It Keeps on Coming—The Way We Are Now
by Clyde N. Wilson
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The American oracle Oprah Winfrey has explained that the dog-fighting felon Michael Vick deserves our sympathy. It seems he is a victim of having grown up in the brutal society of “the deep South” (Virginia). This is a new variant on Thomas Sowell’s thesis that urban black people are prone to violence and unemployment because of their long association with “Southern rednecks.”
Yes, we Southerners are doubtless also the cause of greyhound racing and cockfighting in Miami, and probably responsible for clubbing baby seals in Alaska and forest fires in Idaho too. In the 1940s and 1950s the newspapers in Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland used to blame their crime problems on “Southern hillbillies.”
The president of PETA was sensible enough to point out that no region was any worse than another in dog fighting, which is felonious almost everywhere. In South Carolina we recently sent an egregious offender to the slammer for 30 years. In a long Southern lifetime I have known quite a few people who have hunted with their dogs and a few who claim to have seen a cockfight, but I have never heard even so much as a third-hand report of a dogfight that was not on the un-prearranged initiative of the canine combatants themselves.
When I heard that all television sets would be obsolete in February 2009, I had one of the happiest days I have had in months. Then I realized they were going to be replaced by a new type.
We are just at the sixth anniversary of 9/11. It has cost a lot of lives and dollars, but we have really paid those Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians, and Palestinians back for what they did to us. That will teach Osama bin Laden a thing or two.
In South Carolina we are already getting political calls and advertisements from the candidates five months before the presidential primary. Judging from the ads, Romney’s primary interest is getting tough on crime and Giuliani is almost entirely focused on defending the borders and deporting illegal alien criminals, especially drug dealers. How reassuring.
I paid my monthly visit to Barnes & Noble the other day, and I was overwhelmed by all the new, high-quality literature available. New books by Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, John McCain, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani, Sam Brownback, and, most exciting of all, Joe Biden! But with my limited retirement budget, I am going to hold out and wait for new contributions to American statesmanship by Bob Dole, Jack Kemp, and Dannie Quayle.
“If only Longstreet had . . . “
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1 Comment by Bill Gardner on 7 September 2007:
Astonishingly Paul Craig Roberts’ article “The War Criminal in the Living Room” still listed below has been blanked out along with its comments section, at least on my computer.
So I’ll post the link here, I was going to post there, for anyone interested.
The “Protocol of the Elders of American Neoconservatism” and the Blood of American Soldiers
by Walter Uhler
http://www.walter-c-uhler.com/Reviews/protocol.html
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2 Comment by R. E. G. on 7 September 2007:
I once heard an academic acquaintance of mine state that the proclivity of blacks and Latinos toward dog and cock fighting was a result of their maltreatment by Southern whites and the abuse of animals was their means of displacing the trauma of racial violence.
I politely bit my tongue.
3 Comment by Jimmy on 7 September 2007:
Don’t let ‘em get you down. Oh the horror of these blabber mouth idiots is sometimes so deafening I could scream.
Thank God, I have a brain to keep my cool.
This ‘Vick’ sucker did it himself, he’s no victim, he’s no saint, he’s the one doing. Take your responsibility. Be a man, have some decency, some selfrespect.
In short: Get a life.
4 Comment by Jeff Willoughby on 7 September 2007:
I would like to take this time to blame the South for cancer.
The living standards, family life, and general condition of American blacks has been going down since the early ’60s. And people wander why.
Does anyone think that if you treat people like spoiled children and/or permanent helpless victims might just make them act badly?
5 Comment by T. Chan on 7 September 2007:
Whoopi Goldberg made the claim re: Michael Vick and his origins on The View, saying that she could understand why he was involved in such a activities, because that sport is “normal where he comes from”–and then she caught flack from the media for defending him.
