Günter glieben glauten globen …
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William Teach of various rightie blogs seems very upset with yesterday’s post. After all, he replicated it on three separate websites (in descending order of influence): right Wing News, Stop the ACLU, and Pirate’s Cove. His refutation?
Democrats are allowed to be bigots, insensitive, and racists because they just want to help the people they are being bigoted, racially insensitive, and plain insensitive to. his vorpal sword is a good example, utterly trying to protect Biden.*
* http://www.stoptheaclu.com/2012/08/19/boston-globe-biden-should-apologize-for-chains-remark/
* http://www.thepiratescove.us/2012/08/19/boston-globe-biden-should-apologize-for-chains-remark/
* http://www.rightwingnews.com/democrats/boston-globe-biden-should-apologize-for-chains-remark/
Well, at least he got the e.e. cummings spelling of this blog’s title correct. Not much else, though. Let’s see, I’m a “bigot,” “insensitive” and “racist.”
Since this isn’t the first time that simple reasoning has befuddled him, I will try to be very simple with this.
We’re concerned with two words here. And, we’re concerned with context. Here is the “controversial statement”:
[Biden was] campaigning Tuesday in Virginia, during a discussion of Wall Street regulation.
“They’ve said it. Every Republican’s voted for it. Look at what they value and look at their budget and what they’re proposing. Romney wants to let the — he said in the first 100 days, he’s going to let the big banks once again write their own rules — unchain Wall Street,” Biden said. “They’re going to put y’all back in chains. He’s said he’s going to do nothing about stopping the practice of outsourcing.”
“Imputation” and “interpretation” are different words for a reason.
How the mainstream media see themselves …
You see, the phony kerfuffle is based entirely on the distinction between those two ideas. The Right Wing Echo Machine and the Romney Campaign swung into lock-step to IMPUTE a racial interpretation to Mr. Biden’s remarks.
im-pute (m-pyt)
1. To relate to a particular cause or source; attribute the fault or responsibility to: imputed the rocket failure to a faulty gasket; kindly imputed my clumsiness to inexperience.
[...]
[Middle English imputen, from Old French emputer, from Latin imputre : in-, + putre, to settle an account ...]~ The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, 2000
Which is, precisely in English, what the Right Wing has done.
Now, if we look at those making the accusation, they were all, initially, WHITE. (and Southern). Finally, a Black man was found to take offense, but, if it WAS racially insensitive, racist, bigoted and/or racist, wouldn’t the large segment of that audience have been the first to complain? Wouldn’t they have known, as listeners, far more precisely and immediately, whether or not Vice President Biden’s remarks were “racist”? (Or were they too “stupid” to know they’d been insulted?)
Click on pic to enlarge. Click here for original.
Then, the Daily Show decided to throw gasoline on the fire, by accepting, without question the IMPUTATION. Then Jesse Jackson threw gasoline on the fire, ditto and Friday, the Boston Globe decided to anonymously throw gasoline on the fire, ditto also.
But an imputation is quite different from an interpretation, since those doin the interpretin have every reason “to settle an account” with the Obama Administration by pretending that no, it’s only BLACK PEOPLE who are racists, and NO CRITICISM of President Obama has EVER been racist. (“Magic Negro” springs to mind.)
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in·ter·pret (n-tûrprt)
1. To explain the meaning of: interpreted the ambassador’s remarks.
2. To conceive the significance of; construe: interpreted his smile to be an agreement; interpreted the open door as an invitation.
3. To present or conceptualize the meaning of by means of art or criticism.
4. To translate orally.
v.intr.
1. To offer an explanation.
2. To serve as an interpreter for speakers of different languages.
[Middle English interpreten, from Old French interpreter, from Latin interpretr, from interpres, interpret-, negotiator, explainer...]~ The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition 2000
And with no more brains than you …
What Biden and, today, Senior Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs have said was that it was clearly a play on Mr. Romney’s promise to “unshackle Wall Street.” This was their INTERPRETATION.
First, and most importantly, the interpretation is utterly at odds with the imputation.
So, on a purely logical basis, and considering the self-interest of both imputers and interpreters, we can say that it is a wash. The “interpretation” and the “imputation” cancel one another out.
However, we have the reaction, the instantaneous polling of the audience in question (who cheered) and their later reaction (no black audience members have yet come forward to claim that Vice President Biden was making a racial remark) simple deductive reasoning dictates that the imputation is false.
