Can somebody please tell me why people are giving even a moment’s credence to the absurd, ineptly attempted smear that Michelle Obama would take the occasion of addressing a large, ethnically and politically homogenous heterogeneous congregation at one of the most prominent churches in the city of Chicago – on occasion where she knew she was being videotaped – to transform herself from a powerful, convincing advocate for sound political and social policy to a broadly drawn blaxploitation caricature? Do they really believe that every black woman harbors an inner Angela Y. Davis cum Cleopatra Jones-style race warrior whose second greatest thrill (besides being sent to all-topless women’s prison, natch) is avenging all the ghetto sisters them crackers done wrong? Really? Do they similarly believe the pope, given a moment’s peace, would in fact desperately seek out some woods to poop in? That little people living in their TVs act out the stories they see? That pro wrestling is totally, totally real?
Whitey? Is a moron.
June 2, 2008 at 8:49 am
…the short answer to your last several questions is “yes”. The longer answer, which is far more expensive because of the worldwide shortage of words resulting from explosive growth in China and India, is “probably not, but they would like you to”….
June 2, 2008 at 8:50 am
You are too kind.
P.S.: Are you entirely unfamiliar with the extent and purpose of Vatican conservation land?
June 2, 2008 at 9:46 am
Hey, I’ll bet that’s why Sidley Austin, one of the oldest white shoe lawfirms in the country, asking her to supervise their summer associates. Because she doesn’t know how to speak in public. Duh.
June 2, 2008 at 10:27 am
That was a righteous slap you gave Ogged on this, SFT. Unfogged is way to much of a group wank, usually. “Oh we’re so clever. Oh we’re so very witty. Oh our comments threads are so so long.” Nice to see someone finally throw down the lotion in disgust.
June 2, 2008 at 11:03 am
Wrasslin’? Shit this is pich-perfect satire if nimbobs like Larry Johnson actually had a sense of humor.
Well, if not satire, then at least a really funny Marx Brothers bit.
Margaret Dumont: Why’d he let our house burn?
Groucho: Sweetheart, Whitey had nothing to do with it, Jew did.
June 2, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I remember when the Red Sox would rail against Whitey… Ford. That’s why the contract was put out on Don Zimmer to turn him into a gerbil.
Ask Bill Lee. He has it on flashback.
June 2, 2008 at 12:34 pm
Do they really believe that every black woman harbors an inner Angela Y. Davis cum Cleopatra Jones-style race warrior whose second greatest thrill (besides being sent to all-topless women’s prison, natch) is avenging all the ghetto sisters them crackers done wrong?
Is there something wrong with me that the above just sounds so, so sexy?
June 2, 2008 at 12:57 pm
With these baseless attacks on “Whitey”, MO has just alienated the key “inspiration for ‘The Departed’” demographic. Winter Hill is watching, Ms. Obama.
June 2, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Don’t you mean heterogeneous?
June 2, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Just gotta say that this has been one hell of an entertaining weekend thanks to Johnson. I mean, geebus. It’s like Rove had his hand up his butt and was actually touch typing on his keyboard.
June 2, 2008 at 2:50 pm
8: Motherfucker better check his sources. Winter Hill is an upstanding community of pizza places and various brazilian things. All the white gangsters moved out to Medford and Malden. Check back on your neighborhood sometime, it’ll inform your prejudices.
June 2, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Please be less stupid.
June 2, 2008 at 4:23 pm
it’s obvious he is Whitey Bulger.
What was amazing about the Departed, besides the fact I liked it in spite of DiCaprio not being able to do a Boston accent and Baldwin basically acting in a completely different movie — is that it wasn’t even as contrived and retahded as the real life version of events.
Now go back to your regularly scheduled Boston racism Editors, you white devil.*
*Massachusetts, while home to an ugly white-establishment caused busing crisis 30 years ago, which caused the melanin-challenged in Southie to go beserk like a bunch of assholes, actually has a black governor.
