"John McCain doesn't always tell us what we... hope... to hear..."
Chris Cillizza says:
The McCain campaign is playing a dangerous but necessary game here. Poking holes in the idea of "hope" was tried -- unsuccessfully -- by Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primary.I think McCain is doing something different. Hillary was saying Obama's idea of "hope" is insubstantial. McCain is trying to trump hope with something more substantial. And Hillary couldn't — as McCain does here — try to associate Obama with hippies, because she was more easily portrayed as a hippie than he was:
Time and time again, the New York senator sought to make the case that while Obama talked a good game, that flowery rhetoric alone would not bring about the change needed for the country. And, time and time again, Obama pointed to his accomplishments in the state senate and decried Clinton's "old" attack politics.
But what connection is there between hippies and Obama? Possible answers:
1. There's no connection. This is stupid.
2. Drugs! This ad is a tricky, subliminal reminder of Obama's drug use, and we ought to think about whether that's okay to do.
3. The hippie is a symbolic character who embodies fuzzy-headed, unrealistic idealism in a ridiculous form. As such, we understand the image of the hippie as a critique of Obama and the people who love him.
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127 comments:
The hippie is a symbolic character who embodies fuzzy-headed, unrealistic idealism in a ridiculous form.
Like attempting to sprinkle freedom seeds in an exotic foreign land, and relying on a world renown huckster that fled Jordan in the trunk of a car for bank fraud to help plant it?
Whoa dude, sounds pretty groovy!
I think Option 3 is the likely intended one, though the Obama campaign will vacillate between stating 1 and accusing 2 "how dare he!!!" and so forth.
Are you now an Obama supporter, garage? That was fast.
I can only think it's #3, as well, but it's a stretch. An apples to apples comparison puts Obama in kindergarten. I don't think it's that effective - it seems to be preaching to the choir.
At least we didn't hear McCain say My friends in the ad. He really should drop that rhetorical device.
As for connections? #3 is what McCain is going for, but it's really #1.
This is McCain's appeal to the Silent Majority, casting O as tne new/old McGovern. The intro featuring the hippies is quite subtle and works on that level as well as many others, including the second and third points in Ann's post.
4. Barack Obama can play guitar with his teeth.
"a symbolic character who embodies fuzzy-headed, unrealistic idealism in a ridiculous form"
This describes every college professor I know. It is no coincidence that Obama was a college professor.
Hawaii itself invokes hippies.
It would be fun to find pictures of Barack at that period with a headscarf and an Afro like Link in the Modsquad, or like Jimi Hendrix. Certainly some photos from that period exist.
John McCain was cut from a different kind of cloth altogether.
A different kind of young man. More of a smartass frat guy. And probably a little cruel, and able to take cruelty, too.
To some extent high school personality doesn't really change a lot. I mean, if you knew someone in high school you really knew them. Barack sounds so sensitive!
I would have been more like Barack, which is why I want the other guy to take care of the military side of this country, not sweet-talking Barack!
This describes every college professor I know.
Maybe you shouldn't have slacked off, and actually taken courses taught by scientists.
It would be fun to find pictures of Barack at that period with a headscarf and an Afro like Link in the Modsquad, or like Jimi Hendrix. Certainly some photos from that period exist.
Exactly how old do you think Barack Obama is?
You can be more precise than saying the left has fuzzy ideas.
It's that they never see a fallacy of composition eg., ``If everybody stands on their toes, everybody can see better.''
And when it doesn't work, they will necessarily misdiagnose it and make it worse.
So Obama is going to take from the rich etc, and sees no consequences adverse to his plan to give to the poor.
Not seeing perverse consequences is the generic mistake of the left and the young.
``If you're not a liberal at twenty, you have no heart. If you're a liberal at thirty, you have no head.''
Why do all the left's solutions fail? Not just some, but all of them?
It's because the problems that don't respond perversely to the straightforward fix (there's no way to cross the river -- build a bridge) have already been solved.
What's left is problems that get worse when you fix them. And that's all of them today.
Perverse problems have an evolutionary advantage, so that's all we have.
That's why conservatives are always right. It's not clarity so much as a natural suspicion. They've seen it before.
Cilliza - Poking holes in the idea of "hope" was tried -- unsuccessfully -- by Hillary Rodham Clinton in the primary.
Time and time again, the New York senator sought to make the case that while Obama talked a good game, that flowery rhetoric alone would not bring about the change needed for the country.
Cilliza is wrong. That was Hillary's 2nd message which dovetailed in to the "I'm a practical no-BS out to help the lives of of blue collar patriots like you.
The 1st message was I'm experienced and inevitable and I have all these great programs and Barack is Great, but needs creds as good as my 1st-Ladyhood.
The 1st message flopped, and with bad campaign advice and tactics, Obama all but locked up victory by the end of February.
But when she started her 2nd act and began fearing the black vote less and began ripping Obama as an empty suit with an impressive charismatic way of reading Team Axelrod's writers product off a Teleprompter - she killed him. Winning 11 of 12 of the major state primaries left.
It is natural that McCain continue that successful line of Obama as a facile, honey-lipped, empty suit of no real opinions, beliefs, experience, or courage of character as relate to his sticking by commitments..
****************
MadisonMan said...
At least we didn't hear McCain say My friends in the ad. He really should drop that rhetorical device.
As for connections? #3 is what McCain is going for, but it's really #1.
It's creepy, too. He uses it interchangably in describing voters, people he likes, people he hates, inc. Vietnam captors.
A passive aggressive device.
I wish that Romney or Thompson had had the balls to tell him earlier to "Shut up. I'm not your friend, you grinning old dimbulb, I'm a fellow candidate."
rhhardin said...
