The Bundy meltdown is a big PR win but a somewhat unsatisfying sort of victory

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Fri Apr 25, 2014, 03:59 PM - Edit history (1)

It is amusing when a high-profile creationist gets arrested for exposing himself at a schoolyard, but it doesn't really make everyone smarter about science. It just makes creationists, as a category, look worse.

And that's fine... but it would be better if people were smarter about science.

It's like Clarence Thomas and sexual harassment. If he had been kept off the court because of Anita Hill that would have been a tactical victory, but it would have been much much better for the nation if he had been rejected before Hill even contacted the Judiciary committee, as an unqualified nominee who was a liar and RW loon who was picked as an insulting parody of affirmative action to replace another black man with a completely opposite approach to interpreting the Constitution.

You take what you can get, of course.

The real problem with Bundy, in particular, is not that he is a racist. That is indeed A problem with him, but there are millions of old coots in the south and west who say exactly that shit every damn night. "Crazy old man is a racist" is not headline news.

The most noteworthy problem with Bundy is that he was part of what he hoped would be an armed rebellion against the federal government.

It is fine that his big mouth helped expose the very obvious fact that most RW "sovereignty" types are connected to neo-Confederate, white supremacist strains of thought. That is good. Any exposure of that fact helps, in many ways. I am delighted the public has been shown for the billionth time that the "don't let black people vote" Party just might be racist.

But even if Bundy was a mix of MLK and Santa Claus the fact would still remain that you cannot organize the armed intimidation of federal OFFICIALS seeking to execute a COURT ORDER.

Bundy's racism should, in an ideal world, be a side-show to the whole armed rebellion angle. (After all... if his racial attitudes were benign would that make his rebellion okay?)

But we have this situation where some guy commits crimes and that is sort of okay, but then we, as a society, find out that he has certain thoughts and the house caves in.

It is perverse. Like nailing Al Capone on income tax... just as well he's off the streets but ideally a guy who murdered some many people ought not require creative law enforcement.

But, like I said, one takes what one can get. It is good to have Sean Hannity further outed as a neo-confederate crack-pot and hate-monger. It is a good brush-back pitch in the public relations arena.

But last night Sean Hannity, after distancing himself from Bundy's racism, spent the whole opening of his show on property rights conspiracy theories.

And that is because Bundy's PR meltdown did not cut to the heart of property rights conspiracy theories.

His PR meltdown did not come from the entire national press rising up to condemn a man who thought federal employees were clay pigeons because he has a demented theory that the Federal Government is legally illegitimate.

It came from some guy who (in media eyes) may or may not have some good points to make about whether the Federal fucking government even exists (???) turning out to be a racist asshat.

It's a victory. It's an important victory, in the tactical public relations world.

But it is not the sort of victory one *hopes* the system ought to produce, which are victories of law and principle.

[warrior1]

1. Rachel Maddow

pointed this out last night quite well. They should nail this guy to every gop who supported him.

[rhett o rick]

6. Nail him to Republicans that didnt condemn him. nm

[NastyRiffraff]

22. Rachel was brilliant

She pointed out that Rand Paul et al should have seen this coming, as the whole "The Federal government doesn't exist because I don't recognize it" thing had its roots in the Jim Crow South; specifically a reaction to Federal troops guarding the desegregated school in Little Rock. That group was saying exactly what Bundy has been saying all along: No Federal government and only the county sheriff has authority.

[JI7]

2. racism is a big part of why these militia and other gun nuts exist

so it does matter and is a big part of it .

[Skittles]

5. yup - racism and utter cowardice

I am sick of America increasingly sucking up to these kind of pathetic people - we're supposed to be the HOME OF THE BRAVE, not a bunch of paranoid, racist gun humpers

[2naSalit]

9. ^^^THIS^^^

Indeed. I live out here where I encounter the gun-humpin' crowd every time I set foot outside my cabin. Rachel was absolutely correct and I am thankful that she was able to so eloquently connect all the historical dots on where this idealism comes from and how it has remained an issue from its inception.

It is about racism in every bit as much as it is about insurrection through violence and intimidation by promoting ignorance for the sake of a dangerous cause.

[Arugula Latte]

3. Great post. Well said.

[Democracyinkind]

4. That is so true. It's quite sad that...

... it took his outing himself as a racist to discredit himself. Everything he has done in the last 20 years should have taken care of that. But as you said, we have to take what we get. Better this than nothing. But it says much that it took his ignorant racism to make him a persona non grata. As if freeloading and inciting rebellion isn't a problem at all...

[LadyHawkAZ]

7. I agree with you

but on the other hand, the loss of support may mean that the BLM will now be able to enforce their order without the whole thing turning into another Ruby Ridge and reinforcing the Teabagger Militia movement. It is a sad win, but I think it still counts as a win, with no bloodshed, and I'll take that- we have few enough wins these days.

[cthulu2016]

11. Yes, that is also valid. It is a logistical victory insofar as

fewer guns will show up next time... at least at his ranch.

