this comment meant to shed on Obama’s candidacy?
Illustrative example of someone who strongly resembled Obama in a lot of ways.
“Illustrative example of someone who strongly resembled Obama in a lot of ways.”
Could you expand on what you see as the strong resemblance between Blair and Obama.
Could you expand on what you see as the strong resemblance between Blair and Obama.
Dunno what Gromit may have meant, but off the top of my head, they are both charismatic, articulate, centrist, and are innovative & effective policy wonks. It is difficult to pin down either of them ideologically, in fact both seem to run on a vehement repudiation of ideology. They both make intelligence likable, which is very rare in a politician.
Ok, trilobite, but Jesurgislac said it in the context of “Not if the “unabashed liberal” is actually conservative enough to make the conservative voters very happy while he’s in office.”
What strikes me about how people see Obama is that they both see him as a uniter and as a ‘game-changer’. I don’t think that you can both unite with the conservatives and have a radical change in policies.
One way of looking at it is to see the US as a center-right country that will, given the opportunity, choose the center over the right. That is, a left candidate — even a center-left candidate — has little to no chance to win, while center-right and right candidates (Reagan, Bush I, Bush II) do so all the time.
But a candidate who, like Clinton (Bill) repudiates the hard left (the famed “Sister Souljah moment”) and triangulates the business community (NAFTA, etc.), can win despite center-left views. So can a center-left candidate whose message is, effectively, unity or reaching across divides — Obama’s message. Americans will elect someone on the center-left, if they believe that the person simply will not go down a checklist. (It also doesn’t hurt that Obama has taken business friendly views on a variety of subjects.)
OTOH, candidates that appeal primarily to the base win if they are Republicans (Bush II in ’04) but lose if they are Democrats (Hillary Clinton, Edwards).
I don’t think that you can both unite with the conservatives and have a radical change in policies.
I don’t think anyone expects him to unite “with the conservatives.” It has more to do with that vast middle, the so-called independents, who have recently been leaning Republican.
Steinem: thus Iowa women over 50 and 60, who disproportionately supported Senator Clinton, proved once again that women are the one group that grows more radical with age.
Supporting Clinton is radical? Uhh, news to me…
“Cost-analysis would be saying I would never vote for Hillary Clinton in the general election for this reason.”
My point was you’re saying it’s hard to judge how liberal HRC is, so let’s not vote for her – but the exact same argument can be made against Edwards (was recently more conservative) and Obama (wants to work with the Republicans – not just to get things done but for the sake of post-partisanship).
I can’t think of any political figure who has been attacked as vituperatively as she has.
I’d say Bill has been, is, and will be, attacked more than she has. In certain quarters, Carter’s been attacked more than she has.
As to whether Obama is an “unabashed liberal” or is an undercover conservative: I don’t think I’ve heard him call himself a liberal (or a “Progressive”). He’s mostly let his actions speak for themselves, and they have been, more often than not, liberal/Progressive rather than conservative.
Certainly, compaired to Clinton, who is more right than center, he’s much more liberal.
Perhaps you are underestimating the extent to which American politics is driven by personality? (Not that I imagine it’s any different elsewhere, of course.)
We have it too, but we have a multiparty system which changes the dynamics.
Jes: I agree with you about the comparison with Tony Blair, but I don’t think it is seen as a disadvantage. All the labour voting Brits I know (limited number of course) hated his guts after a while for his shift in politics, but for most Americans he would be a perfect democratic candidate.
Marbel: All the labour voting Brits I know (limited number of course) hated his guts after a while for his shift in politics, but for most Americans he would be a perfect democratic candidate.
Well, yeah… 😉 My basis for comparison is also that I read multiple people saying that sure, Obama is presenting as conservative to get votes, but he’ll be liberal in office: but in fact Blair presented as conservative and turned out to be conservative.
Obviously “conservative”, “liberal”, and definitely “left” and “right” mean different things in the US than in the UK (a liberal politician in the US presents with policies that would be too right-wing to be electable in the UK). The comparisons don’t work as directly as that.
Obama is presenting as conservative?
jesurgislac – a liberal U.S. politician would be too right wing to be electable in the UK? Really? Does that mean Dennis Kucinich and Jerry Brown are more conservative than Margaret Thatcher? Or David Cameron? Please note that the Iraq war was the brainchild of two politicians, one American, one British – and it was the British one who was elected as the ostensible liberal.
Puhlease. Spare us the BS, as well as the condescending implication that the UK is a somehow a more enlightened and uniformly more liberal society than the US. Some of us actually have observed both societies and know you’re spouting nonsense, you know.
“Does that mean Dennis Kucinich and Jerry Brown are more conservative than Margaret Thatcher? Or David Cameron?”
No.
But neither could even make it to the Senate, or being a Governor, let alone truly stand a realistic chance of getting even the Democratic nomination, let alone the presidency.
It’s fair to bring them up, but if you delude yourself that either — and I more or less admire Jerry Brown — ever was ever truly close to the presidency, I think you’re in error, although if you’d like I’ll try to be more specific in defining that.
On the other hand, it’s fair to say that the British Parliament really isn’t all that comparable to the U.S. Congress, in many ways; despite obvious parallels, the dynamics of the institutions, and the types of politicians they tend to produce — and I mean on a more basic level than anything partisan or ideological when I say types of politicians — are quite different.
But Jesurgislac’s statement is quite conventional wisdom, and for the good reason that’s it’s more true than not. Just check the numbers on how many MPs and how many members of Congress are comfortable describing themselves as Socialist, let alone having some sort of Marxist background. Or who are absolutely for a National Health Service.
Did I mention Marxist?
On the other hand, I don’t think comparisons between Obama and Blair actually go very far; they’re pretty different people, too, and while it’s understandably utterly normal and tempting to try to analogize from that which we know less about to that with which we are familiar and experienced, I think it would be unwise to take any perceived parallels very far.
If I turn out in a few years to be wrong about President Obama, you can remind of this, and ask for an apology.
Obama is presenting as conservative?
I like that this sounds like what a doctor might say about the symptoms of a disease ;^)
Put it another way, I see your Dennis Kucinich, point out his views aren’t all particularly leftwing in a British Parliamentary, or European Parliamentary, way, and I raise you George Galloway, Tony Benn, Ken Livingstone, Michael Foot, and the Scottish Socialist Party.
It’s possible you may have more trouble dismissing me as being primarily motivated by British chauvinism.
Gary-
Fair enough. A few rejoinders:
1.)Self-described socialists do get elected to U.S. national office (e.g. Bernie Saunders).
2.)George Galloway has no more chance of being elected Prime Minister than Kucinich has of being elected President. Both are fringe figures in their respective polities.
3.)Right wing nutjubs get elected in Britain too.
4.)Some of Britain’s laws (for example, those pertaining to citizenship requirements, and those regulating government surveillance) are FAR more “right wing” than anything in the U.S.
I don’t think one can really say the U.S. is a more conservative country than Britain. The countries face different issues, and their voting populaces are different, and as a result British politics are different in many respects – I seriously doubt that an openly atheist politician like Nick Clegg could become the head of a major national party in the U.S., for example – but I think it’s a fallacy to say that one country is more conservative or liberal than the other on the whole.
“1.)Self-described socialists do get elected to U.S. national office (e.g. Bernie Saunders).”
Now name another. And Tony Benn and Michael Foot were hardly fringe, but were leaders of the Labour Party. Ken Livingstone has a long history of tremendous, though not universal, popularity in London. Neither are any unrepresentative or untypical of leftwing British politicans, and that’s where a single Bernie Sanders hardly compares.
But let me clarify that, strictly speaking, Jes’s comment that “a liberal U.S. politician would be too right wing to be electable in the UK” is pretty arguable.
But it’s arguable both ways, and opposite of trying to argue that there are no U.S. politicans at the national level who couldn’t possibly be elected with the same positions in Britain, let’s note that lots of positions uncontroversial amongst the majority of the electorate in one country are controversial in the other country. Beyond the NHS, there’s gun control, for instance.
But the political center in Britain — let alone Scotland, specifically! — is distinctly more leftwing than it is in the U.S.
“I don’t think one can really say the U.S. is a more conservative country than Britain” is a simplistic formulation, so I’m happy to not defend it, in favor of what I’ve instead said.
And I think any civil libertarian would agree that the UK has not been a bastion of civil liberties, by any definition, in recent years, not that I’m hardly criticizing by way of the U.S. Neither country comes out of the post-9/11 environment without shame.
Sorry for the barrage of posts, but I forgot to mention another major difference between U.S. and British politics, and it’s perhaps the most important one in explaining why fringe ideological candidates are more successful there than here – Britain’s is a partially proportional system, and the U.S.’ is not. When you only have to worry about winning a nontrivial number of votes in a national election, rather than a majority or plurality in a given geographical area, it’s infinitely easier to get at least some legislators elected as Marxists or what have you. If the U.S. had Britain’s system for choosing legislators, there would be more extreme leftists in Congress (Ralph Nader got 3% of the vote in 2000, so support among the electorate for those ideologies isn’t exactly negligible). There would also be more extreme rightists – one virtue of an American style system is that it largely prevents genuinely crazy ideologues from either side of the spectrum from gaining power.
Xeynon: a liberal U.S. politician would be too right wing to be electable in the UK? Really?
I was thinking of political structure and concepts taken for granted – health care, for example – and probably wasn’t expressing myself very clearly. Politics in the US are skewed to the right: there’s one right-wing party and one extremist right-wing party. The Democratic Party is politically equivalent to the Conservative Party, which has now been out of power in the UK for over ten years.
Jes’s comment that “a liberal U.S. politician would be too right wing to be electable in the UK”
Just an observation, I think this suggests that the core values of politicians in general and American politicians in particular are relatively fixed, whereas I would think that most (all?) American politicians, if confronted with a drastically different political landscape would alter their views to fit them. I suspect the truth is in the middle somewhere on this, but (and this gets us back to our discussion about HRC and Obama, and the observation that Obama’s popularity has forced HRC to move to the left (which is fine by me)
The Democratic Party is politically equivalent to the Conservative Party, which has now been out of power in the UK for over ten years.