You can be more precise than saying the left has fuzzy ideas.
Says a man who couldn't have gotten laid in Haight-Ashbury in 1966 if he had a pound of high-grade pot in his pants.
What're we gonna do, hope that $4 gas comes down under an Obama who opposes anything but windmills?
There's no connection. This is stupid.
I thought Obama was an elitist? Hippies are not elitists. Plus, hippies don't do coke, they do pot and mushrooms. Obama did coke.
Hippies and elitists are worlds apart...but they'll try to throw any label on Obama that they can and then see what sticks. Problem is, nothing sticks.
Obama has been called:
A terrorist (fist jabs)
A Muslim (even though he was attacked for attending a "radical" christian church)
An elitist ("bitter voters")
A racist (white grandma thrown under the bus/truck)
A crook (Rezko, Chicago)
A false prophet ( the Messiah label)
A naive softie (Obambi)
A hippie (because he's idealistic?)
A playa (Michelle is a baby mama)
So, what's is gonna be?
You want 'em all?... Fine, take all the labels!
It's so much easier than cogently picking apart and slamming his proposals and policies.
You want 'em all?... Fine, take all the labels!
It's so much easier than cogently picking apart and slamming his proposals and policies.
As is the gleeful racism that all but oozes from a lot of the comments here, but that's another story.
If Senator Obama could stick with a policy, it would be much easier to analyze and cogently pick apart. We are stuck, unfortunately, with the labels that some decry.
Obama's campaign is about electing a Che t-shirt. Romantic image, bold and future-looking, but lacking any real substance. He sings Lennon's Imagine not because he believes the words mean something real, but because the lefties do.
Obama is in fact a tattered fragment of the radical leftist in the streets of Chicago, trying to foment revolution in the urban poor. That failed horribly, and riots meant businesses moved out permanently (another real world effect of leftist principles), so Barack's community organizing results in payoffs to his friend Rezko for housing that is now an uninhabitable eyesore.
He uses the most radical of the left's past (Ayers and Dohrn) to lauch his career. He uses the black liberation theology of Rev. Wright to gain black viotes. He votes against the Iraq War on every occasion to get the disaffected right and left. And then he tosses that crap aside for a more central postion.
Whatever works. So Obama's no hippie, he's a Democrat yuppie. Lookin' out for number one and all that other lefty shit, too, but mainly lookin' out for number one.
Don't forget about Obama's Weather Underground connections, Ayers and Dohrn.
Criticism of Obama = racism; or even gleeful racism.
Get a grip Perry--any samples of the gleeful racism to share with us?
Exactly how old do you think Barack Obama is?
Old enough to have personally built all the housing projects in Chicago.
Racism never seems very gleeful to me.
Old enough to have personally built all the housing projects in Chicago.
I suppose it's possible an image of Young BHO is Black Power threads exists. Which would prove that his Mother or grandmother -- whomever was dressing him then -- had poor taste. I hope that pictures of me in 70s clothing never resurface.
Such images underline that JSM is much much older than BHO.
Most race realists - called racists here - are not gleeful because they know that given the raw material nothing much can be expected of it.
good god. step away from reading comments for a month and now it's full of the same batshit crazies whose innuendo emails populate my inbox (forwarded by my dad) and bleeds through the am radio talk shows.
this ad is a great ad, and the tagline at the end 'don't hope for change, vote for it', is great writing, but simply not john mccain.
it goes back to the poll yesterday with the open-ended word association. john mccain: old. barack obama: change.
yeah, get back at your baloney rhetoric, pogo and ricpic. or you could find some real cogent stuff.
I am curious what evidence Perry can muster for us re the racism. And another point for perry: the more men talk about who they boink and about getting laid in public forums, the less their veracity. Them that do don't have to talk about it.
Roger J. said...
the more men talk about who they boink and about getting laid in public forums, the less their veracity. Them that do don't have to talk about it.
Yes, it's true. This man has no dick.
Perry: hows that evidence on gleeful racism coming?
"yeah, get back at your baloney rhetoric ...or you could find some real cogent stuff."
Your comment veers on meaninglessness. The fact that you actaully believe Obama is "change" is a mark of your naivete and willful credulity, the sheer desire to believe.
I wish they would both lose. I just want Obma to lose worse than McCain loses.
But they both are crappy choices..
The only "change" we are going to get from Obama is on his previous positions. Agree with Pogo: this is certainly the election to vote for lesser of two evils.
perry: its been an hour since you were challenged to give us examples of "gleeful racism oozing...." There isnt that much to read in this thread, so presumably you are either the world's slowest reader or you were talking out of your ass. In your case, perhaps both.
Back to the ad:
It's a jumble pie of themes that leads to nowhere. Apparently John McCain's combined military and political career has accomplished ... nothing:
"He believes our world is dangerous...our economy in shambles."
Thanks, John, but for what?
Gophermom said"
"It seems to be preaching to the choir"
I guess I am in the choir then even though I never wanted to be in a choir.
It would be fun to find pictures of Barack at that period with a headscarf and an Afro like Link in the Modsquad, or like Jimi Hendrix. Certainly some photos from that period exist.
Right. If he dressed like a hippie for his third-grade Halloween party.
But what connection is there between hippies and Obama?
His campaign and his biggest influences come right out of the violent sixties. Over and over, I feel like I'm in a continuous deja vu loop, only it is more like watching children trying to imitate their elders, try on Mommy's clothes, etc.
I think McCain is trying to reach those of us who lived thru those awful years and actually look back at them as the worst of times, not with any longing, as so many of the Obama followers who have never really grown up seem to do.
