We previously discussed how the United States was sharply criticized in a government-supported newspaper in China for the long lines of voters who had to wait for hours to cast their ballots. Now, the happiest place on Earth, has announced its new leader: Xi Jinging. Xi was selected without any lines of citizens, who of course were not allowed to vote at all.
The regular decade transition occurred by an orchestrated vote of the Community Party Congress with his appointment as general secretary after a meeting of senior Communists. The Chinese people were informed of the selection as Xi walked into the Great Hall of the People with other Politburo members.
The rise of Xi to power is viewed as another affirmation of a new “red nobility” class — leaders who come from families with a long communist power pedigree. Xi is the son of a hero of the revolution and three other members have similar family ties. With continuing scandals involving the gathering of huge wealth by Communist leaders, China now fits every definition of an aristocracy using Communist controls to protect its power and wealth. Think of Louis XIV in a Mao jacket.
Source: CBS
“Widespread use of the term politically correct and its derivatives began when it was adopted as a pejorative term by the political right in the 1990s, in the context of the Culture Wars.” wikipedia
LK,
“You’re just twitched because I said that your joke missed the mark.”
Not in the slightest. I write. People like some of it, people don’t like some of it. Those who like it? Great. Those who don’t? Not my problem. Or to quote Groucho, “Well, Art is Art, isn’t it? Still, on the other hand, water is water. And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now you tell me what you know.”
What I’m “twitched” about is the idea that the 1st Amendment only applies to speech if the PC brigade approves of it. And using your definitions of manners (or anyone else’s) falls into that realm. Much like laws, “manners” are a socially aggregate defined behavior. No one person has a final say in what constitutes manners and hiding what it is behind the word “manners” when what it is is defining offense for others is again and again offense is a subjective judgement is simply moving one idea of censorship behind another idea of censorship.
PC language is stupid and not only is it stupid it’s insidious. You can’t say one thing today because it might offend someone. What will the topic or word you can’t use tomorrow be? Male? Female? Reproduction? Rights? PC language is inherently antithetical to free speech. It’s also the creeping edge of oppression.
“Can’t talk about the King! It’s offensive. They club you for that.”
That’s what I’m “twitched” about.
But I don’t give a damn if you liked the joke or not.
Just to be clear.
nick, A comedy club is not a school or a place of work. You pay to go because you like the act.
Blazing Saddles was a classic, but it would be remiss not to mention Airplane[“I speak jive”] and Bad Santa to that list.
There’s a sleeper good movie that was just out called Seven Psychopaths that is very funny, well made[sort of a Coen Bros. genre] and very non pc.
Like I said previously SWM, comdedians are our last lines of defense to the word/thought pc police. You just helped prove my point. Good luck getting comedians on board, they’ll cut you down like a heckler.
Mike, Words, even hurtful, are not the same as physical harm. Your shared hurt was about physical harm..different topic. I’m sorry for your pain as a youth. Few escape ridicule, It’s those who were taught to stand up for themselves who overcome it. My old man taught me that and I have passed it on to my son. The world is at is. The vast majority of people are good. Being a positive person I always remember that. Being a practical person I know laws, pc rules, cultural sensitivity don’t mean shit out on the street. Words fly around. There is a subtlety to ethnic ballbusts. It’s the word itself sometimes. Using Italian, “dago” and “wop” are usually ok, “greaseball” is not. The Latinos where I grew up were Puerto Rican. I was a ballplayer so obviously I got to know them well, spend nights in their home, eat their food, etc. “PR” and “Rican” were ok, “spic” was not. We called the pointy shoes they wore in the 60’s “PR Fence Climbers”, they knew when that was cool and when it wasn’t. But, besides the words Mike, it’s the the tone of the words and the nonverbal clues. As stated previously, when you’re in a multi ethnic enviroment you get those skills quickly. I’m not a bigot, and if you would climb down off that high horse you would see that. If we met, you would see that. If you saw the wide diversity of friends I have, if you saw my wedding photos, you would know that. Life’s short and tentative, you should know that bette than anyone. There are MUCH worse things out there than a Chinese, Kucinich joke. That’s not even a small potato, it’s more a windmill.
