Chocolate Time - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Jan 17, 2006

Chocolate Time

Date: Jan 17, 2006

Nagin is worried, with reason, about losing his base. However, one person recently told me New Orleans isn't going to be "chocolate" - it's going to be "salsa" with all the work crews from Texas who have moved in.
Others have commented that the shift in population could result in Texas becoming a blue state and Louisiana a red.

Date: Jan 18, 2006

What if a bunch of Chinese immigrants moved into New Orleans? Would it become "sweet and sour"? Or if a gaggle of Irishmen were to homestead in the Big Easy, would New Orleans become "lager"? These are important issues.

Yes Quarter

Date: Jan 18, 2006

Nagin ought to be worried. I read where there is a movement to remove Blanco as Governor. If New Orleans doesn't get "chocolate" real soon, Nagin may find himself out of a job.

Date: Jan 18, 2006

Southern Justice wrote:

Nagin ought to be worried. I read where there is a movement to remove Blanco as Governor. If New Orleans doesn't get "chocolate" real soon, Nagin may find himself out of a job.

http://impeachblanco.org/

Date: Jan 19, 2006

The funny thing is that there is little media outrage at him playing the race card and bantering about race...George Bush couldn't get away with talking about a "chocolate" city even if it was Hershey Pennslyvania...

Date: Jan 19, 2006

Sensitive wrote:

George Bush couldn't get away with talking about a "chocolate" city even if it was Hershey Pennslyvania...

Trent Lott didn't use even one word that was remotely racist when he spoke at the J. Strom Thurman dinner but look what happened to him. Anybody who saw Ted Kennedy's outrageous behavior at the Alito hearings understand the nature of the beasts we're dealing with.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

Nagin's was an outrageous comment, but its shows the level of base chaos in New Orleans. No one is in charge there, and it is going to ensure that the city will not fully recover.

Things are bad on the MS coast, but folks have rolled up their sleeves and are working to rebuild. As we are saying down here, all we need is the help to get to our knees, and we'll do the rest.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

Roxy wrote:

Sensitive wrote: George Bush couldn't get away with talking about a "chocolate" city even if it was Hershey Pennslyvania... Trent Lott didn't use even one word that was remotely racist when he spoke at the J. Strom Thurman dinner but look what happened to him. Anybody who saw Ted Kennedy's outrageous behavior at the Alito hearings understand the nature of the beasts we're dealing with.

What the inestimable Senator Lott said at the Thurmond dinner was "If Strom Thrumond had been elected (president in 1948) we wouldn't have a lot of the problems this country has today." Since Thurmond ran for president on an unabashedly segregationist platform it's logical to contrue Lott's comments as racist. I don't profess to know what's in the man's heart, but his head must have been pretty empty not to realize that he would be drawn and quartered for a remark like that.

But maybe not. It's pretty common now for "conservatives" today to argue that affirmative action is a "problem." A Strom Thrumond presidency would almost certainly have delayed affirmative action for another generation. So I'm more than willing to entertain the notion that Lott knew exactly what he was saying: that a Thurmond presidency would have solved the "problem" of affirmative action that so daunts his base: southern white guys and gals of modest means and education who have been lead to believe that affirmative action caused the stagnation of wages and the fall of living standards that were actually the fault of the supply side economics and trickle down theories embraced by the DC "lobby-ocracy" ever since the so-called Reagan Revolution.

If anyone cares to examine the record, I'm pretty sure they will also find that Lott's gaffe was not the first of this sort; if memory serves, he said something similar at an earlier Thrumond testimonial too. Also, is it true that at Ole Miss, Trent was a cheerleader and used to lead the team onto the field carrying that huge Confederate flag that used to grace the proceedings there?