It may surprise some, that not everyone appreciated the hippies. I was 22 years old during the so-called "Summer of Love" and I wasn't feeling any love. In fact, I never heard of the "Summer of Love" until a decade or more later. I was struggling to raise a newborn alone while my husband was on his way to his second tour in Vietnam. I was fighting my way in to work past the violent demonstrators who made our lives a living hell.
Obama has surrounded himself with the dregs of those years, the Haydens, the Ayers, the Dorhns, the Fonda types, etc. It is one of the reasons I, and many like me, hold Obama and his campaign of hopey/changey in such contempt. A regurgitation of something that was undesirable the first time around and is unacceptable in the rerun.
Ah, an election between a huckster and a bat-shit-crazy man. The scary part is one is going to win.
Beth: thank you for your understanding of the time element involved! And you, a comparative lit person actually does mathematics.
We are talking 1968 here, folks--you would have to be in your sixties to be a hippie. And if you were a real hippie, too many grey cells have bitten the dust to even remember the time. Senator Obama, whatever his shortcomings might be, cannot be considered a "hippie."
I disagree, Roger; it's not about voting the lesser of two evils this time out, as both appear to be pretty swell guys. I'd say more accurately, voting for the lesser of two mediocrities.
As for door #2 in the original question, I'm mildly predisposed to having a president who's smoked some grass at some point in his/her misspent youth. Hell, I'd prefer they've dosed a hit or 3 of acid but you can't have everything... Seriously, at this point in the life of the nation (and post 1967), how many people in the presidential candidate age-group have *not* smoked pot at least once in their lives?
I think an interesting idea, though, is whether anyone who would defend any alleged drug use by Obama on the basis that Clinton got high and he was an o.k. prez, would feel differently in light of Bush's having that youthful pastime in common with Clinton.
Then again, who cares.
Pal2Pal said...
I was 22 years old during the so-called "Summer of Love" and I wasn't feeling any love...I was fighting my way in to work past the violent demonstrators who made our lives a living hell.
What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end.
One can make the case Obama's mother was a hippie and Obama himself has the hippie track record of mucho education/ professional student but sketchy work record.
Right. If he dressed like a hippie for his third-grade Halloween party.
Thank you, Beth.
The ad, like McCain's campaign, is a failure and just the latest in a series of bizarre missteps.
If McCain is not calling Obama an idealistic "hope" junkie of the '60's, then...what, he's calling the hippies who were of age during that time losers? Way to marginalize potential voters. Duh.
(I just posted about this...thanks for the ad and inspiration, Ann.)
I don't subscribe to leftist causes probably because on a personal level the level of contradiction is too great. However, I think the right is at a loss to criticize the left at this particular juncture, given the collosal mistake in attempting to impose democracy in the Middle East. We're spending trillions of dollars we borrowed from the Chinese.
I don't think you can pin this on any dope smokers or former anti-Vietnam protestors.
Veni etc: I think you summarized it better than I did. Thanks
The hippie stuff is more than a hit on hope. It looks like the McCain camp hasn't gotten as far as expected with McCain's heroic history. So, now they decided to hammer harder. Hence, the comparison with hippies of the day. And, then the torture and early release stuff was thrown in just in case anybody missed the point.
Then, this ad tries to resuscitate McCain from 2000. Again, there was no subtlety, hence the explicit use of the 'maverick' label.
And, finally they are copying HRC by identifying BHO as speech maker.
Will this complete package work for McCain? No:
1) Heroism won't overcome the Bush-McCain regressive, budget busting, tax policy. There is little interest in the health care plan to tax businesses, so that employees lose employer health care, and then they are left with an insufficient tax credit. Caving to coorporate interests with unilateral capitulation in trade deal negotiations, is an unwise way to fritter away America's greatness--we need to make stuff (capital), contrary to R policy it is unwise to base our economy on paper shuffling, as is starting to become apparent to more and more folks. And, trying to make 100 years in Iraq sound like a good idea, under any circumstances, is unwise, we need to worry about American jobs, not Iraqi jobs (they've got oil wealth, let them do for themselves.) Also, going broke and turning off allies with empire building is becoming unpopular. Instead, let's kill lots of terrorists as quietly and cleverly as possible, i.e. more Sun Tzu, less "bomb, bomb, bomb" jokes.
The McCain folks can keep hammering at heroism with increasing intensity (though they must be close to hitting a limit), it's never going to be enough.
2) He has tossed aside most of his 'maverick' views, so that won't work. Literally, McCain is now more in line with Bush policies than he has ever been in the past eight years. He is the reverse-maverick in 2008.
3) Underestimating BHO as just a speaker is foolish. But, the earlier and more forcefully McCain starts with this, the better for BHO. 1) This will go stale. 2) This lowers the bar for BHO: he can easily exceed expectations.
So perry: not a member of the reality based community! Throwing the racist word around like you actually understood it.
You, sir, are an absolute dipship and eptiomize the unthinking Obamabots who use "racist" as a blanket charge against all those who just might think the junior senator from Illinois is the biggest fraud since Huey Long.
Try harder.
Roger J. said...
So perry: Throwing the racist word around like you actually understood it.
You, sir, are an absolute dipship
And yet, somehow I understand that the word you're throwing around is actually "dipshit."
I don't think the McCain campaign really wants to open the door on 'drug use'considering the history of Cindy McCain.
I think the hippie comparison is just a way to punch up the Obama is too young meme. But again I'm not sure 'age' is something the McCain people want people to focus on either.
McCain really has an uphill battle in trying to define Obama because I don't think the contrasts are all that favorable in the current political climate.
Apparently metaphorical comparisons are verboten in campaign commercials.
Comparing Obama's pie in the sky rhetoric to the Age of Aquarius musings of the Woodstock crowd seems to be pretty accurate. No, he's not a hippy, but he's playing one on TV.
