Ted Sampley, one of Swift Boaters who went on television lying about John Kerry's service in Vietnam, is having fun over at his site U.S. Veteran Dispatch, running this graphic at left. Jesus' General decided to write him ("From Swiftboating to Pork Shot Hand Ointment") and asked about the use of this tasteful imagery. A snippet:
Shoule we be pleased that Sampley didn’t put a bone through his nose for good measure?Ted Sampley
Professional VeteranDear Ted,
Although I was a big fan of your swiftboating operation against John Kerry, I haven't visited your website in a couple of years. It's good to see to you're giving John McCain the same treatment. I particularly enjoyed the story about how McCain can't be president because he suffered from PTSD after the war. Civilians just can't exploit the old crazy-Vietnam-vet stereotype as credibly as someone like you, a conservative professional veteran, can.
…ps: I just noticed the Obama graphic you're using. I'm wondering why you chose that one. Did you think just slapping the word "nigger" across his face would be a little too subtle for your readers?
***
Meanwhile, the following is no surprise…
Rush’s spade-ho-rama
What a class act, raising the political discourse and turning down the race and gender rhetoric. After Rush Limbaugh’s “Barack the Magic Negro,” Mr. Hillbilly Heroin follows up the fun with this trash. (C&L): (C&L):
Limbaugh:…Obama is holding his own against both of them – doing more than his share of the “spade” work. Maybe even gaining ground at the moment. Using not only the spade ladies and gentleman—that when he finishes with the “spade” in the garden of corruption planted by the Clinton’s, he turns to the “hoe.” And so the spade work and his expertise using a hoe.
56 Responses to “Yes, this Kerry Swift Boater has no problem ‘going there’”
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Ay yi yi yi yi….
There are no words.
Gyah…
I am hoping that these disgusting attacks bubble-wrapped in ‘humor’ will have the opposite of the intended effect.
Let’s remember what happens when people are encouraged to “go there.”
I’m teaching Race and Ethnicity again this semester. Started class today. Niewert has been so on the case about the mainstreaming of neo-confederate/white supremacist bullshit through the republican machine. Glad I’m using one of his books, and I guess we’ll be discussing how openly white supremacist racial projects are making a comeback.
Fuck, that’s a conversation I wish weren’t necessary.
And they wonder why there are no African-Americans in the Republican party.
BTW, speaking of mainstreaming racism, the editor of Golfweek has some ’splaining to do.
What is WRONG with people. Jeezus.
This will most definitely undo the charade the wingnuts have been making for the past twenty years about their own brand of inclusion. The Devil is forced out into the light of day.
Race baiting and misogyny, and our good friend Canada teaching their diplomats how to determine if their citizens have been tortured by us. Sick.
I am so ashamed.
I’ll never understand people who build their whole lives (and livelihoods) around cruelty. Do they have no other talents?
But I though racism was in the past? Tony Snow said so.
(By the way, Google apparently thinks that link up there in the line above is OMGZ TEH MALWARE. What’s up with that?)
Oh. My. God. Rush Limbaugh, with the spades and ho(e)s? Wow. He’s still missing a few racist terms—I imagine those will get aired in his future shows.
If you’ve never seen Col. Joe Schlatter’s MIA facts site it’s well worth the time.
In case anyone doesn’t know, there was a whole right-wing meme recently about how Hillary Clinton used the phrase “spadework” (innocuously, one assumes) in a speech. I’m not really sure where the story originated, but it was popular with right-wing concern trolls.
I have no doubt Rush did this to garner attention, so he can turn around and say “see, look at the bias! the libruls didn’t go after Hillary for saying the same thing!”
I cannot *believe* this shit sometimes.
I never understood the Swiftboaters. Why go after Kerry, who admittedly didn’t have it as tough as a lot of other vets, when they were only supporting an asshole who got cushy Air National Guard job due to his political connections and then went AWOL? Plus it was pretty clear by that time that Bush sent our forces over there for a lie. You think the vet community would have gone apeshit over that, Kerry should have responded to this more quickly and more emotionally. He should have screamed and maybe even cried at a press conference just days afterward.
And what’s with this “son of a Luo” business? Is Sampley trying to get out the Kikiyu vote?
