Jeneane Garofalo and the Left Reinvent 16th Century Tyranny

After the Left's unmitigated vitriol that emerged in the wake Sarah Palin's crib notes and the non-issue of Palin's black bracelet (that sort of steaming hatred is hardly a first for the Left regarding Palin), I've decided to re-post an older essay. I wrote this back in early March following the offensive and racist depictions of Michael Steele (not my favorite politician then or now) as Sambo/Step'n'Fetchit (no idea on the spelling) by Leftist bloggers.

I contended that the narrative currently used by the Left is essentially a dressing up of Renaissance (and earlier) Europe's Divine Chain of Being-- an elitist construct that allows for unmitigated hatred when people step away from their place. I do not believe that some leaders sat down and decided to copy the Divine Chain of Being's , but that similar "modes" (modes stressing identity, "taking good care" of people, an elitist mentality, etc.) of thinking led to very similar conclusions.

So here you go:

Somewhat recently Janeane Garofalo was a guest of Keith Olbermann on MSNBC. During the interview they both claimed that RNC chairman Richard Steele is a "self-loathing" black man, thus explaining away the inconvenience of his political views. Garofalo also claimed that "any female or person of color in the Republican party is struggling with Stockholm Syndrome." Sort of funny how she can insult and belittle a person and still keep herself politically correct... any person of color-- African American if you will... Sheesh.

This zealous intolerance is nothing new for Garofalo, a former host of Air America. Earlier, in an interview in the celebrity blog Ecorazzi (NewsBusters.org story here), she claimed that Republicans are essentially brain-damaged during a profanity-laced rant. Nor is it new for the left to attack right-leaning minorities. As Newsbusters.org has reported, white left-wing bloggers have regularly portrayed Richard Steele as Sambo and Michelle Malkin claims to be understandably bored at self-loathing smears directed toward her. And we all know of the fervent assaults levelled against personages such as Clarence Thomas (he's a sellout, etc.), and Sarah Palin (she's not really a woman-- just a vapid "milf" blah... blah... blah....).

While it's certainly best to simply write off these shabby attacks as sophomoric, and it's correct (although pointless) to observe and report the obvious double-standard at work, the blatant racism and its elitist implications are, nevertheless, both telling and disturbing. And that should not be ignored. The ferocity of these attacks, from some on the left, far exceeds normal political bickering. This viciousness is not simply due to the breaking of "established" ranks, nor merely the childish novelty of suddenly having the chance, or indeed the "obligation," to indulge in racist or sexist attacks.

On the surface these intolerant charges and arguments make little sense. After all, do these remarks not come from the self-celebrated, "progressive" side of the political spectrum? Would these people not say with great pride and smugness that they are feminists and racial progressives? These attacks seem to be borne from the childish and simple-minded musings of angry, arrogant minds. It's sticking out the tongue at the evil opposition, giving The Man and his minions the finger, revelling in the (mis)use of big and important sounding words and phrases. And it is that. But if this reflected only childish behavior and simple hypocrisy, then I wouldn't waste my time with a post about it. Whether the perpetrators of this behavior realize it or not (and in my personal experience they almost always do not) they are ascribing their beliefs to an elitist chain, an ideological and eugenic hierarchy. To keep themselves free of hypocrisy they have constructed their own version of the horribly dehumanizing Divine Chain of Being. This is different from the more normal liberal racism of placing white in the privileged position of gifting minorities with their benevolence (more on that in a different post).

In a previous post, I talked about the Divine Chain of Being. I'm afraid you'll have to forgive me if I restate a fair amount of that once again (ah... the wonders of cut & paste) in an oversimplified, but still relevant way. The Divine Chain of Being was an established (at the time of the Renaissance although its roots go much further back) theological and philosophical concept that all things in the universe are ranked in a hierarchy accordance to God's wishes. The bottom consisted of rocks and such and as one goes higher up the chain, things became better and more complex. Human beings were separated into several levels within the chain, the lower class being viewed as fundamentally inferior to the upper classes, the monarch superior to the aristocracy. In fact, the separation was believed to be so great that there was debate among the European nobility as to whether or not the lower-classes felt pain in the same way that the aristocracy did. Oftentimes the answer was ridiculously "no," the belief being that the lower classes were a lower order of human beings and naturally less sensitive to the physical sensation of pain.

If we were to substitute race for class, replace the theology with ideologically informed social science, then we could have a fair model of Garofalo and like-minded leftists' peculiar world view. We see it is both stratified and elitist, and has little to do with political opinion and philosophical argument. The contrast between left and right is no longer a difference of political theory or opinion, but a fundamental and qualitative (i.e. elitist) distinction between different "types" of humans.