[Skidmore]

8. It is not a matter of taking what you can get. It is a

necessary fight. The beliefs of this man are blatantly racist and has been given legitimacy by the Republicans. These people have become emboldened after having been forced into the shadows for several decades. We need to continue the fight against the Bundys of the nation and unseat those like him in political office. As far as I'm concerned, this is an important fight, an important victory, and I want to see dancing on the ideological graves of those who lose this type of battle to underscore the unacceptability of hatred to civil society.

[cthulu2016]

10. I agree that the fight over neo-Confederacy as the heart of the Republican Party is important

Very important.

But I also think that training weapons of federal officials executing a court order is a sufficiently serious offense that it is perverse that it took racist comments to make RWers back away from him.

The implication is that RWers CAN align themselves with insurrectionists as long as the insurrectionists don't say overtly racist stuff.

[Skidmore]

12. RWers are synonymous with insurrectionist racists now.

It is recognizable in the policies they push and their political language. I'm waiting for the Koch brothers to be exposed for the racists they are. You can't be a member of a founding member of the Birchers and not have absorbed the lessons of racism at its heart.

[Paladin]

13. Well-put, but I'm having a hard time feeling any sadness about this victory.

We need to wrap Bundy and his sick beliefs around the Repub's necks and exploit it to the max. No mercy on this one---I want Hannity to wear the shameful title of Bundy Enabler In Chief for the rest of his miserable life.

[cthulu2016]

14. I changed "sad" to unsatisfying, which I think captures it better

I am uncomfortable with the usual form of the media take-down where we weigh things (nationally) based on who is an overall "good guy."

What if Bundy was more politically skilled? Then we would still (nationally) be talking about whether its okay to organize a private army to fight a court order.

It's like the "Obamacare harmed me" anecdotes. I like seeing them punctured, but I dislike the implication that such anecdotes have any meaning. Of course somebody, somewhere, is somehow harmed. Any program that sweeping will have some sob story somewhere. Hell, air-bags have killed people, but it's not a sufficient argument against air-bags so I wouldn't want air-bag policy decidied on annecdote.

So I don't like relying upon the RW's (amazing) incompetence in coming up with any legit example. I don't like that we discuss anecdote as policy analysis to begin with.

But yes, I do enjoy the fact-check implosions of the individual Obamacare stories.

[applegrove]

15. Shows you just how desperate the GOP

is for 'new blood' where people and their right wing stories go. I mean almost all the anti-obamacare stories turned out to be wrong. How on earth can they get folk to continuously hate government if they don't have anyone with stories to support that.

[ProSense]

16. Whatever

"Bundy's racism should, in an ideal world, be a side-show to the whole armed rebellion angle. (After all... if his racial attitudes were benign would that make his rebellion okay?)"

...it takes to expose these assholes. I don't find it the least bit "unsatisfying" because Bundy is not a tiny cog. This is someone who escaped justice for decades, and his well-funded and well-connected. He may not be the highest on the rung, but he's a millionaire who has the backing of the very people who are trying to subvert the government with billions at their disposal.

The Kochs’ AFP starts scrubbing its Bundy support
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024870874

There is nothing preventing anyone from continuing to expose the "armed rebellion" lunacy tied to the actions of this racist.

Harry Reid called them what they are "domestic terrorists."

[RainDog]

17. Here's the science on race

Scientists Say Race Has No Biological Basis

Joseph Graves, Jr. professor of evolutionary biology at Embry-Riddle University, and author of The Emperor's New Clothes: Biological Theories of Race at the Millennium.

The measured amount of genetic variation in the human population is extremely small, and that's something that people need to wrap themselves around, that genetically we really aren't very different from each other. Most of that genetic variability can be found within populations. For example, about 93% of all of the genetic variability that exits on this planet occurs within Sub-Saharan Africans. So, if there were a catastrophe which destroyed the rest of the world's population, 93% of the genetic variability in the world would still be present in Sub-Saharan Africans.

The reason why we don't define races in the human species is because the within-group genetic variability is greater than the between-group genetic variability. Now, that's an elementary component of any statistical tests. If the within-group variability is larger than the between-group variability, then we say that the groups are not different. Now, the way we measure genetic variability in humans, we can do it at a number of levels. You can even use physical variability, and we still wouldn't reconstruct racial groups. If we looked at even skin color and ask ourselves, "Does skin color map consistently to racial groups?" the answer is no.

http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-01-06.htm

At a 1995 conference on anthropology -

http://articles.latimes.com/1995-02-20/news/mn-34098_1_biological-basis

Race is a social construct derived mainly from perceptions conditioned by events of recorded history, and it has no basic biological reality," said C. Loring Brace, a biological anthropologist at the University of Michigan.

The researchers were acting, in part, to correct a legacy of misconceptions about the biology of race, in which earlier generations of researchers provided the raw material for spurious claims of racial superiority. "They liked to concoct a biological basis for mistreating people," said Brown University anthropologist John Ladd.

The work discussed Sunday draws on a new ability to reconstruct the genetic evolution of humankind and a new appreciation for how humanity developed genetic diversity as it spread around the globe.

With the tools of molecular biology, scientists can peer past superficial characteristics to explore more powerful, underlying genetic commonalities and differences, which are making racial categories look increasingly arbitrary and irrelevant, the experts said.

