Get yer post-election groove on. As an excuse, I've even got something to relate it all to chess, as if I care that much about staying on topic. This is a Kasparov editorial piece for the LA Times Syndicate running in various papers around the world in quite a few languages this week. Here's the English version as run in The Australian. I worked on the piece with Garry and I've added back a few small changes and punctuation elements the editors removed somewhere along the line. As ever, the title is entirely the creation of the editors. No matter what you put, they go their own way. (The suggested titled we sent was "The World Is Round," which isn't much either, I admit.)
Lynch Mob Lies
Garry Kasparov | November 05, 2008
There is no doubt Barack Obama's election as the next president of the US would have an impact on how many in the rest of the world think about the sole superpower. Obama represents a new generation of leadership, and he sounds and looks very different from his predecessors.
Here in Russia, as in most places I have visited recently, Obama's appearance -- he would be the first black leader of any world power -- is getting the most attention. His victory would mark the end of the view of the US still promoted by many in Russia, a line used by the Soviets to counter accusations of repression: "Ah, but in the US they lynch Negroes!" It is practically conventional wisdom, and not just in Russia, that in the US the rich WASPs and Jews exploit the poor blacks and Latinos. If Obama wins, it will be as if suddenly everyone can see the world is undeniably round.
Unfortunately, most would rather talk about what this is likely to mean for race relations in the US instead of confronting the racism and xenophobia in our own nations. But the only thing that will matter, and surprisingly soon, is whether Obama acts differently. The window of opportunity for Obama to take advantage of the world's curiosity and goodwill will be small. The crises we face are too big; the next US president will not enjoy much of a grace period.
Obama would be halfway there simply by virtue of not being George W. Bush who, rightly in some cases and wrongly in others, has come to symbolize every problem anyone has ever had with the US, Americans and US power abroad.
Bush is seen as practically a bouquet of the classic American stereotypes, the ones so easy to hate: rich, inarticulate, uninterested in the world, stridently religious and hasty to act. (And the images of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina seemingly exemplified the stereotype of Americans as racists and were viewed largely without surprise abroad. "Of course they wouldn't rescue poor black people!") Obama would explode these stereotypes. But the world's multitude of grievances against the Bush administration quickly would be laid on Obama's doorstep if he were to fail to back up his inspiring rhetoric with decisive action.
He could get off to a good start by making it clear he does not consider the people of Russia to be the enemy of the US. As in most authoritarian states, the Putin regime does not represent most of its citizens. Kremlin propaganda works hard to present the US as Russia's adversary. Obama could strike a blow against that image by speaking out against dictatorial leaders in Russia and across the world.
Then those words must be quickly followed up with deeds.
Garry Kasparov, a leader of The Other Russia coalition (theotherrussia.org), is a former world chess champion and lives in Moscow.
The image abroad of America as a deeply racist country is not limited to consumers of official propaganda. In my ten years living outside the US, I was always startled by how many people, well-educated as often as uneducated, simply assumed white Americans, and me personally, hated all black people. Argentines (just to take the example I know best) who had never met a black person in their lives, let alone an African-American, would say spectacularly racist things about blacks, fully expecting me to sympathize. After a while I realized that while they very well might be racist in their own ways, in this case it was mostly a strange form of distance-learned bigotry, some of which I attribute to Hollywood. (I used to get a kick out of asking people in Lat. Am. what percentage of the American population was black. I rarely got a number lower than 40. But if you really want to start a fight at a crowded youth hostel anywhere in the world, ask how many continents there are...)
Of course race and racism are huge issues in America. Yes, even now, an hour after Barack Obama was announced as the next President of the United States. Of course it's usually limited to a racist friend, or a friend of a friend, or a family member we're a little embarrassed about, never us. Ahem.
Reactions from around the world.
I've had some good political exchanges with chessplayers both foreign and domestic over the years. Anyone have the gumption to check Fundrace to see if any GMs were on any bandwagons in this campaign? The only hit for "chessplayer" under occupation is $200 from a Thomas Dorsch in Nebraska to the Dean campaign in 2004. Yeeearrrgh!
Congratulations to Senator Obama and the Democrats. Let's hope this election marks the beginning of a real change in US Foreign and domestic policy. The USA has many good things to be improved and a lot of bad things to be fixed.