Wootsy, That bar scene in Good Will Hunting is classic. As I said previously in another thread, some who spout off here would be much more temperate in a bar, or they would stop going.
http://www.ehow.com/how_8474682_promote-ethnic-sensitivity-classroom.html Teachers and employers are being instructed on how to promote ethnic and cultural sensitivity in the classrooms. One of the things that they are told to discuss with the students is that “racism often comes in the guise of humor.”
Woosty=^..^
You’re right that the knowledge has not been secret but I think that previously the knowledge was shared by members of the classes victimized most often by this separate set of rules and consequences. Now it’s out there for anyone to see that has a computer and the time to surf. What used to be news or events or scandals limited to a small group of knowledgeable people is now the viral story of the day. The internet has been a great boon to dissemination information to a wide audience. While the MSM still denigrates the internet and blawgers they sure do end up doing a lot of stories that started on the internet.
lottakatz
1, November 16, 2012 at 5:27 am
Darren, Your observation that the school got away with acts that would otherwise be called crimes was very perceptive. (Your middle school sucked!) The reality that there are different standards or laws for people without power and people under color of authority seems to be dawning on people thanks to the ubiquity of cell phone cameras and to a good extent, blawgs.
——————————————————–
there are not just different laws, there are different consequences. But I disagree that the cell phones etc are what is bringing this to light…..this has never been a secret….the thing that is needing brought to light is how and why such a non-secret could go on for so long, un-addressed by those whose power and position exist to prevent or ameliorate it, and have the consequences born by the very ones who were harmed to begin with…..
so far the hows nd whys are nothing but sh*t.
ahhhh, intention…..you can say anything to friends, with their permission.
Sometimes nothing changes…..sometimes, it’s what you do that counts….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymsHLkB8u3s&list=LPr_uo4NPVjAY&index=1&feature=plcp
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymsHLkB8u3s&w=420&h=315%5D
Darren, Your observation that the school got away with acts that would otherwise be called crimes was very perceptive. (Your middle school sucked!) The reality that there are different standards or laws for people without power and people under color of authority seems to be dawning on people thanks to the ubiquity of cell phone cameras and to a good extent, blawgs.
Mike S wrote:
“and the teacher was forced to give me a B.”
~+~
B for Brave.
When I was in middle school there existed a culture of hacking students with wooden boards and sticks for their misbehavior. This did not happen in grade school and it lasted until I was in Jr. High when it was no longer done. I didn’t get into trouble much in school but I told my parents I wouldn’t allow myself to be hacked and I was going to run home if threatened with it.
It seemed at least weekly an affair where some student would get whacked so hard you could actually hear the sound echoing in the halls. One student was injured when the teacher missed and hit him in the back. An almost macabre humor and schadenfreude existed among the students when another was led to the bathroom to receive his hacking: everybody whispered out “shhhh” to allow the quietest setting to experience the loudest hack; to which all would gasp in horror or laughter. Later in life I found the entire thing to be a bit revolting.
I joined the sheriff’s office as a cadet when I was 16. I began to see how unjust this hacking experience from 3 or or four years prior was compared to what I saw in arrests. When criminals assaulted others with a weapon. (which meant anything that was used to injure another person or cause pain) the suspect was charged with Assault 3rd which was a C felony. Yet, school officials routinely hit students with instruments that could be construed as weapons and that was the way it was. We were not allowed to hit citizens with nightsticks for misbehavior but teachers were with wooden boards and sticks. And, it was done to smaller persons who’s bodies were more vulnerable.
A few years later, after I received my commission, I was dispatched to a report of a man beating his son with a 2×4. After I arrived and invistigated I found the board used and it was about the same as the hacking boards used by teachers mentioned previously. The boy was 15 and his dad hit him probably a dozen times and caused severe bruising to his backside and the backs of his legs and back. He even had a defensive wound on his arm. I hooked dad up for felony assault. The incident started because the son was sent home from school for fighting and dad went ballistic on him. The son went to the hospital.
Afterwards I kept trying to grapple with this idea of hitting children with clubs and boards. I came to the conclusion that hitting children with these created a mindset that violence against children under the color of punishment led to repeated generations of this where some people experience hackings as children and proceeded later in life to hack their own children. I felt it had to stop. Admittedly I am on the fence when it comes to a harmless spanking, but causing pain and injury is wrong. Again, a society is measured by how well it treats its most vulnerable.