I don’t think Tony Blair is really all that much further left than Clinton was. Labour’s recent dominance hasn’t been built on far-left policies. Blair pushed for the Iraq War and makes his religious faith a part of his political life (if not his policies). He’s hardly a pinko.
Nor was Major all that much further left than Bush I, or Thatcher further left than Reagan. I’d argue that universal healthcare is a political untouchable in England for a couple of reasons, none of which is that the society is inherently more liberal – 1.)it’s established, and any bureaucracy is difficult to uproot once it’s created;
2.)the social and economic costs (and hence the political costs) of switching to a different system would be prohibitive; 3.)there’s not a sufficient private insurance sector to serve as a viable alternative; 4.)simple habit.
The facts that many Britons go abroad for private treatment, and that griping about long waits, inadequate treatment, etc. is a common British pasttime, suggest that they’re not entirely happy with the system itself.
“The facts that many Britons go abroad for private treatment, and that griping about long waits, inadequate treatment, etc. is a common British pasttime, suggest that they’re not entirely happy with the system itself.”
I know this won’t be a suggestion met with enthusiasm, and I certainly don’t mean to imply it’s any kind of requirement, as it certainly isn’t, but may I gently point out that most of us have discussed the topic of the relative merits and demerits of the British (and Canadian) health care systems, and in comparison with those of the U.S., to the point of some hundreds of thousands of words, on this blog over the past three years, so googling at least a bit of that, up to the point at which you can stand it, is apt to get you a lot more understanding of both the issue, and what people have said and cited about it, than anyone is apt to repeat yet again for the jillionth time.
Short response: the NHS is indeed untouchable in British politics, and, no, no institution anywhere is universally popular and regarded as having reached perfection. But the basic fact of the NHS? Yes, it’s popular. Do you really need cites? They’ve been given here on the blog innumerable times before, as I noted.
Gary – forgive my ignorance of the arguments, but as you may have gathered I’m rather new to this blog (I actually used to post a lot under a different name back when publius was blogging at his old site). In any case, I’m not arguing that NHS isn’t popular. I’m merely suggesting that its popularity may be due to the fact that the only realistic alternative would be a bumpy, disruptive, and expensive transition to a private system, not because socialized medicine in the abstract is a sacred principle in British political identity. You’ll need more evidence than mere voter approval of the status quo to convince me of the latter.
I think it’s revealing that there is a notion that a country’s healthcare system should be a reflection of its location on the political scale of things. I guess that if you equate conservatism with some sort of individual responsibility notion, you could get that, but that is a very different notion of conservatism than the rest of the world has. This is not to slam anyone’s definition of various locations on the political spectrum, but when there is this much of a disconnect between various notions, don’t expect any kind of consensus to be reached.
“I’m merely suggesting that its popularity may be due to the fact that the only realistic alternative would be a bumpy, disruptive, and expensive transition to a private system, not because socialized medicine in the abstract is a sacred principle in British political identity.”
Since Britons clearly aren’t interested, overall, in a transition to a private system, I’m unclear what distinction you are making, in furtherance of what argument, at this point.
We’ve agreed that Jes made a comment she could have phrased more clearly, and that simplistic political comparisons between disparate democracies aren’t very helpful: is there some particularly meaningful argument left that you’re trying to make, which I’m missing?
Even sportswriters know that being a game behind on May 1st doesn’t mean anything, and you have to work hard to be dumber than a sportswriter.
Interesting observation I read somewhere about why sports writing, for all its flaws, is invariably superior to modern political coverage: because there is an independent reality to most sports events that everyone agrees on. People can debate the significance, but no-one is going to argue that Ohio State beat LSU in the national championship game, or that Illinois didn’t get thumped by USC. As such, for all the contention — and I’m sorry, if you don’t beat Stanford (or Tennessee for that matter) you don’t go to the national championship — there’s a certain level of basic factuality, of basic understanding that everyone is forced to share if they want to talk sports.
Contrast that with our post-modern “he said, she said” political reportage, let alone the spin and outright lies, and you can see why I can consider ESPN College Game Day a source of valuable insight while swearing never to watch cable news again.
Gary – the argument I was making was that I see no evidence that Britons hold abstract views that are inherently more left-wing than those of Americans. I.e., I don’t think that British culture is inherently more liberal, or that if you stranded 100 Britons and 100 Americans on desert islands and left them to set up societies from scratch, the Britons would fashion a more leftist government. Someone offered the example of healthcare (which I agree with l.j. is an arbitrary one) as an issue which provides evidence of the leftward lean of British society, and I made a distinction between society and on-the-ground political reality, and between your average Briton’s political opinions and his or her political principles. I guess I’ll leave it up to you to determine whether this distinction means anything. In any case, this all sorta ties back to my point that these things are relativistic and the only really enlightening comparisons are those made within a political system or between very similar political systems. Statements like “the U.S. is a center-right country” or “America has two main political parties, a right one and a far right one” don’t really mean anything to me because there is no objective standard by which these designations are made. I think we agree on that last part, at least. In any case, I think this particular line of discussion has reached a satisfactory end.
Anarch – I gotta play the devil’s advocate. Isn’t it true that there’s also a certain level of “basic factuality” in politics? I.e., how is “LSU beat Ohio St.” any more indisputable than “Hillary beat Obama”? I think both disciplines wander into fuzzy-headed pseudo-analysis when the topic becomes interpreting what results augur for the future – e.g., columns arguing that Eli Manning will finally emerge as an elite quarterback because he won one playoff game and that Hillary’s victory will springboard her to victory in the next primary are equally speculative (and equally likely to be proven incorrect). Interpreting why certain things happened ex post facto is somewhat less speculative but requires equal levels of expertise on specific subjects (quarterbacking vs. the Cover Two defense, polling analysis) in both genres.
Spin and outright lies are perhaps more prevalent in politics, but they certainly exist in sports as well (e.g. chalking up a critical interception to the quarterback not “being clutch” as opposed to the receiver blowing his pass route, blaming the refs for a critical call/non-call, etc.).
I think one major difference is that in sportswriting it’s perfectly acceptable to write with a hometown bias, whereas political reporters are expected to maintain at least the pretense of objectivity and thus must engage spin no matter how absurd it may be.
Gary – the argument I was making was that I see no evidence that Britons hold abstract views that are inherently more left-wing than those of Americans. I.e., I don’t think that British culture is inherently more liberal, or that if you stranded 100 Britons and 100 Americans on desert islands and left them to set up societies from scratch, the Britons would fashion a more leftist government. Someone offered the example of healthcare (which I agree with l.j. is an arbitrary one) as an issue which provides evidence of the leftward lean of British society, and I made a distinction between society and on-the-ground political reality, and between your average Briton’s political opinions and his or her political principles. I guess I’ll leave it up to you to determine whether this distinction means anything. In any case, this all sorta ties back to my point that these things are relativistic and the only really enlightening comparisons are those made within a political system or between very similar political systems. Statements like “the U.S. is a center-right country” or “America has two main political parties, a right one and a far right one” don’t really mean anything to me because there is no objective standard by which these designations are made. I think we agree on that last part, at least. In any case, I think this particular line of discussion has reached a satisfactory end.
Anarch – I gotta play the devil’s advocate. Isn’t it true that there’s also a certain level of “basic factuality” in politics? I.e., how is “LSU beat Ohio St.” any more indisputable than “Hillary beat Obama”? I think both disciplines wander into fuzzy-headed pseudo-analysis when the topic becomes interpreting what results augur for the future – e.g., columns arguing that Eli Manning will finally emerge as an elite quarterback because he won one playoff game and that Hillary’s victory will springboard her to victory in the next primary are equally speculative (and equally likely to be proven incorrect). Interpreting why certain things happened ex post facto is somewhat less speculative but requires equal levels of expertise on specific subjects (quarterbacking vs. the Cover Two defense, polling analysis) in both genres.
Spin and outright lies are perhaps more prevalent in politics, but they certainly exist in sports as well (e.g. chalking up a critical interception to the quarterback not “being clutch” as opposed to the receiver blowing his pass route, blaming the refs for a critical call/non-call, etc.).
I think one major difference is that in sportswriting it’s perfectly acceptable to write with a hometown bias, whereas political reporters are expected to maintain at least the pretense of objectivity and thus must engage spin no matter how absurd it may be.
Xey: the argument I was making was that I see no evidence that Britons hold abstract views that are inherently more left-wing than those of Americans.
Ah. The argument I was making, which is rather different, is that the political and social structures of the UK are more left-wing than in the US. I too see no reason to believe that Americans are inherently less left-wing than Britons: but the political structure of the US is fixed with the right-wing party and the far-right-wing party, so Americans with left-wing views can’t get political representation at a national level to create the equivalent social structures that, by existing, tend to skew politics to the left: right-wing politics being all about removing benefits for all to the profit of the few. (That is: in the UK, no matter how conservative a politician is, they’re not going to campaign on getting rid of the NHS: lying about it will only work so far, because unlike social security it’s not a benefit that exists in the future for Americans under retirement age – the NHS is a benefit that exists right now that people know is useful.)
Xeynon: one virtue of an American style system is that it largely prevents genuinely crazy ideologues from either side of the spectrum from gaining power.
Could you let us know the name of a UK prime minister who is more crazy and extreme than George W, please? Tony Blair may be far more right-wing than we’d hoped, but he never tried appealing to the pro-torture vote.
As for the comments about the relative liberalism of the US and UK, most discussion of the US on UK blogsites gets regular posts from Americans making comments about the UL being full of liberal, wussy, pinko, socialists. If the UK is really no more left-wing than the US, why do so many of your compatriots think it is?
magistra: If the UK is really no more left-wing than the US, why do so many of your compatriots think it is?