Some of ya'll are just too dang literal.
Perry--you got it! LOL
but the bottom line is, that there really werent any racist comments, and you used racist is a generic insult against anyone who would criticize Obama.
You know: at least have the decency to apologize for smearing posters as racists. So let me get this right this time: You are a dipshit. Have a great day, support your local sheriff if he or she is a republican, and contribute to the McCain campaign.
Palladian said...
Racism never seems very gleeful to me.
Allow me to recommend O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which contains a scene of a KKK lynching that hearkens back to the Wizard of Oz movie.
What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end.
Well it wasn't bloodhounds, it was trash cans full of raw sewage being dumped on my uniformed husband and in front of me and his young son. It was having our car trashed because it had a base (DoD) sticker on the bumper, it was having our child told by a teacher that his Dad was a "baby killer."
Like I said, I wasn't feeling any love. And there are millions like me.
When I was in my late 30s, I changed career paths and went back to college for a year as a result. I sat in a class and listened to the professor spend an hour telling outright lies. I didn't embarrass the guy during class, but spoke to him in private afterwards. I told him he was flat out wrong. He told me I didn't know what I was talking about. I told him, I was at the event you just spent an hour pontificating about, and from first hand observation, nothing was like you described. He told me I should do the research before trying to correct him and then he told me he was dropping me from the class as a disruptive influence.
Snide remarks, Perry, do not change the facts, no matter how much you wish it to be so nor how many professors try to make it so.
Beth: Right. If he dressed like a hippie for his third-grade Halloween party.
Wait, are we arguing there weren't any nine-year-old hippies in 1968/1969?
We are talking 1968 here, folks--you would have to be in your sixties to be a hippie.
I went to high school long after the '60s and we had hippies. In some cases, I suppose their parents were hippies (or had been) and in others it was a sort of vestigial (?) rebelliousness.
If the time of the hippies ran from about '67-'77, arguing he was too old doesn't work.
That said, he doesn't really seem like a hippie to me. He seems like a run-of-the-mill politician.
"The hippie stuff is more than a hit on hope. It looks like the McCain camp hasn't gotten as far as expected with McCain's heroic history."
Obama excites the ungrounded and unfinished exactly because he has no history, heroic or otherwise. He's the perfect post-modern product, a cypher, a simulation, a cyborg. Obama doesn't represent the hippies, he's the product of hippies, the result of that generation's rupture of reality. The Democratic party is in the middle of three non-convergent genetic lines: the pre-1960s liberals, with their Unions and populism; the 1960s liberals: inconsequential in themselves, a first-run, a confused jumble on the cusp; and post-1960s leftists: cynical, anti-populist, nationless, adrift, globalist, ultimately empty. This last line, sadly the ultimate inheritors of the corpse of Liberalism and the Democratic party, are either entirely inconsequential or incredibly dangerous, and usually, paradoxically, both.
It's been noted before: is the sun in the Obama campaign logo is rising or setting over that red striped field? Ambiguity. Multivalence. Perfect for the generation that doesn't know whether it's coming or going.
Wait, are we arguing there weren't any nine-year-old hippies in 1968/1969?
No, we're arguing that despite Kirby's certainty, there aren't pictures of little Obama running around in headscarf and 'fro ala Link and Jimi. What a stooooopid image.
Pal2Pal said...
"What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end."
Well it wasn't bloodhounds, it was trash cans full of raw sewage being dumped on my uniformed husband and in front of me and his young son. It was having our car trashed because it had a base (DoD) sticker on the bumper, it was having our child told by a teacher that his Dad was a "baby killer."
Can you say "urban myth"?
Can you say "urban myth"?
Don't be so sure.
If one takes the time to read through the memoirs and first-hand accounts of leftists in the 60s, they speak of these very activities. My recent favorite is the Jane Alpert's Growing up Underground from 1981. She was involved with about 10 bombings, but one resulted in injuries for over 20 secretaries. She said these were "accidental" because she couldn't get the desk clerk to believe her that a bomb was going to go off.
So yeah, the left did some nasty shit back then, and gleefully (Alpert said "the bombings had made us the toast of the movement and the talk of all New York. ... Weighed in the balance against the fear of arrest was the anticipated thrill that we would soon be openly celebrated as heroes.").
More, for you to question the veracity of a commenter here is beneath conntempt, I think. She has mentioned this incident before, and it strikes me as true.
As for the DoD sticker incident? Shit, that happened as well in Chicago just last year, when a lawyer keyed a Marine's car.
Don't be such a party-line dope.
...rupture of reality...
...adrift, globalist, ultimately empty...
...sadly the ultimate inheritors of the corpse of Liberalism and the Democratic party, are either entirely inconsequential or incredibly dangerous, and usually, paradoxically, both.
This is all very dramatic and amazing. I assume you have the same histrionics prepared for Conservatism and Republicans? Or everything's pretty much fine with them?
"This is all very dramatic and amazing. I assume you have the same histrionics prepared for Conservatism and Republicans? Or everything's pretty much fine with them?"
Republicans? Who cares? Conservatism.... yes.
You're the problem, dear Zach.
Apparently metaphorical comparisons are verboten in campaign commercials.
Yes, because, generally, they don't work. The Woodstock link back to Obama is tough to make because there's no imagery to support it. In campaign ads it's best to keep it simple. Get to the point - tv time is money. The other problem with this ad is your demographics. The window is too small to put it all together.
Let's see...hippies are "fuzzy-headed"...Obama's "fuzzy-headed"...Oh, I see! Obama's a hippy.