However, i am rather uneasy about this creeping orthodoxy that holds that white+black = black; or indeed anyone not phenotypically'pure white'is black. It implies a notion of racial purity that sits uneasily with me. What is the basis of this nonsense anyway? It is certanly neither anthropological nor physiological. Perhaps just another indolent sociological construct by the racialists and uncritically accepted by repetition.
By the way, congratulations to Senator McCain for running a dignified race and being so gracious in defeat. How I wish he had ruled instead of the dunderhead Dubya. This was the first US election in a few decades when I could genuinely feel easy about either candidate winning.
It's not a purity issue. People aren't making fine racial distinctions. It's about practical perception. He simply looks black. People don't walk around with tags explaining their ancestry. They are judged by appearance. Tiger Woods, for example, actively resists going by just about any label (he prefers "Cablinasian," I believe). But if you google his name and "black" you'll get a couple million hits. Because, like Obama, for the intents and purposes of the relevance of his racial background to outsiders, he's black.
Were Obama entirely Caucasian in appearance, say he looked like John Edwards by some genetic twist of helix, we'd still be talking about his family background but we likely wouldn't be calling him black.
I'll amend my last comment slightly to say that, at the very least, it would become much more subtle and involved. Say Obama looked like Edwards but had grown up in an entirely African-American (or African) environment. It would be quite a challenge both for him and for the media to deal with labels. But in his actual case it's really pretty simple. That's why some of the "he's not really black!" stuff in 2007 was mostly laughed away. If everyone else everywhere you go thinks you're black, you're black.
HardyBerger: By the way, congratulations to Senator McCain for running a dignified race
---
Surely you're joking? It's been neocon tactics all the way. He even hired one of the people (Charlie Condon) responsible for the 'McCain has fathered an illegitemate black child'-robocall in 2000, a racist attack on his adopted daughter.
What a sad man.
Yah, I had relatively high hopes for this campaign to be a clean one since I had a pretty good opinion about both of them as human beings. But as of a few months ago I couldn't decide what was more depressing, that McCain really had "approved this message" or that he wasn't paying attention to the irrelevant sleaze that was being dished out. Of course one side's irrelevant sleaze is the other side's key character issue, but a lot of it was far-fetched even by that charitable description. Of course Obama, while he dished out his share, had the front-runner's advantage of being able to mostly play defense while McCain scrambled to find something negative that would stick. That's politics, at least in the US. Always has been. I'm just so, so glad it's over. Two frigging years. Really they need to shorten the entire process by law like they do in civilized countries.
Mig, i think your explanation is not entirely convincing. I have a few friends who are mixed race, look very 'Caucasian' and are still called 'black' only by people who know one of their black parents. My contention is that black in the sense it's used to describe Obama is more 'not white' than 'looks black'.
I wasn't implying that the race was squeaky clean and whilst practical necessities might dictate some mudslinging, McCain is not a really nasty little man like Dubya. That's one of the reasons why he's not very popular with the lunatic fringe of the Republican-the Pat Robertsons and their ilk.
At least we now have a President who would ask questions after an hour-long Treasury Secretary briefing, string a few sentences together and not take pride in his mendacity and being a standard bearer of the intellectual hoi polloi.
It was amazing how quickly Bush was able to piss away all of the world's sympathy a year or two after 9/11. Obama will do a lot to repair America's image.
Eh, McCain wouldn't have been terribly different from Bush, especially on foreign policy. True, he wasn't the favorite of the loony right, but he is pretty conservative on social issues.
Mig, did Garry ever comment on Palin's contention that she knows Russia because she can see it from Alaska?
This race discussion makes me recall when Colin Powell went on a round trip to visit African leaders. It was almost comical when he tried to introduce himself as an American of African descent, because he looked genuinely white compared to his hosts.
It must be very confusing/amusing/irritating for mixed-race people. Many black Africans regard them as 'white' and whites call them 'black'.
Obama won and Anand won! My cup runneth over..
Did anyone miss the prank call to Palin from 'sarkozy' ?
Many countries where people disparage racism in America have virtually no visible minorities. It is easy to sit in a virtually "pure" ethnic country and criticize people who live in neighbourhoods where everyone looks different from each other, has different religious beliefs, and often speak different languages. The American melting pot is indeed a wonder, and like a mixed-race dog, makes it stronger.