June 2, 2008 at 7:12 pm
Bulger’s last, greatest con.
This protracted Clinton bullshit has been super beneficial to preventing a third GOP,Inc. term. Hyper-Retarded Democrats Kill Themselves in Uncontrolled Acidic Circle-Jerk, news at 11.
June 2, 2008 at 7:32 pm
What was amazing about the Departed, besides the fact I liked it in spite of DiCaprio not being able to do a Boston accent and Baldwin basically acting in a completely different movie — is that it wasn’t even as contrived and retahded as the real life version of events.
This is true. They didn’t even get into the part about the most-wanted gangster’s brother running the fine institution of higher learning attended by both the Editors and myself.
Marky Mark was dreamy tho. As usual.
June 2, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Please be less stupid.
Funny, all this time living here and I’d never heard of whitey bulger until Dear Editors informed me. I might be passing gangsters on the street! How exciting! They can pass as either yuppies or immigrants? What cunning! Which do they drive, Minis or mid 90s Cadillacs? It’s hard to tell sometimes. One time, I went to recycle my cans, and some ex-junkie grabbed them and did it for me. You know why? It was out of respect.
June 2, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Wait. Am I supposed to feel post-70′s guilt for watching Superfly again or baby boomer ennui?
I can’t find the memo.
June 2, 2008 at 7:53 pm
“Please be less stupid” is Teh Awesome. I’m going to start saying it to everyone, like prophylactically.
June 2, 2008 at 7:54 pm
(Also, vachon seems to be my evil twin.)
June 2, 2008 at 7:59 pm
Has there ever been a time since the founding of the Republic that a Massachusetts resident could refrain from nitpicking a tossed-off reference to any area within a 100 miles of him? It’s a Whitey thing, I guess.
June 2, 2008 at 8:37 pm
20: You have any jewish friends? You ever travel with them, or talk to any visitors? Any time they run into a fellow jew, they run a check on each other. Same thing here. Except I wouldn’t have even mentioned it if one or more Editors weren’t talking some weak ass outdated shit.
June 2, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Stop me if you’ve heard this one. Two Jewish friends are travelling around Mexico. One remarks to the other,’You know, I don’t think we’ve seen a single business with a Jewish name since we’ve been here’. Later at lunch, he asked the waiter ‘Do you have any Mexican Jews?’. The waiter goes to check, comes back a little later. ‘Sorry senor, we don’t have any mexican jews. But we do have orange jews, pinneapple jews, and tomato jews’.
June 2, 2008 at 9:51 pm
No Whitey Bulger references after Labor Day?
June 3, 2008 at 6:10 am
Well AFAIK it didn’t happen. And I kind of doubted whether it would. BoomanTribune has really gotten out of hand in the mainlining koolaid thing; he needs an intervention for real.
And he is one of the best at projecting his own hate fantasies.
He’ll wind up Republican one of these days: ‘you kids get offa my lawn’ style.
June 3, 2008 at 6:22 am
BoomanTribune has really gotten out of hand in the mainlining koolaid thing
You mean Larry Johnson, right? Booman’s on the side of the angels here.
June 3, 2008 at 6:28 am
No Booman has trumped up a smear that doesn’t even exist. He claims something for which there is no proof. How HORRIBLE LARRY JOHNSON IS ZOMG ZOMG! It didn’t happen and if he has proof of it existing he should show it.
Rather typical of him really.
June 3, 2008 at 6:52 am
What was amazing about the Departed [...] is that it wasn’t even as contrived and retahded as the real life version of events. – Jay B.
Isn’t there a saying that truth is always stranger than fiction? In the case of The Departed there’s two layers of fictionalization anyway — first they made that movie in Hong Kong, presumably based on the events in Boston but transplanting the story to Hong Kong, then they adopted the Hong Kong film and transplanted the action back to Boston.
June 3, 2008 at 7:53 am
secondharmonic as far as I can figure Booman is denying the smear. He’s claiming the existence of a videotape, which I don’t buy particularly, but he’s denying the “Whitey whitey pants all lightey” or whatever piece of it.