No, we're arguing that despite Kirby's certainty, there aren't pictures of little Obama running around in headscarf and 'fro ala Link and Jimi. What a stooooopid image.
I'm not sure why. I'm not sure why it would matter on the one hand and I'm not sure why you'd think it's so improbable.
It does inspire a blog post, tho'...
(Alpert said "the bombings had made us the toast of the movement and the talk of all New York. ... Weighed in the balance against the fear of arrest was the anticipated thrill that we would soon be openly celebrated as heroes.").
She was delusional. As are you for taking that crap seriously.
More, for you to question the veracity of a commenter here is beneath conntempt, I think. She has mentioned this incident before, and it strikes me as true.
Sorry, I lived through the same period, and what she's saying is absurd.
Of course, hippies did get their heads cracked open at Columbia and in Chicago. That's actually on film, of course. Unlike all that "spitting on veterans" wingnut fantasy.
I wouldn't identify Obama as a hippie, but a lot of his followers seem to fit the stereotype, at least so far as attitude is concerned.
Can you say "urban myth"?
No, I can not. I can say it was our life. The life of a military family who held honor and duty as being a sacred trust. And, I don't believe you for a minute when you say you lived thru that period. Or were you the one throwing the sewage and calling us every evil name in the book?
Were you in a military town like San Diego? Or were you hanging out with the druggies at Haight or the Mansonites and commune types out in the desert? We were just trying to live our lives, serve our country, raise our children to be good citizens, and work hard and finish our educations.
We knew that the hippies and anti-war crowd were killing our loved ones by collaborating with the enemy with their communist propaganda. We knew that they were prolonging the war. We couldn't speak out then, because of being active duty, but we can and will and do speak out now. And no number of pretenders are going to shut us up.
"[Alpert] was delusional."
The far left has always been delusional. Still is. What's your point?
Sorry, I lived through the same period, and what she's saying is absurd.
You were a military wife with a little kid whose husband came home from Vietnam?
Who knew?
Shit, I lived through the same era and never once saw a black man treated in a racist way, so it must all be urban legend.
I did see some hippies get beat up on TV. My Dad was in favor of it, so I pretty much thought the kids were being assholes and hoped to provoke the very fights they got.
Turns out I was right, at least if you read the instigator's accounts.
But since you didn't witness it, it didn't happen, eh?
I think it is more of a response to Clark and other surrogates that attacked McCain on his service, and a contrast against Obama's non service.
It is a variation of what Kerry did, but without the lies
The ad makes no connection between hippies and Obama. Nor does it disparage hippies. Listen to the narrator's tone of voice when he says "Summer of Love". Not disparaging at all. Then he says "another kind of love" [his patriotism] in a way that makes the two morally equal.
This ad simply says that McCain is loyal to America first, not to social trends or party politics.
The hippies provide some historical context. The clear Obama-related inferences begin at the 42 second mark.
Republicans? Who cares? Conservatism.... yes.
Well, true conservatism (not the so-called conservative president now and the one currently trying to be president) is dead and buried. So, good luck seeing that in the mainstream, or any stream of American government.
You're the problem, dear Zach.
You do realize that, coming from you, this is basically a compliment.
Pogo said...
Shit, I lived through the same era and never once saw a black man treated in a racist way.
Well, then either you lived in an all-white community or you're lying through your teeth.
I did see some hippies get beat up on TV. My Dad was in favor of it, so I pretty much thought the kids were being assholes.
Wow -- just kids being assholes? Interesting that history records it as a police riot.
Barack Obama lived in Indonesia from age 6 to age 10. He was born in August 1961.
Somehow, I doubt his mother dressed him as an American hippie there. Just a guess.
(It is, of course, possible for photos to exist of people Obama's age in hippie, or at least '60s-ish, clothing. My parents weren't hippies, and while they were in young adulthood in the '60s, they were busy with school, starting careers and two young children. OTOH, my father had two brothers much younger then he, both single and into "with it." One of them pretty regularly sent me--perhaps to tweak my dad--some pretty outlandish garb, including tie-dyed stuff, Peter Max-like slacks, little native-print skirts and such, and--most memorably--lime green fishnet stockings. On occasion, my parents even let me wear them, Lord knows why.
So you never know, really.)
Last, it's not hard to find at least some childhood pictures of Obama. (Keep scrolling for one from the Indonesia era. No one in the family, including the Mom, looks particularly like a stereotypic image of a hippie.) And you also could start going through all this, if so inclined. Don't care enough, myself.
I'm only 6 months older than Obama, and that was the point of my recounting my own experience with wearing certain clothes at a particular point in time, as a child, and not just in the context of Halloween, say.
I'm always amazed when I meet people who managed to get through the '60s, '70s and even the earlier '80s without ever hearing overtly, outright racist things said. That sure wasn't my experience.
(Actually, it still isn't my experience, but it's not, generally speaking, as extreme or at the same level of overtness as it once was. A good thing.)
Wow -- just kids being assholes? Interesting that history records it as a police riot.
No history isn't the recorder, the complicit media recorded it that way. I don't hold the police blameless, but they didn't start it. Look at the '68 convention, looks like a police riot, until you see what the protesters were doing the entire week leading up to the final confrontation. Listen to the disgusting rhetoric being spewed by the likes of Tom Hayden, the Weatherman group, and his hordes. Look at the desecration of American symbols and monuments. The taunting and name calling going on. The aggression just begging for a response that would look good on the evening news, so the great unwashed could claim martyrdom. The Peace and Love crowd were anything but.
All of that going on and race riots tool. Cities being burned. Every day people being reviled.
It was a horrible time. To romanticize it now adds new insult to past injury.