Yes, and that's because the rest of the world (and many in the US) could tell that Bush was using a terrorist attack to implement a neocon strategy in the Middle East (which is ongoing) that existed prior to 9/11/2001.
If Bush were a chess player he would be the type that whenever (if?) he found himself in a position with some advantage he would systematically overplay it.
The US is in for a long, dark period. Obama is the most leftist, statist President in history--and the most polarizing. With the state of the economy shaky, raising taxes and massively increasing gov't spending is a recipe to turn a recession into an extended depression.
Also worrisome is that there is likely to be a widespread and aggressive crackdown on dissent. People who ask Obama hard questions (e.g. Joe the Plumber, the Orlando local news anchor) will be investigated and bullied. People who are perceived as political threats will be even more aggresively pursued and harrassed by slander and scurrillous lawsuits (e.g., Sarah Palin, Obama's rivals in his earlier political campaigns). Those who disagree with Obama will be called racist (e.g., Bill Clinton, Geraldine Ferraro, and 'most everyone who voted against Obama). There'll also be an attempt to shut down the alternative media via a reincarnation of the "fairness doctrine", which gives gov't the power to define "fair and balanced" and shut down voices that it disagrees with. The intent and effect will be a thuggish stifling of dissent.
bunk: Wow. Simply wow.
Got hope?
Nope.
Brighten up. I know Bush wasn't polarizing (he got everyone to dislike him, and as such counts as unifying), so he's hard to beat; but give the first guy to get more than 52% in ages a break. At least wait a couple months before you judge him.
Bunk, I think you’ve made a mistake. The Democrats won the election. Obama is a Democrat. You’re describing the very Republican tactics that have been repudiated by the election. Those days are over, for at least the next four years…
It was a good 21-month chess match and I studied the tactics and strategies used. Obama's campaign was well-organized and executed. There were too many tactical oversights for the McCain camp and their strategy changed often. That's why McCain got crushed. Neverthless, it was an interesting political season.
Sure McCains concession speech was gracious but make no mistake he authorised and endorsed a vicious nasty horrible campaign against Obama. "Real americans", "palling around with terrorists" unbelievable robo telephone calls linking Obama with muslim terrorists. It was only huge cash and fantastic organisation and an economic crisis that defeated this stuff. Do not underestimate how this could have succeded. This is the same McCain who was the target of push polling questions which asked "would you be more or less likely to vote for McCain if you knew he had fathered an illegetimate black child?" In case your wondering McCain adopted a coloured daughter. These were Bush tactics employed in the primary against McCain - McCain employed these nice Bush folk to run his attack campaign. Nice one John. This was a victory for the 21st century over something from the 1950's Sarah Palin a real american (wink wink) who has had a real job from a small town huntin and fishin gal who doesnt read newspapers like those funny east and west coast elitists.
bunk wrote
>The US is in for a long, dark period. Obama is the most leftist, statist President in history--and the most polarizing. With the state of the economy shaky, raising taxes and massively increasing gov't spending is a recipe to turn a recession into an extended depression.>
I had hoped to be dead before the U.S. went socialist. I did not want to be around to
watch it. But no such luck. US never recovered from FDR and it never recovered from Johnson. For sure it will never recover from Obama.
It was from the point of view of economics (Hayek: The Road to Surfdom ) inevitable that the country would end up as a orwellian nightmare ; I just did not want to watch it happen.
I could not stand to listen to either McCain or Obama so when either of them appeared on the
TV I immediately switched the channel. The only question regarding Obama is how much he will cut the military such that the barbarian Islamists can kill more people. With Obama's anti-Jewish position, Israel is dead. With Obama, the only thing standing in the way of mass slaughter is China, for the Chinese.
Congratulations to everyone! (Even to those who does not wish to be congratulated).
A big victory of DEMOCRACY!
Finally, a new US President will be an advanced, well-educated person, how it should be!
(Besides: Bush is a born clown. McCain can play in horror movies. They can begin new, promising careers easily).
But I am still a bit shocked that so many people have voted for McCain. So, no triumphalism this time please. Sometimes they return.
OT -> Ovidiu: Sheesh. What ARE you drinking?
Re: Chessmasters getting political: I found Eric Schiller bloggin at DailyKos! Fo' Rizzle!