Seriously, Africa is not as backward as people think. Two minor grain crops come from there, milo and millet. They figured out how to smelt iron there without ever having smelted tin or copper. Zulus practiced minor skull surgery. They could remove a section of the skull to prevent damage caused by swelling of the brain. They even were sometimes to get the bone fragment to fuse back into the skull. They must have known about vigorous hand washing and sterilizing their instruments to manage that.
I thought “spade” as a racist slur meant “Mexican.”
I thought “spade” as a racist slur meant “Mexican.”
Oh, god, do I really want to play, “get the slur right”?
Generally, Spade has referred to blacks, while Spic has been a reference to Mexicans.
Reminds me of a Margaret Cho joke: Upon being called a “Chink” on the street, she replied by screaming, “I’m a gook! Get it right!”
I hate the fact that this shit is still relevant…shit, still central.
I showed this graphic to my husband, with a comment like “Can you believe this shit?”
He replied: “But that’s a proud thing, an honorable thing, Being the son of a Luo tribesman.”
And I thought about it, and yeah. It is.
It’s like a rightwinger posting a picture of a woman with the text: “She thinks she’s Human!”
Yeah. She does.
It is interesting when what they say to insult isn’t even insulting, they just THINK it is. Like they have travelled all the way around until they have reached the Null Point.
I can think of more; a picture of an Native American “We Stole His Land”.
a picture of a Mexican “He works hard!”
Disgusting, using McCain’s PTSD as a reason to make him “unelectable”. Thanks Mr. Sampley doing your part to stigmatize mental illness. Creep.
It’s like a rightwinger posting a picture of a woman with the text: “She thinks she’s Human!”
I’d say it’s more like they post a picture of a woman with the text: “No balls.”
Objectively, taken on its own, divorced of all cultural context, it’s not positive or negative–it’s just a fact. But it’s silly not to recognize how loaded the presentation of that fact is.
(I’d also like to point out that facts about an individual’s parentage or basic biology are not the same thing as sweeping statements about whole groups of people. A lot of people do, in fact, find stereotypes objectively offensive, even if they’re ostensibly sympathetic stereotypes.)
If I recall aright, “Spic” properly denotes a Spaniard, but might refer to any Spanish-speaking person, who can’t quite “spic” English. We’ve got lots of ugly words for Mexicans.
I haven’t heard “Spade” used for decades. That goes back to “Shaft” and “Superfly”.
It reminds me of a couple of old jokes:
1) Let’s call a spade a fucking shovel.
2) Harry and Bess Truman and a guest were touring the White House rose garden. Harry kept talking about how well the roses were doing with a fresh application of manure.
The guest complained to Bess that “manure” was too undignified a word for the President to use. Couldn’t she convince him to say “fertilizer” instead? Bess replied, “Do you know how long it’s taken me to get him to call it manure?”
A spade is the pointy bladed garden thingy; a shovel is the flat bladed garden thingy. Got both in the barn.
As I found out earlier this week, the FCC does not publicly release its rules of what folks can or cannot say, nor a list of exact fines and penalties for violations. And as long as we continue to have a society that listens to pond scum like Limbaugh et al, that is unlikely to change.
In this context it’s particularly ironic to point out how this demonstrates that it has nothing to do with service, duty, honor, or any of that stuff and boils down to…
…pure “tribal” identity.
It’s just Us versus Them to these people, and they rely on authority, not an independent interpretation of deeds, to know who They are. That way they are toadying to authority–to power–and dignifying themselves with all that military-code malarkey (which may or may not be baloney in general, but certainly is as meant by these people) and even making themselves out to be victims of some kind of persecution while in fact sheltering like so many minnows in a school or sheep in a herd behind the say-so of the powerful.
It is profoundly depressing to contemplate; even worse to someone raised in The Fortress who was taught that all this crap meant something.
Though actually when you are raised a military brat, you find plenty of evidence early on that The Purpose of Power Is Power and no one looks out for the loser who gets cut out of the herd.
“Yea though I walk through the Valley of Death I will fear no Evil;
For I AM THE MEANEST S.O.B. IN THE VALLEY!”
Bluster like that, doubtless easy to demonstrate against a 14-yr old nerd, is the stuff of military “honor” as actually demonstrated, all too often.
Rush “Uncivil War” monologue in its entirety. The monologue is really quite flattering to Obama. Don’t believe the “out of context” version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5ya0q1achM&feature=PlayList&p=7F2C1B5FF07E3864&index=0&playnext=1
Hillary defending BET chairman’s comments about Obama. Watch till the end to see her having it both ways unchallenged.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22673948#22673948
I’m a hard core conservative, but I will vote for Obama if Huckabilly or McCain is on the Repub ticket. I admire Obama’s intelligence and character. With those two traits, he’ll learn quickly on the job and will govern fairly and with wisdom. Besides, Michelle went to the same school as my son.