Does John McCain understand it? I don't think so, as he was busy being tortured by those who drew strength from our unwashed hordes. Does Obama understand it. Hell no. His knowledge of American history and the American way of life is nonexistent. His choice of friends now makes it crystal clear that he sides with the communist sympathizers and collaborators. The fact that he thinks he can fool everyone is the tell.
As one Oldie put it:
"The old sage’s (over 50) will have to play a big role in this election. The young people simply don’t know what the aged know. The advantage of aging is the knowledge you accumulated. You know what United States means. You know what the seldom-heard word respect means. You know how wonderful freedom and independence is. You know the difference between a strong and a weak nation; and you know what it takes to keep it strong. You know history because you have lived it.
Although the old guard is dying off, and getting too tired to fight, they have to muster one more charge."
Oh, I did. It was 1983 the first time I heard someone be overtly racist (in person) and it absolutely shocked the hell out of me.
It should be noted that the only black people around were, like, Barry White, Lou Rawls, the Jacksons....
Come to think of it, my first experiences with racism were black against white, and I only realized them in retrospect.
"You do realize that, coming from you, this is basically a compliment."
Anything that floats your kayak, little buddy. Here, have another Miller Lite and a Marlboro Ultra Light 100 on me.
Pal2pal,
Back at the time, science-fiction editor John W. Campbell wrote an essay about (I think) Kent State where he talked about those who defended rioters as "just" having rocks.
In it he relates a story of having killed a grizzly with "just rocks".
He was kind of a contrarian, of course, but it's interesting to look back and see that there were dissenting voices.
Pal2Pal said...
Listen to the disgusting rhetoric being spewed by the likes of Tom Hayden, the Weatherman group, and his hordes.
There was an illegal, immoral war at the time.
Look at the desecration of American symbols and monuments.
There was an illegal, immoral war at the time.
The taunting and name calling going on.
There was an illegal, immoral war at the time.
The aggression just begging for a response that would look good on the evening news, so the great unwashed could claim martyrdom.
There was an illegal, immoral war at the time.
The Peace and Love crowd were anything but.
By 1968, you bet. Of course, they were trying to stop an illegal, immoral war at the time.
"There was an illegal, immoral war at the time."
What canon of law render our wars legal or illegal? What canon of morality render our wars moral or immoral? I frequently hear these words, illegal and immoral, from people who have no understanding or respect for law and no organized basis for their morality.
Repeating a meaningless phrase is not an answer to the questions and statements posted above. The left has been trying to replace law, morality, ethics and governance with t-shirt and bumper sticker slogans since that dark decade, the 1960s. If you say words with enough frequency and volume, all meaning disappears. If you get enough people to forget about meaning and get entranced with sound, you get President Barack Hussein Obama.
Illegal Immoral Immoral Illegal Illegal Illegal Change Change Hope Immoral Illegal Change Hope Immoral Illegal Change Change Hope Immoral Illegal Change Hope Immoral Illegal Immoral Immoral Immoral Illegal Hope Immoral Illegal Change Change Hope Immoral Illegal Change Hope Change Hope Hope Change Immoral Illegal Immoral Illegal Change Change Hope Illegal Immoral Change Change Illegal Immoral Illegal Immoral Immoral Illegal Immoral Immoral Immoral Illegal Hope Immoral Illegal Change Immoral Hope Hope Change Immoral Illegal Immoral Illegal Change Change Hope Illegal Illegal Immoral Change Change Hope Immoral Illegal Change Hope Immoral Immoral Illegal Hope Immoral Illegal Change Change Hope Immoral Illegal Change Hope Change Hope Hope Change Immoral Illegal Immoral Illegal Change Change Hope Illegal Immoral Change Change Illegal Immoral Illegal Immoral Immoral Illegal Illegal Immoral Immoral Immoral Illegal Hope Immoral Illegal Change Immoral Hope Hope Change Immoral Illegal Immoral Illegal Change Change Hope Illegal Immoral Change Change Illegal Immoral Change Change Hope Immoral Illegal Change Hope Illegal Immoral Immoral Illegal
Palladian said...
What canon of morality render our wars moral or immoral?
The word immoral confusing you, Pall?
Okay, let's just leave it at this: Anybody who still maintains that the Vietnam War was a good idea on any level has pretty much abandoned any claim to being a rational human being.
End of story.
Hippies still exist in large populations especially in the west. You guys are so provincial. Just because you don't have any in Louisiana because they shot them doesn't mean that they weren't better received. Especially in Washington and Oregon and California there are still huge hippy settlements.
I imagine Hawaii still has a large hippy population, too.
Barack's mom was a kind of hippy. So he may have dressed as one. I am almost certain that there are photos extant in which he could be seen wearing a headband.
If not, he was thinking ahead while he smoked dem joints.
"end of story" Uh, because you say so? So wonderful you can speak for all who were involved in that war, and make your judgement as to them being a rational human being.
"End of story."
More sloganeering and more nonsense. Have you actually answered any questions posed to you? Apparently the canon of authority on law, morality, and warfare is vested in the brain of one anonymous commenter called perry masonmint.
Well, I reject your authority. So, now, what have you got?
Palladian said...
"Well, I reject your authority. So, now, what have you got?
Since you've just demonstrated that you're surpassingly stupid, what I've got is a couple of loud horselaughs at your expense.
Seems like a good deal to me...
Palladian...
Heh, I thought of this.
"Since you've just demonstrated that you're surpassingly stupid, what I've got is a couple of loud horselaughs at your expense.
Seems like a good deal to me..."
Ah, yes, as I suspected, you've got nothing. Now we can go back to ignoring you.
Blake, that won't work since the words spoken in the "Geographical Fugue" actually means something. I think this is more analogous.