Finally, the record clearly shows that Samuel Alito belonged to a Princeton alumni group that sought to prevent women and minorities from admission. He highlighted that fact on a job application to, correct me if I'm wrong, the Reagan Justice Department. For Alito, a man in his fifties, to then rely on "Reagan's Defense"--"I really don't remember doing that"--is justifiable cause for wrath. Get 'em Teddy! Civility be damned! Anyone with common sense should realize that Alito's a stealth ideologue who will jump on the first chance to reverse Roe vs. Wade and legitimize prayer in the public schools. He wouldn't have been nominated if he weren't. Why? The current White House P-resident had to throw some red meat to his base--America's religious fundamentalists, our Taliban--who've been dismayed at his waffling on hot button "values" issues like stem cell research and "the right to die" in the Terry Schiavo case.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

Coast Watcher wrote:

What the inestimable Senator Lott said at the Thurmond dinner was "If Strom Thrumond had been elected (president in 1948) we wouldn't have a lot of the problems this country has today."

Coast Watcher, what Trent Lott said was in the context of a "Roast." JST was being "roasted." Do you know what a "Roast" is? Surely you must have seen one on TV even if you've never attended one. People say outrageous things about the person being "roasted." Much of what is said is exaggerated, much is comical. I am not a Trent Lott fan. I hever have been.But I do have enough sense to know that what he said about JST was not racist. It can't even be remotely interpreted as being racist except in ones twisted fantasy.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

Coast Watcher wrote:

America's religious fundamentalists, our Taliban

And you think what Trent Lott said was bad? Whewww.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

Democrat:

Ohhh, so Trent was speaking ironically. Lott was making fun of Thurmond because the latter used to be a racist it that it? And Lott was saying that, in fact, it wouldn't have been a good thing if an arch segregationist had become president. So Lott is, you argue, a practicioneer of post-modern irony whose every comment is to be construed as accompanied by a knowing wink to the insiders. It that it?

I guess I can't claim to be as acute as you, Democrat, in my ability to understand such a master of irony as Senator Lott. The incredible nuance of his remarks blew right by me. I'm still stuck in a kind of vulgar 19th-century positivism: if it comes from a state with a history of racism, and it associates with proven racists, and it's risen to power by stirring up racist resentments . . . it must be a racist.

Democrat, don't be disingenuous. The real context of Lott's remarks was not some juvenille "roast" where men of power and privilege are licensed to act like a bunch of witless fugitives from Animal House. The real context of those remarks was the ongoing and far from resolved conflict about the legacy of slavery in the USA. Lott's remarks were voiced in a public setting--a tribute to Strom Thurmond--where issues of race and racism were rendered particularly resonant by the lingering presence of Sen Thurmond's past. To claim that the "roast" somehow negates that past, that history is naive. As a famous Oxfordian said, the past isn't dead, it isn't even past.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

Coast Watcher wrote:

Democrat: Ohhh, so Trent was speaking ironically. Lott was making fun of Thurmond because the latter used to be a racist it that it? And Lott was saying that, in fact, it wouldn't have been a good thing if an arch segregationist had become president. So Lott is, you argue, a practicioneer of post-modern irony whose every comment is to be construed as accompanied by a knowing wink to the insiders. It that it? I guess I can't claim to be as acute as you, Democrat, in my ability to understand such a master of irony as Senator Lott. The incredible nuance of his remarks blew right by me. I'm still stuck in a kind of vulgar 19th-century positivism: if it comes from a state with a history of racism, and it associates with proven racists, and it's risen to power by stirring up racist resentments . . . it must be a racist. Democrat, don't be disingenuous. The real context of Lott's remarks was not some juvenille "roast" where men of power and privilege are licensed to act like a bunch of witless fugitives from Animal House. The real context of those remarks was the ongoing and far from resolved conflict about the legacy of slavery in the USA. Lott's remarks were voiced in a public setting--a tribute to Strom Thurmond--where issues of race and racism were rendered particularly resonant by the lingering presence of Sen Thurmond's past. To claim that the "roast" somehow negates that past, that history is naive. As a famous Oxfordian said, the past isn't dead, it isn't even past.

Coast Watcher, now that you've explained to Democrat your position on Trent Lott's comments, please explain your own comment which read "America's religious fundamentalists, our Taliban."