Because ideas we take for granted in the UK as part of the normal political/social structure, are ideas that in the US are regarded as horrifyingly extreme socialistic nonsense. Conversely, ideas taken for granted in the US as part of the normal political/social structure, are in the UK regarded as horrifyingly extreme fascistic nonsense…
Don’t take this as British jingoism. In the UK we take for granted that a government agency like MI5 doesn’t have to get a warrant from a judge before they can wiretap a phone. They’ll just damn well do it. In the US, while so far Bush seems to be getting away with having confessed to committing this offense, it is at least explicitly a crime for which he ought to be impeached. I think the US is better in this respect, though it would be still better if you would actually enforce the laws.
Jesurgislac – ok, I see what you’re driving at. I disagree with your second point, though. Americans with leftist views (let’s call them, say, classical socialist views, so as to avoid the problematic issue of quantifying leftiness) aren’t disenfranchised – they’re just not very persuasive to a majority of the electorate. People like Kucinich have tried to move the Democrats to the left, and it doesn’t work, because Democratic voters by and large do not want to move to the left. In other words, class warfare just doesn’t sell here. In some peoples’ view, it would if not for the fact the structure of the federal government discriminates against urban areas by awarding disproportionate representation to more rural, conservative states. I’ll concede that there’s something to that, but I don’t think it tells remotely the whole story, because 1.)a lot of rural voters are lower class too, and 2.)socialism doesn’t sell on any level of government here. I’d argue that just as important are the historically dynamic and innovative nature of American society and business, greater social mobility, the peculiar optimism of American culture, the lack of a culturally ingrained concept of social (as opposed to socioeconomic) class, more extensive economic opportunity, etc. Many Americans really do go through life optimistic about their chances and believing they can do anything. In my experience, this is not true of Europeans, who tend to have a more jaded outlook on life. I’m not arguing the merits of these respective worldviews, just point out that they probably have an influence.
Magistra – how about Thatcher? Need I remind you that she was ready to fight a war with frickin’ Argentina over a bunch of rocks in the South Atlantic? I recall reading that Churchill wanted to rumble with the USSR in the wake of WII because he viewed Stalin as more of a long-term threat than Hitler had been – this despite the fact that the continent was staggering with the loss of 20+ million lives and pretty much all its infrastructure. That’s pretty extreme for a 20th century democratic politician.
Re: torture – I abhor it. But when did Bush ever say “vote for me because I am pro torture?”
As for those blogsites – are right wing American trolls and left wing Euroleftist bloggers really representative of the median views of the people in either country?
Jesurgislac – ok, I see what you’re driving at. I disagree with your second point, though. Americans with leftist views (let’s call them, say, classical socialist views, so as to avoid the problematic issue of quantifying leftiness) aren’t disenfranchised – they’re just not very persuasive to a majority of the electorate. People like Kucinich have tried to move the Democrats to the left, and it doesn’t work, because Democratic voters by and large do not want to move to the left. In other words, class warfare just doesn’t sell here. In some peoples’ view, it would if not for the fact the structure of the federal government discriminates against urban areas by awarding disproportionate representation to more rural, conservative states. I’ll concede that there’s something to that, but I don’t think it tells remotely the whole story, because 1.)a lot of rural voters are lower class too, and 2.)socialism doesn’t sell on any level of government here. I’d argue that just as important are the historically dynamic and innovative nature of American society and business, greater social mobility, the peculiar optimism of American culture, the lack of a culturally ingrained concept of social (as opposed to socioeconomic) class, more extensive economic opportunity, etc. Many Americans really do go through life optimistic about their chances and believing they can do anything. In my experience, this is not true of Europeans, who tend to have a more jaded outlook on life. I’m not arguing the merits of these respective worldviews, just point out that they probably have an influence.
Magistra – how about Thatcher? Need I remind you that she was ready to fight a war with frickin’ Argentina over a bunch of rocks in the South Atlantic? I recall reading that Churchill wanted to rumble with the USSR in the wake of WII because he viewed Stalin as more of a long-term threat than Hitler had been – this despite the fact that the continent was staggering with the loss of 20+ million lives and pretty much all its infrastructure. That’s pretty extreme for a 20th century democratic politician.
Re: torture – I abhor it. But when did Bush ever say “vote for me because I am pro torture?”
As for those blogsites – are right wing American trolls and left wing Euroleftist bloggers really representative of the median views of the people in either country?
Little late on my responses. I think you’re overstating things, jesurgislac. Can you give me an example of a standard feature of British governance that is regarded as “horrifyingly extreme socialistic nonsense” by Americans? Don’t tell me universal healthcare, because that’s a pretty mainstream idea in American politics. Even one of the leading Republican Presidential contenders has proposed it. Conversely, which commonly accepted American beliefs/practices are regarded as “horrifyingly extreme fascistic nonsense” by your average Briton? Invading other countries without provocation? Oh wait, you guys were on board with that. Torture? I’d accept that you’ve got a point with that. But I think it’s naive to think that European governments wouldn’t torture a prisoner if hard-pressed by circumstance to do so (e.g. they felt it was necessary to save lives). I also suspect that a majority of Britons would support torturing an al Qaeda operative who had information about an imminent terrorist attack on London. I won’t defend the pro-torture right, because as I said, I think it’s abhorrent. But I don’t think the impulse behind torture is in any way uniquely American.
Xey,
If you say that ‘class warfare doesn’t sell here’, you are acknowledging what you previously denied, that the US and UK are different politically and that the US is more right-wing. Similarly, it is currently politically unacceptable in the UK that any people should starve or rely on charity handouts in order to eat, however much it may be ‘their fault’ that they have no money (because of failure to find work, etc). In much of US political life such options do seem to be acceptable. (I’m not arguing the merits of either case here, I’m just pointing out the divide).
I am very anti-Thatcher, but the Falklands war was undertaken in self-defence (unlike Iraq) and didn’t cause disasters in the region. You can compare it to Gulf War I if you like, but it is nothing like the current Iraq debacle.
As for torture: no Bush, didn’t explicitly say he was pro-torture, but when the Administration have been claiming openly that certain forms of torture weren’t really torture and that it doesn’t matter what happens to ‘bad people’ anyhow, and when we know via leaks to the media that torture is going on, how much more explicit do you expect him to be? When Britain tortured people (as it did in Northern Ireland and Kenya) it was ashamed of the fact. The US meanwhile now has politicians like Giuliani calling for even greater ‘toughness’ and ‘double Gitmo’. I know many Americans are ashamed of this. I just don’t understand why they all aren’t.
Hmmmm. A couple things – first, I never said the US and UK weren’t different politically – in fact, I said exactly the opposite. I just said that “different” isn’t necessarily equivalent to “more or less right/left wing”, because of the apples-to-oranges factor. Perhaps the British norm is further to the abstract left on some issues than the American worldview. As previously noted, it’s further to the abstract right on others. As I said, I don’t think such comparisons can be made to add up to an overall statement on whether a society is right or left wing, because every society faces different challenges which help to define the political spectrum differently (e.g. given the differences between immigration and Europe and immigration in America, it’s unsurprising that what counts as a reactionary attitude on the immigration question in America would be quite liberal in some countries in Europe).
I already noted that Britain is a full partner in the current Iraq debacle.
As for torture and American shame – give us the same 30 years you’ve had with Northern Ireland. I won’t argue with you on the fundamentals here, since I think we substantively agree, but I would quibble with your assertion that there’s a “pro torture” vote – people who are “pro torture” generally feel that torture is a necessary evil, not that it’s a good in and of itself. I think that is an important distinction.
“but I would quibble with your assertion that there’s a ‘pro torture’ vote – people who are ‘pro torture’ generally feel that torture is a necessary evil, not that it’s a good in and of itself. I think that is an important distinction.”
Dispute the size of that vote all you like, but saying that the vote doesn’t exist at all would just make you appear ignorant.
“Dispute the size of that vote all you like, but saying that the vote doesn’t exist at all would just make you appear ignorant.”
As a general rule, discussions are facilitated by assuming that yes you can find at least one really stupid person willing to say almost anything, and that such fact isn’t particularly interesting or helpful.
And that is especially true when someone is responding to the not-particularly-careful generalizations of large swaths of voters.
If you aren’t going to actually dispute the assertion that “people who are ‘pro torture’ generally feel that torture is a necessary evil, not that it’s a good in and of itself,” pointing out that there are people who comment on political weblogs who do seem to thing of it as a positive good would just make you appear unnecessarily pedantic.
And I say this as someone who thinks that torture is an unnecessary evil.
Sebastian, although I certainly can’t point you to a statistical analysis, it’s hardly difficult to find as many more examples of those sentiments as one likes. It seems perfectly clear to me, although I can’t give you any true statistic, that hundreds of thousands of Americans are, in fact, pro-torture, in that they actively want to see enemies of the U.S. tortured, because those people should feel such pain, and that’s the motivating emotion at work.
In point of fact, I’ve read at least a dozen such comments in the past few days, given all the blogs I’ve gone through — hell, I read over a dozen last night, some still ringing in my head — “get out the waterboards!” — and that’s all I’ll say about that. Believe me or not.
If you feel this isn’t true, yes, though, I will suggest that you’re simply not sufficiently familiar with many people of such beliefs, which is understandable, since your beliefs and theirs are in such conflict. But that doesn’t mean they’re statistically insignificant, uncomfortable as it might be to accept this.
Xeynon: Americans with leftist views (let’s call them, say, classical socialist views, so as to avoid the problematic issue of quantifying leftiness) aren’t disenfranchised
They cannot, however, vote for an American Labour Party, because the US political scene is set up to prevent any third party achieving a national presence.
Can you give me an example of a standard feature of British governance that is regarded as “horrifyingly extreme socialistic nonsense” by Americans?
Healthcare free at point of use, available to all. Mandatory provision of paid maternity leave, with right to return to your old job. Free provision of contraception and free abortions on demand for any girl or woman, regardless of her age. A minimum wage that is (from the discussions when the US minimum wage was raised last year) set scarily and unreasonably high by US standards. Long-term welfare benefits paid in actual money, not food stamps. Strong unionization protection laws – by US standards; and strong – by US standards – involvement of unions in government. A public education system, free to all children between 4 and 19, that is usually better and certainly less expensive than the locally available private education. The BBC.