In the privileged position we would have racial minorities and women, a position earned by virtue of their oppression at the hands of the white male. They are the substitute for the aristocracy inside this "new" Divine Chain of Being-- fundamentally different and better than the white patriarchy that oppresses them. This view partially led to an interesting showdown during the Democratic Primary where the African-American male faced off against the white female in the "Olympics of Suffering." Amidst the normal mud-slinging, back-handed political tactics and cheap shots (traits shared by both political parties), was the uniquely leftist contest over who was the most oppressed and thus most deserving of the nomination.The oppressors, white males, are the equivalent to the lower-class of the Divine Chain of Being. They are not merely people who hold a different opinion or have different values. They are fundamentally different and inferior. As Garofalo has put it: "The reason a person is a conservative republican is because something is wrong with them. Again, that’s science – that’s neuroscience. You cannot be well adjusted, open-minded, pluralistic, enlightened and be a republican. It’s counter-intuitive. And they revel in their anti-intellectualism. They revel in their cruelty."

But this "something wrong" must only be inherent in the white male. After all, white males seem to have the option to be conservative. While they may be greedy expletives, they have the freedom to value liberty and individual achievement without the claim of being self-hating. Apparently the white male is assumed to be a conservative unless he "elevates" himself to the more enlightened level of a Bill Clinton or Keith Olbermann.

By placing the comments of people like Garofalo in this context we can better understand where these sorts of remarks are coming from and what they actually mean. We can also see that these are not merely differences of opinions upon issues, but a wholly different perception of political and even metaphysical reality. Much of the venom and anger that is hurled at a Sarah Palin, a Clarence Thomas, a Michelle Malkin, a Codaleeza Rice, a Richard Steele, is due to their audacity to demean themselves down to the level of the white male oppressor. They have not just broken rank, they have consciously chosen to forsake their inherently superior position. They have upset this world view and thus are deserving of the heaps of racial and sexist bigotry that is flung at them. They have made the cardinal sin to no longer be the better sort.

Arguing against this world view is largely pointless. It would be like arguing with Tolkien over different aspects of Middle-Earth or George Lucas over various artistic liberties in Star Wars. In a fantasy construction, one only has to be consistent within what the fantasy establishes. Sound can't be heard in a vacuum, but Star Wars establishes that it can. To argue against it within the context of the film is pointless. You either accept the concept or reject it. There are no other real options.

This dehumanizing viewpoint is unacceptable. Racism, in any form, is intolerable. But to subject others to this intolerant and stereotyped fantasyland is unconscionable. To subject women and racial minorities (notice how the bigoted and oppressive white male still possesses the greatest freedom in this terrible model) to narrow definitions, to assign their worth and restrict their freedom to choose their own values, actions, and even thoughts is beyond arrogant and wrong-headed. It is tyrannical and malignant. When the Declaration of Independence stated "All men are created equal" it was striking down similar elitist and racist concepts of human worth and value. To dehumanize any opposition, in this case to make conservatives defective and essentially sub-human, is to set the US down the path toward totalitarianism. It is wrong and should not be ignored.

While one can write off this elitist, left viewpoint as being fringe-dwelling and unrealistic (it is both), it does affect real and important political decision within the both the Democratic Party and the United States. The "Olympics of Suffering" showdown between Hilary Clinton and Obama is one of the most obvious and direct examples, but there are others. This elitist viewpoint gives passes to people like representatives Clyburn and Waters to freely describe racist fantasies and expect no rebuttal. It gives Al Sharpton further credibility, allows Farrakhan to continue to spread hate with impunity.

Whether Garofalo, Olbermann, or other people who likewise casually spread elitist and eugenic venom know it or not, their "progress" leads only backward to oppression and tyranny for all.

Left Attacks Sarah Palin with Junior High Level Sexual Jokes

Classy, huh?

I've avoided the whole Sarah Palin crib note "controversy" due to a big "who cares?" feeling I get from the "issue." I mean, Right-leaning pundits have attacked Obama relentlessly over his reliance on the teleprompter. And now the Left, desperately grasping at anything as their "light-bringer's" respect and numbers free fall, start ragging on Sarah Palin's writing on her hand.

Big deal. Clifton B at Another Black Conservative has a good and sane write-up if anyone is interested in the crib note issue. "What Palin had written on her palm was the words 'Energy', 'Tax', 'Lift American Spirit' and the word 'budget cuts' crossed out. You cannot believe the absolute firestorm the lefty blogs had over this."

Yes, relying on a teleprompter is different than looking at a few words scribbled on a hand. But my problems with Obama don't extend from the fact that he overuses a teleprompter. My problems with Obama stem from his administration extending Miranda Rights and other Civil Liberties to foreign terrorists, pushing through a massive and completely ineffective $787 billion+ "stimulus" bill / political pay off bill, embarking on a worldwide apology tour, putting forth trillion dollar budgets, further extending federal control over banking, instituting a federal takeover of GM, a push to nationalize and federally regulate health care, completely (and most likely intentionally) misreading and attacking Honduras' legal removal of would be President-for-life Zelaya, appointing a host of unconfirmed and largely unknown "czars" such as self-described Marxist and "truther" Van Jones, etc. All of these issues are a bit weightier than Obama's over reliance on a teleprompter.