“As I found out earlier this week, the FCC does not publicly release its rules of what folks can or cannot say, nor a list of exact fines and penalties for violations.”
Couldn’t someone just put in a FOIA request and then slap a scan of the result up on the web? Though I’m not sure what FCC secrecy weirdness has to do with Limbaugh being popular in spite of being jaw-droppingly racist.
If they never clarify what is or isn’t permissible then they solidify their ability to impose the rules “within their discretion”. ie: arbitrarily.Was I the only one who looked at that picture and thought that it reeked of fear and desperation, of incipient panic amongst the mouthbreathers out there?
“If they never clarify what is or isn’t permissible then they solidify their ability to impose the rules “within their discretion”. ie: arbitrarily.”
I took the “publicly” to mean that, while broadcasters are told what they can and can’t say, the general public is not. Which is exceedingly dodgy, especially in an agency that seems to do most of its investigation based on public complaints, but not as dodgy as officially basing fines on their fines on how they’re feeling that particular day.
preying mantis, my point is that Rush, pet of the repugs, can get away with saying whatever the hell he wants to, as can so many others of his ilk. He is FAR more racist on a daily basis that Imus was- yet where is the public outcry and demands that he get pulled from the airwaves?
Rush “Uncivil War” monologue in its entirety. The monologue is really quite flattering to Obama. Don’t believe the “out of context” version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5ya0q1achM&feature=PlayList&p=7F2C1B5FF07E3864&index=0&playnext=1
Hillary defending BET chairman’s comments about Obama. Watch till the end to see her having it both ways unchallenged.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/22673948#22673948
I’m a hard core conservative, but I will vote for Obama if Huckabilly or McCain is on the Repub ticket. I admire Obama’s intelligence and character. With those two traits, he’ll learn quickly on the job and will govern fairly and with wisdom. Besides, Michelle went to the same school as my son.
That picture falls under the category of things I wish my nice kind liberal blogs wouldn’t repost because it freaks me out…but at the same time I’m glad they do. I tend to walk around thinking these kind of ignorant hateful morons don’t exist and being confronted with them makes me sick to my stomach. Anything from “The God Hates Fags” guy makes me feel the same way.
When did the dog whistle become a parade-caliber marching band?
“preying mantis, my point is that Rush, pet of the repugs, can get away with saying whatever the hell he wants to, as can so many others of his ilk. He is FAR more racist on a daily basis that Imus was- yet where is the public outcry and demands that he get pulled from the airwaves?”
…but what does that have to do with the FCC? The FCC isn’t why Imus was temporarily pulled, and given that what he said was neither profane nor obscene, they’d probably have had problems trying to fine the station for that even if they’d wanted to. Imus going on hiatus was due to public pressure applied directly on his employers and his advertisers.
As for where the outcry is with Limbaugh, I really have no idea. There’s probably some sense of futility, since this isn’t a one-off instance of veiled racism becoming blatant racism–his employers, advertisers, and listeners all know exactly what they’re getting. The station isn’t susceptible to threats of lost ratings because Limbaugh listeners aren’t going anywhere–if what he’s saying now upset them, they’d have turned him off a year or two ago. While the rest of the media is content to turn a blind eye to what he’s saying, the advertisers don’t need to worry about a sizable backlash. Beyond that, I have no explanation for the lack of public outcry. I’m just befuddled about the FCC reference.
OH MY GOSH! You mean these conservative intellectuals, these GOP gadflys, these bozeros of Edmund Burke, are actually racists?
Stunned, yes STUNNED I am upon hearing this revelation.
I never understood the Swiftboaters. Why go after Kerry, who admittedly didn’t have it as tough as a lot of other vets, when they were only supporting an asshole who got cushy Air National Guard job due to his political connections and then went AWOL?
It was because John Kerry kicked John O’Neill’s ass in a debate about Vietnam back in the 1970s when they went on “The Dick Cavett Show,” and O’Neill held a grudge ever since.
No, seriously. That’s what it was. One guy managed to get his personal grudge back on national television and affect the course of US history, all because our fucked-up media is happy to give airtime to anyone who wants to bash a Democrat.
