The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Open Thread At Noon

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Lynn Gazis-Sax — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 03:01:39 -0000

Actually, that's fairly easy to do. If she moves out of the governor's mansion, but they keep seeing some counselor or pastor or other for a while, that could still count as working towards a reconciliation. Who knows, it might even be that they'll actually wind up reconciling, though that's not how I'd lay odds at this point.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

adamnvillani — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:25:21 -0000

That's Ethier's 5th walkoff hit this season. David Pinto had some brief but interesting stuff about Ethier's home/away splits, which are just crazy this year. "Seventeen of his 23 home runs came at Dodger Stadium this season. He also hit 15 doubles at home vs. 10 on the road, for a total of 33 extra-base hits at home, 17 on the road. He also just plain hits better at Dodger stadium, .322 to .227, nearly 100 points higher. We tend to think of Dodger Stadium as a pitcher park, but this year at least there’s something there that brings out the best in Andre."

http://baseballmusings.com/?p=38713

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Sorn — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:44:18 -0000

you mean we can't just call him the anti-ross?

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Anna S. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:26:41 -0000

To hear the pronunciation, see the NPR interview here, where his name is pronounced within the first three seconds of the interview.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Sorn — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:13:08 -0000

Ta-nuh-ha-si as or ta-na-hah-see

should read

Ta-nuh-ha-si or ta-na-hah-see

appologies to all.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Sorn — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:03:41 -0000

Not to speak for the man himself but Ta-nuh-ha-si as or ta-na-hah-see

I believe is how it's pronounced. I usually call him TNC or The Man, or the King of Insight, or my personal favorite would be the anti-ross. Son of God also works.

(I kid, but it's all in love.)

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Jennifer D. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:59:39 -0000

Yeah. Like the button my teenager just got with a picture of Obama on it says: "Everyone just chill the fuck out. I got this."

Re: Open Thread At Noon

sean — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:54:32 -0000

I want to take a bit and digest what you replied to below (as well as Keith (since you guys made some really good points) but as a quick sort of counterpoint on the way out of the thread, every presidency seems to follow a (somewhat) predictable trajectory in that it is always, always easier to get stuff accomplished in the first year than it is in the rest of the term - striking while the iron is hot, working the honeymoon with the voters, what have you. One of the reasons I feel like there are issues that won't get addressed are because (if nothing else) now is the time to push them when so many other things are going on. Best Defense is a Good Offense - or rather pushing a legislative agenda using the Bears 46 D - some many people blitzing (issues being worked in congress) that the quarterback (GOP) has no idea what to do - they just sort of stand there brain-locked. If there's one thing we know about the GOP, they cannot, under any circumstance, multitask. If he moved on his entire agenda in the beginning, sure some stuff may not make it, but a whole lot more will get through than if you allow the the opposition to fight WWI style - hand to hand, one issue at a time.

I would like to think about what you guys said and I'll try and post a response in TNC's next open thread and continue the conversation if you're interested...have a good weekend.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

aleks — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:43:30 -0000

How is Ta-Nehisi Coates pronounced?

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Jaybird — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:28:54 -0000

Obama is a Kenyan by blood and a Hawaiian by birth and rearing. That means he is laid back, but above all, he is a long distance runner. He plays the long game. Do not depair when the going gets rough, because BO isn't. Don't be impulsive and impetuous like our opponents. We are seeing the final cracks in the 30 year conservative ediface and the death of their movement, both literally in terms of demographics, and figuratively in terms of its ideological acceptance by the American people. Patience my progressive breathern...by the way, I hope Jenny Sanford takes that D-bag to the cleaners

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Anna S. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:01:48 -0000

It's SC; "working toward a reconciliation" means the divorce will take three years instead of the legislatively mandated one year.

Honestly, I feel for Jenny. She was born into privilege, she worked her butt off for the SC Republican machine, and in return she's become the queen of saving face in this state, where Steel Magnolias are born and bred into polite society and the right kind of glance at a garden party can still mean the end of political careers. To be truthful, I hope they get back together if it will make them happy. But if she and the kids will be constantly taking the lumps and he'll only be in state as governor for two or three weeks every three months (look at his recent travel records; he went to see his mistress, then took time off for 'family reasons', then went to Europe with his wife and kids), then maybe they should get the divorce. After all that, maybe the state he's sworn to govern can claim some of his time (not that we-the-citizens are bitter... okay we're totally bitter, but I think it's understandable under the circumstances).