Ovidiu
Your words says everything we need to know about you. Please leave these boards, You are an ignorant. Just like Bush and Palin.
My goodness. As Leonard Cohen put it four decades ago, in "Stories of the Street": "All these hunters who are shrieking now oh do they speak for us?"
But Mig's remarks on race are interesting. If you showed me a celeb photo of President-elect Obama two years ago, I'd have guessed that he won an Olympic medal in middle distance running (that is a discipline not dominated by Blacks). He doesn't look Black, but he does look like many people of mixed race who have been called Black in USA for generations. It's the tinker calling the pot a kettle.
Different countries, different perceptions.
Here in Canada I don't hear the phrase "person of colour" so often as a few years ago. We haven't had the oblate spheroids to elect one as our national leader so, as the antipodeans would say, "good on you", America. And good luck to everyone.
PS. I predicted that Obama would win by capturing the Hungarian vote. Barack (pronounced something like baratsk) in Hungarian is the word for apricot, which is the ingredient (but be careful because if they can't find any apricots, it might be made out of pea pods) in the national moonshine, called palinka. Grin.
Great god where does this Ovidiu creature come from?
"he will cut the military such that the barbarian Islamists can kill more people" Man that neck of yours must glow in the dark!
Anyway here in Ireland we're delighted to see on of our own at the top. Mr O'Bama may have dyed his red hair but he's as Irish as...a very Irish thing.
Some of the comments on here prove to me that there's no relationship between wisdom and chess.
>Barack (pronounced something like baratsk) in >Hungarian is the word...
Barack is an Arabic word, as Mu-barack the president of Egypt, and it means "blessed".
Obama's first and second names--Barack Hussein--mean "the blessing of Hussein" in Arabic (and also in Persian).
Not that any one should take Ovidiu's comments seriously but of course Obama has been emphatically pro Jewish so much so that he had to modify his position slightly after going over the top and assuring a jewish organisation that Jerusalem would always be the capital of Israel. A position incidentally that even the current leader of the Kadima party could not guarantee to the religious right in Israel. dont wory about socialism as the most excessive socialist George W Bush is going out. After nationalising AIG and a bunch of leading banks he just stopped short of GM! Lucky for you Obama does not believe in this sort of thing nor of course the Orwellian system Bush introduced into the US under the guise of Homeland security (mass warrantless email telephone interception etc) Its great that you like Hayek "probably nothing has done so much harm to the liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rules of thumb, above all of the principle of laissez-faire capitalism" is one of my favourite quotes and strangely Obama's too! Still he is a liberal like Hayek.
I am always amazed that the right depicts every democrat as a "socialist" who will raise our taxes and give the money away, a "baby-killer" who will make abortion MANDATORY or as being "weak" when it comes to protecting our nation or our nation's interests (because that would be SO smart for someone who lives here in America...to make us a bigger target with no defense). Yet, never, ever, do I see them pointing to anything specific, and in fact, they often IGNORE the stated plans, policies and records of the persons they are targeting.
And of course, I have a good idea where they get their accusations: talk radio and forwarded e-mails. Some people will believe anything, as long as it supports their own beliefs. You forgot that Obama is going to "outlaw the Bible", and "force EVERYONE to convert to Islam". Oh, and that "he never was a Christian - he's actually a Muslim"!
These are probably the same people who believe those e-mails promising unclaimed funds from third-world countries with "flexible" banking laws. "All I need is your account number..."
There's a sucker born every minute...
Evan wrote
>"I am always amazed that the right depicts every democrat as a "socialist" yet do I see them pointing to anything specific, and in fact, they often ignore the stated plans, policies and records of the persons they are targeting"
I assume that your "amazement" is of the rhetorical kind.
Obama has declared that he believes every person has a "right" to health care. The Socialist Party USA believes every person has a "right" to health care.
Obama believes that labor unions should be allowed to organize without a secret ballot. The Socialist Party USA calls for unions to be recognized without a secret ballot.
The Socialist Party USA recognizes the "right" of adequate housing for everyone. Obama trained ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) workers to secure mortgages for unqualified people in sufficient numbers to collapse the housing and home-financing industries.