6 Comment by robert reavis on 7 September 2007:
Dr. Wilson,
Perhaps Virginia is going to have a Senate race. Pat Buchanan may be considering the Senate seat soon to be vacated by Sen. Warner. If he runs, the Brigades from all across the South will gather in Virginia for one last stand. If nothing else, it would sure beat the Barnes and Noble rhetoric. I just hope he runs as an old school, pro- life democrat, instead of a republican. But heck, it really doesn’t matter. Anything serious today is outside the duopoly and must be done more for fun than effect –it’s too late for effect.
7 Comment by Nicholas G.P. MOSES on 7 September 2007:
If the South is to be blamed for anything, it is for drinking Republican Kool-Aid along with other formerly well-meaning intelligent people in the North the last twenty years.
8 Comment by Rublev's Dog on 7 September 2007:
The South is also responsible for global warming. Just look at the tempratures around here…
9 Comment by Alex Tigner on 7 September 2007:
The influence of American southerners is so corrosive that it has even crossed the Atlantic, and affected innocent people who may never have set foot in the US.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_midlands/6976556.stm
10 Comment by Rublev's Dog on 7 September 2007:
Thanks for that timely update, Alex. I read with shock and disgust the names of the 22 Southerners involved in the crime.
11 Comment by Jimmy on 7 September 2007:
Don’t forget the chicken flu.
12 Comment by robert reavis on 7 September 2007:
The South is also responsible for dog fighting because most of the state laws in America against dog fighting are exactly the same. Spectators in the North, however, are sometimes treated as felons whereas in the South if a man is caught breaking up a dog fight in his neighborhood or simply watching one from across the yard, he is charged with only a misdemeanor.
I also once knew some American soldiers in Korea who would take wagers on how long mongrel street dogs in Korea would stay hitched during public breedings . I know these fellows must have been Northerners because they were encouraging dogs to “make love and not war.”
There is a recent book about all this it at Barnes and Nobles written by a real conservative fellow from the AEI. The smart money says, ” he might be presidential timber some day. “– A uniter and not a divider.
For more details on “How the South promotes Dog Fighting and the North prevents it”
see the uniform dog fighting laws of the United Sates — North and South www:http://files.hsus.org/webfiles/PDF/dogfighting_statelaws.pdf
13 Comment by Bernie on 7 September 2007:
If there is one truism in American life it is this: Whites will always be blamed for the problems and failings of blacks.
Anyone who tries to argue that whites are not responsible for the problems of blacks will be called a racist or a “Brown.”
14 Comment by Jay on 7 September 2007:
“… The American oracle Oprah Winfrey has explained that the dog-fighting felon Michael Vick deserves our sympathy. It seems he is a victim of having grown up in the brutal society of “the deep South” (Virginia). …”
This reminds me of that irreverent Monty Python skit, where the culprit in a bishop’s murder fesses up but declares, “society is to blame”; parody of exactly this type of idiocy.
Incidentally, one of the happiest news for me will be that all “sociology” departments at U.S. “universities” are abolished (in addition to all the TV stations).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-Eyv2jka_g
15 Comment by PcH on 7 September 2007:
The South is denounced because it is the essential part of America. It is the only part with half a culture and half a backbone and so it is rightly feared.
Paul V. Murphy writes:
The South is not only the synecdoche of America, but that of all Western civilization. So if you hate the West, you will hate the American South.
16 Comment by PcH on 7 September 2007:
Paul V. Murphy. The Rebuke of History; The Southern Agrarians and American Conservative Thought. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 115, 120, 212.
17 Comment by Ben on 7 September 2007:
Re comment 5
“… Whoopi Goldberg made the claim re: Michael Vick and his origins on The View, saying that she could understand why he was involved in such a activities, because that sport is “normal where he comes from” …”
Can anyone think of a more “PC” creature with a freshly browned nose than “Whoopy Golberg” (!)? An black convert to … _Judaism_?!… She thinks of her “career” and knows well who rules.