I also suspect that a majority of Britons would support torturing an al Qaeda operative who had information about an imminent terrorist attack on London.
Well, it would depend how you asked the question, and how many British people recall that our government used to torture IRA operatives and how unsuccessful this was in preventing terrorist attacks on London. In fact, Brits do tend to be rather jingoistic about our experience, courage, and cool-headedness about terrorist attacks on our cities, compared to the hysterical Americans who go into comic-book villain mode and start screaming “Torture! Torture!” as if that would do any good. So really: like most such poll questions, it would depend not only who you asked, but how you asked the question. But certainly, following the terrorist attacks on 11th July a couple of years ago, there was no such campaign of government brutality against immigrants as followed the September 11 attacks in the US.
“In point of fact, I’ve read at least a dozen such comments in the past few days, given all the blogs I’ve gone through — hell, I read over a dozen last night, some still ringing in my head — “get out the waterboards!” — and that’s all I’ll say about that. Believe me or not.”
Well then by all means dispute the substance of the comment rather than just saying something like “Dispute the size of that vote all you like, but saying that the vote doesn’t exist at all would just make you appear ignorant.”
I know I say things like that too, but it just makes us sound like jerks and isn’t helpful.
“But certainly, following the terrorist attacks on 11th July a couple of years ago, there was no such campaign of government brutality against immigrants as followed the September 11 attacks in the US.”
Campaign of government brutality against immigrants as followed the September 11 attacks in the US? Maybe you’re just being incautious with your language here. I’ll definetly spot you Arar. But are you intending to suggest a generalized campaign of brutality against immigrants in general? Or even against Muslim immigrants in general?
Um. Evolution vs. creationism. See Texas and Florida.
But certainly, following the terrorist attacks on 11th July a couple of years ago
7th July. Sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking.
Sebastian: Campaign of government brutality against immigrants as followed the September 11 attacks in the US?
Yes. Hadn’t you heard? Didn’t you know?
“. But are you intending to suggest a generalized campaign of brutality against immigrants in general? Or even against Muslim immigrants in general?”
There was a huge round-up, post-September 11th, of anyone with any Muslim connections who had the faintest degree of question arise about their immigration status. Many of these people, most wholly innocent of any crime at all, and many guilty of nothing more than technical violations of immigration laws, were treated brutally in immigration facilities. There have been a number of lawsuits. You might want to google on it.
That may not be identical, in your view, to a “generalized campaign of brutality […] against Muslim immigrants in general,” such as, perhaps, in a sense that there were many lynch mobs, or some other formulation, but many would find it a reasonable, if incomplete, statement.
I did know about the ‘deported for visa violations’ which while I think was stupid, I wouldn’t have called it ‘brutal’. And I certainly wouldn’t have compared it unfavorably to UK immigration policies which was recently going through its own immigration hand-wringing as recently as middle of 2006 (I haven’t paid attention to the issue much since then).
And even if I agree that 100% of the approximately 1,200 people you are talking about represent some kind of injustice, there are estimated to be 2-4 million recent Muslim immigrants to the United States. That makes the idea of a generalized campaign of brutality against Muslim immigrants still a long way off by the evidence you have presented.
“I did know about the ‘deported for visa violations’ which while I think was stupid, I wouldn’t have called it ‘brutal’.”
And yet the many people who were repeatedly beaten, handcuffed to pipes, kept in cells with 24-light and surveillance and noice, and so on, beg to differ in their lawsuits.
Otherwise, let me note that “generalized” does not mean “universal,” and that no one has, that I’ve noticed, asserted the brutality involved even hundreds, or tens, of thousands of people, let alone millions.
Just mere thousands of people: should that be minimized and dismissed as unimportant, and unworthy of attention, then?
Let me really suggest you read up more on what happened before commenting much further. I know you’re a good person, and I doubt you’ll want to stand by “I wouldn’t have called it ‘brutal’.”
In the usual multiple attempts to post without a cookie, or my blacklisted e-mail address (can no one ever do anything about that?), the text was reverted to the earlier version; this is the trivially different comment I actually wrote to post:
“I did know about the ‘deported for visa violations’ which while I think was stupid, I wouldn’t have called it ‘brutal’.”
And yet the many people who were repeatedly beaten, handcuffed to pipes, kept in cells with 24-light and surveillance and noise, and so on, beg to differ in their lawsuits.
Otherwise, let me note that “generalized” does not mean “universal,” and that no one has, that I’ve noticed, asserted the brutality involved even hundreds, or tens, of thousands of people, let alone millions.
Just mere thousands of people: should that be minimized and dismissed as unimportant, and unworthy of attention, then?
Let me really suggest you read up more on what happened before commenting much further. I know you’re a good person, and I doubt you’ll want to stand by “I wouldn’t have called it ‘brutal’.”
Forgive me or not for not providing you with links: I’m a little occupied in my link-chasing at present. But I’m sure you can look into it yourself.
Sebastian: I did know about the ‘deported for visa violations’ which while I think was stupid, I wouldn’t have called it ‘brutal’.
I really suggest you go look up what happened to them: I think, once you actually do know about them, you will call it brutal. There’s a PDF file here from the Immigration Forum.
That makes the idea of a generalized campaign of brutality against Muslim immigrants still a long way off by the evidence you have presented.
So, how many people does your government have to arrest and brutalize for the crime of being Muslim before you’ll accept that it counts as a government campaign? If 1200 isn’t enough, what kind of numbers would you accept?
But neither [Kusinich or Brown] could even make it to the Senate, or being a Governor
Brown was Governor, in case you forgot. I guess you nevedr heard the rumors of him and Linda Ronstead roller-skating through the Governor’s Mansion.
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Could you let us know the name of a UK prime minister who is more crazy and extreme than George W, please?
Would Thatcher have approved torture? I get the feeling that she would have. But it’s only a feeling.
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Long-term welfare benefits paid in actual money, not food stamps.
Food stamps are being phased out, if they aren’t already gone. Instead, clients are issued a debit card, with a special selection at supermarket checkout machines.
Swipe your card, which, in California, looks like a pretty nice credit / debit card, press the EBT (rather than ATM) button, and your appropriate choices are deducted from your account. No more “funny money” which is embarrisng, adds hardship for the stores and is easily stolen.
We have, in the past few years, caught up with the times.
Mandatory provision of paid maternity leave, with right to return to your old job.
I have problems with this, from an “equal rights for all” point of view, but will save them for a different thread.
“Otherwise, let me note that “generalized” does not mean “universal,”
Right, it means generalized, and less than 1% almost certainly isn’t generalized in any normal sense of the word.
“Just mere thousands of people: should that be minimized and dismissed as unimportant, and unworthy of attention, then?”
What an odd thing to say from someone as attentive to words as you are. Is noting that there was not a generalized campaign of brutality the same as saying that any particular instance of brutality is unimportant? There are a lot of Muslim immigrants in the US. If there were a generalized campaign of brutality against them, it would involve more than about 1,200 people and around 800 deportations (which don’t seem to even be improper deportations).
If you want to argue that people held for immigration violations ought not be held in prisons I’m all for that. If you want to argue that these instances offer evidence of a generalized campaign of brutality, I’m afraid you are simply wrong.
I think that one instance of torture is too many for instance. And I think that Bush’s systematic allowance for torture is evil. But if you were to say that Bush’s administration is engaged in a generalized campaign of torture of Muslims you would be guilty of hyperbole.
Which is why I asked for clarification.
I’ll add, on the “personal anecdote” level, that by 2004, according to a friend who works for British Airways, all the Muslims he knew who were working for BA had asked to be taken off UK/US flights, because after an 8-12 hour flight, they would be “detained for interrogation” – separated from the rest of the crew, taken into custody, and questioned. Being mistreated because of your religion is something no one needs, even if the mistreatment is simply not being allowed to get to your hotel bedroom and go to sleep at the end of a long hard working day, but have to stay awake answering stupid questions for another couple of hours.
Jeff: Food stamps are being phased out, if they aren’t already gone. Instead, clients are issued a debit card, with a special selection at supermarket checkout machines.
So, an electronic version of food stamps. Nice for supermarkets – stops people on welfare from getting to shop where they like and make their own choices about food. Not so good for people on welfare, of course.
Sebastian, “generalized campaign of brutality” as a term you made up and introduced here. No one has asserted such a campaign. I’m uninterested in disproving a straw man claim I never made.
I understand that your automatic impulse is to question unpleasant statements made about things that happened under the authority of our government; you might consider further questioning how automatic that initial impulse should always be.
(Note: this is not a suggestion you switch to Blaming America First in every instance, on a moment’s notice, either.)
“So, how many people does your government have to arrest and brutalize for the crime of being Muslim before you’ll accept that it counts as a government campaign?”
Well, if it approaches say 1/2 of 1% of the Muslim population I would start to think worry about it. And you haven’t even come close to 1,200 arrested AND brutalized. The link you provide offers about 43 if my count is correct. And knowing how such fora work, we can probably agree that they picked their best cases. And not even all of them would count as ‘brutualized’–I think I count 8.
Those 8 are bad cases, and they should be dealt with appropriately. The other 35 cases, even though not ‘brutal’ were also grossly inappropriate, should not have happened, and reflect poorly on the officers and administrations involved.
But even if I were to accept that 100% of the 1,200 arrested were inappropriate–*which is almost certainly ridiculous* that wouldn’t show a generalized campaign of brutality against the 2-4 million recent Muslim immigrants. 1,200 people in a 300 million person country isn’t a lot, and 1,200 people in a 2-4 million base isn’t a generalized campaign of anything.
“No one has asserted such a campaign. I’m uninterested in disproving a straw man claim I never made.”
You were defending a claim that Jesurgislac did in fact make. I asked for clarification on that claim becuase she has a history of making inflammatory generalizing claims. She has in fact stood by the more generalized claim and did so before you made your claim that no one was doing so.