The Socialist Party USA believes that "capitalism is fundamentally incompatible" with socialism. For years, Obama worked in Chicago through the Annenberg Challenge, along with Bill Ayers, to funnel more than $50 million to anti-capitalist education projects. In November 2006, Ayers traveled to Venezuela to speak at Hugo Chavez's Education Forum where he railed against "the failings of capitalist education," and praised the "Bolivarian Revolution and the profound reforms in education made by Hugo Chavez."
The Socialist Party USA believes in open borders and six-months residency as the only requirement for U.S. citizenship. Obama marched with illegal aliens in Chicago in support of "comprehensive" immigration reform. [ Obama speech La Raza 2007.
The Socialist Party USA calls for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq. Obama says, "I will end this war," with never a reference to "winning" or "victory."
The Socialist Party USA calls for the "unconditional disarmament" by the United States. Obama has promised to dramatically reduce defense spending. Listen to his words here.
The Socialist Party USA calls for a "livable guaranteed annual income." Obama trained ACORN members to conduct "Living Wage" campaigns in cities around the country.
The Socialist Party USA calls for a "steeply graduated" tax policy to redistribute wealth. Obama has promised to increase the tax burden on the rich to redistribute wealth to the poor. He revealed his philosophy when answering a question from Joe the plumber, who complained that he was being taxed for his success. Obama said:
"It's not that I want to punish your success. I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they've got a chance for success too. My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
This is sufficient to reveal the congruence between Obama's political beliefs and the beliefs of the Socialist Party USA. The tragedy is that Obama's supporters don't care.
Andy wrote :
>Not that any one should take Ovidiu's comments >seriously but of course Obama has been >emphatically pro Jewish
perhaps they should take them seriously, your "of course" is as cheap as Evan's "amazement"
Obama will actively work to undermine the political supporters of the US-Israel alliance? "Well Jesse Jackson doesn't speak for Obama and AIPAC supports him." Except Biden said the exact same thing about taking on pro-Israel forces in DC and AIPAC is actually terrified of him.
Obama is disastrously weak on Israeli security? "Well he's willing to accept Israel's security choices, he's spoken out against Palestinian violence, and he's reached out to Israelis." Except he totally rejects the Israeli center-right that Israelis are about to entrust with their security, he opposes the security fence that protects Israel from Palestinian violence, and Israelis don't actually believe that his overtures are genuine.
Obama has the most anti-Israel foreign policy team ever assembled?
"Well he has plenty of pro-Israel advisers and all those anti-Israel advisers don't advise him on Israel anyway." ....Except he doesn't have pro-Israel advisers and obsessive anti-Israel partisans like Brzezinski obviously advise him on Israel since they blame the Jewish State for the entire breadth and depth of Middle East instability - a view of the Middle East geopolitics that Obama himself explicitly endorses.
Obama committed to meeting Ahmadinejad without preconditions?
"Well he never said that and besides he meant Khamenei."... Except there's video and photographic proof that he did commit to meeting Ahmadinejad and if he meant Khamenei that's even worse.
Obama spent twenty years at the side of one of Chicago's most notorious anti-Semites and has a wide circle of anti-Semitic spiritual advisers? "Well he insists that 'nobody has spoken out more fiercely on the issue of anti-Semitism' than he has." Except that's obvious lady dooes protest too much hyperbole.
Obama was amazingly cozy with a committed PLO operative?
"Well Khalidi was not part of the PLO and he's a Semitic Arab so he can't be anti-Semitic." Except of course he worked for the PLO and that last part is a disgusting rhetorical strategy to make it impossible to oppose Jew hatred.
Obama insisted again and again that he's going to engage Hezbollah? "Well Israeli generals are on his side." Except that's a lie.
Obama met with Palestinian leaders and was endorsed by Hamas? "Well he opposed the 2006 Hamas election and Palin supports Hamas too." Except he actually supported the 2006 Hamas election and Palin vehemently opposes Hamas.
Obama and his past and future advisers are inclined to side with the Palestinians on even the most controversial territorial issues.
"Well he said that he's for an undivided Jerusalem." Except he immediately reversed himself under "Palestinian pressure."
"Obama could strike a blow against that image by speaking out against dictatorial leaders in Russia and across the world."
WTF?
Why would he do that when they funded his campaign?
Obama is disastrously weak on Israeli security?
Any mention, my good man, of Palestinian security? But of course they're all terrorists to you. God bless one-dimensional worldviews. Incidentally, Ovidiu, if you ARE American, I am at a loss to explain your consistently poor use of English.
