I don't like Condoleeza Rice

i'm basing my comments on her earlier appearances, where i wouldn't give her a public speaking prize but compared to bush and rumsfeld she comes across as at least composed and able to construct a sentence of college-level density, even if it is a string of brazen lies.

A LIKELY STORY.

she was like a virtuoso pianist at age 4 or something, right? and graduated from college at 15. at that rate of aging, she could have turned senile a while ago, or maybe she's just a robot

Also, amateurist, Condi comes from a very upper-class black family from Birmingham. So they're not exactly the Kennedys (or the Bushes), but she's had a lot of the "world handed to her" as well. Granted, yes I think she probably deserves that more than Dubya (she does seem to have worked hard despite her background), but don't ignore her upbringing.

hstencil - my post wasnt specifically addressed to you or anyone really, in fact it was inspired by amateurist's. i just happen to know some people i'd call highly intelligent who can't communicate their thoughts verbally very well, so i always want to make this point of the danger of automatically correlating the two

i don't think you should necessarily judge people's intelligence levels by their public speaking competence, or even general articulateness, at all times. i think she appears to have a more humane side to her than the rest of BushCo, which is why she may seem more appealing or digestable to some.

would be about her! Y'know, since this is a thread about her, and all.

anyway has anyone here met any other "condoleeza"s in real life ? i never have

In fact, she has done just about everything early-the very picture of American overachievement.

She was born in Birmingham, Ala., in 1954, when Jim Crow-and that regime's local enforcer, Bull Connor-held sway. Both parents were teachers. Condi was a schoolmate of Denise McNair, one of the girls murdered in the infamous church bombing. Later the Rice family moved to Tuscaloosa, where Condi's father, John Rice, was a dean at Stillman College, a predominantly black school. Mother and father, says Rice, "felt strongly about pushing ahead in education"; their Wunderkind, as a result, "had lessons in everything-piano, skating, ballet, French . . ." She skipped first grade, and also the seventh.

When Condi was 13, the family moved to Colorado, so that John Rice could become a vice chancellor of the University of Denver, where he had earned an advanced degree. He was-and is-a Republican (as well as an ordained Presbyterian minister). For one thing, he abhorred the Dixiecrats who were the Democratic party in the South. For another, it was simply easier to register with the Republicans. (The Democrats, typically, had demanded that he guess the number of beans in a jar.)

[note, it's from the national review, so last sentence makes sense]

You know, like Obama.

Condola Rice has been a terrible NSA. The only large-scale terrorist attack in the United States happened on her watch. But its reassuring that in a country with such a large population of stupid people that one can still be rewarded for failure. It's a lesson I hope to pass on to my son (after I get him his first job).

Let's shorten that to "Uncle Tom" and we're all set...

My face lacks the musculature required to execute the cringe this information inspires.

-- Jimmy Mod always makes friends with women before bedding them down (Mod...), November 17th, 2004.

well technically isn't she an "aunt tom" then?

her pronunciation wasn't even close!

i thought the story was that her parents named her orpah (after someone in the bible? i dunno), but the doctor wrote it down wrong on the birth certificate.

A Moabitess; daughter-in-law of Naomi, and wife of Mahlon. After the death of her husband, Orpah and her sister-in-law Ruth wished to go to Judea with Naomi. She was persuaded, however, by Naomi to return to her people and to her gods (Ruth i. 4 et seq.).

In rabbinical literature Orpah is identified with Harafa, the mother of the four Philistine giants (comp. II Sam. xxi. 22); and these four sons were said to have been given her for the four tears which she shed at parting with her mother-in-law (Soṭah 42b). She was a sister of Ruth; and both were daughters of the Moabite king Eglon (Ruth R. ii. 9). Her name was changed to "Orpah" because she turned her back on her mother-in-law (ib.; comp. Soṭah l.c.). She was killed by David's general Abishai, the son of Zeruiah (Sanh. 95a).E. C. J. Z. L.

The irony of Oprah being associated with "Philistine" giants is to sweet to ignore. I mean in the small "p" sense.

con dolce lezza

What mind-altering substances must you be on to look at the letters O-R-P-A-H in that order and think, "Oh, how lovely! That would be a perfect name for a girl!" That's above and beyond naming your kid Galadriel, which at least SOUNDS nice.

Um, x-post. Maybe.

I still think Orca makes more sense.

Do I intentionally call to mind the image of a gristly Michael Douglas rubbing himself all over Catherine Zeta-Jones to upset your stomach? No I do not.

A gristly Michael Douglas rubbing himself all over Condoleeza is even scarier.

