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    Tavis Smiley and Cornel West: The Reign of Fools is Over

    By Wattree on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 8:15am |

    BENEATH THE SPIN * ERIC L. WATTREE

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    Tavis Smiley and Cornel West: The Reign of Fools is Over
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    While I clearly understand that I'm at severe risk of beating a dead horse, I'm still being emailed by a few diehard Cornel West supporters who have been so captivated by his performances over the years that they can't see why he's under such intense criticism. So for their benefit, I thought I'd take the time to do the Mr. Rogers version of current events:
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    The first thing that needs to be made clear is that the current uproar is not in reprisal to West's criticism of President Obama. Every politician bears watching, and that includes Obama. The firestorm against Dr. West was ignited by two factors.  First, many resent the totally disrespectful and hypocritical tone of his criticism. The implication seemed to have been,  "Who does that jigaboo think he is?" And secondly, other critics took offense at the blatantly transparent and self-serving motivation behind West's remarks.
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    Carnel West, along with his buddy, Tavis Smiley, have been using the umbrella approach in criticizing President Obama. Instead of criticizing specific policies when needed, they've been attaking his overall character, and thereby, his fitness to be president as a whole. It must also be understood that long before Obama even became president, Smiley and West suggested that the Black community ask him how much do you love your people, suggesting, thereby, that he didn't.
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    They've been at this since the day Obama made the mistake of announcing his candidacy for president on the same day that Tavis threw his annual State of the Black Union soirée. In their eyes, what the impudent young Senator Obama did was unforgivable. You see, he engaged in a serious breach of protocol. He was supposed to come kiss Tavis' ring, and get Tavis' blessing as the self-appointed grand potentate of the Black community before he presumed to run for President. How dare he embark on such an ambitious endeavor without paying homage to the Grand Poobah?  So of course, he had to pay a price for these serious breaches of protocol, and President Obama has been under the gun of these two self-appointed icons of the Black community every since.

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    So who are these two iconic giants of the Blackness who see themselves as so important that they can dictate policy to the President of the United States?
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    Tavis Smiley is a television dicjockey with a genius for self-promotion.  He specializes in promoting corporate influence in the Black community in exchange for corporate sponsored tours to promote his books on political accountability.
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    Dr. Cornel West is a self-described "Socratic scholar" with a doctorate that embraces the proposition that Moses parted the Red Sea. He's also renowned for trying to be the coolest person in the room, and taking a long time not to say much. He specializes in telling anyone who will listen, or who happens to have a camera, a mic and an extension cord on hand, about his deep disdain for the oligarchs and corporate plutocrats.  He also has a fondness for the syncopated rhythms of multi syllabic words - he thinks it makes him sound like King Pleasure, so it enhances his street creds. They also serve to mask the vacuous content of his message.
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    So these two impressive personages have now come together as best friends.  They co-host a radio show together, and have declared themselves the self-proclaimed, and hip hop inspired, saviors of the poor, middle class, and minorities. They're sorta like the Dynamic Duo of the hood, or Mutt and Jeff, as it were.