No nation can or should be the unconditional "friend" of another. America cannot commit to another nation regardless of their actions. Carte blanche and billions of tax dollars? Security walls condemned by the World Court? Who in their right mind thinks that is reasonable? As for honest Joe the plumber, whose insertion into this campaign reveals the extreme intellectual poverty of the presidential race, a little background reading on him might not go astray.
The Kasparov Doctrine:
For minor matters such as potential cooperation on oil issues, terrorist threats, and national security you should denounce the dictatorial leaders in Russia.
For important matters (such as your wish to be air-dropped into a world chess championship match), you should cosy up to the dictatorial leaders (Kirsan) in Russia.
>The Kasparov Doctrine: For minor matters such as potential cooperation on oil issues, terrorist threats, and national security you should denounce the dictatorial leaders in Russia.>
Actually Kasparov (or Mig ?) anticipated correctly Kremlin's reaction to Obama's "hope and change" fluffy election.
Few hours ago Medvedev said that Russia had started deploying Iskander missiles near Poland border in retaliation to Bush's Est-European (Poland and Czech) radar plan.
Good move to preserve the tension with the West which Putin needs according to Kasparov.
I am sure that Obama will simply tell Putin that he is not a demented warmonger as Bush, he is the good guy, the "hope and change"-guy , and then he will simply call off (and dismantle what has been done already) Bush's "European missile shield" plan.
Either way Putin wins.
More interesting to watch will be Iran and Ahmadinejad's next "obama-move".
Perhaps first take few American soldiers prisoners and then invite Obama at Teheran to negociate their release in exchange of a public apology for the US misdeeds in Middle East in the last 60 years. Obama will go.
These are cut and pasted smears and lies - all of them. Take ACORN - Obama never trained ACORN employees "to secure mortgages for unqualified people" or " "Living Wage" campaigns in cities around the country" In fact Obama never did any training at all for ACORN. Now here's how the lying works - study this its classic. The facts are: more than 10 years ago Obama provided two 1 hour (unpaid) leadership training sessions to ACORN'S Chicago affiliate. The sessions had nothing to do with securing mortgages or living wage campaigns. So take allegations against ACORN (securing mortgages for unqualified people)Take Obama involved in training ACORN therefore Obama trained ACORN to do whats alleged!!!
Obama anti Israeli? Yeah thats why he has offered his chief of staff position to Rahm Emanuel an orthodox jewish congressman whose jerusalem born father was a member of the Irgun militant zionist group. During the 1st Gulf war Emanuel worked as a civilan volunteer on an Isreali army base. He was Clintons campaign director of finance (1991)and his rapport with donors within the Jewish community helped Clinton amass a then-unheard-of $72 million. He was heavily involved in the Rose Garden signing ceremony of the Oslo accord between Isreal and Palestine. Although Emanuel (who made a fortune in investment banking) as someone who believes in universal healthcare would, under the Ovidiu doctrine, be a raving socialist. A bit like that other "socialist" Obama supporter and adviser Warren Buffet! I think thats enough for everyone to understand Ovidiu's relationship with the truth.
2Ovidiu
Nice summary. Is there also any chance that the criminal Republican Party will be forbidden?
I think Ovidiu is too intelligent for some of us to understand. He is way ahead of his time, and sadly, mine too. Remember how he accurately diagnosed a couple of ailments in Veselin Topalov on the basis of an internet photograph. The man/woman/hermaphrodite is a genius.
>I think Ovidiu is too intelligent for some of us >to understand.
It doesn't need much intelligence, it is not logico-deductive it just as chess : it needs experience on the specific patterns and I have lived a number of years under a socialist rule.
>He is way ahead of his time.
Not 'way ahead', 1-2 years at most.
In the U.S., liberals are intolerant of any disagreement. Every student learns
early in his schooling that if a teacher is a liberal, then he must write all his papers from a liberal perspective or be flunked in the course. Liberals, in the U.S. culture, do not tolerate any dissent or any other view point. In a
sociology or psychology class if you quote Marx, you are in good shape; if you quote Hayek you are likely to get, if you are lucky, a D on the paper.