Re: Open Thread At Noon

keith — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:58:04 -0000

Sean-

Can you really blame him? Let's take this current health care scuffle. Health care reform was essentially a 65-35 issue. 65 for, 35 against. Now, after roughly two short weeks of engagement on an issue ripe for passage, look at the outcome. The guy has been taking on water since the day(actually before) he was sworn in. I remember endless analysis about how the market was not recovering since his victory in the election. Drudge had daily reminders, front and center of how the failing market coincides with his swearing in.

Your point about him wanting to hit the ground running in his first 100 days is important. Let's recall the first 100 days, wasn't in the first month that our beloved media was asking "is he doing too much?". He passed a 900 billion stimulus bill, was called a socialist within two weeks. He started the ball rolling in closing Guantanomo Bay, was called an apeaser, in his first month. He embarked on his first international tour to mend fences, was called an apeaser again along with socialist. He's reset the direction in Iraq and Afghanistan while at the same time taking care of Taliban, AQ leaders in Pakistan, dealing with drug dealers in Mexico, Somali pirates, Swine Flu, hostages in North Korea, and thats the stuff we know about.

The simple fact, is that alot of us on the left have projected our wants and desires onto him. What we failed to do is actually watch and listen to what he is. He said last year, while running that he wants to repeal DADT, but believes it should derive in congress and not just an executive order that can be repealed itself. He has a history of deliberate negotiations with the opposition, and concensus building dating back to his time in Harvard. He has said repeatedly, and got heat from Hillary last year for saying that while if he were to design a healthcare system from the ground up it would be a single payer type. But he relaizes how large and entrenched the health insurance industry is and that that kind of change just isn't do-able right now. It's what appealed him to alot of democrats, he wasn't just going to go in gun's a blazing on issues ala Hillary, who was a "fighter".

Since the primary, people have been wanting to see Barack "get angry" or show more emotion. I remember Bill Maher last year railing about how people should be angry, and Barack needs to reflect that anger that people feel. The truth is, that people are angry and they wanted a leader that was a calming influence in tumultous times. He has basically done everything he said he would, in the manner he said he would do it. Remember "as careful getting out as we were careless getting in". That wasn't just his aproach to Iraq, its been his approach to the mess this country is in. By your account he is being timid, and yet the oppostion(not just the fringe) has called him a totalitarian, socialist, fascist, racist, nazi, lover of all things european, with a sprinkling of the anti-christ mixed in.

To be fair, it hasn't been the smoothest of rides. Some by his own doings. I have been a bit taken back by the whole states secrets issue, then again it's always different in the Situation Room than it is outside of it. I have always given presidents latitude in that regard. But when ever I feel as if this president isn't living up to my own expectations, I tend to reflect and think back to the past and eight years. Inevitably an exhale occurs...

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Anna S. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:43:04 -0000

Dude, keep posting these; they're infectious!

Re: Open Thread At Noon

lebecka — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:39:26 -0000

Agreed. We need to keep up the pressure, but the pressure has to go onto our legislators, as much or more than on Obama. Only the legislature can make this a permanent change.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Storm — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:24:59 -0000

Gov. Mark Sandford's wife moves out the governor's mansion, but still claims to be working towards a reconciliation. Huh?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/us/08sanford.html?hpw

Re: Open Thread At Noon

silentbeep — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:24:14 -0000

Hmm, I don't know know either myself. I was afraid reactions like this were going to happen in progressive circles. While I was extremely happy that he won, and donated money and of course voted for him, I knew that reality would set in come Spring of 09 or so, and some people were going to be very disapointed and angry. I guess I was right, you are not the first I've heard have this reaction.

Some of this a bit of a shock on my part. I really saw him as a nice change of pace, truly. His politics were so similar to Hillary Clinton's and I knew she was pretty modereate in her views, and so was he. I really didn't expect more than that and I didn't believe he was offering more than that, truly. And now I'm really amazed at how upset some are that Obama is not...what? revolutionary? or? Sorry, I'm just a bit confused and saddened by it all. I knew there would be disapointment but still...