Ah, but remember, he was The American President!

Kid 2: "You've got Condoleeza on my Douglas!"

Kid 3: "You are both fucking sick."

...what?

We shouldn't make her angry...

Why did I know you would go this route Alex? Your argument doesn't make sense, so you distort my position and make a ridiculous assumption about my post. Really, I was hoping you had something more intellectual to say.

-- latebloomer (posercore24...), November 17th, 2004.

I think the late breaking term is Aunt Jemima; though Mammy is probably more historically correct wrt Uncle Tom, don't really think it's appropriate in this instance...

mmmmmm ... farm fresh .....

!!scaspegoat!!

Ah, this'll be the much vaunted racial tolerance of the left I've heard so much about, then.

"President Bush's nomination of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state has resulted in harsh liberal criticism that members of the black leadership network Project 21 consider racist.
Over the past few months, and peaking this week with her appointment, cartoonists have been using Dr. Rice's race as a point of ridicule. Demeaning political cartoons by Pat Oliphant and Jeff Danziger accentuate Dr. Rice's black features and feature her speaking in rural southern dialect. Garry Trudeau called her "Brown Sugar" in his "Doonesbury" comic strip. Earlier this year, cartoonist Ted Rall questioned Dr. Rice's race in a comic suggesting she was President Bush's "house nigga" and needed "racial re-education." Universal Press Syndicate distributes Oliphant, Trudeau and Rall. The New York Times distributes Danziger."

:(

You don't have to be from the left to be a racist. and you don't have to be from the left to hate condi or the job she has done. Lots of people hate incompetence in government. Including republicans.

he played all her greatest hits. aluminium tubes, "nobody told me about any airplanes being used as bombs!", etc, ad nauseum. the whole pitiful shooting match.

OTM!

Hey, this what you're talking about? :

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_111704/content/eib_extra.Par.0001.ImageFile.jpg

I guess Condi just ain't the "right kind of nigger"

It’s worth remembering that Martin Luther King Jr., a Christian civil rights advocate (and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from its founding in 1957 to his death in 1968), would today be pilloried by the progressivist left as a red state Uncle Tom—an inauthentic Black Bible thumping creationist who’s dream that people be judged not “by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” would be dismissed as anti-Black “code”—or rather, as the right’s usurpation of the language of “fairness" to keep minorities permanently oppressed by removing from the social equation historical contingency. Which critique, of course, is a big steaming load of self-serving horseshit.

if MLK were alive today and he was working with the bush administration and spewing their shit to all and sundry, I'd expect him to be pilloried by the left.

And Martin Luther King would be pilloried and dismissed by Democrats if he was alive today, because he said people should be judged not "by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

This is true because Democrats want to judge people by the color of their skin -- because they refuse to ignore the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow when considering society's effect on people's achievement today.

Everyone got that down?

So I guess it was all cool when all the talkies on the right were making fun of Clinton by calling him "Bubba" (insinuating he was white trash) because he was from Arkansas. Funny now how they court those same southerners because they "understand" their "moral" "values."

because by not doing so, you're helping to confirm every accusation of hypocrisy that's ever been leveled at the american left. i mean, "just cuz no one is standing up for Condi's lips doesn't mean the cartoon is racist"...!! that doesn't even make sense!

(and if you think that doesn't matter, remember how people like dee changed their vote this year because in part of what they read on ilx. i know if i were on the fence [which i'm not], i sure would be repelled by some of the bullshit on this thread.)

(or to put it differently: if i were a moderate black woman reading this thread, trying to decide how to vote, and saw posts like alex in sf's, i would be sore tempted to think, "ok, FUCK you, you worthless 'racism is ok as long as it's directed against people who aren't on my team' piece of shit. whatever you're for, i'm against.")

(The cartoon Don linked to above is not racist! It just shows Condi and Bush being pirates on a boat! There are no racial references in that cartoon whatsoever... it's also a dumb cartoon, but not racist.)

(i will admit however that i let my own distaste for alex in sf's posting style get in the way here. i'm sure he's an ok guy but i hate, hate, hate the way he participates in political threads, it's all ad hominem attacks and distortion and not listening at all to what the other person is saying and, most of all, the CONSTANT USE OF CAPITAL LETTERS to MAKE A POINT like someone who SHOUTS because what they're SAYING is A BUNCH OF CRAP. it makes me wince every time, i can't shake the feeling that his style of argument does more harm than good to the left, because it's witnessed by moderates who think, "fuck that, i don't want to be on the same side as that guy...")

