Re: Ishmael Reed: "What Progressives Don’t Understand About Obama" Keeping Cool & Caring" NYT

[Thomas Beshear]

Most of the Tea Parties are just the already existing far-right Republican 
base. They're socially conservative and are fiscally conservative only to 
the extent that it might undercut the Democratic administration. They didn't 
spring up until after Obama was in office, so they aren't a reaction to the 
economic meltdown. The Tea Party exists solely because of that furrin-born 
Muslim socialist in the White House.
I enjoyed parts of Reed's screed, but overall he sounds like a twit.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <kelber at mindspring.com>
To: <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Monday, December 13, 2010 4:53 PM
Subject: Re: Ishmael Reed: "What Progressives Don’t Understand About Obama" 
Keeping Cool & Caring" NYT


Reed's argument: he met a self-identified white progressive who called the 
Tea Party a people's movement, therefore ALL white progressives believe this 
to be the case, is a noxious contortion of logic.  We jeer at ignorant Tea 
Baggers who use this idiotic method of pointing to the particular as proof 
of the general:  I met a black person who was X, therefore ALL black people 
are X.  It's as ignorant a construction coming from Reed.  Oh, he thinks 
Clarence Thomas was mistreated by Anita Hill, does he?  How progressive of 
him.

Laura


-----Original Message-----
>From: Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>

>
> Michael Bailey  wrote:
>
>> he's done a lot of good research and makes good connections.
>> He draws some distinctions that make pretty good sense to me.
>> At no point does he stand behind black conservatives for being black.
>>
>
>
>hee hee, poverty of thought, poverty of expression!
>
>"he's done a lot of good research and makes good connections"
>
>real descriptive!
>the book's a collection of essays and articles of varying depth and,
>if you like Reed, quite a treat.
>In contrast to Carter who alienated Washington systematically, Obama
>has really tried to work with both parties.
>Is it wrong to suspect some of the hysterical obduracy of the
>opposition is due, not just to them being unable to adjust to the end
>of the Bush era, but also to racism?
>Is it paranoid to take note of news trends?
>
>"He draws some distinctions that make good sense to me"
>resolute standing-behind-Clinton and abandonment of Obama in the same
>quarters is one of them; attention to "party lines" as they relate to
>racial issues among liberals and feminists is another...
>
>"at no point does he stand behind black conservatives for being black"
>
>("merely for being black" would be better...)
>
>actually he is readier to accept Long Dong Silver, er, Clarence
>Thomas's version over Anita Hill's than I would be, and a just a tiny
>bit more accepting of some of what I would tend to call "macho
>bullcrap" from various quarters than I like, but that's sexism not
>racism (and I don't see him as a "vector" of sexism, but more of
>someone who has seen and suffered unjustified charges of sexism and is
>maybe over-ready to see certain other, less-unjustified, charges as
>unjustified)
>
>
>
>-- 
>"Three things in life are important. The first is to be kind. The
>second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind." - Henry James