“I understand that your automatic impulse is to question unpleasant statements made about things that happened under the authority of our government; you might consider further questioning how automatic that initial impulse should always be.”
I have comments about how nasty this particular bit of trivializing sounds, but I think I’m going to take a breath before saying anything further.
“Not so good for people on welfare, of course.”
Yes, but the vitally important goal of making sure government money doesn’t go to giving poor people access to junk food is maintained.
Among the many rules: no cold cuts unless bought in a sealed package. No non-produce (vegetables and fruit) food of any sort that isn’t in a sealed package.
By this you know that the deli lobby in the U.S. is not at all large.
Oh, and toilet paper is your own problem.
Every state runs their own program, within federal guidelines that allow for considerable differentiation. Here is info on the federal program.
FAQ:
“Food that will be eaten in the store” gets interpreted, in my experience, as any unsealed food that isn’t produce, regardless of whether it’s twenty pounds of granola, three pounds of pasta, a forty pound cheese, two pounds of rice, or what have you. If it’s unsealed, you might eat it, and that’s illegal, so it’s plastic sealing on everything for you. And you’ll like it.
Well, if it approaches say 1/2 of 1% of the Muslim population I would start to think worry about it.
Okay. Given the figure of 4M Muslims in the US (estimates vary, but we’ll take that for the sake of argument), you’re saying you’re not going to worry about people being arrested because of their religion in your own country until it happens to at least 20 000 people? Honestly, Sebastian: I would worry about my government doing this if it happened to twenty people.
The link you provide offers about 43 if my count is correct.
Uh, yeah. If we can repeat this: most of those arrested by your government because of their religion were then deported. 43 personal testimonies may represent the worst of those whose testimony was available.
But even if I were to accept that 100% of the 1,200 arrested were inappropriate–*which is almost certainly ridiculous*
You think it’s sometimes appropriate to arrest people because of their religion? Really?
that wouldn’t show a generalized campaign of brutality against the 2-4 million recent Muslim immigrants.
It would, however, show a campaign of government brutality against immigrants. Which is what I pointed out followed the September 11 attacks in the US.
It wasn’t my intent to be nasty, Sebastian. I apologize for a comment that I’d agree is fairly characterizable as condescending.
You were defending a claim that Jesurgislac did in fact make.
No, Sebastian. I pointed out that, following September 11, there was a campaign of government brutality against immigrants because of their religion. THis campaign is documented. That you consider it’s not important because unless at least 20 000 people are persecuted because of their religion, you’re not concerned about government brutality and discrimnation, does not actually change the plain fact that there was a government campaign against Muslim immigrants.
“You think it’s sometimes appropriate to arrest people because of their religion? Really?”
No, Sebastian was saying he believed that most of the arrests were on grounds of reasonable questions of violation of immigration laws.
May I suggest that “campaign” is an unusefully ambiguous term here? It can imply both a wide range of scope and intent, and a narrow range of either. It can imply considerable planning and intent and coordination, but it need not.
It’s not necessary to describe what happened as a “campaign,” and it’s not useful to do so without reaching agreement on what constitutes a “campaign” and what doesn’t.
I think it’s bad enough to point out what happened, and say that America should have been better than that.
That America wasn’t worse really isn’t what I think should be the first, or second, thought that springs to mind.
Given past experience with immigration officials, I would term this sort of of treatment to be widespread within the government, and pretty much systemic. Unless treated like that, this sort of treatment will be (since it has been) repeated again and again and again.
As you say, this is not acceptable. Yet, it still occurs.
Jesurgislac, “You think it’s sometimes appropriate to arrest people because of their religion? Really?”
No. I think most of them were arrested for other reasons.
gwangung, “Given past experience with immigration officials, I would term this sort of of treatment to be widespread within the government, and pretty much systemic.”
I think there are lots of things wrong with our immigration system, and I agree that systemically it is broken. I also think that there are lots things wrong with our drug enforcement system, and that it is systemically broken. But those are two hugely different issues.
“It wasn’t my intent to be nasty, Sebastian. I apologize for a comment that I’d agree is fairly characterizable as condescending.”
That’s fine. That is why I decided to take a breath first. 🙂
Sebastian, I recognize that I’m getting more than a little *****. Based on past experience, I’m actually pretty confident that given a chance to look into what happened to Muslim immigrants after September 11, you’ll come down on the right side. I admit that you have not yet had a chance to do so, and that expecting you to do so in the space of a couple of hours is unreasonable. I apologize for getting *****.
Oh, wait. I bet I can’t say *****. Let me replace this by five asterisks and the posting rules require you to use your imagination/your knowledge of British slang/your e-mail.
Wow. This is all a little too “kumbayah,” don’t you think? I’m not sure I can handle the agreement. 😉
Would it be fair to say that in the case under discussion, those who were arrested for immigration violations were all (or nearly all) Muslims? So, allowing that the deportations were technically correct, those scrutinized were chosen for their religion? (I have not taken the time to refamiliarize myself with the case, so apologies in advance for ignorance.)
farmgirl: Would it be fair to say that in the case under discussion, those who were arrested for immigration violations were all (or nearly all) Muslims?
Yes.
So, allowing that the deportations were technically correct, those scrutinized were chosen for their religion?
Yes.
Even if the DoJ could find a legal excuse to deport these people, they were not cracking down on immigration law violations: they were making use of immigration law to crack down on Muslims. Where (as with BA employees) there was no immigration law issue they could use, the authorities exercised their right to question any airline employee: but again, they were targeting Muslims, not “airline employees”.
PS: I do not sing “Kumbaya”. 😉
Still waiting for that apology, Bikeshed.
So, an electronic version of food stamps. Nice for supermarkets – stops people on welfare from getting to shop where they like and make their own choices about food. Not so good for people on welfare, of course.
Electronic “food stamps” are good all the way around. For the clients: They’re not “bearer documents” like Food Stamps are, and are less likely to be stolen. They also look (and act) just like a regular debit card, so there’s none of the embaressment of someone flashing odd but recognizable “I’m on welfare!!!!!” bills. For the stores: They no longer have to deal with two forms of currency. And for the Counties (which distribute welfare in California — Michagan uses a state-wide system, which means that it has to work in Detroit and low-populated towns in the UP): Less fraud, since they can track who’s using their card, where and for how much; and, again, less theft.
Food Stamps have always only been for groceries, which means they’re only good in markets. Even the smallest Carniceria will have a check-out machine programmed to accept EBT. Also, Food stamps have ALWAYS been a way to provide food to a family. So toilet paper, pet food, and items to be eaten in the store shouldn’t fall under “Food Stamps”.
We also have “Cal-Works”, which is what used to be Aid to Families with Dependent Children, then just Aid to Dependent Children — the Federal program is Transitional Aid to Needy Families (welfare-to-work, right? Don’t get me started on that mess). There’s MediCal and MediCaid (only accepted at doctor’s offices! isn’t that an imposition on the poor!!!!!) And finally, there’s General Relief, a catch-all for immediate relief, like when the fridge doesn’t work.
(Full Disclosure: My job is to support the County of Los Angeles Department of Social Services. I was one of our team to implement EBT (“Electronic Food Stamps”), and I helped design the “warrants”, otherwise known as checks, that get sent to our clients — we’ve moved to Direct Deposit, another benefit for both client and County, but we still send out more checks than Direct Deposit). I have a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about.)
Some more links on the post 9-11 sweeps: 1, 2.
A bit of further disclosure: I was on Food Stamps, back when they were that cumbersome, ugly, “I’m on welfare!!!!!” money, so I’ve seen FS as botha supplier and consumer.
Don’t worry, folks…The supporters of our various Democratic candidates will make sure we won’t be singing Kumbaya…
“They also look (and act) just like a regular debit card, so there’s none of the embaressment of someone flashing odd but recognizable ‘I’m on welfare!!!!!’ bills.”
I agree that the cards are better than the old coupons, but while they’re a little less conspicuous than the old booklets of coupons were, what you say is completely untrue.
The cards are, at least in the case of Colorado and New York, last I looked, completely distinguishable from any other credit/debit card by their unique color, design, and identifying aspects, and when applied, a unique procedure has to be used to be properly acknowleged and punched in — this also takes time — and the cashier, who may be as apt to sneer as any customer, knows perfectly well that she’s looking at a card that, in the case of Colorado, says in big letters “Colorado Quest Card.”
Then there’s the whole interaction if someone makes a mistake and tries to purchase a Forbidden Object.
A bit less embarrassment? Sure. None?: utter nonsense.
“I have a pretty good idea of what I’m talking about.”
Not from the point of view of using the cards.
Feel free to be proud of the improvement. Please don’t claim the difference is more than incremental.
Thanks for reminding me of Ehab Elmaghraby and Javaid Iqbal, Katherine.
I know I blogged about other cases at Brooklyn Detention, this is the one I couldn’t find for a long time.
Jeff: Electronic “food stamps” are good all the way around.
Well, for everyone except the people on welfare, I’m sure they’re just fine. For the people in receipt of “food stamps”, electronic or paper, they’re insulting, inconvenient, and publicly humiliating, none of which is good, let alone “good all the way around”.
They cannot, however, vote for an American Labour Party, because the US political scene is set up to prevent any third party achieving a national presence.
Yes, they can. Socialists, the Green Party, etc. are on the Presidential ballot in all 50 states. It’s just that very few people vote for them. Also, we’re talking about the same Labour Party, right? The one that got Britain involved in the Iraq War and has
gone along with economic de-nationalization?
Healthcare free at point of use, available to all. Mandatory provision of paid maternity leave, with right to return to your old job.
Further left than the U.S. norm? Yes. “Horrifyingly extreme socialist nonsense” from the POV of the U.S. electorate? No. These are fairly mainstream positions within the Democratic party.
Free provision of contraception and free abortions on demand for any girl or woman, regardless of her age.
Opposition to this has far more to do with more conservative social attitudes than it does with socialism. Note also that as the U.S. is one of the only industrialized countries that makes enough babies to maintain a stable-sized labor force and thus ensure the survival of its welfare state, we’re not necessarily wrong to be more socially conservative.