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    .
    But there's only one chink in their armor (and as you know, all superheroes have a chink - Superman's was Kryptonite). While Tavis is suppose to be fighting for accountability, and Cornel is suppose to be protecting us from the oligarchs and plutocrats, they're both irretrievably wedded to the very same people they're suppose to be protecting us from.  So they're like Batman and Robin with a crack habit. You see, Tavis is one of the most pronounced corporate shills in the Black community.  He has a tremendous jones for Walmart, Nationwide Insurance, and various other corporate entities.
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    Do you really believe that Nationwide is on the side of the Black community, or the poor, or the middle class?  Somehow, I don't think so. So these two superheroes have about as much credibility as a man ranting in the street against fascism after just having lunch with Mussolini.
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    There's a photo on my site of West suckin' up to Obama after the election - and this, after he and Tavis had been doggin' Obama all during the campaign. I haven't seen that kind of skinnin'-n- grinnin' since they took Amos n' Andy off the air. But the look that Obama is giving West says it all. It speaks volumes, and clearly shows that Obama has had West's number for some time. So one has to wonder how West could even have expected tickets to the inaugural or returned phone calls when he'd been jumping back and forth over the fence depending on which way the wind was blowing.
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    But I want to make it clear to all those people who think that West should be given a pass in the name of brotherly love, that it is not my intention to be vindictive. While I'm undoubtedly engaging in ridicule, it's not to be mean-spirited. As I see it, we shouldn't waste this disgusting moment in history without benefitting from it in some way.  So I see this as a teaching moment.  This is our opportunity to show our young people the importance of independent thought.  I also see it as an opportunity to demonstrate to all would-be opportunists among us that's it's no longer acceptable to try to demagogue the Black community. That gig has gone the way of the wagon train mechanic.
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    In addition, we should all use this moment as a lesson in why we should never take society's symbols and the accoutrements of knowledge and power at face value. We also need to recognize that we should never give anyone's character or ability to think priority over our own. Once we learn those lessons we'll render ourselves much less vulnerable to political manipulation. 
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    We should walk away from this moment with the clear understanding that Just because a person has letters behind their name, teach at a prestigious university, favor a garbled multi syllabic tongue, or host a television show, that doesn't mean that they have any more intelligence, or any more character than we do. We should always ignore the superficial, and assess the quality of a person on our own terms, and not allow the system to shove its carefully selected  "heroes" down our throats. 
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    And finally, we should allow this episode in our history to mark the moment where the crabs-in-a-barrel syndrome comes to an abrupt end in the Black community. The game that Smiley and West have been playing has been holding Black people down for centuries. So now's the time for it to stop, and we should mercilessly banish from our midst anyone we find engaging in it. Let us make it abundantly clear, that the reign of fools is over.
    . 
    Eric L. Wattree
    Citizens Against Reckless Middle-Class Abuse (CARMA)
    .

    Religious bigotry: It's not that I hate everyone who doesn't look, think, and act like me - it's just that God does.

    Comments

    I have always found Henry Louis Gates more of a scholar than Cornel West. Gates points out African involvement in the slave trade and has played a role in pointing out the mostly mythical concept of Black Confederate soldiers. West just yammers on.

    Where one stands on the Cornel West issue is largely determined by where one stands on Barack Obama. Obama is no great reformer and pales in comparison to FDR according to critics. We forget that while Obama has Guantanamo, FDR had Japanese-American internment camps. Obama has been accused of being inattentive to the poor, FDR cut 500K Veterans and widows from the pension rolls and reduced benefits for the remainder. Obama has a 9-10% unemployment rate in the second worse economic crisis in US history, FDR had 14% unemployment as his "best" level during the worst economic crisis.

    http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2011/05/obama-is-no-fdrthank-goodness.html#disqus_thread

    FDR's Social Security plan used job descriptions that fit mostly White males. FDR had to COMPROMISE with Southern Democrats. Blacks and women were largely excluded according to Gwendolyn Mink in "The Wages of Motherhood: Inequality In The Welfare State 1917-1942" (Cornell Press) cited in the wiki link below.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_%28United_States%29

    Farmers, government workers, domestic workers, teachers, nurses, hospital employees, librarians and social workers were not covered.  In effect half of the workers in the US were excluded by the first Social Security bill. 66% of Black workers were excluded, including 70-80% of Blacks in the South.

    Argue about Obama policies just stop the character attacks and have some historical context.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 10:49am

    Wow, RM.

    This is a keeper - and I just did.  Thanks for the facts. You never know when little tidbits like this will come in handy - and these are golden.


    by Wattree on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 7:16pm

    You're welcome. Obama needs to take more forceful action against the banks who are foreclosing on people who were duped. We also need to get out of Dodge, Dodge being Iraq and Afghanistan.

    Obama said publicly what needed to be said about the two state solution in the Middle East. We need to force the conversation.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 7:36pm

    Be nice if we could get rid of the white demagogues, too.


    by Donal on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 10:17am

    Dr. Cornel West is a self-described "Socratic scholar" with a doctorate that embraces the proposition that Moses parted the Red Sea. He's also renowned for trying to be the coolest person in the room, and taking a long time not to say much. He specializes in telling anyone who will listen, or who happens to have a camera, a mic and an extension cord on hand, about his deep disdain for the oligarchs and corporate plutocrats.  He also has a fondness for the syncopated...