18 Comment by Philip Candido on 7 September 2007:
I want to take this opportunity to blame the south for 9/11. George Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II who all made it possible by ducking from their executive responsibilities, and are from the south. Furthermore, I want to blame the south for heart attacks, that fried chicken is just too fattening. Thirdly, I want to blame the south for drunk driving, that whiskey is too potent. Lastly, I want to blame the south for everything bad that has ever happened to a black man, not only in American History, but for what happened to the blacks enslaved by Arabs and Turks, for blacks who died of malaria and tropical diseases, for blacks who were killed by Romans in Carthage. In fact, the south is responsible for the displacement of the black Pharaohs of the 8th dynasty. When the south did that (4,000 years before there was a South) why, then they forced blacks into dog fighting. The Romans made the blacks do dogfights for their legionaries, but they got the idea from the South lets keep it in perspective. In fact, slave ship owners taught them how to do it on the ship coming over too! So we know the white man, and the South especially is at fault for Michael Vick.
In reality, what concerns me more than the race issue, is the 2 tiers of justice in society. Vick is the latest of celebs to get light duty when average people like you and I would get 10-30 years for the same crimes. If I did half of what Lindsay Lohan is guilty of I would be in jail for 10 years minimum. As Dr. Wilson pointed out, some fool got 30 years for dog fighting. What is happening to Michael Vick? 18 months. They can go to hell as far as I’m concerned. You know the world is upside down when PETA is the only one making sense!
19 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 8 September 2007:
Mea culpa. It apparently was La Goldberg and not La Winfrey who offered the offending observation. I remembered wrong. The memory is the second thing to go, right before the knees.
In my defense, I can say that these pseudo-intellectual celebrities are pretty much interchangeable. That’s what makes them pseudo-intellectuals. It might just as well have been Phil Donohue or Bill Bennett, Sharon Stone or that Huffington woman.
20 Comment by Bill Gardner on 8 September 2007:
Every non-white jumps on the whiteman’s gravy train of success while hammering him with his own (overly liberal) white values. It’s funny. Then he’s supposed to just take it, without even the Jewish luxury of being able to claim that these virulent, chauvanistic non-white folks are anti-Caucasian. The white man is not even ‘allowed’ to do that. And then it gets funnier, none of these ingrates subsequently notices, they ARE the white man’s burden. I wonder when he’ll (whitey) ‘get smart’, adjust his values, and as it were – throw ‘mama’ from the train. Because as soon as he Is in the minority – you can bet given just How these non-white folks Actually behave, their own selves – he’ll be thrown from the train. [I.e. 'mama' metaphorically in this case being the tubby Oprah. Git - mama - bye-bye.] That would be a pay-cut… right now, buckle your seatbelts and realize the ‘oracle’ makes about $750,000 (seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars or 3/4 of a million Per Show) … some say now it’s one million with the peripheral benefits etc. No wonder she has trouble dieting?
But how many times do I have to say it-?-once you lose your airwaves to big business via their quislings in big government, then the third leg of the alien Tripod (their Media) is in place…and so you just get used to eating the moist earth. And stop your dreaming of local culture again, and thus one day high-art again. Now you must if you really want it, take it back. … Truth is a double-edged sword, and didn’t Christ say somewhere – behold the kingdom of heaven, the violent bear it away. It means both the violent (including the passive aggressive) often destroy what’s good, but then too sadly as a result you/we must take action similarly to regain it. Of course they’ve prepared for that eventuality too in advance by setting it up so that just about anyone-any decent-actually patriotic soul can now easily be tarred a ‘terrorist.’ Welcome to the protocols of the alien Tripod and their servants and implementators the neoCons.
As just one [tiny] proof, at least on my computer Paul Craig Roberts’ article on this board “The War Criminal in the Living Room” and all of the comments have been blanked out. As the criminals plan now to destroy Iran. That’s the protocols of the neoConVicts. Except now they run the prison…with mama’s howling approval…she’s paid well. And she’ll tell’ya – ‘way it is.’ You’re right, tubby, way it is. Don’t cry, better call Dr. Phil.
