watch it: “Conservative Political Forum Sells Racist ‘Obama Waffles’”

The best thing about the possibility of Obama being elected might be that people like this suffer a crushing blow to their world-view.

It seems kind of harmless to me. The joke is obviously just a bad political pun. I don’t these these guy are covert KKK agents looking to bring back segregation and Jim Crow. They’re just goofballs.

But this is how this race is going to go I suppose. It’s “you’re a racist” vs “you’re a sexist”.

The only part of the video that bothered me was the one of him wearing the Arab stuff. The Aunt Jemima stuff is ridiculous overreaction.

“But this is how this race is going to go I suppose. It’s “you’re a racist” vs “you’re a sexist”.”

McCain’s a woman?

If McCain wins, I think it’ll be the first instance of the President being assassinated by his own people.

No one is calling these guys members of the KKK. Is that the only other option? Either one is not racist, or one is a member of the KKK?

And it’s worth pointing this out because it’s a perfect example of the fact that many, many people in this country have some bizarre ideas about race… and that we shouldn’t be afraid to call them on it even if they have not gone to the extreme of burning crosses.

I would call them anti-Muslim. I would call them anti-immigration. I would not necessarily call them racist. What’s on the box is a CARICATURE. An artists exaggerated rendition. When they showed a screen shot of the website, there was another caricature of John Kerry. I’m sure if it were him on the box, this would have gone unnoticed. So just because someone caricaturizes a black person, doesn’t automatically make them racist. Also, the person commenting on the New Yorker cover was misinformed, because, had you looked into it, what the cover, was ACTUALLY about was how the media plays up what is being claimed about Obama in said media.

—–Howard Kurtz of The Washington Post said Sunday on his CNN media show “Reliable Sources” that the cover is arguably “incendiary.”

“I talked to the editor of The New Yorker, David Remnick, who tells me this is a satire, that they are making fun of all the rumors,” Kurtz added.

Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune defended it as “quite within the normal realms of journalism,” adding that “it’s just lampooning all the crazy ignorance out there.”

The panelists agreed it would succeed in its goal of getting attention.—-

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/07/14/politics/politico/main4257077.shtml?source=mostpop_story

What we have to realize in this society, because it isn’t apparent enough, Is that most media outlets pander to shock value. OF COURSE this is big media news because sensitive, politically correct people, are going to respond, and therefore create more of a demand for reports on the subject.

Had Obama been running for a local political office, no one, save for that local area, would have heard a peep about it.

That being said, all of this dumb shit is the reason I completely stay out of politics and don’t believe in our stupid system. It may seem like the best system worldwide, but that’s like winning a contest on who could polish the best turd.

/End rant

I think Carlin says it best…

—This is the best we can do, folks. It’s what our system produces: Garbage in, garbage out.

….I have solved this political dilemma in a very direct way: I don’t vote. On Election Day, I stay home. I firmly believe that if you vote, you have no right to complain. Now, some people like to twist that around. They say, “If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain”, but where’s the logic in that? If you vote, and you elect dishonest, incompetent politicians, and they get into office and screw everything up, you are responsible for what they have done. You voted them in. You caused the problem. You have no right to complain.

I, on the other hand, who did not vote — who did not even leave the house on Election Day — am in no way responsible for that these politicians have done and have every right to complain about the mess that you created.”—

I’d have to disagree because I don’t think that it’s one specific group that is not voting. I’d venture to say that non-voters are of equal enough proportion to “make a difference”.
And actually, now that I’ve done some research, Raymond Wolfinger, who is a political science professor at Berkley, conducted a study that looked at how much of a difference non-voters would make.

— Wolfinger and colleagues are skeptical that any differences would amount to greater support for Democratic candidates. There is merit in this view. In our research, we found that very few races are so competitive that higher turnout would actually lead to a different (simulated) outcome.

– Of course, in Leighley and Nagler’s paper, they are more focused on policy preferences than election outcomes. Now, the question becomes: are the differences in policy preferences substantively meaningful? Wolfinger might say that a difference of 5 or 8 or 10 percentage points doesn’t mean much. I am personally less sanguine, especially given evidence that elected leaders better reflect the preferences of voters than of non-voters (see especially this paper by John Griffin and Brian Newman, as well as two papers by Larry Bartels and Marty Gilens, respectively, on the responsiveness of leaders to constituents with higher incomes).—

http://www.themonkeycage.org/2007/12/are_voters_different_from_nonv.html

There are so many problems with everything political these days. God I hate politics, and politicians, and all the crap they put all of us through.