     

    hahahahahahahah

    All I know is that you got me laughin hard with this one. hhahaah


    by Richard Day on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 10:48am

    Thanks Rich,

    I'm glad you enjoyed. I just wanted to show Cornel what it was like to be totally disrespected in public. And according to my sitemeter it's being disseminated all over Princeton - I just wish it could tell me whether the hits were from students or staff. 


    by Wattree on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 7:24pm

    I really wish this blog had been more about the facts - even if just one-sided ones - about Smiley and West. Instead, its central evidence seems to be... two pictures.

    Seriously. Where are the quotes from these two, or the corporate links, the sponsorships, the book passages, the... whatevers. Two pictures???? 

    Instead, it's the 4th blog stuffed full of paragraph after paragraph of insults. While I'm sure these are considered by many to be top-notch insults, to me they just read as... more personal insult. Like the first 3. 

    I lifted about 20 of the names you've developed for West in your last blog, posted them in one comment, and now you've generated another dozen or so here. But frankly, on this issue, you're kindof out of credibility. Why should anyone listen to you on this when you've had four swings at it, and still aren't hitting anything solid? You're good at the insults, and good at going after other bloggers who're defending West, but especially since this whole thing got started because of West's too-personal style of attack - don't you think some substance is required to back up your comments? Though I suppose it would be difficult to find "evidence" to back up all those comments that somehow managed to drag in Mussolini, crack habits, Grand Poobahs, hypocrisy, self-promoting, corporate shilling, vacuous, and even jigaboo? (Seriously? "Jigaboo" has a place in critiquing a man for being too-personal? Wow.)

    So actually, no, you're not serious. Your grand talk about how THIS moment has to mark an end to the "crabs in a barrel" problem, which you then choose to follow with a 4th blog stuffed full of nothing more than personal insult, then no, you're not serious.

    P.S. It's spelled "Cornel."


    by quinn esq on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 11:03am

    Quinn,

    They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  What quotes, or indeed, facts, could I have possibly conjured up to better describe Tavis Smiley as a corporate shill than this . . .

    or that West is in cahoots with him than this . . .

    or that West is an opportunistic hypocrite than this?

    So Quinn, I think you missed the point.  This was a pictorial essay. The words only served to tie the pictures together.  I think you lawyers call it "prima facie evidence."


    by Wattree on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 7:52pm

    This is nonsense, Eric, but what the hell.

    I mean, Smiley may well be a slimy corporate shill like you say, but at least he cut his ties to Wells Fargo.

    Whereas Obama....

    But yeah. You got a picture. You hang onto that, ok? 


    by quinn esq on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 9:31pm

    What Quinn said.

    It really is a shame, because you may very well be right, and you could have convinced some people like me of these facts if you had included ... some facts.

    You start out well enough -

    "Carnel West, along with his buddy, Tavis Smiley, have been using the umbrella approach in criticizing President Obama. Instead of criticizing specific policies when needed, they've been attaking his overall character, and thereby, his fitness to be president as a whole."

    And you leave the reader expecting specifics about the ways in which Smiley has been complicit in the screwing of the black community, specific quotes showing West using the same charged insulting language to describe Obama since the beginning of the presidential campaign.

    Instead you employ the same low-class personal invective you deride in West's remarks, to obscure the fact that you have no evidence to offer at all. You discredit yourself much like West discredits himself during that interview.


    by Obey on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 11:25am

    Adressing the Tavis Smiley side of the equation, Smiley actually critized Obama for backing away from the comments made by Rev Jeremiah Wright. I would note that many people who seem to be pro-Smiley, were also on the side of Obama rejecting the words of Rev Wright. 

    The fact that Smiley was upset after Obama offered to send Michelle to Smiley's State of The Black Union event was well known. Smiley had appeared on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, a radio program, for 11 years, but quit after receiving tons of criticism from listeners. One pundit Earl Ofari Hutchinson actually called the criticism a "verbal public lynching" for expressing opinions counter to the meanstream Black line of thought. Another pundit Roland Martin, noted that critics should expect to face heat for their opinions.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/11/AR200804...