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21 Comment by T. Chan on 8 September 2007:
What is interesting about Whoopi is that she is apparently no longer a die-hard supporter of the Democratic Party. She says her allegiances (and her political views as well?) are currently in flux–might it be possible that she will support Ron Paul? That would be interesting…
22 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 8 September 2007:
Of what possible interest could Whoopi’s political allegiance be to any serious person?
23 Comment by robert m. peters on 8 September 2007:
Was it not so that many of the “abolitionists” consider Southerners to be degenerate because of their close association with blacks? As a corollary to this, women, children and blacks were subordinate, to varying degrees of course, in the antebellum South, noting that as minors children still are, again to varying degrees, in all states; however, in the antebellum North – yes, there was an antebellum North just like there is a 4th of July in the United Kingdom – blacks were both defacto and dejure segregated. There is a difference is being subordinate and in being segregated.
It would now seem the Sowells of this world have put the new argument withershins the old one, namely that now blacks are degenerate for having consorted with us. I suppose such is necessary to fit their new narrative. Whatever their narrative, it seems that we are the bad guys.
More profound profundity I cannot generate at this late hour.
24 Comment by T. Chan on 9 September 2007:
Of what possible interest could Whoopi’s political allegiance be to any serious person?
Dr. Wilson, perhaps those who watch The View are not serious people, and even if Whoopi were to become a Ron Paul supporter and influence members of the audience to look into his candidacy, I’ll grant that things would not get better in this country overnight. But I do think that she has the most potential out of the 4 ladies to make that kind of political conversion, and the effects of that on the discussion of political issues on that show would be welcome.
25 Comment by Tim Manning, Jr. on 9 September 2007:
Our Attorney General, here in South Carolina, has been virtually obsessed with prosecuting dog fighting for the last few years. A black Baptist minister was sentenced to 5 years and $75,000 bond for being caught on tape while witnessing 5 minutes of a dog fight that occured 6 years ago.
Our beloved supreme lawyer, here in SC, is also obsessed with prosecuting every single charge of criminal domestic violence. His typical press conference: “There are just too many people beating up women out there.” TV ads and billboards: “Stop the Silence. Report domestic violence.”
The best Commissioner of Agriculture SC has elected in recent times was removed from office a few years ago and been in jail ever since for being framed, to appear as though he were complicated in a profit of $20,000 for raising chickens for cockfighting.
And, now, our Attorney General has made it all but public that he is running for governor. He faces Gresham Barrett, second only to Ron Paul and Virgil Goode of VA as the best Congressman. Our Charleston scalawag elitist and Speaker of the SC House, Bobby Harrell, is also running. If our Attorney General wins, we can expect 8 years of hearing how backward we are… and all from the sound of his eternally good-ole-boy accent.
This man is obsessed with playing the embarrassed step-uncle of country rubes. He lathers up one of the heaviest Midlands accents known to man, ignores every possible important issue in existance, and then talks about how bad off women and chickens have it because of the backwardness in our tiny little state.
All the while, our rates of cockfighting, dogfighting, and criminal domestic violence are wildly lower than almost every other state. Shameful propaganda.
26 Comment by Jay on 9 September 2007:
“… A black Baptist minister was sentenced to 5 years and $75,000 bond for being caught on tape while witnessing 5 minutes of a dog fight that occured 6 years ago. …”
The filthy scum deserved the sentence. That much is clear.
As for the rest, all some boring local politics, he says, she says, no, he did it, no, she did it, and you see dear, and she says, and I says, life is so hard, blah, blah, blah…
27 Comment by Jay on 9 September 2007:
P.S.
An what do you think of Mr. Hilter’s politics
…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlmGknvr_Pg
28 Comment by Randall Ivey on 10 September 2007:
Tim,
You hit the nail (several times) on the head with regard to the ambiitons of Mr. McMaster (and his unctuousness). May the good people of SC break their Republican thrall long enough to spare us even four years of such a sideshow.
29 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 10 September 2007:
Yes. If I remember rightly he got his start working for Nixon.
30 Comment by Randall Ivey on 10 September 2007:
That explains everything.