Date: Jan 19, 2006

;It's pretty common now for "conservatives" today to argue that affirmative action is a "problem. ''

I'm a moderate and I consider affirmative action a "problem." It's racism ,pure and simple. Favoring one person over another on account of skin color.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

Fairness for all wrote:

I'm a moderate and I consider affirmative action a "problem." It's racism ,pure and simple. Favoring one person over another on account of skin color.

Unfortunately, today's politics do not make room for moderates. Joe Middleman is left out in the cold. The current system dictates almost that one has to be radical right or radical left. People say "I vote for the person, not for the party." But they really don't do that. Ultra liberals subscribe to all of the Democrat's planks and Ultra conservatives suscribe to all of the Republican's planks. There is no room in the system for one who is a conservative in religion but a liberal on social issues. This country desperately needs a 3rd party that will accommodate Joe Middleman.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

Joe Middleman wrote:

Fairness for all wrote: I'm a moderate and I consider affirmative action a "problem." It's racism ,pure and simple. Favoring one person over another on account of skin color. Unfortunately, today's politics do not make room for moderates. Joe Middleman is left out in the cold. The current system dictates almost that one has to be radical right or radical left. People say "I vote for the person, not for the party." But they really don't do that. Ultra liberals subscribe to all of the Democrat's planks and Ultra conservatives suscribe to all of the Republican's planks. There is no room in the system for one who is a conservative in religion but a liberal on social issues. This country desperately needs a 3rd party that will accommodate Joe Middleman.

The type of party you describe would win, JM. That's what the far left and the far right are worried about.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

Before y'all get all worked up about what Trent Lott said at ole Strom's party, remember that it was his fellow Republicans, Bill Frist in particular, that stabbed him in the back and forced him out of his leadership role. I think it would have blown over if he had been supported by Pres. Bush. But he wasn't. Sen. Lott lays it all out in his book "Herding Cats".

Date: Jan 19, 2006

qwerty wrote:

it was his fellow Republicans, Bill Frist in particular, that stabbed him in the back and forced him out of his leadership role

Some politicians of Frist's species do devour their own.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

Coast Watcher wrote:

Get 'em Teddy! Civility be damned!

Am I the only one here who sees a perverse irony in having Ted Kennedy, arguably the most morally bankrupt individual in contemporary politics, serve as moral arbiter for the Alito hearings. I doubt he'd recognize virtue or integrity if it slapped him in the face. The self-anointed Lion of Liberalism has a life long record of dishonesty, dating back to his expulsion from Harvard for cheating. Need I mention Mary Jo Kopechne, or his serial philandering, or his alcoholism, or his well publicized drunken trousers-at-the-ankles antics with Chris Dodd in the Georgetown restaurant, or his spirited defense of his nephew and protege William Kennedy Smith during Willie's rape trial. Come on folks, Kennedy is a clown and an embarrassment to the US Senate, the state of Massachusetts, and to his own party.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

Wow! Do readers of this board really consider the agenda of the Democratic Party to be "far left"? That's absurd! In a European political context, the policies and "ideas"--I use the term loosely--of the American Democrats would place them in a center right position.

For instance, Howard Dean, the DLC chair, has retreated from even the tepid anti-war stance that scared the sheet-beejus out of Joe Liebermann and other Demo-plutocrats during the 2004 election. Far left? Please, stop, you're killing me! Kids, the "far left" position on the Iraq war is that it's a racist, imperialist venture that flaunts not only international law but even the rules of civilization. The "radical left" holds that the USA has become a pariah nation, a rogue state, a war mongering, pollution spewing 4% of the world's population intent upon defending its claim to 25% of the world's resources come hell or high water. I recently heard a film maker on NPR say that his cast and crew purchased "I'm Canadian" t-shirts for location shoots in Asia, so I guess a lot of the world has come around to those danged "far left" views too. It must be a conspiracy or something. It's a shame we can't blame it on the USSR anymore. Oh, for the Cold War . . .