So if the Left wants to go after Palin over something as trivial as a few words scribbled on her palm, so what? There is no doubt in my mind that she can handle that.

Well, as Jacobson at Legal Insurrection pointed out members of the Left have crossed way over the line and shown a sexist hand.

From Jacobson:

"I'm talking about the impulse in the Democratic base to use a non-sexual situation to sexualize and demean a female politician. Hillary had to deal with it. And there is a long history of sexist treatment of Palin, including the Newsweek cover last November.Today, the story was a play on Palin giving a 'hand job':

"TMZ - Sarah Palin's Hand Gets Job Done‎

"Democratic Underground - I say we call it the 'Sarah Palin Hand Job'

"DailyKos - Sunday Talks Liveblog--Sarah Palin Hand Job Edition"

He notes that " Blue Lyon has collected some foul comments from popular 'progressive' blogs and forums, and sums it up with this:

"'Way to go progs. The "Progressive" blogosphere needs to get their heads out of their junior high asses (no offense meant to junior high kids) and get smart. But I am not holding my breath.'"

This nonsense is way over the line. Yes, Palin can handle this too. That's not the issue. The obvious sexism exhibited by the Left toward any woman seen as an opponent is the issue. Jacobson addresses this, points out Hillary Clinton's (not my favorite politician by any means) own belittlement. Any additions of my own would just echo Jacobson's own distaste. It's juvenile, sexist, and ridiculous.

What bothers me as well, is how low brow all of this is. Sexualizing this "issue" is gratuitous in the worst sense of the word, and far below what I expect of adults outside of Happy Hour. What's most troubling is this is what more and more of mainstream politics have been reduced to. We have had the "tea-bagger" jokes on CNN et al, and now we have the "hand job" jokes. The Left has been reduced to name calling to try to push their shoddily thought out agendas and now the media is giddily echoing their childish taunts.

This junk must end. Time to grow up.

Obama and his False Call for Women's Rights

Much has been made of Obama's overly long speech delivered in Cairo (transcript found here at the Washington Post). The majority of the MSM heaped praise and hyperbole, as is to be expected. CBS hailed the speech as part of an inspired campaign to prevent another D-Day. Newseek's editor Evan Thomas, who has previously likened Obama to God on the June 5th edition of Hardball (and I thought the lightworker [Lucifer, I suppose] moniker was tough to stomach), extolled Obama as "the great teacher." Reacting to Obama's speech Thomas said "There's some condescension in it. But, he stands above everybody and says, 'Now, listen. You people have to stop blaming each other unreasonably. You have to get along here and I am going to show you the way.' It is a pretty brave role in many ways. It's going to make people like Charles [Krauthammer] really mad. To me, the question is, is it just rhetoric, or is he now going to follow up and forced some of this happen?" Eleanor Clift, a reporter for Newsweek, reacted to criticism of Obama's speech with a flabbergasted "Until I came on this set [of The MacLaughlin Group], I heard nothing but rave reviews for this speech. I feel like I'm in a total parallel reality." Hmm. She's not the only one.

Saner voices, not infatuated by Obama's mere presence, have posted extensively about his speech. I'm sure most people are exhausted from reading the analyses. What I found rather interesting, however, was the issue of women's rights that was raised. Both Pat Austin at And So it Goes in Shreveport and Pundit & Pundette raised the issue in their blogs.

Pundit & Pundette tackle the issue of women's rights in Islamic countries head-on, while Austin compares the Obama women's rights section of the Cairo speech with one of George W. Bush's speeches also given in Egypt-- the ideological contrast is both stark and sobering.

Obama's section on women's rights in his Cairo speech is below:

"The sixth issue that I want to address is women's rights.

"I know there is debate about this issue. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.

"Now let me be clear: issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, we have seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world.

"Our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons, and our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity - men and women - to reach their full potential. I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice. That is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls, and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that helps people live their dreams."

The small portion of this section that I want to focus on for the moment is: "I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality."

Honestly, this sentence is little more than candy-coating, a spoonful of sugar that'll help the moral platitudes go down. Yet, this sentence, delivered in a flippant manner, reveals a bit more vapidity than I believe it was meant to.