But I’m not bitter.
If a Democratic vice president of the United States had appeared as a guest on the radio show of someone who refers to black people as “spades” and women as “hoes,” the screaming would be long and loud.
Why do Republicans always get a pass on things like this?
MAJeff said, “Generally, Spade has referred to blacks, while Spic has been a reference to Mexicans.”
Actually, “spic” is reserved for puerto ricans, and “wetbacks” typically denote mexicans in the white racist lexicon.
Yes, it reminds me of Pam’s post from Monday, where Donald Wildmon was talking about how the portrayal of multidimensional gay characters on TV show can bring about the horror of “reducing prejudice”!For fun: Jon Carroll, a columnist in the San Francisco chronicle, wrote today about how the male candidates for president are faring in terms of correctly managing their maleness, a tongue-in-cheek reversal of the gendered crap Hillary Clinton is getting all the time.
Actually, “spic” is reserved for puerto ricans, and “wetbacks” typically denote mexicans in the white racist lexicon.
Not in MN it wasn’t.
Not in Oregon, either, where Puerto Ricans were as scarce as Kennedys. I’ve only very rarely heard it used in MA, and then only when I had my hair dyed henna red and had a really good tan.
I got the impression that it was a contraction of “Hispanic”.
i suppose it does depend upon the region, and the racial groups represented in each area. here in NY, “spic” is a racist term reserved for puerto ricans.
“If a Democratic vice president of the United States had appeared as a guest on the radio show of someone who refers to black people as “spades” and women as “hoes,” the screaming would be long and loud.
Why do Republicans always get a pass on things like this?”
If a Democrat says it, it’s an example of hypocrisy because Democrats are supposed to be more tolerant and understanding.
If a Rethug says it, s/he’s just being true to form and saying exactly the kind of thing we all expect from Rethugs.
Important point: This shows that in America v2.0, being perceived as a hypocrite is a far worse “media crime” than openly being a racist.
It’s similar to this idea: John Kerry ACTUALLY WENT to Vietnam, while GWB pulled strings to avoid being sent over and getting his ass shot at. But since Kerry (according to questionable sources) didn’t perform the role of American soldier in the correct way, he’s a traitor to all we hold dear.
When GWB drinks and parties, pretends to be a hot-shot fighter pilot, and then “forgets” to serve the last couple years of his TANG stint, that’s okay because he’s somehow a “real soldier”. And his stateside duty made him a far better choice for Commander in Chief than the man who actually went.
If I live to be 100-years old, I’ll never understand this perception-over-substance problem the Reichwing seems to have…
i suppose it does depend upon the region, and the racial groups represented in each area. here in NY, “spic” is a racist term reserved for puerto ricans.
I think this is right. I’ve heard the slur throughout the country. However, the concentration of brownish spanish-speaking people it’s applied to varies–in rural Minnesota, it was usually Mexicans, and there simply weren’t any Puerto Ricans around. Here in Boston, it’s quite different. A lot more Puerto Ricans and Dominicans than Mexicans. I think the general thing is that it’s a handy slur to be applied to which ever Latino population lives near or among white folks in a given part of the country.
shorter me: racist politics is local.
I’ve only recently become aware of “spade” as a racist term (grew up outside the US, which might explain it). I’m pretty sure “spadework” has no racist history outside the US - certainly it’s been in use for a looong time to simply mean actually getting shit done.
I grew up in a fairly racist part of the country. The only place I ever heard the term “spade” was on my parents “Hair” soundtrack and the Ted Joans poetry my aunt gave me. Until recently I assumed it was a term that African-American hipsters used in the ’70’s amongst themselves but would be considered racist if outsiders used it. Sort of like N***a is nowdays.
The asshole lawyers have taken the video off the internet as far as I can see, but here’s a transcript of the classic “Word Association” sketch with Chevy Chase as the interviewer and Richard Pryor as the job applicant.
I just realized that my post sounds totally ignorant. My point was that I thought “spade” was an aging hipster term and that it’s pejorative usage had long been dead. Sort of like the term beat. Obviously I was wrong. I’m well aware that the N word is alive and kicking as a derogatory term.
re: spade
1. Just because it’s old and uncommon doesn’t mean it’s not offensive any more.
and
2. Racists do so looooooove to use those “dogwhistle” words… and thus “spade” is back as a term of offense.
Hmmm…spade and hoe. Sounds like they may be “code words”. Nigger and whore perhaps? Surely not.