“School days, school days
Dear old Golden Rule days
‘Reading and ‘riting and ‘rithmetic
Taught to the tune of the hick’ry stick”
“School Days”, written 1907″
Darren,
Though the song was written in 1907, it reflected a long history of corporal punishment in schools. It is ironic that during my growing up that song was presented as a pleasantly nostalgic look back on childhood, when to me it represented a very bad tradition. Corporal punishment.is a humiliating lesson to be learned.
My beloved Father used it on me occasionally by slapping me in the face and as I previously described he was a big, strong man. He never did it after I was eight and what he replaced it with was far worse to me and yet far more effective in parenting. That was the voice of his disapproval of some action of mine along with the look of disappointment in his eyes.
When I became a parent, with memory of being slapped, I never at any time used corporal punishment, but didn’t hesitate to set tougher boundaries then most of the parents of my children’s peers. Along with those boundaries though, was respect for my children’s thoughts and feelings. My children were allowed to rebel as long as their safety in that rebellion wasn’t an issue and I never talked down to them. Other parents constantly complemented my wife and I on how well behaved our children were. They are now two grown women, loved by their friends, respected in their careers and filled with compassion and the desire to help others. I’m quite proud of them.
Incidentally, the best 8 years of my 37 year career with NYC were spent in the then “Special Services for Children”. This was because I felt a great sense of mission in combating child abuse and neglect. I sent some people to jail for their bad behavior and worked closely with the police and with the DA’s office. While I was quite tough in that role, I always followed civil liberties guidelines and evidence-based case handling.
As has always been, many see that there is violence in the teen years. Other than pathology, I’ve always felt that violence to children, begets anger and violence as they age. Violence is not necessarily physical in nature. It can be represented by slurs of many kinds and their effect on a growing child’s psyche.
Gene, I did not say you were mean, I said certain kinds of speech could be and was mean, and implied that couching it as humor did not make it less so. LOL, You’re just twitched because I said that your joke missed the mark.
As I said originally: ” I’ll defend your right to say it but damn, didn’t y’all have no home training?” That’s my take on it in one sentence. Seriously, if people were brought up to simply have decent manners no kid would have to be called a name on a school bus (repeatedly) and people wouldn’t feel comfortable carrying a sign with the President as a witch-doctor (which speaks to race on several ugly levels). The candidates were wrong to not call that out, right then and there, and parents that don’t push the issue do a disservice to their kid and the kids doing the name calling.
I reiterate: “I’ll defend your right to say it but damn ….” Condemnation is not infringement but silence sends the wrong message. I think the counter demonstrations to people and groups like the WBC serve a positive and needed function. The measure of the society isn’t WBC, it’s that there are counter-protests.
Blouise wrote…
“砍掉他的头”
~+~
你的写作显示了狮子的勇气。
And to echo Mike and emphasize my point that while I defend your right to say it, I thought your original joke did indeed suck, nick. It missed being actually racist by the thinnest of constructional margins.
That’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it, but unless you’d care to revise the 1st Amendment to read “and all humor must reveal truth”? It’s not going to work. Freedom of speech – but especially speech others may not like – is constrained under very narrow circumstances for a reason and the Framers made it the 1st Amendment for a reason: being able to express unpopular ideas is critical in being able to speak truth where it matters most – to power.
And they should re-release “Blazing Saddles”. It’s hard to find on a movie channel where the PC police haven’t butchered it. In its original form, as you point to, it is a truly amazing bit of palliative humor.
If your object is you think I’m mean? Ask me if I care. A failure to grasp or appreciate ironic or sardonic humor – such as telling an Italian being accused of racism in a joke that “all this fuss [was] because a dago can’t make a good joke” – is not my problem. Read Carlin’s words again. “There are no bad words. Bad thoughts. Bad intentions, and wooooords.” You may not like that idea but it has the merit of being truthful. Comedy is not always pretty, but you are under no obligation to laugh and you still don’t have a right not to be offended under the 1st Amendment. In fact, the 1st Amendment is pretty much a corollary guaranteeing that you will at some time be offended. And that? Is ultimately the hypocrisy of politically correct speech. Limiting speech is limiting speech and unless you’ve got a really good narrowly tailored reason for doing so – like defamation and incitement laws – trying to tailor an exclusion around something so subjective as “offense”? Is no better than trying to institute blasphemy laws and just as counter to the function of the 1st Amendment.