I find it interesting, although not surprising as equality is a hallmark word for the Left, that Obama should use the word equal in this instance. After all, the concept of hijab (a word literally meaning "curtain" but widely thought of in Islamic cultures as "meaning of modesty, privacy, and morality," and the root of the dress code of the Muslim faith) is an absolute sign of inequality in the Muslim societies, and cannot be interpreted otherwise. The intention in the covering of a woman's hair and body is to keep her from being too sexually arousing, too much of a temptation to defile a man's virtue. This inevitably places the woman in the role of temptress, an obstacle to man's moral purity.

Additionally, women are not given an equal status regarding their own sexuality. After all, men are not required to cover any parts of their body (aside from relatively common modesty-- usual interpretations of hijab require men to cover themselves from navel to knees) to keep themselves publicly plain so as to not tempt women. Is this because women are not believed to possess sexual drives and desires (a common belief in the West during the Victorian era)? Or is it because women are not believed to be as innately virtuous as men? Or is it because women are believed to be so virtuous that they don't need to avoid such temptations? Honestly, I don't know, but any way you look at it, it's unequal. And in a society like the US, where the concept of equal rights is given such high moral status, such an outlook makes most Americans uncomfortable.

Let me be clear at this point. I am not suggesting that women should not be allowed to wear headscarves, nor am I saying that a woman's choice to dress according the hijab is necessarily wrong. What I am saying is that the concept of the hijab is inherently unequal ("less equal" in Obama's words) for women, and for Obama to say otherwise is both foolish and disingenuous.

It is idiotic for Obama to say "I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice." Fine. Obama self-aggrandizingly declares himself to be a forward-thinking, feminist libertarian. We should all swoon. But he declares nothing else. He does not suggest how to address basic and stark gender inequalities inherent in Muslim societies. Like so many other times, he merely dictates and expects (or forces) others to heed his "wise" words. A "great teacher" indeed...

If women are being forced into traditional roles by a society, what other choice can these women make? To pack up and leave-- as easily as though they were middle-class Americans moving from Arizona to California? Are they to decide to not be Muslim in a Muslim country? An amusing thought as it is well known that Muslims go through great pains to convert and coerce to conversion people of other religious faiths within their sphere of influence. Throwing lavish amounts of American dollars to fund female literacy does not help with this basic societal difficulties. To bring about change in women's standing, some very basic precepts of the society must also change as has happened in other places in the world. It is impossible for this shift to happen otherwise.

Obama avoids all this second-step thinking. He is not so suicidal as to preach revolution in a foreign nation. But more importantly, all of this is meaningless to Obama. He is not really concerned with the trivialities of women's rights (trivial for him and his wife-- how does this help their children?) in Muslim countries. If he were he would follow up his easy-to-swallow (for Americans) and vague platitudes with actual strategies and actual programs (the touted literacy program farce is merely an expensive show). If he was concerned, he would know more about the cultural situation and societal difficulties in regards to these countries. If Obama cared, he would site instances of progress in countries such as Bahrain, Qatar and Malaysia, give specific examples of successes, and explain why this would be a good path for Muslim societies to trek along.

Yet, Obama does none of this in his very long preaching. That's because the Cairo speech is actually about Obama and not ever the stated subject matter. I must agree with his sycophants-- Obama places himself on high, "stands above everybody," looks down his nose at them and showers them with his self-love. They swoon at his performance. I do not.

Obama scowls and nods arrogantly during his speeches, like Mussolini. And what comes out of his mouth are not arguments, not even points-of-view, but banal cliches born of his Leftist beliefs. He is not trying to convince the audience of the rightness of an argument (that is always assumed), but of the rightness of himself. His main intention is to prove his own self-righteousness. This speech, like most of Obama's speeches and addresses, was at heart only about demonstrating what a great guy he believes he is. This is why he can only apologize for actions that are not his own (he makes sure to show that he shares no blame for what his apologies are for). For this reason he may use "I" only when declaring (or perhaps rhetorically demonstrating) himself possessed of some high moral standing or some feat of intelligence or mental prowess.

People like Eleanor Clift and Evan Thomas (very much Americans) lap it up. They've been looking for a savior, a Leftist messiah, for many years. They snapped at the heels of Reagan and Bush, reveled (for the most part) under Clinton, chafed under George W. Bush, and now they positively bask beneath the glow of Obama's self-love.

All of this, however, does nothing for the women of Muslim countries. Perhaps some swoon under his media-hyped charisma, and perhaps some will take to heart the simple, dictated solutions for complicated problems. They do so at their own peril. Someone truly interested in women's rights would encourage a woman to stand on her own, support her strength and her resolve to bring about change and improvement. To do otherwise, is only to pass the yoke from one master to another. Obama's purpose is to ingratiate himself and increase his own influence-- not to build the strength of others. Obama "stands above" and declares he will help even though he can't, isn't really interested, and won't.

Obama doesn't declare support, he dictates vague but politically expedient initiatives. He doesn't reinforce progress, he dictates platitudes for mass consumption. And that helps no one but himself.