DAS I don’t think the original movie was based on Whitey Bulger. I think it was just based on some fevered-ass Hong Kong imagination, and the American adapting it noticed it was a bit (really only a tiny bit) like the Whitey Bulger story.
June 3, 2008 at 8:35 am
But he’s claiming that there was a smear in the works, or?
Frankly I don;t think myself Michelle is likely to SOUND the way he (booman) claims she was supposed to have sounded. Which could itself, in some senses, be considered a racist smear could it not? That is: Booman claims “(certain political rival’s surrogate) has racist tape where M.O. says ‘whitey’ not ‘why did he’”. That is a two-fer, or anyway it could be used as one by the GOP: 1) to smear the ‘certain political rival’s surrogate’ and 2) to smear Booman for (his, Booman’s) implying that’s the way Michelle talks or can be perceived to speak.
And/or make him look a fool by going all off on a nonexistent videotape / smear campaign that never materialized.
June 3, 2008 at 8:46 am
Oh. Well, I have no idea. I would have linked to unfogged but I was mean enough to ogged already.
June 3, 2008 at 9:50 am
“That is: Booman claims “(certain political rival’s surrogate) has racist tape where M.O. says ‘whitey’ not ‘why did he’”. ”
Cute; got Booman exactly assbackwards.
June 3, 2008 at 10:01 am
Booman says M.O. did NOT say “Whitey.” On the other hand, I don’t really want to defend Booman b/c his post is sort of idiotic in its own way.
Basically, Larry Johnson claims there’s a video of Michell and Sharpton being all black and hating on the caucasians. Zero evidence that any such tape exists.
Your response, my response, any being-less-stupid person’s response, is, “So why should I bleieve this tape is real?” Boomman, on the other hand, says, “I’ll take your word for it the tape is real but maybe it only *sounds* like whitey-hating.” Which is taking the right side, but in the lamest possible way.
June 3, 2008 at 10:09 am
(God this is a stupid thing to be arguing about.)
June 3, 2008 at 10:31 am
We could argue about the demographics of Somerville instead.
June 3, 2008 at 10:48 am
SCUMMERVILLE IS FULL OF CROOKS, MAN.
June 3, 2008 at 11:01 am
Fuckin’ Barnie.
June 3, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Well it was hard to see what Booman was saying. Yes I don’t personally think if said tape even exists, that “why’d he’ WOULD EVEN SOUND enough like ‘Whitey’. Or that Michelle would sound like Action Jackson or some other sexyblackchica from James Bond’s past.
So FWIW on that I agree with Booman. But BECAUSE of that, I question whether one should assume said tape even exists.
June 3, 2008 at 1:56 pm
That is, what evidence does he have that Larry Johnson ever planned such a thing? Word of mouth? From whom? His link on LJ’s name doesn’t work for me. Maybe the post was removed. Or maybe Booman himself is trying to smear (hated political rival’s supporter) LJ himself? That would be about right.
June 3, 2008 at 9:52 pm
SCUMMERVILLE IS FULL OF CROOKS, MAN.
And Tufts students.
June 4, 2008 at 6:44 am
Or as Sifu Tweety Fish once famously remarked:
“My God, it’s full of shit!”
June 4, 2008 at 7:24 am
That is, what evidence does he have that Larry Johnson ever planned such a thing?
Because Johnson posted about it many, many, many, many times on his blog? And yes, it’s down now, but just google Larry Johnson and check the cached version.
You could evn have checked this for yourself before posting here, but hey, googling is hard work.
June 4, 2008 at 10:45 am
They didn’t even get into the part about the most-wanted gangster’s brother running the fine institution of higher learning attended by both the Editors and myself.
And me too.
June 4, 2008 at 4:32 pm
I have it on good authority the “Michelle Obama Kill Whitey” rant was accidentally recorded while she was leading a group of Sidley Austin interns through the stands at Soldiers Field in Chicago when the Pats were in town and illegally filming the Bears offensive and defensive signals, the Bulls signals, the Cubs catchers signals, and some miscellaneous signaling going on between fish at the Shed Aquarium.