A minimum wage that is (from the discussions when the US minimum wage was raised last year) set scarily and unreasonably high by US standards.
Uhh.. most Americans support a higher minimum wage. Factoring in cost of living, the common consensus on what the U.S. minimum wage should be is not that different from what the British wage is.
Long-term welfare benefits paid in actual money, not food stamps.
Yes, actual money is so much better. Gotta let the junkies and gambling degenerates indulge their self-destructive habits on the government dole, after all. Sorry for the snark, but there is very good reason for restricting the use of welfare benefits.
Strong unionization protection laws – by US standards; and strong – by US standards – involvement of unions in government.
Given that unions are one of the largest and most powerful interest group conglomerations in the U.S., I don’t know that this is true.
A public education system, free to all children between 4 and 19, that is usually better and certainly less expensive than the locally available private education.
Find me a poll that shows a statistically significant number of Americans think public education is socialist.
The BBC.
Ah yes. Well, it is the Brits who came up with the nickname “the Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation”. I think it has an embarassingly leftist bias and is rather mediocre as a journalistic organ, yes, but I wouldn’t call it “horrifyingly extreme socialist nonsense”, nor would most Americans. “Horrifyingly extreme socialist nonsense” is things like executing people who wear glasses as enemies of the revolution. The British system is left-wing, and far moreso than the U.S.’ in some regards, but you are really overstating the differences.
Also, note what I’ve previously stated, that some things which are the norm in Britain (e.g. warrantless surveillance, lack of automatic citizenship for babies born to people who are resident) are far more right-wing than equivalent conditions in the U.S.
I also suspect that a majority of Britons would support torturing an al Qaeda operative who had information about an imminent terrorist attack on London.
Well, it would depend how you asked the question, and how many British people recall that our government used to torture IRA operatives and how unsuccessful this was in preventing terrorist attacks on London. In fact, Brits do tend to be rather jingoistic about our experience, courage, and cool-headedness about terrorist attacks on our cities, compared to the hysterical Americans who go into comic-book villain mode and start screaming “Torture! Torture!” as if that would do any good. So really: like most such poll questions, it would depend not only who you asked, but how you asked the question. But certainly, following the terrorist attacks on 11th July a couple of years ago, there was no such campaign of government brutality against immigrants as followed the September 11 attacks in the US.
Ick. Messy post, didn’t respond to your last point – way to stereotype there, Jesurgislac. We Brits are cool-headed, civilized, and courageous, those Americans are a bunch of nativist barbarians who wanna torture any brown person they can get their hands on. As an intelligent leftist, you should realize that these sorts of stereotypes are not only devoid of substance but also degrade the people being generalized. Or do British leftists not read Foucault and Said these days?
Sebastian has already pretty well debunked the claim that there was a “campaign of government brutality” against immigrants in the U.S. after September 11th.
As for torture, it’s hardly universally popular in the U.S., it is hotly debated, and, well, you know, Abu Ghraib and the like WERE considered national embarrassments, with not a single mainstream political figure defending them. A lot of Europeans who criticize the quality of the U.S. debate on topics like this are, in my experience, staggeringly ignorant of the dynamics of that debate (yes, I travel in Europe quite a bit, and have lots of friends there. Some of us do get out beyond our own borders too.) But hey, cling to your sense of civilized superiority if you like.
By the powers of greyskull, Italiexo!
Xeyman: As for torture, it’s hardly universally popular in the U.S., it is hotly debated and, well, you know, Abu Ghraib and the like WERE considered national embarrassments, with not a single mainstream political figure defending them.
Nor a single mainstream political figure resigning over them. Nor any mainstream political enthusiasm for impeaching Bush for his support of torture. Torture remains a US national embarrassment.
We Brits are cool-headed, civilized, and courageous, those Americans are a bunch of nativist barbarians who wanna torture any brown person they can get their hands on. As an intelligent leftist, you should realize that these sorts of stereotypes are not only devoid of substance but also degrade the people being generalized.
Hardly. Jingoistic generalizations do not degrade the people being generalized, and I acknowledged (perhaps not as clearly as I might have done) that this is a matter of British self-image – but it is that self-image that prevents the corresponding British enthusiasm for the comic-book torture fantasies about “al Qaeda operative who had information about an imminent terrorist attack” that Americans seem to snap into so easily.
Xeyman: Note also that as the U.S. is one of the only industrialized countries that makes enough babies to maintain a stable-sized labor force and thus ensure the survival of its welfare state, we’re not necessarily wrong to be more socially conservative.
If you don’t regard it as necessarily wrong to treat women as incubators who can’t be allowed to decide for ourselves when and how many children to have: if you think of it as “socially conservative” to force women to be breeding machines. The last European country to treat women like this was Romania: I suppose you could say that Ceauşescu was “socially conservative”.
Well, for everyone except the people on welfare, I’m sure they’re just fine. For the people in receipt of “food stamps”, electronic or paper, they’re insulting, inconvenient, and publicly humiliating, none of which is good, let alone “good all the way around”.
It’s hard to respond to this within ObWi’s posting rules….
I’ve seen people use both Food Stamps and EBT cards, and I can assure you that they are NOT insulting, inconvenient, NOR publicly humiliating, any more than a standard EBT card is.
You were wrong about where they can be used, and you’re wrong about how our clients feel about them. I’ve indicated that I know a LOT more about this than you do — back down graciously for once.
“I can assure you that they are NOT insulting, inconvenient, NOR publicly humiliating,”
Excellent. Now, what number am I thinking of?
To clarify another point that hasn’t been made explicitly, and which I suspect you may be missing, is that the comparison is to cash. If you’d like to argue that the cards are more convenient, less embarrassing, and more desirable, than cash, go for it.
I’ve seen people use both Food Stamps and EBT cards, and I can assure you that they are NOT insulting, inconvenient, NOR publicly humiliating, any more than a standard EBT card is.
So, despite what people with actual experience of using food stamps or electronic food stamps say, you know – because you’ve seen them – that they are not actually insulted or humiliated, and that they do not find it inconvenient not to be just given money and let use their own judgement how to spend it.
Did you happen to read Xeymon’s casually abusive comment about people on welfare? He asserted that people on the dole are “junkies and gambling degenerates” who, if given actual money, with “indulge their self-destructive habits” and this bigotry is, he thinks a “very good reason for restricting the use of welfare benefits.”
You feel that someone on welfare ought not to feel insulted or humiliated by being forced to deal with this kind of casual bigotry from people like Xeymon? Why’s that?
Jeff; You were wrong about where they can be used, and you’re wrong about how our clients feel about them. I’ve indicated that I know a LOT more about this than you do
Yes, because you use one of those cards to buy your groceries on a weekly basis? Or because your clients assure you that they’re not insulted or humilitated by being made to use these cards rather than being able to use a regular debit card or cash? You want me to back down graciously? I’m not one of your welfare clients: I don’t have to assure you that you are right and I am wrong.
Jeff; You were wrong about where they can be used, and you’re wrong about how our clients feel about them. I’ve indicated that I know a LOT more about this than you do
Yes, because you use one of those cards to buy your groceries on a weekly basis? Or because your clients assure you that they’re not insulted or humilitated by being made to use these cards rather than being able to use a regular debit card or cash? You want me to back down graciously? I’m not one of your welfare clients: I don’t have to assure you that you are right and I am wrong.
but it is that self-image that prevents the corresponding British enthusiasm for the comic-book torture fantasies about “al Qaeda operative who had information about an imminent terrorist attack” that Americans seem to snap into so easily.
Such fantasies are, I agree, absurd. Jack Bauer is a fictional character. I don’t see any less evidence that British people would be less likely to condone torture under certain circumstances, however. I also think that the British have their own national delusions (that they’re more polite, worldly, and well-behaved than Americans, for one – that is hardly true, as the distaste for boorish British tourists I have encountered in places like Prague and Bratislava attests).
If you don’t regard it as necessarily wrong to treat women as incubators who can’t be allowed to decide for ourselves when and how many children to have: if you think of it as “socially conservative” to force women to be breeding machines. The last European country to treat women like this was Romania: I suppose you could say that Ceauşescu was “socially conservative”.
I don’t really care to debate feminism with you – I think women should have the right to nontraditional life paths if they so choose, and to choose how many children they have. That, Americans and Brits would mostly agree on, I’d say. That said, in Europe, a lot of women are choosing not to have children, and in about 25 years, that’s gonna be a HUGE problem. It’s really hard to maintain a socialist paradise when you’ve got lots of old people to soak up the benefits but nobody working to pay for them. The social impact of motherhood is just as legitimate a concern as the prerogatives of the individual.
And Ceauşescu’s horrible tyranny is not part-and-parcel with his social conservatism. Nice attempt to smear by association, though.
As far as welfare vs. food stamps go – firstly, you haven’t responded to the substantive argument in favor of the former. Secondly, your evidence that they are “humiliating” to the people who use them is anecdotal, so I can’t give it any more weight than Jeff’s contradicting anecdotal evidence. Since he actually WORKS in this field, and presumably encounters people who use electronic food stamps every day, while you live in the UK, where as you so proudly note food stamps don’t even exist, and since people who receive food stamps would have a vested interest in altering welfare law so that they could get cold, hard cash instead, I think you are actually much less persuasive on this score than he is.
Uhh.. most Americans support a higher minimum wage.
Yeah, that’s why it’s so easy to pass a minimum wage increase without Republicans trying to hold it hostage until tax cuts for business owners are included.
“Yeah, that’s why it’s so easy to pass a minimum wage increase without Republicans trying to hold it hostage until tax cuts for business owners are included.”
Since when have the Republicans in any area of social issues and economic issues voted in a manner consistent with what most Americans want?
“Did you happen to read Xeymon’s casually abusive comment about people on welfare? He asserted that people on the dole are “junkies and gambling degenerates” who, if given actual money, with “indulge their self-destructive habits” and this bigotry is, he thinks a “very good reason for restricting the use of welfare benefits.” ”
Apparently, Jes, you stopped reading at that point. Before you accuse someone of saying something read the whole thing.
