Update: Affirmative distraction
via mal contends - Jesse Helms and the Southern Strategy live.
John McCain just cannot resist that old-time religion used by the GOP in fighting general election presidential campaigns: Race as a wedge issue.
Obama says McCain flip-flops by opposing affirmative action reads a McClatchy headline on a piece by William Douglas, though a more instructive headline is that: McCain did flip-flop on affirmative action.
That flip-flop is a fact, and should be reported as such.
Writes Douglas:
McCain, speaking on ABC's 'This Week,' said he backs a proposed ballot initiative in Arizona that would prohibit affirmative action policies by state and local governments. ... McCain's endorsement was an apparent shift on affirmative action. ... He opposed a 1998 resolution in the Arizona legislature that asked voters to eliminate most preferences based on race, gender or ethnic origin. ... 'Rather than engage in divisive ballot initiatives, we must have a dialogue and cooperation and mutual efforts together to provide every child in America to fulfill their expectations,' (McCain) said at the time.
As Jamin Raskin has written, opponents of equality of opportunity have been arguing since reconstruction that blacks just need to help themselves and have only themselves to blame for any lack of achievement in America.
The critics of affirmative action invite us to believe that we live in a color-blind society in which the last vestige of racial discrimination is affirmative action itself. ... To transcend the destructive politics of division and derision surrounding affirmative action (if we still can), we need to reaffirm the equality of all peoples in a culturally pluralist society and to posit a universal politics of freedom and equality for the next century. But a vigorous defense of affirmative action right now is central to such a politics. For in a society where the lines of race and gender double as lines of class and power, even the idea of affirmative action for minorities and women is an affront to the structure of domination and inequality. Our job must be to make affirmative action the first line of defense in a politics which insists that all citizens have a right to equal participation in the fruits of our social life.
I'm sure a desperate John McCain will have no qualms about using race, overtly and through subliminal message impressions, as a means of staving off a rout in November.
Jobless? Losing your standard of living? The blacks (and their Jew allies) did it!
Jesse Helms would be proud. Now McCain needs to get down to Philadelphia , Mississippi and make a rip-roaring good speech, a la Ronald Reagan.
Showing posts with label William Douglas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label William Douglas. Show all posts
Jul 28, 2008
Mar 12, 2008
Hillary's Appeal to Racism Is a Project, Not an Accident
Hillary Clinton's evolving attacks to define and brand Barack Obama involve what advertising and marketing professionals call impressions—the projection of one image (in this case Barack Obama) onto one human brain (a voter).
Designing and managing Obama’s brand by generating impressions for the benefit of Hillary running in the primary, it is necessary to merge negative (ostensibly plausible) aspects of Obama onto the consciousness of key voting demographics susceptible to certain appeals based on fear and xenophobia.
The more frequent and emotionally potent the impression, the greater is the political impact.
That’s why we see the escalation after the Feb. 19 Wisconsin primary of Hillary's project of generating political impressions of Muslim, Black, stranger, unsteady, Ken Starr, creepy, inexperience, and so on.
One threat to the project is the negative reaction of the African-American community and its allies well-versed in recognizing racist appeals, subtle or not so subtle. This threat is being realized today as we see Obama taking some 80 to 90 percent of the African-American vote in primaries and caucuses.
Hillary's amoral and empirically valid branding of her opponent is more simply stated as an old South appeal to racism.
Concomitant with branding Obama is the project of projecting Hillary as a unique and convincing brand of steady, strong, experienced, familiar, and knowledgeable.
Even among Democratic-voting communities with a negative predisposition towards Hillary, this brand of Hillary with the above positive qualities rings true, so we see Hillary present her Commander-in-Chief credentials, including vast foreign policy and national security experience.
Facts can get in the way of Hillary's project. And we do see the occasional piece knocking down Hillary's brand. See today's Clinton's foreign experience is more limited than she says, for example
But William Douglas's thoughtful and rigorous piece in McClatchy Newspapers noted above makes less an impact than Hillary's crash kitchen sink, branding program.
After all, Hillary's is not an appeal to thoughtfulness and issue analysis; rather it is an emotional appeal to unthinking racist sentiments that can be identified in micro-demographics by Hillary's campaign devoted to the enterprise.
Some demographics can be counted on to combat Hillary’s racist, divisive project (for example):
- Today's socially tolerant under-29 vote
- Social justice progressives
- Casually political, middle-class Americans fed-up with Bush and division and concerned about fairness
Hillary is hoping these spheres remain marginalized and ineffective in Pennsylvania and the coming campaign.
Selling her soul is not a decisive factor to consider. As Hillary once said in a different context, face reality!
Designing and managing Obama’s brand by generating impressions for the benefit of Hillary running in the primary, it is necessary to merge negative (ostensibly plausible) aspects of Obama onto the consciousness of key voting demographics susceptible to certain appeals based on fear and xenophobia.
The more frequent and emotionally potent the impression, the greater is the political impact.
That’s why we see the escalation after the Feb. 19 Wisconsin primary of Hillary's project of generating political impressions of Muslim, Black, stranger, unsteady, Ken Starr, creepy, inexperience, and so on.
One threat to the project is the negative reaction of the African-American community and its allies well-versed in recognizing racist appeals, subtle or not so subtle. This threat is being realized today as we see Obama taking some 80 to 90 percent of the African-American vote in primaries and caucuses.
Hillary's amoral and empirically valid branding of her opponent is more simply stated as an old South appeal to racism.
Concomitant with branding Obama is the project of projecting Hillary as a unique and convincing brand of steady, strong, experienced, familiar, and knowledgeable.
Even among Democratic-voting communities with a negative predisposition towards Hillary, this brand of Hillary with the above positive qualities rings true, so we see Hillary present her Commander-in-Chief credentials, including vast foreign policy and national security experience.
Facts can get in the way of Hillary's project. And we do see the occasional piece knocking down Hillary's brand. See today's Clinton's foreign experience is more limited than she says, for example
But William Douglas's thoughtful and rigorous piece in McClatchy Newspapers noted above makes less an impact than Hillary's crash kitchen sink, branding program.
After all, Hillary's is not an appeal to thoughtfulness and issue analysis; rather it is an emotional appeal to unthinking racist sentiments that can be identified in micro-demographics by Hillary's campaign devoted to the enterprise.
Some demographics can be counted on to combat Hillary’s racist, divisive project (for example):
- Today's socially tolerant under-29 vote
- Social justice progressives
- Casually political, middle-class Americans fed-up with Bush and division and concerned about fairness
Hillary is hoping these spheres remain marginalized and ineffective in Pennsylvania and the coming campaign.
Selling her soul is not a decisive factor to consider. As Hillary once said in a different context, face reality!
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