INTERESTING STUFF: 25 August 2012

Unfortunately, very unfortunately, you are right.

Ronnie, that's all they've got. Without the rabid base they haven't a prayer so expect to hear more. Check the lineup of convention speakers. I count 6-7 who have made "birther" noises, ranging from Donald Trump and Janine Turner (!?) to Bobby Jindal. The notion that this is the element that is pulling the political strings in this country saddens me greatly, and the press in its complicity should give us all pause.

Ronni, I am not as upset by Romney’s remark. My take is that he was trying to get the voters to identify with him by saying I was born here in Detroit. Not so easy to do when you are a multi-millionaire with dressage as a hobby. The ‘birth certificate’ remark was a poor attempt at a joke that backfired. The ‘birthers’ are never going to vote for Obama anyway and remarks like that can hurt Romney with the independents. When Obama says he’d like to have a beer with a voter, is that a dig at Romney’s Mormon beliefs?

Yes, but people are asking him to share more than 1 year of income tax returns he seems to be hiding. I guess it all depends on what crowd you're pandering to that will determine the laughs.

The statement was at best a very tasteless joke. Mr. Romney was not displaying his best "Presidential" self.

If the statement was meant to ignite the "birthers", it may have also succeeded in igniting the "non-birthers". Let us hope so.

Birtherism is, mostly, a stand in for racial anxiety that our culture has made literally "unspeakable" in many contexts. White citizens find ourselves living in a new world where we are not either an unchallenged numerical majority nor the cultural touchstone. It's scary. Hence, this most conventional and cautious President becomes an icon of strangeness -- he simply could not be part of "us" -- hence birtherism.

How this plays out in the election is complex. If you really want to get into it, I suggest this long, careful, accessible Ronald Brownstein article.

On all this -- I just want to say that I think California shows both the good and the bad that come along with the scary racial transition to a plural democracy where no group has a demographic majority. We lived the equivalent of birtherism in the 90s -- xenophobia unleashed and resentment against affirmative action. And then, despite becoming a "majority minority" state around 2000, most folks, including most whites, calmed down. We don't have straight up racial fights anymore, much. The bad news is that anxious white voters were willing to break the state government on their way out the door. So Republicans are literally a vestigial presence in state politics -- around 33 percent -- but we have a fiscal mess we can't correct because of a legacy of legal impediments to fair taxation.

Janinsanfran stated this more simply than my convoluted attempt above: "birtherism is a stand in for racial anxiety" - only I would go a step further: birtherism is a stand-in for racism.

With his so-called "joke" on Friday, Romney was signaling to the racists amongst us that he is sympathetic to them. If he is not, after this he needs to say so definitively.

Some folks have caught on. NPR quotes NBC News - Wall Street Journal poll that 0% of African Americans support Romney.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/08/23/159918270/one-poll-finds-zero-percent-of-blacks-support-romney

I sort of agree with some of you when you associate MR's comment with racism - but I restrain myself from making the same association.

Personally I believe it was a pompous remark, made by a very wealthy man, who lives in a different world than we do. One in which 'their' morality is much different than our's.

Inexcusable? Yes. Stupid? Yes. DUMB, DUMBER, DUMBEST? Yes.

This still reminds me of a situation in the recent past administration. Do you remember . . . ?

More of the same outspoken, misapplied, thoughtless, selfishness: "them that gots gets", "what is mine, is mine", "me, my, and mine".

Just remember when . . . and above all else VOTE this time!

All week I have been thinking about how good it is to have a President who is not constantly putting his foot in his mouth. (He leaves that to the Vice President!)

I would like to be able to enjoy this for the next four years! Remember what it was like with George W? "What will he say NEXT?"

If I recall correctly, Mitt Romney was born in a Mormon enclave in Mexico where his forefathers had fled to avoid the possiblity of prosecution for multiple spouses. Can anyone verify this story?

Just found this online .... "Mitt Romney was born on March 12, 1947 in Detroit. The son of Michigan governor George Romney ...."

Please forgive my furthing of another one of the "fairy tales" so common on the Internet. I try to never commit that sin ... sighhh

Yeah, but you came back and fixed it, Miki. Most people don't...