By 1968, you bet. Of course, they were trying to stop an illegal, immoral war at the time.
There damn sure wasn't anything moral or legal about prolonging the war, causing more horror and killing and torture to those serving your country and theirs honorably. Like Bud Day said, every single death in Vietnam and the millions of Cambodians, South Vietnamese and Laotians slaughtered after our "immoral and illegal" presence was withdrawn, is on the heads of those who took to the streets and ran their mouths and destroyed this country with their totally clueless and childish behavior.
Perry--still waiting for those examples of racism you were squawking about earlier--Your inability to produce any seems to cast some degree of doubt about your veracity.
The hippies are/were a kind of Daddy's money thing. Even if you were making money in it, e.g. Jimi Hendrix, you were still picking up Daddy's money largely. At the same time it was a time where the sexuality of the young was beautiful but what the parents wanted was 'plastic,' e.g 'The Graduate,' a time of Oedipus ascendant. McCain is saying he's the (necessary) daddy.
Pal2Pal said...
There damn sure wasn't anything moral or legal about prolonging the war, causing more horror and killing and torture to those serving your country and theirs honorably.
Prolonging the war?
Unless you're referring here to the Nixon administration and its enablers, you're talking absolute nonsense.
There was an illegal, immoral war at the time.
Indeed there was -- the invasion of South Vietnam by the Soviet-backed North Vietnam.
The nation Hayden and Kerry did their best to assist.
Perry--still waiting for those examples of racism you were squawking about earlier--Your inability to produce any seems to cast some degree of doubt about your veracity.
To say nothing of the fact that the only candidate to openly praise racists and hail them as personal mentors was Obama himself. Of course, that was before he ran for President and realized that he'd need at least *some* votes from people who weren't black, which means -- to his supporters -- that it didn't really count.
Ann...Is it safe?
It's been a few minutes since all the blogscreaming ended. I was personally getting a nasty acid flashback from all this re-battling of the marvelous sixties.
Leaving aside the content of the McCain ad, I wanted to note that the voice-over actor is Powers Boothe. He played the Vice President in the last season of "24" and Cy Tolliver, owner of the Bella Union pleasure palace in "Deadwood". Many years ago he played the Rev. Jim Jones in a TV movie about the Jonestown mass suicide.
His association with McCain will no doubt put him on some people in Hollywood's blacklist for political incorrectness. I hope he won't have to drink the Koolaid for his sins.
Perry, you seem hopelessly misinformed. Listen to the POWs. Who do they blame for increased torture? John Kerry, Jana Fonda, the stupidness of LBJ. They'll tell you that when Nixon started bombing again, their treatment got better.
John Kerry singlehandedly killed more Americans with his communist propaganda testimony and his kissy face with the enemy than anyone else, although Fonda and Hayden were a close second. It is the reason he and his followers are so despised by those who served honorably.
I find it near impossible to compute that there are those like Perry who still believe there was anything noble about the anti-war movement of that era. What rock have they lived under all these years?
evenant said...
There was an illegal, immoral war at the time.
Indeed there was -- the invasion of South Vietnam by the Soviet-backed North Vietnam.
The nation Hayden and Kerry did their best to assist.
Wow. Apparently, there just aren't any meds potent enough to deal with the levels of dementia at this place.
I'm outta here, but please -- continue drooling in my absence.
All hope and no change makes Barack a dull boy...
lol, Palladian....
"Obama doesn't represent the hippies, he's the product of hippies, the result of that generation's rupture of reality."
Well said. There's this feeling that today is all there is. We are now and always have been safe, fat, and happy. His policies are half formed because his consciousness is half formed, and his campaign is just another step in his own personal liberation, and ours! His vague, anti-intellectual persona has more in common with Robespierre than with the Founding Fathers.
Thanks to all this rehashing, I sure do appreciate why BHO wanted to move beyond the battles of the sixties.
And why bother going back? Folks can still argue that conservatives are sell-outs to corporations and lefties are destroying the culture. It just seems more relevant in the present tense.
P.S. Points to Palladian; the dull boy link is good. Even while opposing your motivation, credit's due.
perry masonmint said...I'm outta here,
The plaintive cry of the wounded, seeking shelter, finding none.
Just because you don't have any in Louisiana because they shot them doesn't mean that they weren't better received.
Well, now you're just babbling, Kirby. What does that even mean? Are you confusing reality with "Easy Rider"?
I'm outta here
I win. :)
P.S. Points to Palladian; the dull boy link is good.
Agreed -- that was really funny, Palladian!
Are you confusing reality with "Easy Rider"?
That movie just hasn't been the same for me since I found out that the brunette hooker from the acid trip scene went on to sing that "Hey Mickey you're so fine" song.
Revenant,
That's a period of the 80s I prefer to forget. If I ever watch Easy Rider again, I'll just have to make the leap of imagination and hope I see the character and not that cheerleader video.
reader_iam, I remember lime green being very popular around 1968-1970. I can distinctly recall ordering an ensemble from the JC Penney catalog, in time for the new school year, mixing and matching lime green and lavender shirts and skirts. The shirts had those long, pointy collars. I'm sure I loved all things colorful and bright at that age.
Yeah, but did you wear lime-green fishnet stockings? To school? Paired with red patent-leather shoes? Inquiring minds want to know.
; )
And I should say that at the time, I lived in a small, very small, town in Illinois. Galesburg, the nearest "larger" town, at least had a community "outdoor" pool, again at the time. Wow!
Never thought to ask (nor have I happened to catch) whether you grew up in New Orleans. Not a big deal, much less a gotcha. Just curious, that's all--and I hasten to say it's not the sort of curious which I'm entitled to have satisfied. But if you WANT to share ... .