I have a very similar view to Andrew Sullivan's take at this point:

"I understand the sentiment, but I also think it's premature. We are absolutely right to be angry at the contempt shown our cause by some in the political department of the White House. More than most of us believed, they have brought with them the Clintonian smell of fear into the White House. They seem terrified of an increasingly marginalized and extreme right, rather than energized by the groundswell of support for real change that occurred in the last election.

But it's been six months, guys. ...

I'm no sap, but be fair. Keep up the pressure - like HRC's superb tour of fired servicemembers and their effort to bring ordinary Americans into local congressional offices around the country. (Yes, I can praise them when they are doing good work). Keep making the arguments. And focus on the Congress as much as Obama. Much of what we want can only be achieved in the Congress and the states. Obama does not have a magic wand. It's Pelosi and Reid who should be the brunt of the criticism"

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/08/the-fierce-urgency-of-whenever.html#more

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Anna S. — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:18:11 -0000

I think this is an interesting question, and in answer, I will say: yes. I do feel conflicted, sometimes, about my role (I'm a white woman) as both historical oppressor and historically oppressed. I try to let the latter inform the former so that I hopefully recognize my privilege and do my best not to perpetuate it.

In the oppressor role, I try my best to be acutely conscious of how white privilege continues in the world. I live in the deepest of the deep South, where being a white woman means that my role historically was not just racially privileged, but was used as an excuse to lynch black men (see "Without Sanctuary", a chilling book that has a section on how white women's virtue was often used as a convenient excuse for a panic leading to lynching). There is no way to pay that debt, so in instances like Racefail '09 (for those not following it, this was a discussion in the sci-fi/fantasy community [basically, a discussion among the nerds] about the portrayal of persons of color in sci-fi literature) I try to shut up and do my best to enable actual PoCs to talk. I try to read books on the Civil War and blogs like TNC's to learn more. I try to call myself if I catch myself making unintentional statements that could be racist. In general, I try to be aware of my privilege, and I do my best not to perpetuate it.

In the oppressed role, I know that I am aware of other people's (specifically men's) privilege, and it makes me wonder. As a lawyer, I am aware every time a man gets away with arguments in court that I could never get by with, simply because I'm female and 'whining' is an attorney's worst enemy in front of good ol' boy judges. Sometimes it frustrates me. Sometimes it galls me to the point that I retire to my own office and pound my head against a desk. And sometimes it makes me wonder: if I, as a well-off white woman, am going through this, how much worse would a black woman or a queer woman have it? I try to be aware like that as often as I can, and to help social causes (pro bono organizations, etc) as much as I can, because those moments make me think about how lucky I am. I'm a feminist to the core, and Polywogy's point about third-wave feminism is good: I came of age with a type of feminism that taught me to fight for my own rights, but also to fight for intersectionality: a white woman's issues are feminist issues, but hispanic people's issues are also feminist issues because they affect hispanic women, and black people's issues are feminist issues because they affect black women. In short, I grew up in a feminism that was all about me as a woman, but also all about other women who weren't like me in skin color or bio-sex or economic status. So as a woman I grew up understanding that we were all oppressed, and that we should work for ourselves and work for each other. That's what makes me proud as a woman: that I work for my transwoman best friend as much as I work for my privileged white self, and it helps us all out because every little blow against patriarchy is a blow for every woman under it. My righteousness feels good that way, in a way that any righteousness I might hold as a well-educated white woman specifically somehow feels tainted, because my privilege, let me show you it.

I know I'm rambling, but it's an open thread and you got me thinking, and this was something I wanted to get off my chest.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

sean — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:34:28 -0000

That's a fair question and honestly, I'm not sure. He spent his whole campaign talking about being able to hit the ground running - then the first 100 days about being able to multitask. Granted, Health Care Reform is a massive undertaking but his pursuit of bipartisanship is puzzling. They obviously have no interest in working with him, or the Democratic congress so why continue to court them?

But to answer your questions, I would say faster than it has been. And the things that I mentioned initially, gay rights in particular, is not a particularly heavy lift. There is pretty broad support for it. It comes across to me that he's not doing it for one of two reasons:

1) He doesn't want to get into that fight with the extreme right over gay marriage and DADT.

2) It's not an issue he feels bears a lot fruit for him politically as this would seem to be an issue of diminishing returns. While his gay constituents would obviously like movement on this issue, at most they make up only 10% of the population. Additionally, by moving on their issues, not only do you pull the fringe right into it, but you also possibly open your flank up to hits from the religious left.

