lol, this wouldn't even make a top 100 list of shitty things done by J. Edgar Hoover.
USA Politics
- Thread starter Genghis Khan
- Start date
Yax
Ancient Mariner
Absolutely disgusting.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
Context is always relevant. This is ultimately a story about two wrongheaded pieces of shit, not one wrongheaded piece of shit and his victim.
Onhell
Infinite Dreamer
OOOOH yeah, there are documents AND recordings. Same with LBJ when talking about minorities such as the black community and the LGBT community.
____no5
Free Man
Vaenyr
Ancient Mariner
Honestly, why would it be surprising that a hateful and bigoted person could be a top US official? There have been wildly racist politicians since the beginning years of the country. There have been wildly racist presidents. There is no purity test; abhorrent views have never stopped someone from seeking office.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
They didn’t do the same thing, but they are still both wrongheaded pieces of shit. Casting the vendor as an innocent victim is misleading. He’s most likely an asshole who got a really disproportionately cruel response to his own disgusting behavior.
Yes, without direct evidence we can’t know for sure what the vendor said. But the official’s comments, as disgusting as they are, make references that line up with his account of the vendor having made pro-Hamas comments in the first place, and I’m inclined to believe that’s what actually happened here.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. The vendor can be both a victim and an asshole simultaneously. Just because the official is a bigger asshole, that doesn’t absolve the vendor.
____no5
Free Man
I guess because of the scrutiny during social media era; one cannot be the same level of asshole like in 60s. They would be toasted.
Vaenyr
Ancient Mariner
Why though? The last few years have shown quite clearly that not only doesn't that apply to politicians, being vile and racist is seen as a positive thing for certain voters. Just look at Trump and all the things he's said; how these things make him more popular with his base. They cheer him on and praise him for "saying it like it is" or some such nonsense.
As far as I've seen there's no evidence whatsoever of the vendor saying anything remotely problematic. The vendor was being harassed for multiple weeks with Seldowitz pulling out every single racist tactic and talking point he could to get a rise out of the vendor. As it stands right now it's quite obvious that Seldowitz is a huge islamophobe and the vendor was simply being harassed for not being a white American.
Last edited:
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
The vendor deflects when asked what he said about Hamas. Saying he doesn’t support anyone, he’s just out there working, how could the other guy say such things, etc. I haven’t seen him offer any direct denial of the official’s version of events, which should be easy to do if he didn’t actually say what the official claimed he said about Hamas. Is that proof? No, of course not. But it’s still telling. And the entire scenario makes much more sense if the vendor did indeed express support for Hamas’s tactics first, which isn’t a comment that anyone would be sitting around waiting to film.
Again, whatever the vendor did or did not do, it doesn’t justify the official’s behavior.
I’m not surprised that this is your take on the matter, as it plays into the simplistic victim/oppressor trope that appears to fuel your world view. The second part of your assertion is not actually obvious at all.
____no5
Free Man
Trump is a special case he is perceived as honest by his base so many things that could have other destroyed work to his advantage.
I’ve seen many low human politicians or advisors such as Bolton, Graham, Rubio, Nuland, Haley but more on warmongering side; I can’t recall anyone straight up openly racist. What others you had in mind besides Trump?
*Seldowitz is not a politician per se, but rather a permanent state kind of guy as he had held positions of influence under both for Democrats and Republicans.
Vaenyr
Ancient Mariner
Cute ad hominem there, but you assertion in the first part falls apart if you look at the multiple videos of Seldowitz's baseless assumptions. Just because he claims the vendor said something doesn't mean it's correct. We have no evidence to support that, whatsoever. In fact, we can see the multiple videos that each have different islamophobic rhetoric in them. The vendor is asked a variety of questions. The vendor was asked, and I quote, "did you rape your daughter like Muhammad did?"; he was asked if he speaks Arabic, "the language of the Quran. Some people use it as toilet paper, what do you think of that?" with a shit-eating grin and literally giggling while saying that desperately hoping for a reaction. Seldowitz attacks the Quran and Muhammad multiple times, gives a false name after asked for his (his answer is "Muhammad"), then asks the vendor for his name and asks if the vendor is even there legally.
In other words, in every single video that we have Seldowitz is showing absolutely abhorrent behavior. I repeat, we have no evidence at all to support that the vendor has problematic beliefs or that he expressed any of them in the first place. If you are willing to condemn a person without any evidence, because the words of a deeply racist man could be used against Hamas-defenders as well, then I don't know what to say to you. Your view is the one that is simplistic and naive in this case. It's not "telling" in any way. The vendor was filming Seldowitz because he was harassed by him for two weeks. Have you only seen one of the videos? Because, again, there are multiple different encounters on different days.
You can take a look at the GOP primaries and see the racist rhetoric that the various candidates support. But we can also go further back in time when Reagan called African delegates monkeys, something that we have a recording of. Sure, that wasn't as openly said as nowadays, but this was decades ago. Things have really escalated in the last decade.
