September 29, 2007 archive

The Franken run for Senator from Minnesota has encountered major headwinds.  Franken is a Liberal legend in most of USA because he has authored several books that had beleaguered progressives cheering a champion who at least attempts to slay evil lairs like O’Reilly and Limbaugh.  Yet somehow this fighting-liberal qualification has not convinced Minnesotans that Al Franken is senatorial timber.

And for good reasons.  Franken grossly underestimated the political realities he faces and in the process has made near-catastrophic blunders.  In no particular order, they are:

Recently, I was accused by a blog commenter of using a racial slur. Due to a pattern of misstating my meaning, I had said that he, “may need more ESL classes”. Others pointed out that I might be unaware this can be a racial slur. Mr. Z felt I must be aware of his ethnic background due to his screen name.  His screen name could be of Cajun or other native born American, South or Central American, Mexican, Spanish, Italian, French, French Canadian, origin, or he may have picked it because he liked it. I didn’t consider it anything other than a pseudonym.  The result was that I was “taken to the woodshed”, the debate was derailed, and I was told I should educate myself about possible slurs against Hispanics. This diary is the result of my “continuing education.” Here are a couple of other situations involving slurs and cultures/races.

If I was sensitive about slurs, my Dutch wife and I might not be married now. Why? Early in our relationship, we were parting for a few hours and she said, “Bye bye, schat.” The Dutch pronunciation of the word “schat” sounds, to an American ear, very much like “slut.” Was her comment insensitive? Of course not, she had no reason to connect the words in two different languages. Could it be taken as a slur? Sure, though clearly not a racial or ethnic one.

And then there’s Bill O’Reilly’s recent venture to the opposite end of the “Slur Spectrum”.  By now, we all know about his comments on lunch at Sylvia’s in New York City and how amazed he was the black patrons weren’t yelling for more m-fing tea.  I must wonder whether his remarks were truly made in ignorance or if he was just doing what shock-jocks do.  For this discussion, let’s assume he’s ignorant (not hard to do).

These three examples illustrate medium, low and high on the “Slur Spectrum.” Each one is, at its root, caused by ignorance. For these purposes, there is little point in discussing intentional slurs. We all know those are hateful and there is little we can do about those who indulge in them. But, the examples do raise a few questions.

1. Is there a meaningful difference between a racial, an ethnic, and a personal slur?
2. When is ignorance of a slur acceptable, if ever?
3. How does one learn what potential slurs exist?

This is a companion to the companion of Nightprowlkitty’s MANIFESTO! essay.  It’s an idea of how to reach out to our progressive allies and minority bloggers.

Have you ever heard of a Progressive Dinner Party?  It’s a party where each course of a meal is served at a different person’s house or apartment.  You begin at one house for cocktails and appetizers, go to the next place for salad, then another for the main course and coffee/dessert at the final destination. 

So how about a Progressive Blog Party (PBP)? We could organize these for any given night so that a group of us could make 3 or 4 planned stops at other blogs and engage in conversations there. It would be like we are all in the same room at the same time having a discussion. Hopefully we could give the host enough advanced notice so they could be there to talk with us too.  Otherwise, we can still talk about the selected post and leave comments or questions for the author.  After half hour we go to the next site.  And we always leave our mark…”Progressive Blog Party was here”…with an invitation to join us next time. 

A truck driver/volunteer school governor from Dover has sued the British government for distributing Al Gore’s AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH to their secondary schools:

The British government’s decision to circulate Al Gore’s film about climate change to all English secondary schools was challenged in court Thursday by a school governor who believes it is inaccurate and biased.

http://www.msnbc.msn…

More below the jump…

The Dollar got pummeled against all major currencies yesterday. It’s a dangerous time for the greenback because its value has plunged below its all-time lows (set back in 1992). Often, major break-outs below key levels lead to a whole new wave of selling. (The pile-on effect.) It’s playing out right before your eyes and it’s going to get very ugly for the Dollar before it gets better.

This could be great news for YOU — if you play your cards right!

Back to the Future — Do you remember in the movie when Biff got his hands on that sports almanac, and took it back to the past? That outdated little almanac suddenly became the most valuable item on the face of the planet — because the person who possessed it knew how reality was going to unfold — and could wager big money on it.

The winner of the World’s Series was a “sure bet” in Back to the Future. Well, another “sure bet” is that the dollar will be crashing for the next 6 months. Sure things don’t come along very often — maybe once in a lifetime if at all. But we have one now:  As long as you bet against America you can build a lot of wealth, fast — and you can definitely protect the wealth you already have.

I’ll demonstrate one of the ways I’m doing it, below the fold.

Some time ago I found a speech given by Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon titled Coalitions Politics: Turning the Century at the West Coast Women’s Music Festival in 1981. It is some of the most profound thinking I have ever read about our struggles to work together as progressives. I can’t tell you how many times the content of this speech has crept into my thinking in all kinds of discussions. I’d love it if everyone would just go read the whole thing and then come back and talk about it in the comments. But knowing that’s not likely, I’ll excerpt some quotes and try to summarize.

Should we start getting used to those words?  Is there a way to fight the wave that seems to have overcome our foreign policy, starting a number of decades ago, but looking more and more like the offerings of nearly all republicans, too many Democrats and an unbelievable amount of our own Presidential candidates.

With such an overwhelming percentage of the American population being against any more of Iraq than is necessary to get our troops out, with no feasible or credible reason do be chest thumping at Iran and a resolution that overwhelmingly passed the Senate yesterday that all but dared Bush and Cheney to take military action against Iran, what else can one think?