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Ah, but here’s where it gets all Goebbelsy (and yes, I’m legitmately calling a “fascist” anyone who has termed my president, my party and/or my political beliefs “socialist” — the former term either MUST be acceptable, or the latter term UNacceptable, and since “socialist” is not going away, FASCIST) and suchlike.
The Right Wing Echo Machine has CREATED a “fact” and a “gaffe” without any rational basis in evidentiary terms, and yet, it is REFLEXIVELY termed a “gaffe” by the stenographic corpse of the modern American Mass Media.*
[And ask yourself: if we have the best information and communications technology ever devised, then HOW can it be that the mass media is A) so homogenously wrong, and B) so ineffective at disseminating factual information, given the incredible misinformation and lack of understanding demonstrated by poll after poll, including, as an example, why 80% of Fox News viewers believe that Saddam Hussein had some intimate connection with Nine-Lebbin?]
1928 KKK anti-Al Smith Flyer (detail), sound familiar?
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Now, watch as the false imputation seeps further into the realm of “fact,” or, more swill from The Hill:
Gibbs: Biden remark no more racial than Boehner saying ‘unshackle Wall Street’
By Meghashyam Mali – 08/19/12 09:55 AM ET… The vice president had a difficult week on the campaign trail after saying on the stump that Republican policies toward Wall Street would “put y’all back in chains,” a comment that brought swift criticism from Republicans.
The Obama campaign has defended Biden, claiming that his remark was taken out of context.
Yet the latest gaffe led to media speculation that he might be forced off the ticket, despite the administration’s repeated statements that Biden would run with the president.
On Thursday, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Republicans were trying to “distract attention” and said Obama had no intention of getting rid of Biden as his running mate….
”Can you believe what that Joe
Biden said about black people!?!!?”
It is, in fact, clear that this is yet another “Dan Rather” style tactic to divert attention from the hemorrhaging Romney campaign, with something of little actual substance turned INTO a fact by white men and white women, demonstrably hostile to the interests of blacks, both in word and deed, without actually ASKING them. In what is, ITSELF, a racist formulation, a black spokeserpent is located and “takes umbrage” adding his imputation to the white imputation, which, when you think about it conveys the meta-message that …
ONE BLACK PERSON EQUALS ALL BLACK PEOPLE
Yeah. They all look alike to the GOP. And, by extension, the mass media, which is why I am certain that they were more than happy for Jesse Jackson to take long-distance crystal-ball gazing and agree with the imputation.
1928 FULL KKK anti-Al Smith Flyer
But, again, Jesse Jackson no more speaks for all black people than does Arthur Davis:
I did a quick Google search, and I don’t recall the Boston Globe demanding that Mitt Romney apologize for Romney surrogate and Orange Supremacist Donald Trump’s crazy racist birther bullshit.
As such, I am cordially inviting the Boston Globe to shut its fucking pie hole and stop feigning outrage on behalf of black Americans, many of whom don’t give a shit about what Biden said, and care more about the fact that Mitt Romney policies will, metaphorically, put them back in chains. (Not to mention the fact, that in context, his comments made perfect sense.)
And no, I don’t give a shit that the GOP found a Negro to complain about Biden’s language for them. Arthur Davis can jump up his own ass.
But, clearly William Teach knows MORE about how all blacks feel than Angry Black Lady.
Silly negro! I know what you think better than you do!
Because, you know, whatever they want to impute becomes FACT, while the likely truth becomes FICTION.
And the somnolent lap dogs of the mass media who AREN’T already compromised, shake their furry heads and pretend to be above the fray while all the while surrendering their judgment, reason and voices to the screaming of the well-0iled outrage machine of the fascists.
Here’s a machine the fascists ought to see:
But, rationally, there is a vast difference between imputation and interpretation, and in either case, the press owes us FACTS.
Note how it’s always the same bloggers ganging up to shove the latest meme up the Memeorandum page, that the “mainstream press” can see what “the blogs are saying.”
Click for larger photo. RED = “conservative” links BLUE = “liberal LINKS
(and, since I tend to do battle with the former, why I am adjudged “pink”)
Manipulation for dirty tricks by the Rovian stealth shock troops?
That’s merely my imputation.
Give it to me, baby …
The Offspring “Pretty Fly (f0r a White Guy)
SQUIRREL!
Courage.