Yax
Ancient Mariner
No matter whatever may or may not have preceeded this altercation, this is also a matter of expectations. I, perhaps wrongly, expect, or in any case "demand", a higher degree of moral compass, informed views, verbal presentation and conduct from a former top government official in the US (ok, MAGA's excluded) than any random person from the street. There are plenty of racist, homophobic, war mongerers, apathetic, conspiracy crazies and people with tunnelvision out there, I know and I expect that. I expect better from top officials, or at least for them to not show it in public.
Last edited:
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
And if he’s so off the rails that he’s going to go on an absurd tirade against any vendor who “isn’t a white American” as you claim, then there would be plenty of footage of him doing this to nearly every street vendor in town, because most of them aren’t white. The “crazy white guy / innocent Muslim” trope doesn’t stand up to basic reasoning here. There’s a reason the guy decided to go off on this particular vendor, and kept coming back to harass him.
Again, not defending Seldowitz’s behavior at all. But his version of events actually explains the scenario in a believable way, while the vendor’s non-denial doesn’t. And at this point if the vendor admitted that he’d said he approved of Hamas’s tactics, he knows he’d lose his victim status and get picketed by Jewish groups, so he just dodges the question instead. It all adds up.
Is it proof? No, of course not, as I already said. But it’s more probable than the innocent victim tack you’re taking, which doesn’t really add up at all. And just because Seldowitz is a piece of shit, that doesn’t automatically mean that everything he says about the situation is a lie. Again, this binary victim/oppressor thing you try to apply to every situation appears to limit your thinking.
…which I never disputed, and which is completely irrelevant to what the vendor may or may not have said.
No direct evidence, as I already said, yet you parrot this back to me as if it’s new or insightful. The indirect evidence is Seldowitz‘s account and the vendor’s refusal to directly deny that account. The vendor could very easily say “No, I never said that, I completely disagree with Hamas’s tactics”, but he’s repeatedly dodged that question instead. Why do you think that is?
I’m not condemning anyone. This isn’t a court of law. But I’m saying if you look at the whole picture and the evidence that does exist, it’s more likely than not that the vendor did in fact say he supported Hamas’s tactics, and that’s what triggered Seldowitz to lose his shit and repeatedly harass this specific vendor for weeks on end. If he just hates anyone who isn’t white, he’d be losing his shit on far more people far more often, don’t you think?
Like I said, we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Seldowitz is clearly a piece of shit. That doesn’t mean that the vendor isn’t one too.
Last edited:
It's not a court of law, no. In a criminal trial, you wouldn't be supposed to draw an inference like that from the lack of contradiction. In a civil trial, you could. I'm less worried about a street vendor than a professional public servant, mind you.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
Chris Christie and Nikki Haley have a Dean Phillips problem in New Hampshire
Chris Christie and Nikki Haley are relying on big support from independents. But Dean Phillips could pull a slice of that voting bloc away.
www.politico.com
Imagine if the only effect of Phillips's run is to make Trump more likely to win the GOP nomination (and the general, to be fair).
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
Well, if good people do nothing then we're just going to get Biden vs. Trump redux by default, and it seems like almost no one wants that outcome, but most people are still voting out of fear rather than voting for the candidate they might actually like the best. It is what it is, you know?
Phillips' stump speech is earnest and believable. It's easy to see why he won over a center-right electorate as a Democrat. His placid, agreeable style is the kind of approach that Trump's boorish behavior and baiting can't really dent -- it would just implicitly emphasize Trump's worst character traits. He's thoughtful and articulate in a way that Biden no longer projects, and he supports the same general policy initiatives that Biden does, but with more centrist leanings. He would be a better general election candidate for the Democrats, IMO. But in the end the primary voters will decide what happens, and Christie and Haley need to make the case to independents that they deserve their vote more than Phillips does, and vice-versa.
Phillips' stump speech is earnest and believable. It's easy to see why he won over a center-right electorate as a Democrat. His placid, agreeable style is the kind of approach that Trump's boorish behavior and baiting can't really dent -- it would just implicitly emphasize Trump's worst character traits. He's thoughtful and articulate in a way that Biden no longer projects, and he supports the same general policy initiatives that Biden does, but with more centrist leanings. He would be a better general election candidate for the Democrats, IMO. But in the end the primary voters will decide what happens, and Christie and Haley need to make the case to independents that they deserve their vote more than Phillips does, and vice-versa.
If you’re an independent voter in NH, wasting your vote on Phillips when you could vote for someone with the small potential of keeping Trump away from being a few thousand votes away from the White House again is a new dimension of stupid. It is increasingly seeming like Phillips’ only function in this race is to block out any of Trump’s competition there.
I expect Christie will get out before Iowa now that Haley has a clear shot in NH.
I expect Christie will get out before Iowa now that Haley has a clear shot in NH.