The Atlantic - Latest Comments in The Takeover

Re: The Takeover

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Re: The Takeover

carbona — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:43:57 -0000

Um, did any of you actually READ Pat Buchanan's article? It is difficult to take issue with his specific points, the main one of which is how intolerant of dissent we have become as a culture now that the past establishment is now the minority dissenters. Where we once rationalized the burning of neighborhoods by people with legitimate beefs, we now cannot tolerate a military man taking an oath to resist an order to round up his fellow citizens. That is all Pat is saying.

Re: The Takeover

emilyw00 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:24:12 -0000

If we're talking about the US as the geographical area it now encompasses, it was also Spanish-speaking from the very beginning (before it was English-speaking in fact), not to mention the strong, active Native American resistance - strong enough to be a real and present threat to the state - well into the 19th century. What I mean is that it's not just a black/white thing, and I'd lay down money that this grassroots fear and anxiety Buchanan is drawing on springs as much from Latinos and other ethnic groups extending into areas of the country that had been white strongholds as from the election of President Obama. I have deep respect for the history of black Americans, and obviously we wouldn't be half the country we are without their contributions, but the picture is more complicated now (in fact always has been), it has more shades and more voices. If we don't move beyond seeing everything in terms of black and white we're just as stuck in the past as Buchanan and his blind followers.

Re: The Takeover

DaveinHackensack — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:41:15 -0000

White people can leave, but their tax dollars stay. At least that's the case here in NJ. Money isn't the X-factor.

Re: The Takeover

DaveinHackensack — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:28:23 -0000

Anna,

Again, from what I have gleaned from your posts here over time, you seem to have been done right by conservatives and Republicans at more than one point in your career (I think you mentioned working in PR for an oil company also, where -- I would assume -- you were hired by a conservative, since there aren't too many lefties at oil companies). And yet, here you are on the other team. Would a Republican official reading your story be wrong to decide that it was evidence in support of the proposition that minority outreach simply wasn't worth it for the party?

Re: The Takeover

Kristo Miettinen — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:58:59 -0000

Hi MSB!

Trying to answer:

(1) We're not at the point of dress restrictions, but we do often restrict, e.g., bible study as a club activity if it is affiliated with the school, conducted on school premises, etc. Clubs like that are on the debated edge of permissibility: some school districts, such as ours, permit student-led bible study after hours on school premises, but many others do not. An example of behavior that is over the line pretty much anywhere in the country is any non-trivial statement of faith givien in a valedictory address at a public school. Class valedictorians have to have their valedictory speeches screened by school officials to make sure God isn't thanked too profusely, and so on. There is a case (Erica Corder) that may be heard by our Supreme Court of a valedictorian who deviated from her approved speech text to make a testimonial statement of faith, and was punished by the school district under threat of denying her diploma. I don't expect her to win (or even be heard by the court).

(2) There are many schools of thought here: one camp sees hostility to Christianity in the explicit portrayal of Christian institutions and characters in movie scripts (especially when the Christianity of a villain seems cinematically gratuitous, not contributing to the plot), another sees exclusion or minimization of Christian influence in historically set movies where Christian faith was an important part of the motivation of real historical characters, a third focuses on movie and television themes that seem to promote everything from adultery to polygamy in a happy-go-lucky "why not" spirit. There is no one answer to what it means. To your question, I never saw "Dogma".

(3) The idea of a civil service requirement in conjunction with a draft is rather more like a job (and, like the old Navy recruiting ad said, an adventure) than what I've heard from the Obama administration. My children already have hours-of-volunteering requirements in middle school and high school. Our church lays on another similar requirement prior to confirmation. My daughter's college has such a requirement for freshman year. This kind of thing is nothing new to us, other than that the administration will tie some sort of tax credit or college work-study program to it. What my friends and I often talk about as an adjunct to a draft is programs to put people into ambulances as EMTs, into hospitals as orderlies, or out into the woods in the manner of the old Civilian Conservation Corps.

As for your comment, I think my larger point is that Buchananites actually don't exist, neither as he describes them nor as you do. Maybe they did in the south in the 60s where you grew up, I couldn't respond to that (too young, too northern).