“Apparently, Jes, you stopped reading at that point. Before you accuse someone of saying something read the whole thing.”
Could you quote enough to indicate what you feel the relevant part that Jes missed is, please, John? Because I’m missing it, too.
Thanks.
To clarify another point that hasn’t been made explicitly, and which I suspect you may be missing, is that the comparison is to cash.
Gary, is your question seems serious (unlike Jesu’s baiting), I’ll do my best to answer in kind.
The problem is that cash has more problems than even Food Stamps, from an admistrative and client point-of-view. It can be lost, or stolen, or claimed to be lost or stolen. It must be distributed from specific centers, with high security for the cash coming in or going out.
Compare that to a debit card. The money is AUTOMATICALLY added to the client’s account — they don’t have to go to a welfare office (or even a “satellite office”, several of which were added just before we went to EBT). So, yeah, EBT is certainly more convenient and more secure than cash.
==================
Jesu, apparently your reading comprehension failed you when I pointed out that I had been on Food Stamps. So, yeah, I do know what it’s like, and YOU DON’T. So Just Stop. OK?
Handing cash to someone on welfare, and saying, “Here, spend this as you will” ain’t going to happen. It’s hard enough to get funds for specific needs. If one of our clients needs cash, they can apply for General Relief.
Theft and robbery of Food Stamps was a huge problem. If you think our clients would rather be shot for $40 of groceries, you would be… what’s the word… WRONG!
I am very proud of the job I do, and welcome any advance that makes the lives of our clients safer and easier.
You have spoken on behalf of sex workers before. Are we to presume that you were one?
The next three words were “excuse the snark”. To me that has always meant the the words preceding were not meant to be taken totally seriously and, in fact, represented some degree of hyperbole. Nor, as Jes contends, does it mean that all welfare recipients are viewed by Xynon as druggies, etc.
Yeah, I didn’t see anything to redeem that comment either. BTW, Xeynon, did you ever post here under a different name? Your style seems familiar, but I can’t quite place it.
BTW, I stopped reading Xeymon a fair number of posts before the “junkies and gambling degenerates”. I didn’t respond because I figured it just more hot air.
Jeff, I suspect they don’t mean actual cold hard cash, but rather a debit card that could be used anywhere and on anything, just like a regular card.
I’m not one of your welfare clients: I don’t have to assure you that you are right and I am wrong.
No, but you made the claim that Food Stamps (look at the name, BTW — this isn’t the sum total of welfare) can’t be used “wherever the client likes on whatever the client likes”. It’s true — it has to be used on Food [gasp!] at a place that sells food [goodness!!!!!], but it can be used at ANY place that sells food.
You were WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. End of story.
BTW, what I wrote should not be considered a defense of Xynon, because although he has a valid point, he presented it totally inappropriately.
Money for food is meant to be used for food, therefore food stamps or the EBT card. If anybody here actually believes that no one would use said money given for food for themselves and children for non-food items, including but not by any means limited to drugs, alcohol etc, please explain to me why you think that.
Jes used a very generalized statement that Xynon viewed welfare recipients as druggies. Not some recipients, but reicpients, which would include all. That was unfair on her part.
In the UK we take for granted that a government agency like MI5 doesn’t have to get a warrant from a judge before they can wiretap a phone. They’ll just damn well do it. In the US, while so far Bush seems to be getting away with having confessed to committing this offense, it is at least explicitly a crime for which he ought to be impeached.
Not so different after all. Among the findings:
In terms of statutory protections and privacy enforcement, the US is the worst ranking country in the democratic world…
The worst ranking EU country is the United Kingdom, which again fell into the “black” category along with Russia and Singapore.
The “black” category referred to above are those nations with the worst possible record on respecting individual privacy, and which are characterized by endemic surveillance of their citizens.
Endemic.
The US and UK share that ranking with Russia, China, Thailand, Singapore, and Taiwan. Every other nation reviewed was rated better.
Land of the free, folks.
Thanks –
Jeff, I suspect they don’t mean actual cold hard cash, but rather a debit card that could be used anywhere and on anything, just like a regular card.
That isn’t going to happen, because American Welfare (sounds like an album title) is split into several parts, administered by different agencies. Food Stamps is under the USDA; TANF is under HHS; Medicare is under Social Security; General Relief is a state program.
When you hear the stupid complaints about “Welfare Cadillacs” and “How dare the poor have color TVs?”, you realize it’s a battle to get ANY funds to the ones who need them most. Our goals are to reduce fraud (which is MUCH more at the worker level than the client) and to make sure that our clients get exactly what they’re owed (the system to reclaim money that was distributed in error is quite complex!).
One of my early tasks was to design the checks that we mail to our clients. The address sections must match precisely to the envelopes or the post office won’t deliver. And the magnetic strip at the bottom must meet very specific requirements or the bank can’t cash them.
(I’m glad we went to Direct Deposit. I was at the mailbox at my apartment and one of my neighbors pulled out a white envelope with a black stripe across a corner. Since I had made sure that our warrants fit in that self-same envelope, it was all I could do not to make any comment. Now the money that is cash (which is about half of the total) is split 75% Direct Deposit, 25% Checks. No one knows that the clients on Direct Deposit receive Welfare Benefits at all.)
Beating up on Jeff because of the way food stamp program is implemented in the US (does the implementation of the program depend on the state? Yet another lacuna for me) doesn’t seem like a very profitable way of moving the ball down the field. I’m now wondering not only about the nuts and bolts of the program in the states (at one time, my brother was getting food stamps, but I was not in the country then, so I didn’t know so much about how it worked) but also how these kinds of payments are implemented in other countries. There was recently a scandal here in Japan concerning the welfare system (link). I believe that welfare operates here on a direct deposit system, but I’ll try to find out more.
That was unfair on her part.
john, meet Jesu.
Beating up on ____ doesn’t seem like a very profitable way of moving the ball down the field.
lj, meet Jesu.
does the implementation of the program depend on the state?
There are Federal components (most of the way Food Stamps are adminstered, and requirements to receive them, for example), State components (MediCal; Cal-Works) and County components (I believe that aid to refugees — not sponsored by Lauren Hill or Wyclef Jean, amazingly enough! — is a county program.
Eligibility Determination and Benefit Calculation (EDBC) is one of the most complex systems I know of. A person can be in several “cases” (a father with several children for example), a case can have several programs it is participating in, etc. Then you have to take in ALL the credits and debits of ALL the people in the case, any special considerations, etc. I’m so glad that’s not the area I work in! 🙂
“The problem is that cash has more problems than even Food Stamps, from an admistrative and client point-of-view.”
I don’t deny that in the slightest.
My point is simply that while it’s understandable for you to take pride in your work, that you are not able to honestly declare that you know what anyone and everyone, or even most people, or even more than some people, think and feel about their experiences using an EBT card. Personally, I’m a bit doubtful you’ve asked even 10,000 clients in a single state.
But maybe you’ve interviewed 100,000. Still can’t support the claim of speaking for all or most. Not even remotely close.
As I said, the card is an improvement over the coupon booklets. But, yes, it can still be an embarrassing experience to use, at times, for some, and simple common sense should enable you to understand that.
Incidentally, use of capping all words, use of multiple exclamation marks, and the like, do not increase the strength of the argument by assertion. It simply suggests that you are sufficiently emotionally upset that you weren’t at your best at that moment.
“but it can be used at ANY place that sells food.”
Well, at any place that takes the card, which, of course, lots of places that sell food don’t. Plus, again, apparently you live in a universe where “restaurants” don’t sell “food.”
You’re not helping yourself here. Take a breath. Maybe wait a day to come back to the discussion. Then consider again how you might be qualified to mindread every food stamp card recipient in the U.S. and thus privileged to honestly speak for every single one of “our clients” and that you know for a fact, on behalf of every single one of them, that “there’s none of the embaressment of someone flashing odd but recognizable ‘I’m on welfare!!!!!’ bills,” when they instead flash an odd but recognizable card which every single time takes a special procedure at the check-out stand to use, let alone the instances when a conflict erupts with a cashier.
It’s simply not a reasonable claim that no one ever has a poor experience, ever, ever, and then a lot of caps and exclamation marks to “prove” your point.
I suggest leaving off at the claim that EBT cards are an improvement on cash in various ways, which isn’t unreasonable.
“Gotta let the junkies and gambling degenerates indulge their self-destructive habits on the government dole, after all.”
Ah. We can call people “junkies and gambling degenerates,” or similarly offensive characterizations, solely because they’ve taken money from the government — and so few people other than recipients of food stamps do that — and no offense should be taken if we then say “excuse the snark.”
John, I have great respect for you, and I don’t recall ever disagreeing this strongly with you.
I don’t see it. “Sorry for the snark” doesn’t cut it.
Can I regularly get away with this kind of formulation, now?:
We can now engage in bigotry and insults against groups of people if only we say sorry for the snark at the end?
Y’know, given my natural predilections, which I struggle to keep under control, this really isn’t permission you want to give me, at least.
I suggest that “sorry for the snark” aren’t magic words that remove offense from those who would otherwise be offended.
If it’s your argument that being called a “degenerate” isn’t insulting, I don’t buy that, either, I’m afraid.
But if I’ve said anything offensive in this post: sorry for the snark.
There, all better. It would be unfair to criticize me.
Gary, I get your point, and as I said, I felt the overall tone was totally inappropriate.
And yes, chosing those particular examples was offensive.
And yes I have great respect for you too, and I won’t disagree too strongly. Nor criticize you at this time.
Personally, I am not a big fan of hyperbole to begin with, whether obvious or not.
“Gary, I get your point, and as I said, I felt the overall tone was totally inappropriate.”
Okay.
I sometimes say things I mean to be offensive to someone, but most of the time when I offend, it’s unintentional. I’m sure you’ve noticed innumerable occasions when I’ve offended someone; I did it to Sebastian only earlier today.