As a personal example, I had a PhD professor who, quite honestly, told us in the first class that he was a socialist. Our term paper was on Mexican
culture. I knew what I was supposed to say: the culture is a result of discrimination and poverty (the standard Marxian people's psychology
are a result of their "tools of production") ; but I just could not get myself to say that. I wrote that it was likely a function of a genetic
difference in the European genetic stock as opposed to the South American genetic stock. I was flunked (a grade of F). Every other course I have ever taken in graduate school was an A grade; but here I was violating the rule that if the teacher is a socialist then the student must be a socialist.
I knew it would happen; I just could not force myself in that class to produce the appropriate prattle.
Now, Obama is a rather typical U.S. type socialist. One of his first actions will be to silence all opposing views to his that are spread over the unregulated radio spectrum. The intolerance of opposing views is already present in newspapers and US national TV stations (read the several books by John Stossel or the books by Bernard Goldberg to get personal experience data on this), but opposition does appear on radio at present. This will be silenced by a re-imposition of the "fairness doctrine." Further, Obama will see to it that organizations engaged in socialist agitation (e.g. ACORN) will receive large infusions of tax money while opposition groups (e.g. anyone who does not support Gore's thesis of global warming) will have all funds cut off.
Shortly, the only opposition to Mr. Obama and his viewpoint will only appear on the internet and I would not be the least surprised if the
internet is put under Government regulation so that opposition there too can be eliminated.
It has long been noted by U.S. commentators that where England goes, the U.S. soon follows. History marches on.
"I wrote that it was likely a function of a genetic
difference in the European genetic stock as opposed to the South American genetic stock. I was flunked"
Sometimes even a non-socialist professor will be surprised to see a eugenicist argument put forth in the social sciences, considering that no reputable geneticist would presume to subdivide the species in this manner; even more often, people submit poor papers. So if we are correctly informed, professorial bias played no role here whatsoever beyond the professor's temerity in presuming to mark the paper in the first place.
But now at least we know Ovidiu has a martyrdom fetish.
As to the 'nasty attacks' on Obama by McCain, you don't think the full frontal media assault on Palin got nasty? The fact is, during the nomination fight and the general election, The System was forcing Obama down our throats the whole way. Big business helped bankroll him with a record amount, the media treated him like a Messiah. This for a guy who had served a little over a year in the Senate.
It looks to me like the U.S. has traded it's Republican puppet (Bush), for a Democratic one (Obama). The same people will be pulling the strings - the military-industrial complex (Obama has gone to lengths to signal that he will keep them in business with his 'nuanced' hostility toward Pakistan), and Wall Street.
For the record, I didn't vote for either McCain or Obama. And I'm willing to give the President-Elect a chance. But I'm damned skeptical.
> Sometimes even a non-socialist professor will be surprised to see a eugenicist argument put forth in the social sciences, considering that no reputable geneticist would presume to subdivide the species in this manner.>
The data is not suggestive, it is overwhelming that genetics is 50% to 70% of what a person is (depending on the trait).
For example, schizophrenia has a heritability of 0.7; sociopathy a heritability of 0.8, alcoholism a heritability of 0.5 and IQ a heritability of somewhere between 0.6 and 0.8.
Races are real and genetics is real. Jews of Eastern Mediteranian descent have a higher incidence of Tay Sachs, ankylosing spondolytis,
and several other more obscure diseases.
American Negroes respond differently to certain medications than do American Caucasians.
Heritability studies are done on the basis of mono-placental identical twins who are reared apart from birth. Thus there is little to no common environmental factors present and yet they have a high incidence of identical conditions.
It is better to read the experimental literature than to simply label with names of which you personally disapprove.
I assumed the "too intelligent" comment was ironic. Are you still standing by your comment about Obama training Acorn employees "to secure mortgages for unqualified people"?
Your essay was not about congenital illnesses and their relation to race, unless you forgot to tell us about that. Instead, in an attempt to annoy a professor you disliked, you advanced a racially subdivided genetic argument to answer a cultural question, indicating that your reading of "experimental literature" (ie crackpot stat-cooking masquerading as genetic innovation) was already in progress.
You've already established yourself as a hater, so your bizarre longueur on "heritability" to shore up the unshoreuppable is not a surprise.
But keep posting and piling on the adjectives before "fraud." This is a chess blog, but it's probably better that you avoid the subject.
