Well, first off, he not only does not use the word “all” in reference to whites, he is (in the passage you quoted) specifically limiting his remarks to those who are currently identified as “liberals.”
In other words, he is offering a rebuke to those (among whom he would obviously be included) who give voice to various platitudes or well-intended, politically correct speech, accusing them of hypocrisy and telling them to set their own houses in order.
He is not making a general statement regarding all white people (or all white people in the U.S.). He is addressing the inherent hypocrisy of those people who “empathize” with blacks or who make reassuring noises about progress when they know (or should know) how little progress has been made.
The preceding is my interpretation of Moore’s intent and does not reflect my own views on the subject.
Since he limits his audience from the beginning (and simply repeats once more a point that has often been made since the days of “Radical Chic” in the late 1960s), I see no reason to try to expand his statement beyond what he said in order to generate a false discussion.
(It is possible that the context of his statement is not obvious to every reader, but the context is there and he is making no claim that any person with pale skin is racist.)
I’ve never read a psychological substantiation for bigotry.
Until I was 20, I never really had a chance to be around black people or any other ethnicity besides caucasians and laotians/hmong(many families settled in my hometown in the mid 80s).
I grew up colorblind and the distrust I feel at times now when meeting a black man or woman comes from the extremely hostile treatment I recieved at the hands of a portion I dealt with who assumed that because I’m white I must be a bigot.
I do believe that as a minority, which as a gay man I am, I really have no place or right(not that anyone has a right to be a bigot) to be a bigot.
While I do initially steel myself in dealing with some black people, dreading being blindsided by hate, I want to believe that people are basically good at their core.
Yeah, and he left out that there was one country (Mexico) whose respondents fared even more poorly than the Americans polled. That’s probably because he doesn’t have a lot of personal interest in getting Mexican youths’ heads out of their butts.
Even still, there’s “nearly as bad” and “nearly as bad” again. Canada and Great Britain were the next two “dumbest” states surveyed – and both had only half as many (around 20%) respondents in the “Can’t find their ass with both hands and a flashlight” category. Yeah, we’re still a bunch of chavs when compared with the Swedes, but jeez-- they’re Sweden.
Nearly as bad, eh? You do know that on that survey, American respondants came in dead last (by a wide margin) when asked What is the population of the United States? Also dead last of all countries surveyed when asked (in the middle of TWAT, no less) In which country is Al Qaeda based?
What do you think is in the nation’s best interest-- to shrug stuff like that off, or to draw as much attention to it as possible? Seriously.
I would say draw attention to it, but not in the “boy you people are fucking stupid, don’t you wish you were wonderfully intelligent and enlightened like me” fashion that Moore only seems capable of.
What do you think is in nation’s best interest-- to deal with stuff like this in an enlightened and progressive manner, or to demonize your opponents and alienate most reasonable people with bellicose fanaticism? Seriously.
Okay, now we get to the crux of the misunderstanding. In your drive-by post where you spoke of the peanut gallery chiming in on behalf of the idealogue on a soapbox, I thought you were calling Muad’Dib the peanut gallery and casting me as the soapboxer.
Why? Two reasons, babycakes. One, your post followed closely behind mine and Muad’Dib’s, which was more or less in agreement with what I’d just said…and secondly, the quote you used was from my post, not thornhills, and since you made no reference to thornhill I believed you were aiming your remarks to me and Muad’Dib. This impression is further bolstered by the fact that you direct your comment to Muad’Dib only rather than the two of us.
Just answered.
You don’t know why I’m dragging him into this? This thread is about him, and the post of mine you excerpted was about Moore.
Yes, I stated my observation as to Moore’s apparent need to try to elevate himself by accusing almost everyone else of stupidity. You asked for evidence of my opinion. My opinion is just that. My stating it is evidence of itself.
Okay, my turn…where on Earth did I ever say Moore was mean to me?
As I said, it looked like you were going after me and Muad’Dib. I don’t typically feel incapable of arguing my point of view, nor do I decide to “launch” myself at one poster or another for any reason other than to defend or explain what I already said.
If you recall from the thread you’re referencing, another poster suggested I might constantly be having to reexplain what I said because perhaps I wasn’t making myself clear. I said that more likely it was because my posts tend toward the conservative point of view, and that virtually every conservative on these boards comes in for the same thing. This hardly constitutes a whine.
calibre]I originally posted to note that you and Muad’Dib (the “peanut gallery” I mentioned) were vociferously agreeing with thornhill’s absurd summary, despite the fact that he couldn’t cite an instance of Moore actually saying it, and despite the fact that it had become clear that Moore never said any such thing.