A new wrinkle in the income tax story - evidently there is a company named Stericycle that takes care of disposal of medical waste, including fetal remains after abortion, and that Romney and Bain owned a large chunk of this company. Hence the reluctance of Romney to disclose his tax returns... I've check two sites for confirmation of this information, but perhaps you, Ronni, can find out for sure for us...

Remember that anytime Romney can get away with it, his says something that means in code " I am the WHITE guy."
Most people choose to not recall that Obama is 1/2 white and not an African American president but a multi racial president. Romney knows what he is doing with his little "joke" and the birther stuff is hardly funny when it questions the legitimacy of our President.

As a Michigander, I understand Miki's confusion. Mitt Romney's father, George,who was Governor of Michigan, 1963-1969, was born in Mexico. When he challenged Nixon in the Presidential Primary in 1968, questions of his birthplace arose. George Romney was a moderate Republican and must be rolling in his grave because of his son's far right leanings.

As Sharon wrote, Mitt takes every opportunity to remind voters that he's "the white guy." And of course it's racist...but he does it anyway because due to his obscene wealth he's always been immune to criticism. Just another example of how having too much money warps one's sense of reality and morality.

I laughed when I read Miki's first comment as I thought she was sarcastically demonstrating how ridiculously easy it is to "whomp up" stories that read believably.

I recently came across a series of well-written informative posts in which I have become much enthralled that janinsanfran has/is writing about our American history. I strongly urge others to read those accounts and her perspective.

There's little doubt in my mind but what r&r are doing is pitching to the extremists -- whatever the radical or racist view might be -- in an effort to skim the bottom of the barrel for every vote conceivably possible. Innuendo, falsehood -- whatever it takes -- that is the tactic.

I think we can thank some of the twelve-years-ago political promoters (I don't care to dignify them by writing their names) for stooping to introducing blatant divisive social issues for the sole purpose of pandering to the basest qualities of mankind. This has continued to carry-over into succeeding local and national elections, laws being formulated, how our Congress functions -- or rather, doesn't function -- and we see the escalating growth of this cancerous behavioral tumor in our current election.

Everyone opposed to this degraded hijacking of America's values must vote to counter the ballots of those who would catapult us backward into unenlightened times.

Talk about a "rabid base." I would like for someone, anyone to explain to me how questioning someone's citizenship could in anyway be construed to be racial or bigoted. YES! this is, has been and probably will continue to be a "dirty" campaign but I would point out that all the dirt is not coming from only one direction. Is there nothing wrong with implying that someone has committed a "felony" when there is no proof to back it up?
If you want to point out something racial, what about the fact that 0% of african Americans support Romney?
Ronnie, it couldn't be any more obvious that YOU are aligned with the Democrats, any Democrat! Here's my personal motto for now ...I am NOT interested in what Mitt Romney does with HIS own money. I am MOST interested in what President Obama is doing with MINE.
Let's see how fair and equal your Blog is. Will you approve this comment from me?

I am a registered Republican but because I drank the Obama Koolaid in 2008, I crossed party lines to vote for him. This election, I don't know who I will vote for but at this moment I don't believe it will be Romney & Ryan. I know he was handed a difficult situation when he took office but he knew that going in. Over the time he has been in that office, I have kept track of the promises he made, whether or not he kept them and he HAS NOT. Here's the question we should be asking ... are we better off now than pre-2008 and will we be any better off four years from now if President Obama gets re-elected?

Mr. Bowles, good question. Yes, we are better off now than four years ago as are our neighbors.

Four years from now? Yes, better with President Obama.

I don't know what country I live in any longer, either. When I grew up, we differentiated ourselves from others by learning that our country did not torture during WWII, as did other countries' soldiers, that we held to the Geneva Convention. Whether that was true or not, it was taught to us as a virtue. Expediency was not the governing word. Honor was. We grew up learning about great statesmen and orators who could persuade the other side. Now, people I know happily disseminate information they know to be wrong, gleefully telling me--assuming that I agree with their political views--that they don't care, because they hate the other side so much, they just want to get people mad. I think we have to go further than making an effort to vote: I think we have to go back to the 60's, and make personal efforts to ensure that those being systematically disenfranchised get the opportunity to vote, too.