Re: The Takeover

Kristo Miettinen — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:26:05 -0000

"Be nice if that was the case for everyone but that world's not this one." Agreed. Let's make progress, together. I was just reacting to folks' racial-angle interpretation here of the sense that white populists are losing "their" country. We don't see that possession (whether it was ever "ours" or not is another matter), or that loss, in racial terms. A more precise way to express it is that we see the evolution (whether for better or worse) of the country away from that country that motivated our ancestors to migrate here. The interpretation that we mean "white people are losing the country" isn't accurate. We don't mean that. At least not among those I know.

Also, I think the use of "bitter" as an ajective is an exaggeration. Melancholy is more like it.

For new Christian cinema, maybe "Fireproof" is a good place to start. I still carry my ticket stub in my wallet, apropos of nothing much, just as a reminder I guess.

Re: The Takeover

eric k — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:23:30 -0000

Still no response to either my post or Deborah's pointing out that people disagreeing with the president and trying to defeat him in a election is different from people calling for a military coup I see.

But I'm the tool for pointing out the absurdity of your false equivalency and calling us hypocrites. Whatever gets you through the night chief.

Re: The Takeover

sv — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:46:00 -0000

We are the world's military force, and one essential reason other nations can afford things like good health care is because they are not burdened thus economically.

When you think about it, this is as if Americans are sending welfare checks to Europeans. It should be portrayed that way during election campaigns.

Re: The Takeover

Pesto — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:25:00 -0000

Yeah, what's been lost is trillions of dollars over the last 30+ years in the public purse due to the Jarvis/Gann "tax revolt" that decimated local, county, and state government in California.

Schools don't suck in California because of a demographic shift. They suck because reactionaries and wealthy interests decided they were tired of paying taxes 30 years ago, so they got Prop 13 passed, hamstringing government, making it nearly impossible to pass state budgets in Sacramento, and giving corporations essentially a permanent pass on property taxes if they hang around long enough.

Re: The Takeover

Pesto — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:18:52 -0000

When robber-baron Jay Gould famously told a reporter, "I can hire half of the working class to kill the other half," he might well have been imagining a rap like Pat Buchanan's. Rich people have held themselves out of the fray for generations in this country by transforming class conflict (which would be directed at them) into racial division (which workers direct at one another).

Re: The Takeover

JD — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 10:33:03 -0000

Not the same person (I have seen at least 3 JDs posting at various political blogs) and I have posted here a lot of times before, but thanks for being a giant tool.

Re: The Takeover

Gingergene — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:57:11 -0000

That's why I said "someone like them". While they may not have controlled the levers of power, they identified in important ways with those who did. They were white, or they were Christian or what have you. Those who were in control made sure that their working class supporters were more aware of the similarities to them (the power holders) than the differences, primarily by highlighting differences with other "out" groups, like blacks, (new) immigrants, etc.

These same people are now realizing that the superiority that was once theirs by default, merely by virtue of being white or Christian or whatever, is slipping away. They will now have to compete on a playing field that is no longer tilted toward them. To many of us, this is a welcome correction. To them, it is an unfair changing of the rules mid-game.

I wholeheartedly disagree that "the country is moving in a bad direction"- I am more hopeful than ever that we're heading towards something better. This chaos we're in the middle of is just the natural product of change. It too will pass.

Re: The Takeover

black yank — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:55:53 -0000

@MikeJ,

Just want to add that the question at the end of my post wasn't rhetorical. I really would like to know what you think.

Re: The Takeover

CitizenE — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:28:19 -0000

First and foremost, the people Pat is speaking of have been screwed to the ground by the bait and switch of conservative economic policies and priorities since Reagan. From a military spending jones the likes of which the world has never seen for both useless boondoggles such as the Star Wars program to military adventurism that has landed us in two unbelievably costly wars. We are the world's military force, and one essential reason other nations can afford things like good health care is because they are not burdened thus economically.