    Interestngly, in a recent post,Hutchinson criticizes the words chosen by West and notes the special problems that a Black President faces in addressing Black issues.

    The first day of his presidential campaign. In his candidate declaration speech in Springfield, Illinois in February 2007, he made only the barest mention of race. He had little choice. Obama would have had no hope of winning the Democratic presidential nomination, let alone the presidency, if there had been any hint that he embraced the race-tinged politics of Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. His campaign would have been marginalized and compartmentalized as merely the politics of racial symbolism. The month after he got in the White House he mildly chided Attorney General Eric Holder for calling Americans cowards for not candidly talking about race.

    However, this was not to cold shoulder talk of race, the plight of the poor, the crisis of unemployment, education and the criminal justice reform, and the staggering health care crisis that slams poor blacks. It’s just a matter of style, timing and nuance. The string of Obama initiatives on health care reform, increased funding for education, a tough consumer protection agency, a nod toward drug law reform, the appointments of legions of African-Americans to agency and sub cabinet posts have been Obama’s way to deal with the special needs and chronic problems that confront blacks. At the same time he walks a fine line. He knows that he’s being watched hawk like by his powerful political foes for even the faintest sign that he’s tilting toward blacks. This would be ammunition to turn the low intensity war they wage against his initiatives into a full blown racial counter attack against him.

    This would fatally type him and his administration as anything but a race neutral president and insure that his legislation and initiatives would be twisted, tied-up, and straight-jacketed. It would also stir a push back among some within his party. His administration would be hopelessly hamstrung. His 2012 re-election bid would instantly be transformed from a tough but eminently winnable race, into a hard, time consuming uphill war.

    http://thehutchinsonreportnews.com/profiles/blogs/why-wests-slur-of-pres...

    You can read Hutchinson's concluding comments about West in his post. Hutchinson notes the Smiley faced heavy criticism, but he also notes that it cannot be stated that Obama has done nothing on issues involving racial issues and the poor.

     

     


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 4:10pm

    Regarding Smiley acting as a mascot for corporations that led African-Americans into sub-prime loans

    When the NAACP filed suit against Wells Fargo for allegedly targeting black people regardless of income or credit history for sub-prime loans, the bank became a symbol of how greed and racism contributed to the outsize effect the foreclosure crisis has had on the black community. In court affidavits, former Wells Fargo employees testified that the bank deliberately targeted the sub-prime loans -- or "ghetto loans" as they were referred to internally -- at "mud people." In Baltimore, for example, 71 percent of the homes vacated due to foreclosure on a Wells Fargo loan were in black neighborhoods. Wells Fargo was the eighth largest recipient of bailout money -- they received $25 billion.

    Wells Fargo, however, has also long been a sponsor of the State of the Black Union, Tavis Smiley's annual black political symposium. Mary Kane reported that Smiley had been hosting "wealth building seminars" in black communities since 2005 -- according to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the seminars were part of Wells Fargo's attempt to lure black voters into buying sub-prime loans. One employee was even told she was "too white" to speak at one of the seminars -- the company wanted a face nervous black folks buying a home for the first time could trust. A black face. Someone well-known and trustworthy. Someone like Tavis Smiley. Wells Fargo maintains they have done nothing wrong and are fighting the suit.

    http://prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=09&year=2009&base_na...


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 4:44pm

    You didn't continue the news, though:

    "Smiley would also hardly be the first important black political figure to have ties to sub-prime lenders. As Stephanie Mercimer reported for Mother Jones last year, Charles Steele Jr. of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference defended sub-prime lenders in the Washington Post last year, Al Sharpton has cut commercials for LoanMax, Jesse Jackson's Rainbow/PUSH Coalition has worked with Compucredit on "job fairs and economic summits," and the Urban Leage has worked with the Consumer Financial Services Association to conduct "financial literacy seminars."

    Following Kane's article, Richard Prince reported that Smiley was cutting all ties with the bank.

    “I cut everything off with Wells Fargo,” Smiley declared. He said the move cost “a lot of money”; he said he did not know how much."