It seems that at times, he becomes a victim of paralysis by analysis. When someone gets up in his face and starts screaming (metaphorically of course) he sort of backpedals, trying to figure out what went wrong. This is becoming a democracy being ruled by the minority party because they scream louder.

Ya know, I would love to argue with my 11 month old daughter about why pinching daddy is a bad thing to do, but in the end, she's 11 months, she doesn't understand logic (or English really) so it's a wasted attempt at dialogue. Better to remove her little fingers from my arm and move on.

Sorry if that's a bit rambling...

Re: Open Thread At Noon

BreakerBaker — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:30:42 -0000

Yeah, to tell you the truth, I have no idea what we should be doing about health care. I think Republicans are likely right that a public option may lead us down the road of single-payer. And I don't know that a country as big as ours can survive on a single-payer system (especially since it almost goes without saying that people who are insured now would get hosed to some degree under a single-payer system). But single-payer, as much as I don't like it, may be the best of the bad options.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

silentbeep — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:11:22 -0000

to sean (because I can't reply directly to him below)

How fast do you think all of this stuff is suppose to happen? This is a serious question. Did you want everything to happen in 6 months? or that is should've been all accomplished in 6 months?

I'm a little confused by this.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Shawn — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 14:11:14 -0000

Well said, Liza. I think leadership has been lacking on this issue. Yes, that includes the White House to a degree, but Congress, and those with an interst in reforming the systme should have seen this coming. I suspect many of them did know it was coming. And what was the response? "Oh, gee, those Righties are so mean. Tsk Tsk." And little else. In short, the problem has been one of fecklessness, and that translates into politics pretty directly. Carter may have had sounder policies than Reagan, but he sounded mealy-mouthed during a time of crisis. When things are tough, people naturally gravitate towards those who display intiative and boldness. If they perceive the Teabagger crowd as an extreme, that may help us in the long run, but in the short run, those in the "squishy middle" will gravitate towards supporting those run with that pack because they seem to stand for, well, something beyond a few platitudes. I hope that the president and his team have realized this and have started to take action but I fear that it may already be too late. Either way, he can't do it alone, and the fact that we were caught napping on this makes the fault ours as well.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

thatgirl_b — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:53:23 -0000

thank you!

Re: Open Thread At Noon

sean — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:40:56 -0000

Well, I'll tell you what I'm doing. I'm taking my ball and going home. I donated heavily to both Obama, Van Hollen (my rep), the DSCC, the DCCC, MoveOn and VoteVets.

I'm ashamed of the way the progressive voices in this country, particularly Obama, have backpedaled away from what they promised during the campaign. The deafening silence on DADT/DOMA, the crouch away from Single Payer/Universal Care, the transparency of government, the accountability for the war on terror, etc etc etc. The list seems to go on and on. While I fully grasp that he has only been in office for 6 months, the time that he has been there hasn't inspired confidence. He's moved away from the left, past what I perceive (perhaps incorrectly) as the center and edges center right (healthcare and GWOT). The fact that the GOP, and the healthcare industry en masse, want nothing more than to kill the debate on reform and keep the status quo is as plain and visible as the nose on my face. To hear Congressmen and women talk about having "serious reservations" about a public option (and these are Democrats saying this) when the vast majority of them campaigned on the public option with one hand will getting a check from the insurance lobby PAC-of-the-Day with the other. They then expect me to think they have the ability to rationally, honestly, and with my best interests at heart, negotiate a plan to destroy the industry that has raised so much money for them - to slay the golden goose for lack of a better term. I may be dumb, I may root for the Raiders and think Bobby Bowden didn't know anything about the cheating, but I am not a fucking idiot.

So this all fuels my apathy towards government in such a way that I am disheartened enough to say fuck it all. Do whatever the fuck y'all want, I'm outta here. Because honestly, until we remove the influence of corporate and lobbyist money (on both sides - get rid of PAC lobbying on the left and the right), our public servants are available to highest bidder. Politicians hate raising money - they hate being beholden to the people that they have to grovel to for $5 and $20 and $100 checks. They would rather make a killing in one place with one fund-raiser thrown by a lobbyist and only have to sell a little bit of their legislative soul to that one person, or interest, as the case may be, rather than selling a little bit of themselves each time for those measly $5 and $10 donations. It's a corrupt system, designed to corrupt, based in the beauty of free speech. But they’ll take one slimy fundraiser as opposed to the “death by a thousand cuts” from small figure donations.