As far as my characterizing Christian fundamentalists as "our Taliban" goes, that's not much of a stretch unfortunately, although I admit painting with a pretty wide brush. Let me fill in some of the details. Pat Robertson, the Mullah of Mullahs of the American fundamentalist right, recently called Ariel Sharon's stroke the "wrath of god" for pulling out of the West Bank, and earlier had characterized 911 as God's judgement on America for it's fornicating, abortion loving, gay rights embracing ways. In other words, PR reads human history as divine revelation, as the unfolding of a divine will. That's potentially quite a dangerous thing. And it's the exact sort of thing Osama would do. The folks Robertson represents--and Ralph Reed and Jerry Falwell, and David Widemon--want to take away American women's ability not just to have abortions, but even to have access to contraception. They want the Bible taught in science classes, alongside evolution theory, and to do away with any and all separation between church and state. They'd censor TV, films, books, education for content that they deem offensive, on the basis of criteria taken from Chrisitan scripture, I suppose. Worst of all, they fully embrace a doctrine of American millenialism that gives the USA carte blanche to trample on the world because the USA is god's ordained vehicle of change in human history. There are even Christian fundamentalists who hold that pollution is no big deal because the Second Coming is near at hand and all the renate will be spirited away to nirvana or something!

If folks like I just described don't consititute an American Taliban, I'm not missing by much. I'm not referring to all Christians as such of course. But it's really hard to deny that, in terms of general world view and positions on women's rights, good governance, censorship, science and a whole rash of other issues, Pat Robertson and his ilk have more in common with Sheik Mullah Omar than they do with most Americans. At least I hope that's so.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

There you are Coast Watcher. I called for your help on the Bud Ginn thread and you did not respond.

Just in case you need to be reminded we had a Supreme Court Justice, Hugo Black, that was a former member of the KKK. He turned out to be one of the most liberal justices in the history of the Court. His early Alabama background did not carry
over to the Court. It might have been the same way for Old Strom if he had been elected in 1948. He could have changed, just as LBJ did after he ran as a dove against the hawk Goldwater, and the became the hawk himself.

I would still appreciate your comments on the Ginn thread.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

Coast Watcher claims: The folks Robertson represents--and Ralph Reed and Jerry Falwell, and David Widemon--want to take away American women's ability not just to have abortions, but even to have access to contraception. They want the Bible taught in science classes, alongside evolution theory, and to do away with any and all separation between church and state. They'd censor TV, films, books, education for content that they deem offensive, on the basis of criteria taken from Chrisitan scripture, I suppose. Worst of all, they fully embrace a doctrine of American millenialism that gives the USA carte blanche to trample on the world because the USA is god's ordained vehicle of change in human history.

CW, I think that's inaccurate and wildly overstated.

Date: Jan 19, 2006

So You Know wrote:

There you are Coast Watcher. I called for your help on the Bud Ginn thread and you did not respond.

Just in case you need to be reminded we had a Supreme Court Justice, Hugo Black, that was a former member of the KKK. He turned out to be one of the most liberal justices in the history of the Court. His early Alabama background did not carry
over to the Court. It might have been the same way for Old Strom if he had been elected in 1948. He could have changed, just as LBJ did after he ran as a dove against the hawk Goldwater, and the became the hawk himself.

I would still appreciate your comments on the Ginn thread.

Hugo Black and the KKK. Take a look at it. This is something that 99 percent of US citizens have no knowledge of whatsoever.

Date: Jan 20, 2006

Coast Watcher wrote:

Wow! Do readers of this board really consider the agenda of the Democratic Party to be "far left"? That's absurd! In a European political context, the policies and "ideas"--I use the term loosely--of the American Democrats would place them in a center right position.

You've gotta be $hittin me. I think you've blundered into the wrong country. This isn't Europe, thank God, and Ted Kennedy and Howard Dean are circus clowns, politically speaking. And let me add that this comment comes from an extremely liberal Libertarian, and former Democrat. The Democrat (NOT "Democratic") party has become a pathetic joke, primarily due to hypocritical blowhards like Kennedy and Dean.

Date: Jan 20, 2006

Coast Watcher wrote:
As far as my characterizing Christian fundamentalists as "our Taliban" goes, that's not much of a stretch

CW, you must have led a very sheltered life.