I could be wrong though.
June 5, 2008 at 6:44 am
One thing I did google was a wiki article on labor theory of value. Which pointed out that Marx’s own contribution was his theory of labor power. Which I believe I had discussed in one of these threads and you had dissed my argument. Without yourself even once mentioning Marx’s theory of labor power.
Yet you later claimned that I had an inadequate understanding of his labor theory of power. So yes, you looked the fool.
Moreover, when I clicked on Booman’s site on his link it froze my computer, which always happens when a link goes nowhere. Now that sort of thing disinclines me to attempt any further exploration of that particular nonsense.
So lemuel, that’s twice you have acted like a jerk to me, versus zero in return. Oops, now once; OK have your two tits for a tat.
Are you happy?
June 5, 2008 at 6:47 am
that is, you claimed I had an inadequate understanding of “Marx’s labor theory” — because you never once mentioned the words: ‘theory of labor power’ which is the whole point of Marx’s contribution, and why he invented it, to get away from the obvious difficulties of the old labor theory of value, which I mentioned at the time as well. Hell, that wiki article could have been written by me, but it wasn’t.
June 5, 2008 at 6:50 am
And then you pointed me to some Marxist ‘geographer’, when I was talking about econometrics; Rather different subject matter, I would say.
Yes I did google that guy as well.
June 5, 2008 at 7:24 am
OK here’s LJs take on it.
I really cvould give a flying fuck who he is. But I know that Booman is a total wiener, too. And LJ seems here to be a bit nonplussed that Booman has a ‘transcript’ as he has never himself seen or heard this mythical tape.
Facts, indeed. Anyohoo: from NoQuarter (LJ)
Martin, buddy. It ain’t a smear when it is true. I have made it clear all along that I do not have the tape but have spoken with good friends who know folks who have seen the tape. Martin, I have never, ever claimed to have the tape or stated that I was going to post same. I also have made it clear that the folks surrounding McCain want to keep this quiet until after August. So get your facts right Booman.
But you, Martin, now claim you have a transcript. How do I know? Because you quoted the transcript in detail. Terrific. Bring it out. Let’s put this to bed once and for all. Let’s show the world that Farrakhan and Michelle were exchanging Kool-Aid recipes.
I also find it fascinating that Martin is part of the Obama blog force. Me, I’m not on the Hillary mailing list. Don’t need it. Capable of thinking for myself. Martin, you got played by your boys. Transcript indeed!
I know people who know people who say theEditors is really an underground factory of disinfo run by the ‘Nordic’ type of aliens from their base below Datil, New Mexico. Fact.
June 5, 2008 at 7:34 am
you later claimned that I had an inadequate understanding of his labor theory of power.
Yes, I did. Possibly I was wrong, altho “googling a wiki article” doesn’t strike me as the soundest source of knowledge here.
And then you pointed me to some Marxist ‘geographer’, when I was talking about econometrics
The quotes suggest you doubt whether David Harvey is really a geographer. So he’s been fooling the whole profession for decades? Scandalous!
And no, you were not talking about econometrics. Do you even know what the word means?
On balance, I think my level of jerkiness toward you has probably been about right.
June 5, 2008 at 8:41 am
I dunno. Plenty of gullible people believed Hillary openly prayed for the assassination of Barack Obama on tape and in front of a newspaper editorial board (which later endorsed her candidacy).
From what we’ve seen of the “post-racial” folks at TUCC, it’s a lot more believable that Michelle would open up in front of friends who think that whitey is responsible for all their suffering.
The BO people have set the bar for gullibility pretty low.
June 5, 2008 at 8:45 am
Actually I was. And you answered me with saying to the effect of ‘Go look up Harvey, punkinhead’.