So in the end, I don't think Obama is any different. In fact, I see on the left (a place where I have been firmly planted for many, many years) a growing sense that he's not what he says he is. He's not a progressive - he's not interested in a public option - he doesn't support gay marriage and the repeal of both DOMA and DADT.

One of his greatest abilities is to let his detractors blow themselves up. Most notably through his silence and refusal to react (i.e. the economic meltdown during the campaign, the birthers, town hall violence and douchebaggery). However, after a while, you have to start to wonder, is he doing a rope a dope, and if so, who really are the dopes? Is it the right wing fucktards that think yelling "FACIST" and "OBAMA IS A KENYAN" makes them a better White American and will somehow magically make this country revert to the those Glorious Lilly-White Reagan 80’s or is it the progressive base that he is trying to frustrate into it's own bit of silence through his inaction or backpedaling?

I dated a girl in college once that would only call when she was hungry, had some place to go and needed a ride, or wanted me to buy her a drink somewhere. While I was young, dumb, and blinded by a bangin' body, it didn't take me all that long to figure that in the end, she just wasn't that into me. That's the feeling I get from Obama. In the end, he just really isn't that into me (the Progressive side of his base) and he's using me because it propels him forward. And as much as it pains me to say, I'm starting to wonder if it's altruism that drives him but rather ego.

Anyway, my two cents.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Sorn — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:32:37 -0000

People are complicated. Sometimes we see the prejudice that is really present and it is as ugly as we think it is. Sometimes we see the prejudice that we want to believe is there because it fits in with our conception of "this is how the world works." I think DMF hit the nail on this one. A strong will is sometimes necessary to survival. One of the ways in which we achieve a strong will is to narrow our outlook. Narrow mindedness is sometimes a detriment sometimes a strength. People don't usually survive in harsh environs by being "open minded." In some respects if the environment is rough enough "open mindedness" wrongly applied will get a person killed. The trick in my mind and this is something I have been trying to learn for the past 3 years is learning how to learn strength of will without the corresponding narrow-mindedness.

Re: Open Thread At Noon

Polywogy — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:24:58 -0000

As a white woman, I can't really answer your question, but I can say that this is something that the feminist movement has been trying to deal with. It's one of the things that separates 3rd wave from 2nd wave: many people feel that a lot of the things 2nd wave was fighting for were white, upper class issues, and they left out poor and minority women. (There's also the pro-sex issue, and a more conscious acceptance that it can be feminist for a woman to choose to stay home with kids, etc.) People often look to people who are both black and women to settle the issue of racism versus sexism, but as TNC pointed out, there's so much weird overlap and amplification, who the hell knows?

If I may make a bit of a guess, this might be sort of related to the brouhaha over TNC's guess at the percentage of racists in America. White people don't see it, literally, because it doesn't happen to them. If they do, it usually becomes a small part of the larger person, and they say that the person doesn't really hold racism in their heart, or whatever Inhofe said. In the same light, women see the sexism and the misogyny that men don't. A lot of this is revealed in the way men treat women, particularly in situations where other men aren't around.

All the emotions around the racism figure did make me see it differently. I think I tended to make a distinction between racism and racist -- but I've realized that distinction is really self serving. As TNC says, because someone is a racist doesn't mean they can't also be good people in other ways.

In essence, there are people who go around and see racism and sexism in everything, sort of like an ink-blot. But it's there in a lot more things than you'd think if you never experience it, or never have to worry about experiencing it. If you now that the next person you go on a date with might turn out to have those unbelievably loathsome attitudes displayed in the comments linked to in the other thread (i.e. might decide that you owe them sex because you went to dinner, and raping you would be a protest against all the evil women everywhere) you tend to be on alert in ways that men just don't have to be.

Obviously, not all men are like that. But the icky thing is that they are usually good at hiding it until you are in a vulnerable position. It doesn't help that most people will tell women they are being oversensitive, until or even after they do some damage.

It does exist, and I'd guess most women's estimates of its frequency are closer to reality than those of most men. But any attempt to objectively measure it is pretty impossible.