Oividu is pointing out some ugly truths, but that doesn't make them less true. Geneticists are quickly discovering gene clusters which correlate to intelligence. There is solid data, ranking by ethnicity, that Sub-Saharan Africans are much less likely to have all of these genes. American Caucasians have them at a higher percentage, on average, and Southeast Asians possess them at a higher rate than Whites.
To say something about this in a liberal academic setting is sacrilege. Diversity is the creationism of the left - any scientific fact that questions the prerogatives of diversity has to be ignored or derided as a 'racist' inconvenience. Just as any fact that suggests we all came from monkeys has to be politically (and dishonestly) driven from schools when it questions the foundational mythologies put forth by literal Christianity.
But time will tell, because facts are stubborn things.
I thought you just said you're a skeptic...? Hope you can hear this inside your echo chamber: the idea of an academic setting, liberal or otherwise, is the admission of theory for weight and consideration. So send me the links to the scientific journals featuring exegetic investigation which conclusively assigns inferior characteristics to distinct ethnic groups within our species. Believe me, I'm into it -- Wrath of Khan was awesome.
"you don't think the full frontal media assault on Palin got nasty?"
She believed Africa was a country and South Africa a province inside that country.
The media was pointing out some ugly truths, but that doesn't make them less true. Remind you of anything?
Ovidiu, I frequently have trouble interpreting your remarks and charitably decided to ignore them on the basis you were doing your best, and working within your talents (another way of saying this is based on your own genetic theory, your postings strongly suggest you belong to a certain gene class). I remain impressed though, by your continued prescience on all matters in the universe.
"Now, Obama is a rather typical U.S. type socialist. One of his first actions will be to silence all opposing views to his that are spread over the unregulated radio spectrum."
Remarkable though the man is, I would have had doubts about his ability to influence the electromagnetic field within a given spectrum to filter out selected signals. I ask in all sincerity, how will he do this? Will he be a human receiver-cum-antenna, with a built-in quantum computer (for surely he will need the processing power) that identifies which signals are critical of him, intercepts and then modifies and retransmits them? Or will he simply jam all signals within a given spectrum, rendering the question of criticism moot, as all that eager listeners and viewers hunched over their receivers hungry for some REAL analysis will receive will be alas, static... grey, censored white lines and a monotonous hiss? Or will he use altogether more prosaic means, and use the Secret Service to hunt down these transmitters and put the people running them in Guantanemo bay? Or how about if he shuts down their bank accounts using secret laws and renders them homeless, and the only influence they can have on the unregulated radio spectrum is through phonon interaction, by shouting out to the wide open spaces using their frail voices, unfortunately not of sufficient strength to propagate as a radio wave?
Your masterly application of deduction to achieve quod erat demonstratum of various theses is altogether as impressive as your prescience. Taken together they are so powerful that I am continually surprised you are not hailed as the Messiah of the new gene pool centric world.
For example, I believe this statement "In the U.S., liberals are intolerant of any disagreement. Every student learns early in his schooling that if a teacher is a liberal, then he must write all his papers from a liberal perspective or be flunked in the course. Liberals, in the U.S. culture, do not tolerate any dissent or any other view point." follows on from your subjective experience in a Graduate class. Oh why did I not use the same technique in graduate school? Why did I bother to conduct scientific experiments that represented a wide swathe of the class of problems I was studying, and provide objective measured data to back up my thesis? Oh man, I wasted so much time actually studying my subject, what a waste of time. I could instead have made a snap judgement based on a subjective interpretation of an experience that reflects my own bias. Well, next time..
> The fact is, during the nomination fight and the general election, The System was forcing Obama down our throats the whole way. Big business helped bankroll him with a record amount, the media treated him like a Messiah. This for a guy who had served a little over a year in the Senate.>
The facts don't bother the true believers in
Obama. They have made up their minds and not only don't want to be confused by the facts, they resent being told the facts.
pray what are these facts? that he is a human radio?
"We (USA) will be independent from oil within the next 10 years from now on".
This should be announced by Obama, like Kennedy did before him with the landing on the moon.
>"We (USA) will be independent from oil within the next 10 years from now on".
This should be announced by Obama, like Kennedy did before him with the landing on the moon.>
Kennedy had von Braun and his rockets, Obama only has millions of no-names indulging in wishful thinking.
Common students have no appropriate academic papers writing skills.