Having got that out of my system… The biggest issue with this “political satire” waffle mix is the goofballs who put their form of satire on the box chose to utilize racist imagery instead of staying with the “waffling” (or “flip-flopping” as it was called with John Kerry.) The fear-mongering of Muslim dress, Mecca and the like is just ridiculous.

And since you brought it up, Will, the cover of the New Yorker was an idiotic move. If it was intended to call attention to the “crazy ignorance out there” why did they choose to do it in a way that those crazies can say, “See! We were right! It’s on the cover of The New Yorker!” Because you know damn well those same crazies aren’t going to “get” that it is satire. It would have come across much better if they had replaced Obama’s countenance with McCain’s. THEN it would have been satire.

In addition, if you choose not to vote, then, though you have every right granted under the constitution to complain your ass off, I won’t listen. You chose to stay home and allow the rest of us to go out and choose who we thought was the better candidate. We will have done our best with those choices given us. If you don’t like how our government works, find a way to fix it. Get involved. Don’t take a pass because you are too apathetic to try to make a difference. Sitting home on your ass isn’t going to make any kind of difference. SOMEONE is going to be elected whether you sit at home or not. All of us non-politicians could sit home on election day and not vote and guess what? The politicians who are already in office are going to choose who wins. Is that what you want? Are you so disenfranchised with the way things are you would rather completely give up all control? WOW! I think that’s even scarier.

Colleen,

1) Let me repeat myself. I agreed it was anit-Muslim, but IT IS NOT automatically racist imagery if someone makes a cartoon version of a black guy. We have the old minstral images in our head that we think ANY type of a caricature of a black person is racist. COULD they be racist? Of course, but it doesn’t necessarily imply they are or intending to be.

2) I also said AFTER mentioning the New Yorker cover (in response to someone else that brought it up) that media does things to “shock” people into paying attention, and yes, the mag could be accused of doing that to sell, but in that, they’re exactly conveying the message of what they’re satirizing. It was actually quite brilliant. They got attention in the media for doing EXACTLY what those outlets were doing themselves and then calling THIS outrageous. It really shows you the contradiction they all live by.

3) The thing that is funny about me not voting is that you ASSUME I’m not involved. I actually work the election polls every year, lol
Just because I don’t believe in the system, I actually have first hand knowledge to criticize it.
And guess what. Politicians DO decide your vote. Because your vote only counts toward a number of electoral votes. Your individual vote doesn’t count as an individual, sorry. (As we well know in the Bush/Gore debacle (See Re-count, good movie)) As the article I quoted earlier stated, which you clearly didn’t check out (and didn’t really read anything I said, just the parts that were enough to outrage you (which I don’t blame you for, most sheep do it)) I don’t believe that there are a disproportionate enough amount of one group of people not voting to really make a difference.
Think about it like a survey. If you do a survey of people, you’re getting a cross section of, hopefully, equal group of Americans. Those surveyed represent the overall outlook of Americans. Elections are really not much different than that.
I refuse to step into a booth to “decide” whose lies I believe in more, ESPECIALLY when individual votes are not counted, but just pooled into an electoral vote.

So: Pitch to the dumbest members of the audience. Gotcha.

No, that’s not it. Satire has to be actually satirical. There was nothing satirical about that cover: it was an accurate portrait of what the idiot right has claimed about Obama.

Yes, I have an answer. It’s not a chicken or egg scenario. Politicians lie because people as a species are too stupid realize that they’re being lied to. In fact, the public is so stupid that if a politician doesn’t lie they become unelectable.

This is a country where having a college education gets you labeled ‘elite’, with that term actually being an insult. It’s astonishing.

If you do your homework then more power to you. You’re part of the solution. Cast your vote and hope for a miracle.

ANTI-RELIGION is NOT the same thing as RACIST.

Not always. In the case of anti-Muslim sentiment, I think it is. Do you think a Caucasian candidate who was ethnically Eastern European and had Muslim relatives, even if he himself were Christian, would be subject to the same bigotry that Obama has been? Anti-Muslim bigotry is anti-brown-people bigotry, which is evidenced by the fact that Arabs and Indians and other less-than-lily-white people who are Christian or Sikh or of some other non-Muslim faith are also subject to the same kind of abuse.

And just *try* explain to some racist idiot that Indians and Pakistanis are Caucasian, no matter how dark their skin, and watch their heads explode.

Racists can reinvent the word caucasian to mean whatever they want and that usage is exactly as valid as yours.

*bangs head on desk*