What is econometrics? Well I am not googling this, but I would say offhand the study/profession of compiling/analysing statistics and MEASURES of economic inputs and outputs. Insofar as that has to do with resource inputs, it could fold within its domain ‘economic geography’. But the input from ‘human resources’ is probably larger. And no. considering human resources as part of geography, which Harvey may do, is not really legitimate, as ‘geos’ means ‘earth’, and ‘graphia’ means ‘writings’.
Looking forward to seeing your papers in print.
June 5, 2008 at 8:57 am
here’s the relevant part of the thread, from March.
secondharmonic Says:
March 24, 2008 at 6:17 am
I agree with all your criticisms. Marx was trying to *save* the classical labor theory of value from itself. Whether he totally succeeded is another question. Are there ways to define the labor power, or else the value added in some responsible maybe even ’scientific’ way? You’d have to talk to a PhD econometrics person. Maybe there are.
Are the actual prices of things in this sense determinable, i.e. if you ran a simulation do you get the whole set of prices and outputs for a bunch of commodities with the set-ep parameters of a given real economy realistically? Maybe someone has done so by now, but I haven’t heard of it.
Harder than climate models, I would think. Much harder.
In order to even get started with a consistent ‘relative price level’ system, I would think you’d have to complile a list of equivalent goods/services and use that as your ‘bootstrap’. My suggestion: the price of an hour’s worth of services from the ‘average upscale prostitute’ in any economy is 1 ‘harlot’. All goods and services in the economy are to be normalized to ‘harlots’. So, 5 grams of gold = 1 harlot, say, or a bushel of apples is approximately 0.5 harlots, and so on.
lemuel pitkin Says:
March 24, 2008 at 10:45 am
You’d have to talk to a PhD econometrics person.
One would think so. Fortunately such people someimtes write their thoughts down in books and articles, so it turns out not be necessary to literally talk to them after all.
(You could start with the discussion of the LTV in David Harvey’s The Limits of Capital, if you like. It’s pretty accessible.)
June 5, 2008 at 8:57 am
From what we’ve seen of the “post-racial” folks at TUCC, it’s a lot more believable that Michelle would open up in front of friends who think that whitey is responsible for all their suffering.
And that is the point of this nonsense isn’t it? There are apparently a lot of people like yourself who find this utterly ridiculous smear plausible based upon what you think is true about a group of black people and a church you know almost literally nothing about. The architects of this particular hit job knew what they were doing in that respect. No proof will ever be provided because, of course, none exists but the effect will be almost as powerful as if it did.
June 5, 2008 at 9:09 am
brent evidently–it gets a lot of gullibles like LJ and Booman heated up and tearing at each other. The fact that it doesn’t exist isn’t a bug (like your truly’s icon) but a feature.
June 6, 2008 at 5:34 am
‘MArxist “geographer”‘. Geographer is in quotes because, as I am sure most everyone here is aware, you can be a geographer who also *happens to be a Marxist* and that is fine; but if you let it inform your ‘geography’, inform your studies, then it is not so good. And that is apparently what Harvey does.
Just as a biochemist/molecular biologist could also happen to be a ‘creationist’; but if she let it infrom her scientific judgements that would not be very legitimate.
Cognitively ‘Marxist geographer’ is about on the same level as ‘Aryan ethnologist’ or ‘Social Darwinist epidemiologist’. And no, a correct response to that isn’t: “but those two 19th century pseudosciences were WRONG, and Marxism is right”.
June 6, 2008 at 7:17 am
Secondharmonic, you don’t have the slightest idea what you’re talking about. Bye-bye.
June 6, 2008 at 7:30 am
Goodbye lemuel! Goodbye secondharmonic! Goodbye nonsensical argument that I haven’t really bothered to try and follow!
I’m just kidding, of course. You’re welcome to keep on hashing out whatever the hell it is you’re hashing out; I’m not really reading it anyways.
June 8, 2008 at 5:51 am
“Angela Y. Davis cum Cleopatra Jones-style”
Whew. I need a cigarette.