    Now I've seen you extoll Sharpton's virtuous activism over West's 'inaction', but c'mon, dude; it looks as though ties to corporate banking sponsors is pretty ubiquitous among black activists.

    Plus all of this were in Wattree's May 29 blog, though the photos were too large before I told him how he might edit the size.  The main new thrust of this one seems to be that it's not about revenge.  Or something..

     


    by we are stardust on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 5:15pm

    If you want to say that Smiley is no different than Sharpton, I'm fine with that observation. Do you think that Prof West should level the same criticism at Smiley as he did at Sharpton? Both Smiley and Sharpton shilled for the sub-prime lenders.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 5:22pm

    I didn't say it; your Serwer piece did. 


    by we are stardust on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 5:35pm

    OK, so Serwer says Smiley is no differennt than Sharpton. Shouldn't West address the issue with his radio partner Smiley?


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 5:46pm

    RM,

    We should go after all of them, not only in the Black community, but every hypocrite in the political arena. We've got to bring this to an end.  It's gotten to the point where every time a politician opens his mouth we have to hire a research firm to dig through all the lies. If it wasn't for the spin the universities put on their class descriptions, Lying 101 would be listed in every college catalog in America.  It's become an American way of life.


    by Wattree on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 8:43pm

    I have heard Sharpton doing commercials for a "natural" sex enhancing pill during ad breaks on "The Tom Joyner Morning Show".  Sharpton joins Bob Dole who did ads for Viagra.


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 06/03/2011 - 2:36pm

    I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for acknowledgment that your opinions of West/Smiley are well-supported, rmrd.  I also wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the reflexive Obama critics on this site to acknowledge West's lack of tangible results for all of his pontificating, either.  He bashes Obama and the "corporate oligarchy,"  (for which he is nothing but a well-paid court jester, IMO) and, well, that's good enough for them.  


    by brewmn on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 5:15pm

    Thanks. That was more the kind of stuff I was hoping to get from these West-Smiley threads.


    by Obey on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 5:24pm

    This article from "Jack & Jill Politics" adds some more perspective.

    http://www.jackandjillpolitics.com/2009/09/the-outing-of-tavis-smiley/


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 6:49pm

    Obey,

    Read my above response to Quinn. And as for ridiculing them, I explained why I did that in the piece itself. 


    by Wattree on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 7:57pm

    So you don't have any facts backing up your view, you just don't like West's smile. Got it.

    Could have saved us all some time.


    by Obey on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 8:28pm

    I can't wait 'til he realizes Obama hasn't yet cut his ties to Nationwide and Wells-Fargo. 

    Now there'll be some fiery denunciations.


    by quinn esq on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 9:33pm

    Isn't the point that Smiley has severed ties "for the moment"? Smiley criticizes Obama for something Smiley used to gain profit.

    http://www.tvweek.com/blogs/tvbizwire/2009/09/pbs-pri-host-tavis-smiley-...

    SmIley did not say that he would not return to the coporate tit. What corporations support Smiley now?


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 11:14pm

    I didn't find this to be a waste of time. It's a perfectly appropriate "mad as hell" -type essay. There are plenty of "fact" -backed blogs here that much have less truth to them.


    by Rootman on Fri, 06/03/2011 - 7:46am

    Beating a dead horse?  Seriously?  Here are some fact-based arguments to back you up:


    by we are stardust on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 11:56am

    Wow.  You three always do travel together, don't you?


    by brewmn on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 2:51pm

    Who, brew?  Me and mah babby homies?  You betcha!  "Have Twins, Will Travel".

    (corrected for melodic verisimilitude.)


    by we are stardust on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 3:17pm

    This is my favorite.

    I keep looking for link that somebody showed me where Patton Oswald simulates this scene with a friend; ending up losing a bottle of beer. hahahahahaha


    by Richard Day on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 3:23pm

    Love this one...


    by Peter Schwartz on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 8:20pm

    Stardust,

    That's funny.  But I think it describes politics as a whole, doesn't it?  It's been my experience, however, that people tend to only see the other person's point of view as beating a dead horse, and demagoguery. As we speak Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor are demanding the Obama stop demagogueing the budgetary debate. Can you believe it? 