In line with that, our Latin American policy during the end of the Cold War, most especially the Reagan years, and trade policies that followed, established an endless Latin American diaspora that led to the incredible emigration of peoples from Mexico and Central America. Until we recognize our impact on those nations, talking about an immigration policy is asinine.

We have via tax, trade, regulatory, and wage policies ceded our wealth to the upper 5 % of America's citizenry, leaving everyone else in massive personal debt--credit card, health care, home, college costs--even those who work for a living and earn what one would think is a lower middle class income.

So of course, working people from all backgrounds are disgruntled. Our nation is not doing an adequate job educating our children; it costs more than one earns to make a living; and whomever is in power appears to privilege the economic elite at the hands of future taxpayers. Never mind some people are really doing worse than others; they have no right to complain--they do poorly in school, they lack an education; they are a different color; they don't go to church; they want to strip us of our Constitutional liberties; they want to spread a homosexual agenda; they don't speak English. So on and so on. In the end, it is easy to project your fears on some lifestyle elite--Hollywood, or urban poor, or people whose skin color is different--than the policies whose representatives speak your language, look like you, spout overly simplified values you have been brought up to believe in.

Tax rates stay the same--protest tax hikes. The health insurance industry is screwing you, remember that government bureacracy is what you've grown up to be afraid of. In a world in which religious belief in a personal, moral God demands more of one's faith, fear science as a threat, focus in on abortion, while the issue of war is not questionned, because war is always against those who believe dirferently or are of a different color. God Bless America (and devil take the hindmost for everyone else).

Malcolm X said it best--bamboozled.

Re: The Takeover

Dave in Paris — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 04:48:43 -0000

He is very much in the Know-Nothing tradition. His own ethnic heritage is Scotch Irish, who are decidedly NOT Irish Catholic, but the people encouraged by the Crown to move to Belfast and environs through land-grants and preferred social and legal status. They later moved to North America and settled throughout the southern Appalachia. His mother was German and Catholic, which is where he got his faith; his first name came from a family friend, as I recall. The know-nothings were a huge political force whose efforts were truncated by the outbreak of the Civil War, which split the movement.

Re: The Takeover

msb — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:55:47 -0000

I’m so interested in your post, and I’d like to ask some questions about it.

“we do mind the banning of expressions of faith in situations where students are otherwise free to express their personality (e.g. in school clubs, plays, speeches, etc).”

Is this true? (I live in Europe.) Schoolkids still express faith through such means as wearing crosses, yarmulkes and hijabs, no? As you know, these are banned in France, for example.

“the mocking of faith in Hollywood”

What exactly does that mean? Is it mocking to express faith in a different way than you do? I don’t see many movies (as I follow two self-imposed rules: avoiding movies where the hero has a bigger bust than I and where there are lots of explosions). My favourite religious movie is “Dogma”, as it expresses so much love for God and humanity (amid the swearing) – would you call that mocking?

“Most of us would support … some sort of civil-service or Peace Corps option, because we think it would build a stronger and more unified society (and guide many troubled youth through the most dangerous years of figuring out what to do with their lives).”

This is what the President has said in several fora, and you know Michelle Bachman’s response. What other conservatives are touting this idea, and where?

“We do have a sense that America of the past was somehow more broadly in tune with our values, but that sense does not have a racial dimension.”

I am switching to comment here. Thinking that things were better in the past is a common delusion of aging, but “that sense” certainly does have a racial dimension (and a gender one). The Buchananites are like pre-1865 Southern whites, who, particularly if they were poor, always had a “mark of superiority” that could not be removed: a white skin. This safely kept them above the mudsill of society. When I was growing up in the South in the 1960s, people with white skins (and penises) automatically had advantages over people who didn’t. As long as nobody challenged the basis of these privileges, white men didn’t have to consider their nature or cease to enjoy them. Becoming conscious of the unjust privilege given to me as a white Southern woman was painful, and a wider playing field is scary, particularly if you fear you will lose the game. But fear is a bad basis for decision making.

I think this sense also lacks a historical perspective: the country’s history shows that each wave of immigrants viewed the next as a threat to the nature and values of the country, and each new generation of oppressed arrivals viewed the people just above them as the biggest threat.