[/quote]
Okay, now we get to the crux of the misunderstanding. In your drive-by post where you spoke of the peanut gallery chiming in on behalf of the idealogue on a soapbox, I thought you were calling Muad’Dib the peanut galler and casting me as the soapboxer.
Why did I do this? Two reasons, babycakes. One, your post followed closely behind mine and Muad’Dib’s which was more or less in agreement with what I’d just said…and secondly, the quote you used was from my post, not thornhills, and since you made no reference to thornhill I believed you were aiming your remarks to me and Muad’Dib. This impression is further bolstered by the fact that you direct your comment to Muad’Dib only rather than the two of us.
Just answered.
You don’t know why I’m dragging him into this? This thread is about him, and the post of mine you excerpted was about Moore.
Yes, I stated my observation as to Moore’s apparent need to try to elevate himself by accusing almost everyone else of stupidity. You asked for evidence of my opinion. My opinion is just that. My stating it is evidence of itself.
Okay, my turn…where on Earth did I ever say Moore was mean to me?
As I said, it looked like you were going after me and Muad’Dib. I don’t typically feel incapable of arguing my point of view, nor do I decide to “launch” myself at one poster or another for any reason other than to defend or explain what I already said.
If you recall from the thread you’re referencing, another poster suggested I might constantly be having to reexplain what I said because perhaps I wasn’t making myself clear. I said that more likely it was because my posts tend toward the conservative point of view, and that virtually every conservative on these boards comes in for the same thing. This hardly constitutes a whine.
Cheers, your own sef.
(And just so we’re clear about this, “sef” was deliberately misspelled.)
Mike’s section 4 ‘Lose all liberal “concern” for black people’ follows section 3 ‘Don’t buy a handgun’. This section is addressed to all white people in America (’*f you’re white, and you’d like to help reduce the number one cause of death among young black men, here’s the answer: don’t buy a gun’). Indeed, the sentence that concludes section 3, and thus leads straight into section 4 is ‘You don’t need a gun’.
So, to claim that Mike is addressing liberals in the next line ‘Really. Black people are onto us’ is difficult to sustain. Rather than narrowing his target audience, Mike appears to be widening it. Two things suggest this. First, the change to use of inclusive ‘we/us’; second, the fact that later on the same page (p. 79), Mike does address liberals, but only to scorn their sentimentality and fuzzy thinking by writing 'I’ve heard liberals say dumb things like, “There are no black people on Friends”. ’
In an interview with The Observer published earlier this year, Mike said that he didn’t consider himself a liberal, so when he talks about us there’s even less reason to believe that he’s talking about just that, liberals.
By the way, when Mike asks white Americans not to buy guns, is he kidding or not?
Childish bickering aside (not that you seemed to notice my last post, nay, you probably just scan down to see the latest retort), I’d like to get on with the main issue here.
Max_Castle, you wrote: (sorry, haven’t quite worked out the code, yet)
“What do you think is in nation’s best interest-- to deal with stuff like this in an enlightened and progressive manner, or to demonize your opponents and alienate most reasonable people with bellicose fanaticism? Seriously.”
I ask you this, which would you be more likely to remember? Furthermore, what should be the real issue, the message or the form in which it is presented?
It’s easy to sluff off Moore’s biting sense of humor. I think it is important, though, that we don’t immediately discount his ideas in the process.
I try very hard to be as moral a person as possible and I have to say, I have a tough time finding friends as a result. As a reservist in the Marines, I find the monthly drill weekends very disconcerting as I hear stories, told with the strongest sense of pride, of all manner of depravity, mostly sexual in nature. Seriously, at least six fellow Marines each month talk of problems with their girlfriends/wives involving adultery, fights (some very physical), dissassociation, drugs…when I joined the Marines, I thought I was joining something special. Whatever happened to honor, courage, commitment? The reality is that they are just like a majority of the rest of the world…and THAT is a very scary thought, indeed.
What I’m getting at is that most people in America won’t respond to a reasonable, civil, non-confrontational statement of which you speak, Max. They would rather hide in their cocoon of immorality with their fingers in their ears believing everything is hunkey-dorey. However, if you start yelling at them, calling them racist and trying to shake with all your might the very foundation (however, well intentioned and based) upon which they sit, you’ll get a response. Some will start to question, some for the first time in the lives, their own morality.