Yeah, but did you wear lime-green fishnet stockings? To school? Paired with red patent-leather shoes?
Oh, goodness no--I was too shy! But I'd have wanted to eat at the same lunch table with the girl that did.
Never thought to ask (nor have I happened to catch) whether you grew up in New Orleans.
My first fifteen years were spent on the Red Cross circuit, doing two-three year stints at various military bases. In the limegreen period, we were in Warrensburg, Missouri, (Whiteman AFB) not so far from you. Other than that we lived in Texas (twice), Oklahoma, and Germany. I was born in Arkansas.
New Orleans was just the last stop on my dad's second career -- 20 years Air Force, 20+ years Red Cross. I fell in love with the city and stayed.
But I'd have wanted to eat at the same lunch table with the girl that did.
The thing is--any other comments or reactions I might share aside--there was no "lunch table" in my elementary school. There was no cafeteria. Everyone went home for lunch (and the scheduled school day was quite different than what would now be considered typical, to accommodate that). In most cases, you did that round-trip walk twice each day. (My husband, after years of pooh-poohing, was floored when we visited the town a couple years back and clocked the distance.) You had to have a written excuse to bring and eat a bagged lunch at the school during the most inclement of weather (read, A LOT of fresh snow, sidewalks unplowed, and even then you had to a) live a minimum "x" amount of distance from the school (we more than did) and b) demonstrate that your mother had a job, and why, specifically, on a particular snowy day, she couldn't be there to transport you there and back and feed you within the alloted lunchtime. The problem is that a teacher or the principal had to stay at school during lunch hour+ period (which was universal), and they mostly didn't like that much.
You may think I'm kidding, folks. But I'm not.
1968. Lime green socks. Wide wale corduroy hip huggers and a paisley shirt with a Nehru collar. And love beads.
Far out man.
When I was in my late 30s, I changed career paths and went back to college for a year as a result. I sat in a class and listened to the professor spend an hour telling outright lies. I didn't embarrass the guy during class, but spoke to him in private afterwards. I told him he was flat out wrong. He told me I didn't know what I was talking about. I told him, I was at the event you just spent an hour pontificating about, and from first hand observation, nothing was like you described. He told me I should do the research before trying to correct him and then he told me he was dropping me from the class as a disruptive influence.
That's unfortunate, as it kind of defeated the purpose of your not embarrassing him in front of the class...
The thing is--any other comments or reactions I might share aside--there was no "lunch table" in my elementary school. There was no cafeteria.
That's interesting; I don't think I've ever heard of that situation before. Was that a budgetary decision, or were they just trying to promote some family time during the day?
I am curious what evidence Perry can muster for us re the racism.
Check out his 7:05PM post where he sticks his fingers in his ears and justifies the Left's behavior by screaming There was an illegal, immoral war at the time! over and over again.
Thats all the insight you need into the character of people like him: Perry is prepared to do vile and dishonorable things in support of Obama, so he needs to tag his enemies as racists to justify his actions.
I'm not sure this is intended as an attack on Obama at all. Rather, it's a reminder of McCain's traditional values and his decision 40 years ago to shun temptation. It was the summer of love, after all, so clearly this was no easy choice!
On another note, did anyone else notice the narration was done by an African-American? That struck me as a significant choice.
Perry is typical of the kind of person who screams racism and when challenged can't produce any evidence and doesnt even have the decency or guts to apologize for a baseless charge--Sad specimen of a human being and certainly a gutless wonder. Regretably rather typical of the Obamabots that show up increasingly to add nothing to the discourse.
I also attended an elementary school (K-4) from which all students walked home for lunch. Not a problem for me, as the school was behind our across-the-street neighbor. In my 5-6 school, we had a cafeteria. In about 1970, all schools in my school district started serving lunch, and kids stopped walking home.
If Barry smoked pot someone must have taken a picture and hidden away in the attic of some high school chum of Barry's, there has to be a photo of him with a giant spliff, and a headband. The right should offer $500,000 and win the election with it.
Palladian, are you a Talking Heads fan?
When I was 9, I bought the "Fear of Music" album for the song "Cities", which was a minor AOR hit in Detroit at the time; the radio commercials for that record, featuring a vocoded voice repeating the phrase, "Talking Heads have a new album; it's called Fear of Music", each time with another note in the chord added, were also quite cool, but I digress.
If you're not familiar (and I doubt that you aren't), you need to check out the tune "I Zimbra" to see what Byrne, Eno & Co. did with that "Gadji Beri Bim" thing you linked to.
Thanks for sharing, by the way; I'd always thought that those lyrics were the creation of the off-the-wall avante-gardistes in the band!
best,
vic
"The right should offer $500,000 and win the election with it."
I've gotta say, if "the right" were to come up with a photo like that from somewhere, and that's how they ended up winning (i.e. not really on the merits of a better argument/candidate), then they wouldn't deserve the win, any more than Gore would've deserved the win had he taken all of the lead from Bush due to the unveiling of the expunged DUI in 2000.
I hate that greasy-kneecap politics; isn't it a tad undignified for these United States? I mean, one of those Mugabe-esque banana republics, ok., but if a candidate/party can't win an election on anything more than the idea that his opponent smoked a joint when he was young - or had a few too many drinks, for that matter, *when he was young* - what does that say about (a) the quality of our political discourse; (b) our worthiness to "lead the world"; and (c) the slavish devotion of so many people to the pronouncements of our government?
*and yeah, would that the Mugabe's of the world stopped at using compromising photos against their political opponents...
but if a candidate/party can't win an election on anything more than the idea that his opponent smoked a joint when he was young
I don't think it's the joint that's got Kirby riled up; it's the headband.
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