Actually, the country would be better off id Blazing Saddles was re-released now considering the racist, ethnic and sexist hatred that has bubbled out of its cauldron and overtaken the Republican Party wholesale. It might have a palliative effect if nothing else. But that’s humor of a specific kind and Brooks is a genius at using it. Your joke actually didn’t measure up IMO because less racist language could have been used to convey the same cultural truth. Most jokes using racist, ethnic and sexist language don’t measure up because they reveal no truth, only meanness and hatred, the words are just a road sign to point the underlying hatred at a particular group. Dice Clay thought he was funny and so did a lot of people but he was no Brooks or Steinberg. He was just mean.
My objection has been the casual, water-cooler and school yard language that is just considered by some to be a part of the rough and tumble discourse in a country that has many ethnic and racial subdivisions. I think it should always be called out and discouraged for the unfair and de-humanizing speech it is. If the media (and the opposition) had jumped on and stayed on the Republican candidates, surrogates and supporters for the racism and sexism they preached, from day one, perhaps many in that camp wouldn’t be doubling down on it even now. Perhaps the moderates in that party (or at least the non-haters) would have a better chance of changing that party from within.
Blazing Saddles, never did watch the whole thing. Just enough to know I had better things to do, like watch the grass grow.
Could “Blazing Saddles”, a movie that was written by a black man and a Jew, directed by said Jew and starring a black man and a Jew, a movie that insults damn near everyone, get made today since the advent of political correctness?
Probably not.
It is, however, one of the funniest movies ever made.
Humor is a rough game – wear protective gear – but it is egalitarian. Do you know what kind of people say “You can’t make fun of me?” Fanatics and authoritarians like the Saudis and Al-Qaeda and the Royal Family of Thailand and the Chinese Communist Party. I don’t like nick. Even a bit. I don’t think his joke was very good on a technical level (the exaggeration and the contrast was off).
But I’ll certainly defend his right to make it.
The butt of the joke was Denis Kucinich despite the fact the exaggeration nick used was of a factually wrong ethnic stereotype. That stereotype is ignorant, but the Chinese were not the butt of the joke for it, ergo it was at most a simply mildly tasteless joke but not overtly racist.
I’ll say it again: political correctness is stupid. It’s a knee-jerk reaction, a Pavlovian response devoid of analytics. I’m not saying don’t call out racism. Call out racism when and where you see it by all means, but just make sure it’s actual racism first instead of just off-color or poorly constructed humor. Let me illustrate with an actual racist joke compared to what nick said.
“What do you call a nigger hitchhiker?
Stranded.”
That is a racist joke. The butt of the joke is the black man and he is the butt of the joke because of his color.
“Sort of like our ruling class only they’re all the size of Kucinich.”
The butt of this joke is Kucinich (and the government overall to a lesser degree) because he is short – which nick chose (poorly) a stereotype of the Chinese to illustrate.
Big difference.
Believe it or not, humor has rules of construction just like other forms of writing does. Being bad at it doesn’t make the joker a racist. It means they suck at writing jokes or they write jokes you personally don’t find funny. That is not a crime or unethical in any way. If it were, Russell Brand would a wanted man. As it is, I really wish he’d go away especially after the mauling he gave the classic film “Arthur”, but I digress.
Now might I suggest that if anyone is offended by this?
Lighten up. You’re all going to die. Have a chuckle where you can find it. If you don’t like a joke? Don’t laugh at it, but don’t use a reflex reaction to find racism where it may not be. That’s just . . . silly.
First Amendment or no I was taught from a very early age (before attending school) not to make fun of others- that covered racial/ethnic (and later sexist) nicknames and epithets once I learned to recognize them. Srsly, what ever happened to ‘home training’. I’ll defend your right to say it but damn, didn’t y’all have no home training?
BTW, home training included the phrase, oft used, “If your friends jump off a cliff are you going to do it too?” That applies to enemies also.