In the 1940s, scientists recognized that things that were considered "race" were simply phenotypes (outward appearance) due to geographic locations that favored more or less melanin for climates, etc.

Racial categorization makes no sense - we're all members of one human race - https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8bb2r5h9#page-2

Socially-contructed RACISM, however, accounts for many problems faced by those who are the target of such stressful cultural beliefs.

[Clyde Tenson]

18. There's no "Victory" here until Justice is served...

The racial aspect just speaks to this man's being who he is. The issue here is he's breaking the law. We have a justice system that has a clear course to follow. Additionally, those that threatened government agents with automatic weapons also need to be rounded up and arraigned as our laws dictate. Where the fuck is Bundy grazing his cattle these days? Why is this bumbling old Asshat walking around free as you please giving interviews to our pissant media whores. What the fuck Holder...get this shit done and off my screen.

[historylovr]

26. +1

[Marshall III]

19. I think it turned out to be a victory, but I feel sorry for the old man.

He's certainly a bigot, but you don't have to listen to him very long to realize that he is not quite all there. He may be certifiably slow, not just old age, lack of sense, or even evil....he's off in the head.

I think it would be better for the country and progressives if we spend more time looking at the heavily armed whackos who were pointing guns at law enforcement. They are the story and the real problem.

[MindMover]

20. It is not a victory because you realize how pathetically ignorant the other half are ... nt

[Leith]

21. Nope. No Sympathy as All

Usually I try to see things from the other person's point of view. In this case, there's nothing except "I got mine AND yours so eff u."

Reichwingers tried to hold Bundy up as some sort of salt of the earth, hard worker, just trying to eke out a living from the harsh desert. Too bad for them that the whole awful truth came out. They steal what isn't theirs, consider themselves better than other people based on nothing but hatred, and are so stupid that it's surprising that they can actually speak.

Now Hannity et al are trying to distance themselves from the very people who watch their shows and listen to them on the radio. Just who did Sean think was tuning in every day? It sure as hell wasn't the Romneys or Kochs! It was regular folks like the Bundys and the dangerous criminals who went to his ranch hoping to shoot BLM employees.

Interesting sidenote: Sharron "Obtuse" Angle's husband is retired from the BLM. Anyone heard from her during this whole thing?

The rats are turning on each other. Time for the popcorn.

Sorry to sound so harsh, but I'm fed up with the BS from the reichwing. Let them kill each other.

[DirkGently]

23. Yes, there is a dangerous implication here.

... in taking "Bundy's a racist so we win" to the bank. Which is that had he not been infirm enough to not even understand how to keep his racist views quiet, we'd still be having a "debate" as to whether a bunch of yahoos in military gear are justified in pointing rifles at federal law enforcement over some COWS.

Rachel Maddow did a good job pointing out the nexus between racism and state's rights extremism, right back to the Civil War and the Jim Crow South. There is a long thread connecting the claim to local sovereignty to the "right" to abuse and discriminate.

But they can easily cut that plank out of the platform, at least publicly. Hell, the right-wingers actually thought they were okay for a moment when Bundy denied saying anything about "picking cotton."

If Mr. Bundy had just had a few more of his wits left, he wouldn't have mentioned his white supremacist leanings. He would have stuck with God, Guns and State's Rights and we'd still be "discussing" whether armed men threatening a bloodbath constitute "protesters" where right-wingers are involved.

Where was Hannity's reticence when that former sheriff was talking about using women as "human shields" to try to manufacture a tragedy?

So where will we be the next time the cowboys and the militias and the sovereign citizen tax protesters ride up and take sniper positions?

It's very nice those concerned with nothing but a "tactical win" are happy. And yes, it is enough for the moment that the crazies have crawled away temporarily.

But very little happened here to undermine the confidence of the NRA-flavored philosophy that you can maybe shoot at federal law enforcement if a Democrat is in the White House and you don't feel like holding up your end of the social contract. Or their belief they are the spearhead of a rightwing "revolution" where the military and the cops will refuse to fight "brother against brother."

What's going to happen the next time they set up a standoff over "land rights" or taxes or whatever, and manage not to put someone up front who's going to wax nostalgic about slavery?

[Harcourdt Fenton Mud]

24. I will not be satisfied until

every one of those assholes that leveled a weapon at a federal agent is in jail and can never legally own a weapon again.

[Cosmocat]

25. Its no "victory" in any way, shape or form, in fact, it is

another incremental victory on behalf of republican lunacy.

Every other day the republicans get full out behind some jackass like this, who is pretty apparently a scumbag of some sort, Joe the Plummer, the asshole who shot Travon Martin. LITERALLY, a couple times a month some POS becomes a cause celebrity for them, and 90% of the time they have to abandon ship when something like this comes out.

So, this is nothing new in that regard.

But, when the dust settles, we just had an armed insurrection. These people lined up against federal agents with guns pointed at them, SERIOUSLY pointed at them.

And ...

Nothing happened.

They went home and ate dinner.

THIS is how far this nonsense has gotten, and it is just another incredibly unbelievable step toward Republicans, for no real reason other than their being a democrat in the white house, push the line further and further.

It really is incredible.