Tell you what, Rush. Maybe I’ll head out to my garden shed and fetch my real spade and hoe. I’ll shove one down your throat and one up your fat ass.
Sorry, you were saying something?
“I never understood the Swiftboaters.”
What I didn’t understand is that we heard very little about how swiftboater Jerome Corsi said things like “Hellary,” “Chubby Chelsea” and “Mullah Ali’Gore-ah is proud of his regulation Osama beard” on freerepublic–and the only things that happened were that his role in the “Unfit for Command” book was slightly “reduced,” but he got exposure to consider moving to MA to run against Kerry in the Senate.
Whereas Amanda and Melissa get run off a campaign for making far less controversial comments about Catholics.
Rush reminds me of young children who become infinitely amused by using expletives like “ship!” in front of their parents. They find it hilarious that they are able to say things while claiming that they’re not technically doing anything wrong.
This is the way he and his listeners need to be dealt with: like children.
“Spade” may not be the hottest slur among hip young racists, but I don’t doubt that most of Rush’s fans got the reference.
After all, “son of a Luo tribesman” isn’t a common insult either (although it does sound like something Captain Haddock might say).
Re racist slurs: maybe I just don’t get out much and therefore don’t hear the really nasty terms, but here in California the mere terms “Mexican” or “Hispanic,” not to mention “illegals,” are often said with quite enough venom to count as vicious, derogatory words.
And within days of arriving in California, I started hearing people attack “Orientals” as a category. There was this guy for instance who was leaving Caltech (just as I was arriving, all full of enthusiasm and pride I had managed to get in) and gave as his reasons that there were “too many [gays, though that’s not the term he used] and”–actually I think that maybe he actually said “Asians” which was remarkable in 1983. Or maybe he said “Chinese.” Whatever; although one of my “gee, there’s more racism than I thought in my own circles” epiphanies I had before leaving high school did involve people being racist against a half-Asian girl, I had thought that anti-Asian bigotry was especially a thing of the past. Nope, alive (well, undead anyway) and “well” here on the West Coast.
Anyway except for the n-word, most of the more outrageous slurs I have only heard in movies or read in books.
But I really don’t get out much.
Regarding the Rush issue: Barack the magic negro came out of a comment a democrat made about Obama. Further, the spade comment was a response to HRC’s comment about Obama not doing the spade work necessary to be elected. HRC started using racist code words, and encouraging others (including blacks) to tear Obama down along the same lines. It’s easy to pin it all on Rush, but he’s only reflecting the racism problem with liberals.
Remember: it was the Democrats who were brought kicking and screaming to the Civil rights Act.
Now days I live in a city. Racism (does “racism” include white european groups?) is very much there but much more coded. People will talk about stores/restaurants/clubs that appeal to the “young urban” or “ghetto” population. Or they’ll say things like, “There’s some great Mexican/Cambodian/Chinese restaurants in that area.” People will talk about the North South East or West part of town as code for people of different ethnic groups. The same racist jokes that I heard as a kid in a small town are now reworded as stories about “a guy from the North part of town” instead of a story about a “N****er.”
So while Rush using the word “spade” is both shocking and odd to my ears. It kind of goes back to the Malcolm X northern racist vs. southern racist thing. In someways I’d rather hear it because it’s much easier to label and call it out. It’s racism in its underwear. You can kind of laugh at it and go “Really?!?? You’re reaching back to the 1930’s for your racial slurs.”
But the graphic of Obama is another issue. It’s meant to play on all our xenophobia and racism without coming out and saying it. In alot of ways it’s much more dirty and ugly to me. You really gotta’ read the article that goes along with it to get the full impact of just how underhanded it is. It makes a bunch of statements of “fact” about Obama many of which are unarguably true. I’ve had more than a few people point out to me that his middle name was Hussein in an arched eye-brow “You know what that means wink-wink nudge-nudge” sort of way. Then I’ll call them on it and ask, “Why is that important to you?” and before long the conversation devolves into “Are you calling me a racist? That really is his middle name.” And I’m never really sure how to handle it.
It’s easy to pin it all on Rush, but he’s only reflecting the racism problem with liberals.
Yeah I think Jonah Goldberg has been spewing similar nonsense recently.
Black is really white. Up is really down. Liberals are actually fascists.
Go give the pantload a hug. Tell him I said hi.