    So you see, what I'm doing to Tavis and West is exactly how demagogues should be dealt with.  In fact, I advocate it in the piece. I learned that lesson by watching what Obama's failing to do to the Republicans. Obama needs to setup a staff in the White House that does nothing else but drag demagogues through the mud. Every time a Republican says something stupid, he should know that all of his demagoguery, inconsistencies, and hypocrisy is going to be featured on the next days news - even if the White House has to do the research for the journalist.

    So yes, I'm dragging them through the mud, and it is my sincerest hope that West is having to walk through the halls of Princeton looking down at his feet, because that's what he deserves. But more importantly, it will bring this sort of thing to an end. 


    by Wattree on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 8:21pm

    Au contraire, Mr. Wattree. What you are doing, IMHO of course, is engaging in a pathological form of hatred for Smiley and West, whom you treat as Siamese Twins joined at the hip, so to speak.  I noticed that the excuse for one of your blogs was being quoted in some woamns piece; kudos and all that. 

    But what you are engaged in here goes waaaay past critique; no matter how you want to claim that this sort of piece is extending healthy debate, and that all debate is good or edifying, I'd have to disagree.  You're engaging in self-aggrandizing smears.  Do I challenge you to denounce Obama because his call sheets are full of taking calls from first, Jamie Dimon, and now Brian Moynihan?  Well, you should.  But I won't ask it of you, nor will I call on West, whom I dearly love, to apologize or to denouce Smiiley.  Who is without warts?  You? 

    I really can't give a flying fuck whether or not any defense of him will change your mind, so I'll desist further, yet you post endless crap links and photos to tarnish him, and hope to 'make him look at his feet'.  Nice going with the racist disses, too.. 

    I keep one of his quotes in a little Help File I keep.  Let me go get it; it concerns Hope.

    "I cannot be an optimist but I am a prisoner of hope."  I really like that; and I have filled blogs with interviews with West speaking to issues that matter to the poor and people of color, and dude; you ain't gonna change my mind with your Smiley-West vendetta; but hey, knock your self out.  To me, you sound like those Twins, only less sensical.  At least they can understand each other.


    by we are stardust on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 9:24pm

    Stardust,

    Here's another quotation by West to add to your file:

    In 2007, he [Cornel West]wrote how remarkable it was that descendants of slaves "now excel in the broad range of American life.’’ West complained that we spend too much time debating the woes of black people to "discuss the factors that led to the successes of millions of African-Americans,’’ and that we should ponder more optimistically why "a country so flawed in its founding nonetheless produces such an accomplished population?’’ - Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist.

    And by the way, I criticize Obama as well: http://wattree.blogspot.com/2011/04/beneath-spin-eric-l.html.   I don't have a dog in this fight. I look at the world like I'm watching an ant farm. So I'm merely a soldier on bullshit patrol.  I simply point out bullshit, regardless to where it comes from. 


    by Wattree on Fri, 06/03/2011 - 7:42am

    Do I challenge you to denounce Obama because his call sheets are full of taking calls from first, Jamie Dimon, and now Brian Moynihan?  Well, you should.  But I won't ask it of you, nor will I call on West, whom I dearly love, to apologize or to denouce Smiiley.

    The sentences say that Wattree SHOULD denounce Obama, although you won't require him to do so. They also imply that you do not feel that West SHOULD apologize, because you deeply love West. The sentences tilt in favor of West.

    In essence, your  thought process is no different than those who supported Henry Louis Gates for wanting the police off of his porch or those who defend Barack Obama.


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 06/03/2011 - 8:44am

    After reading this thread, I now know that blacks and Jews really are one people.


    by Peter Schwartz on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 8:17pm

    LOL. I remember doing a research project at Cornell with a Jewish collleague. We compared grievances and realized we were both screwed.


    by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/02/2011 - 10:53pm

    Another good post Eric.  I understand your points about Tavis and Cornell West but don't agree 100% with your position.

    I do think West in particular did a disservice to all the things he says he believes in when he got into the petty and dilatory criticisms of Obama that have been tried before and flopped.  Challenging Obama's blackness is something that only plays to an increasingly limited crowd anymore.  That sort of criticism is truly meaningless in the national context and West, perhaps, showed his true colors (pardon the pun) when he let loose with that line of attack.