But my response when I find I’ve offended someone I didn’t mean to isn’t to declare that my intent is all that matters. (It might if the person’s reaction were totally insane, or simply a misunderstanding, but those are limited cases.)
And I don’t expect anyone to explain that no one has any right to be offended what I said.
Of course, that’s because I’m totally awesome.
Jeff: Jesu, apparently your reading comprehension failed you when I pointed out that I had been on Food Stamps. So, yeah, I do know what it’s like, and YOU DON’T.
True, Jeff. I’ve never been on welfare in the US, nor ever been an asylum seeker, so I don’t know what it’s like to use food stamps. But I do know what it’s like to be on receipt of welfare in the UK: been there, done that. In the UK, they don’t hand out Food Stamps in any way at all (unless you’re an asylum seeker*): you get a (minimal) ration of money. Which you do tend to spend exclusively on food, because few things are more important, but which you can spend anywhere on food, rather than only in places which have previously agreed to let welfare recipients shop there, and which money did not tell anyone in the places where I shopped that I got my money from the dole office rather than from an employer.
I’ll add, too, that while when I was young and just left school and virtually everyone I knew was or had been unemployed, being a welfare recipient mattered less to me: when I had a brief period on the dole a few years ago, after ten years in paid work, it was humiliating and embarrassing – no matter that logic told me it shouldn’t be.
*Asylum seekers get coupons, which they can spend at registered supermarkets.
lj: Beating up on Jeff because of the way food stamp program is implemented in the US
Who’s doing that? Jeff is making wild claims that he knows that no recipient of food stamps in the US is ever embarrassed, humiliated, or insulted because they can’t use cash to buy food with. He’s getting beaten up for that, lj: reading comprehension, please.
Well, we agree that there is some beating up going on, I guess that is progress. But if you say
that they do not find it inconvenient not to be just given money and let use their own judgement how to spend it.
you are highlighting flaws in the program and suggesting that they should changed, points thatl I imagine Jeff has no control over. I also note that you seem to be beating up on jeff for not calling Xenyon on the previously mentioned comment. I left out your name not because I am trying to be snarky, just trying to lower the temp, apologies if you thought I was trying to sneak in a shot.
Please note that this has nothing to do with the points you are making, (though I would not modify the noun “claims” with “wild”), I just think that we could (always?) stand to improve the signal to noise ratio. Thanks.
Jesurgliac, GF, et. al.
Let me apologize. I’m sorry if you took what I said as a general characterization of welfare recipients as “junkies and gambling degenerates”. By no means did I mean that all welfare recipients would misuse the money they receive in that way – I have worked in inner city schools and know that that’s not the case. But I realize it could have been taken that way. I was merely frustrated at jesurgliac’s refusal to concretely address my points and used language that came out in language that sounded harsh and unfair. What I meant was, there are irresponsible people out there, and if you let them abuse welfare, they will. You’re naive if you think that’s not so. I’ve encountered quite a few addicts (drugs, gambling, etc.) and know for a fact that such people often behave extremely irresponsibly toward themselves and others. If everyone were rational, you’re right – people would use the money to buy food for themselves and their kids. But sadly, not everyone is rational – particularly when in the throes of addiction. I realize I am adding more to the heap of anecdotal evidence here, but I once encountered a Briton who waxed nostalgic for the English welfare state because you could “buy your ganj on the dole.” His exact words. So there ARE some people who abuse the system out there, even if jesurgislac and Jeff aren’t among them. Welfare in the form of food stamps or the equivalent rather than cash seems like a good way of preventing that sort of behavior (as well as preventing theft etc. as Jeff noted). If that hurts the pride of those dependent on them, well, that’s unfortunate, but it’s a tradeoff worth making in my view. As a taxpayer, I want my money used prudently if it’s going to go to social welfare – and welfare-as-cash lacks oversight and is too easily misdirected.
I really wish you’d actually respond substantively to what I have to say, though. It might go a lot further toward convincing me of your point of view. Contrary to what you might have gathered from my posts I’m not a rabid right wing ideologue. I do care about the problem of poverty. I’m in favor of government intervention in inner city schools and welfare-to-work programs. I think traditional liberal solutions are problematic, for reasons I’ve laid out. If you disagree, please provide evidence that my misgivings are off-base.
I also respect views further to the left of mine – I just wish you’d present them in a way more substantive than gainsaying everything I say without a shred evidence to back you up. I’m not interested in abusing or arguing with people – I’m here for substantive discourse and debate. Again, sorry that I went over the top there.
Larv, I haven’t posted much here at all, but I used to post on publius’ old blog under my real name. Been a few years, though.
LJ: Well, we agree that there is some beating up going on, I guess that is progress.
And if you can bring yourself to follow what Jeff is saying, we might progress further.
you are highlighting flaws in the program and suggesting that they should be changed
Oh dear. I see we’re not progressing. Try re-reading what I’m actually saying, and what Jeff was actually saying. You’re not improving the signal-to-noise ratio by misreading what Jeff is saying, misreading what I am saying, and responding to your misreading than to what is actually being said.
Jeff is claiming (which you seem to think is not a “wild claim”) that he knows no one has ever been embarrassed, humiliated, or insulted by having to use food stamps. I am reacting to this really rather stupidly arrogant claim. You are, for some reason, finding this claim quite reasonable: possibly because you aren’t actually reading the discussion.
Xey: I really wish you’d actually respond substantively to what I have to say
I really wish you had anything substantive to say.
“Let me apologize. I’m sorry if you took what I said as a general characterization of welfare recipients as ‘junkies and gambling degenerates’. By no means did I mean that all welfare recipients would misuse the money they receive in that way – I have worked in inner city schools and know that that’s not the case. But I realize it could have been taken that way. I was merely [….]”
This is where you should have stopped.
As it is, I’ll pretend you did, and accept your apology.
General tip: apologies best stand alone. When they segue into justification, the apology part gets eaten up.
Thanks for the apology.
Xey: Apology accepted. – Sorry, I should have said that before.
I once encountered a Briton who waxed nostalgic for the English welfare state because you could “buy your ganj on the dole.” His exact words.
That’s not even anecdotal evidence. That’s hearsay repeated. (FWIW: the English welfare state has never provided enough money to “buy ganj on the dole”. At least, not unless your Briton lived somewhere in the UK ganj was way cheaper than what I HAVE BEEN TOLD prices usually are.)
Jes,
Going at my reading comprehension is just a way of trying to insult me. I fail to see why that is useful, but I don’t think it reflects to well on you. I leave you to it.
Gary, I was sincere about my apology. If you read all my posts, I hope you’ll realize I’m not at all motivated by right wing ideology, prejudice, etc. I was not attempting to justify my choice of words – merely to say that, despite the ham-handed and insensitive way in which I said it, there was a legitimate point I was trying to make, and segue into a rational discussion of said point.
jesurgislac – because we disagree does not mean what I say lacks substance. Your general tactic seems to have become ignoring the details of any argument that is critical of your viewpoint in favor of anecdote (I was on rhetoric and would have felt shame about using food stamps), insinuation (you must approve of brutal dictatorship because you share views on a particular issue with a particular brutal dictator), boilerplate left-wing rhetoric (women’s bodies are not incubators!), and/or holier-than-thou indignation (your offensive characterization of welfare recipients obviously invalidates anything you might say on the issue). I don’t mind that you and I substantially disagree, but let’s try and get back to where we were earlier in the thread – i.e., actually responding to what the other was saying. You made some good points in favor of your view that the UK polity is more liberal in some ways than its U.S. equivalent, which I acknowledge. Since, though, it seems we’ve begun merely talking past each other.
“I was on rhetoric”… hah. I think we both are. 🙂 Obviously, that ought to read “I was on welfare”.
liberal japonicus – you’re in Japan? I should have guessed from your name.. Whereabouts? (I live in Sendai).
I once encountered a Briton who waxed nostalgic for the English welfare state because you could “buy your ganj on the dole.”
That’s interesting, but I’m not sure how representative it is, or if it’s a problem we really need to worry about all that much. Most folks will likely prefer to eat than get high. There are exceptions, but they’re rare.
Look, I think the issue here is whether public assistance is distributed in a way that calls attention to the fact that the recipient is on welfare, or not.
Part of the issue is finding a way for the government, or whoever is footing the bill, to have some control over how the money is spent. Not a bad goal, in and of itself.
Another part of this, which I think is more characteristic of the US than in the UK, is the desire to make public assistance as unpleasant an experience as it can possibly be. Maybe it’s due to our Puritan roots, maybe it’s our “stand on your own two feet” heritage, I don’t know. But there’s a strong tendency here to want to make sure that folks on public assistance spend those funds on nothing other than bare necessities.
God forbid you should buy yourself an ice cream, let alone a little kind bud.
Personally, I think it would make sense to let folks grow their own damned ganj out in the back yard. Put a few plants in with the tomatoes. Uncle Jerry’s victory garden! There’s the do-it-yourself spirit, don’t you think?
But, that’s just crazy old me.
There is a cultural difference, between the US and pretty much every other country that can actually afford to provide public assistance, on the topic of how shameful an experience it should be to receive public assistance.
In other places, it seems like it’s just part of what folks do for each other. Here, it seems like it has to come with a scolding attached.
For the record, this isn’t directed at Jeff, who seems like he does his bit to make it not that way.
Thanks –
Jeez, small world. I live in Kumamoto, lived in Sendai and Shiogama for 5 years.
Again, Russell, I agree. I have absolutely no objection to making public assistance as invisible as possible. My concerns are based purely on the potential for abuse in the system.
I also agree on marijuana legalization. I don’t know how representative that guy was, but from having observed his behavior in other contexts (mooching shamelessly off his Japanese wife’s family), my guess is that he probably misused money no matter how he got it when he was in the UK.
In any case, I think public assistance should be aimed more at providing educational and economic opportunities than keeping people in a perpetual state of subsistence living.
Sorry, Russell, don’t mean to pick, but I’d take a look at that link about Japan above. However, there is this as well.