Re: The Takeover

chiclegal — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:09:51 -0000

Black yank, amen to that. White flight does the most damage to the cities and the school systems. White people leave and take their tax dollars and their confidence and leave the inner cities abandoned. The basic tenet of working together holds true and we are seeing the damage of what fear and segregation has done to the whole of America. But we continue to discount what we see and cling to Uncle Pat's segregationist viewpoints.

Re: The Takeover

black yank — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:01:53 -0000

@MikeJ,

Well, the question I would have is, what were the integrated schools like before "the fortunate ones" took all their kids out? Did desegregation ruin the schools or did the (voluntary) resegregation that followed do the damage? What do you think?

Re: The Takeover

Caleb Das — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:26:05 -0000

I don't see how this is necessarily at odds with the America Pat Buchanan has in mind. Aside from the fear-mongering. Most white populists I know are decent people, not unlike other people. But that does not divorce them from Pat Buchanan's America.

What I take issue with is the sense that the racial dimension can be divorced with the 50s vision of America that many white populists hold on to. Yes, it was possible to support your family with a single job then but minorities of all sorts struggled and underlying all that was simmering discontent and class tensions. You're privileged to not have to attach any significance to the racial dimension of your identity. Good for you. Be nice if that was the case for everyone but that world's not this one.

Most of all, I take issue with the entitlement (I am hard-working and here longer mentality) that is necessary to feel progress is necessarily a zero-sum game. White populists have been screwed over for as long as America has existed but the only characteristic that holds true across it all is a sense of being besieged (or possibly besieged) by the other. This has simply never been the case, not the blacks, not the Jews, not the Lithuanians, not the Irish. I understand the bitterness of seeing industrial towns go to waste, that continue to go to waste as America turns into a country that is not "a maker of things," when the commodities that are worthwhile are intangible. It's how I would be if I came from that milieu. Bitter. Even so, I'm not suggesting that the populists feel entitled to everything, just to go back to the way things were, modest dreams and so forth without ever having to actively engage the foreign. Most of those folk don't understand that they're being racist. Like you said, they've never had call to comprehend a racial dimension, but that doesn't stop them from running away from communities with immigrants. They don't hate those people, at least not in an active sense in my experience, but they distrust what they stand for. And now the non-white people have a critical mass of power that there is no way to not deal with it. It's a scary world.

To reference John Carpenter from The Thing, "nobody trusts anybody, and we're all very tired." This is how I see the world of the white populist at this moment in time.

ps: I'm interested by this emerging low-budget non-Hollywood movie genre you reference. Namedrop a few. I've got Netflix.

Re: The Takeover

MikeJ — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:33:46 -0000

Here a certain suburb of Los Angeles, decades ago in the bad old days, schools were apparently rather segregated (so the old timers tell me), and the good (white) schools were pretty good. Today, the well-known demographic change has happened and everybody who can send their kid to a private school, does. Yes, something has been lost. I'm one of the fortunate ones who is able to send my kids to an expensive private school. Interestly, most parents there are quite liberal. [Please don't ban me, TNC, I'm just reporting what I see].

Re: The Takeover

brucds — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:42:42 -0000

Even weirder, if you've followed the loop-de-loop of right-wing beefs is when they protest that this is a conspiracy to cut Medicare. Until about 15 minutes ago "conservatives" were telling us that it was absolutely essential to cut Medicare. Of course, we're not dealing with conservatives, we're dealing with some combination of crazy people and totally disingenuous fronts for special interests.

Re: The Takeover

eric k — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:33:17 -0000

yeah a lot of the time it seems like the teabaggers and so on are bummed that they missed out on the fun nt he 60s and now want there turn to be cool.

Of course a not too subtle distinction is that in the 60s as misguided as their methods may have been people were protesting an unjust war and things like illegal bombings of Cambodia. Today's Conservatives are protesting that the government wants to give them health care...

Re: The Takeover

brucds — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:28:50 -0000

Halliburton's KBR a "Godsend" ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Leigh_Jones

Re: The Takeover

brucds — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:00:03 -0000

That's "working class" not "glass"...