    I do think though, that West and others have very legitimate criticisms of Obama when it comes to his policies overall and with respect to his studied indifference not only to America's black communities, but to all working and middle class Americans and their needs not to mention the poor who he seems to think don't exist.  Yes, like his Republican role models, Obama mouths platitudes about hard work and preserving the middle class but his policies belie that rhetoric.  Obama has been only marginally less hostile to minorities and workers than a mainstream Republican when it comes to his economic policies and he deserves every bit of criticism he receives on that score.

    Obama's hostility to minorities, the poor, workers overall and the middle class is reflected in his priorities which are identical to the priorities of George Bush: take care of the wealthy and the corporate elite and keep fueling the endless war machine while eroding the constitutional liberty of common citizens in the name of the mythical "global war on terror".  Obama, in my opinion, is right up at the top of the list of biggest liars ever in the White House.  He completely misrepresented himself as a candidate and as President has turned out to be the biggest disaster for common citizens and their economic and political interests since Grover Cleveland.

    There's no excuse for the choices Obama has made as President, his priorities and his total subservience to the very same rich, powerful interests he was elected to put back in their place after they were allowed to run the country into the ground under Bush.  After nearly three years it is exceedingly clear that Obama doesn't give a damn about the common people of this country, that his entire Presidency has been one big egotistical effort to make sure he is in with the right people and gets taken care of when he leaves office.  It's awful to think that he's that arrogant, petty and brazen but it's impossible to deny at this point as far as I'm concerned.

    The attacks of West and Smiley that stray from focusing on the issues and the inadequacy of his policies only provide the opportunity for the Obamabot faithful to glom on to the petty and completely irelevant personal attacks questioning Obama's loyalty to "his kind" which is childish and cheap in itself.


    by oleeb on Fri, 06/03/2011 - 2:23am

    Oleeb,

    To a large extent I agree with many of your sentiments, but I wouldn't go quite as far as you have:  http://wattree.blogspot.com/2011/04/beneath-spin-eric-l.html

    As for Tavis and West, my major problem with them is their motives, not their criticism.  But no matter how many times I repeat that, it seems to get lost in the mix.  But in the interest of full disclosure, I have to acknowledge that I'm flawed in this debate as well - I love dragging hypocrites through the mud much too much to claim total detachment.


    by Wattree on Fri, 06/03/2011 - 8:10am

    Thanks for the full disclosure. . I was about to post a smug above-it-all comment that there had  been far too many insults  employed here by everyone: the principals, you , the commenters.. Until you caused me to  remember that I've  happily insulted e.g. Tyler Cowen. 

    Let me amend my position:

    There are far too many insults employed here . Except by me, mine are OK..


    by Flavius on Fri, 06/03/2011 - 9:57am

    A very common position, but not very effective.


    by Donal on Fri, 06/03/2011 - 10:09am

    Flavius,

    There are far too many insults employed here . Except by me, mine are OK.

    That is exactly my position, and I challenge anybody to prove me wrong. Lol.


    by Wattree on Fri, 06/03/2011 - 3:02pm

    I hear ya Eric.  And I do agree that the two egos in question are sometimes very hard to take once you've gotten to know them well.  And yes, I think they do have their own agendas and that is where I think much of the really beside the point personal criticisms come from and all that really achieves is dragging all three of them into the mud but mostly Tavis and West sully themselves.  We cannot allow the personal nature of the criticisms distract from what is really important: which is the issues.  I don't think we should allow the fact that their personalities can be hard to take to distract from the issues is all.  To a certain extent I think all three of them: Tavis, West and Obama are three peas in a pod.  Much of what their public persona is nothing but an act.  Each act is distinct from the other two, but all three have used these different models to find substantial success.  All three are used to being, for lack of a better phrase: top banana.  Love him or hate him Obama sticks to his formula and never deviates for anyone.  I do think Tavis and West both got their noses out of joint over that and took it personally just as Obama clealry takes their criticisms of his corporate Democratic positions personally.


    by oleeb on Sat, 06/04/2011 - 2:03am

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