That is what I think Moore’s intent is. Those who lash out against him should really re-evaluate their own lives, which isn’t an easy thing to do, of course. But I think that most people who seem to despise him are really afraid of something much greater…truth.
mambozzy, you seem like a good person and I don’t mean this in a bad way…but you might remember that this is a public forum and multiple conversations not only occur but are commonplace. And usually, if someone wants to confine discussion to only one aspect of a topic, it’s the poster who started the thread who is entitled to do so.
Again, no disrespect intended. Just a word to ask that you let those of us who are having a discussion that has nothing to do with you to be able to do so without being chided.
I understand what you’re saying…it is very much not my intent to force myself into that particular argument. However, there is an issue which this particular board is intended to address and I don’t think that three-page-posts which simply address what was or wasn’t said accompanied by verbose name-calling add to the issue.
That said, this post doesn’t really add to the issue, either. It’s hijacking, plain and simple. I do appreciate your honesty and your affable attitude not to mention your good point. I will therefore recuse myself from any further discussion on this board of anything but the issue addressed in the OP. I apologize if anyone has felt personally attacked by the above quote.
Not only does he call himself a liberal, he says that he feels most Americans are actually liberal. I believe he says this in his newest book and in most interviews, and he certainly says it when he speaks to the public. A little context for your quote would help. Then again, it would also help if you would help if you tried to understand the words you’re reading instead of being thickheaded and then blaming Moore for being unclear. But that’s obviously too much to hope for.
Here’s the relevant paragraph from his recent Observer interview:
‘I’m not a liberal. When you come from the working class and you do well enough whereby you can provide a little bit better for your family, get a decent roof over their head and send them to a good school, that’s considered a good thing. If,’ he emphasises, ‘you’re from the working class. What’s bad about it is if you get to do that and then shut the door behind you so nobody else can do that.’
Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. I’m extremely bigoted against right-wingers, “socially conservative” Republicans, and fundamentalists. I think they hate America, hate what America stands for, and hate most Americans. I’m sick and tired of their efforts to turn this country back to the Dark Ages. They and their conservative media can all go fuck themselves, as far as I’m concerned. They will lose and die out (or be shunned in shame). Not soon, I don’t think, but it’ll happen at some point. People are waking up, not quick enough for me, and certainly not quick enough for this country’s health, but it is happening.
If/when Bush wins the election I’ll cry, but I’ll also smile a little, because by the end of Bush’s next 4 years, assuming he’s not impeached first, I’m thinking that Republicans will have a hard time getting elected to anything ever again, because no one will trust them anymore. Moderate Republicans have let their once-honerable party be hijacked by these nasty fucks, and they’ll have to live with the consequenses. Just call me a pie-in-the-sky dreamer, but that’s my opinion.
I’m also bigoted against Libertarians, but since they’re a joke as a party and will never get elected to high offices, I don’t have to take them seriously and just sneer in their general direction.
Anyway, yes, he does say that in the context of trying to identify himself as a normal, mainstream kind of guy since he’s being accused of being a hypocrite for sending his daughter to private school. Elsewhere, like I said, he has claimed and written that the average person is more liberal than most people realize (referring mostly to America’s various social programs, people’s desire for better environmental laws, etc). People shy away from the term liberal because Republicans gave it a negative connotation, but he is one and I imagine has said so in other places.
Some thoughts by Karl Popper on the subject of clarity and the search for truth (aka the straight dope):
‘The search for truth is only possible if we speak clearly and simply and avoid unnecessary technicalities and complications. In my view, aiming at simplicity and lucidity is moral duty of all intellectuals: lack of clarity is a sin, and pretentiousness is a crime.’ (Objective Knowledge, p. 45)
Not that Mike would claim (so far as I know) to be an intellectual. But having read and watched some of his output, Popper’s words might make people stop and think.
As mentioned in an earlier post, I haven’t seen Bowling for Columbine. As I understand it, Mike’s stance in the film is anti-gun, and as far as I’m aware Moore doesn’t own a gun himself. However, the USA is a place, unlike the UK, where ownership of guns is both widespread and a central social and political issue.
So, if there are any dopers out there who can answer my question, I’ll put it one last time: when Mike asks white Americans not to buy guns (in the context of his desire to save the lives of black kids), is he kidding or not?