And I disagree if that similar depictions of Condi had she been a leftie would be greeted with screaming holy hellfire. It would be pretty much "Hmmph. Typical", just like it is now.

Though I'm glad you came clean with your "issue" with Alex in SF, which seems to be distorting your judgement of when and what to post here, thus far... he hasn't posted much on this thread to begin with, and he hasn't exhibited any of the traits you mention here at all, but whatever.

When I saw it, it reminded me of the Spitting Image renditions of Thatcher and Reagan back in the 80s... accented lips, horse teeth, and scowling faces have been a standard way to comicly depict politicians for decades. If there were any references to depictions of black people in the early 20th century or before in Condi's depiction in that cartoon, I totally missed them.

-- silent majority (lo...), November 20th, 2004.

I guess the fun thing about being an anonymous troll is that you get to use offensive words as long as you put them in quotes and attribute them to some vaguely defined "progressivist left."

Yeah, MLK and Dick Cheney would've been real good pals, given Dr. King's fervent belief that the pre-emptive invasion of other countries was the best hope for democracy.

The cartoons are racist. Their authors should be criticized. And a National Security Advisor who lied in her congressional testimony should not promoted to Secretary of State.

It's that kind of "bravery" that leads me to ignore anything that such silly creatures may type here.

I'd also like to ask how, as a political cartoonist, you're supposed to make the point that someone is playing into the "subservient black American" stereotype without drawing on some of that offensive imagery.

and it was so appropriate
she had this big dumb shit-eating grin on and like some goggles and was like on a boat or something, but it's fuzzy in my memory.

I've looked all over for it, but I haven't been able to re-find it.

So sad, someone please help if you know what I'm talking about/where to find it.

That Danzinger cartoon isn't very good, but I'm surprised that no one has touched on what it's specifically referring to (aside from the aluminum tube fiasco) - Gone with the Wind.

She was dissuaded at the last moment from wearing that ice-skating outfit depicted above, from what I heard. The wreath was similarly themed, but since there was no alternative available, it was kept, though hastily edited from "Secretary of Skate--Condoleeza Rice--First Place."

http://www.thirdreichmedals.com/pictures/b162.jpg

fucking douche. fuck her and cheney too.

ihttp://www.garrisonartcenter.org/Artists/bcase38.jpg

Are you then, Shakey, referring to Iraqi war casualties? Deplorable, yes, but it's not mass murder - not at all the moral equivalent of Saddam's slaughter of the Kurds in 1988, or the Milosevic regime's ethnic cleansing of Muslims in the '90s.

This is possibly the dumbest fucking thing I've read this year.

All of that blood is on DubyaCo.'s hands.

DubyaCo however, are well aware that accurate casualty accounting is not in their best interest, so they don't bother.

x-post

The point you seem to be missing is that the second sentence you wrote in that post has fuck-all to do with the first and actually trivializes the magnitude of the Holocaust.

How on earth their keeping a record can be argued to be of benefit when it's actually a mere symptom of possibly the very worst aspect of Nazism is beyond me.

I'm sure that's a huge consolation to all those dead Iraqis.

And it's both a symptom *and* a benefit (to those who came after anyways) Ronan. In some places, they call that irony.

x-post

"War... on terror!!"

It's like what? "Laughing gas against happiness!!"

Bush isn't a "Nazi" but he has taken over another country by force, and his excuse - even if it had held up - was so obviously massaged and tacked-on that everyone knew he had an ulterior motive. Now he's talking about taking over more countries. What's a better comparison, Napoleon?

Don't forget Bush's talk of a "crusade" and a willful conflation of the secular Iraqi, Hussein, and virulently Islamicist Saudi, Bin Laden. I think it's quite clear that Bush is willing to demonize anyone from an Arabic or Persian nation to the point where "they're all the same" and deserve their deaths. The "freedom-hating" meme is just a couple of jogs away from out-and-out racism. Just check T.L. Friedman's column today for how openly even our "liberal" commentators feel about saying that a failure of the constitutional system set up by L. Paul Bremer would mean that every single Arab country "can be ruled only by iron-fisted kings or dictators, with all the negatives that flow from that." Deep down, all those people, er, over there, may hate freedom. Maybe they all need liberation.

However, the two are both murderours regimes, killing civilians unprovoked. I don't see how this simple fact can be disputed.

(I'm sorta pissed off and depressed today Ned. I was looking at these earlier: http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_page20.htm)

xpost

The dead do not need consolation and it's for the living to decide whether it was worth it.

At what point does a worthy goal become unworthy of the blood spilled for it? Were the 20+ million Soviet dead too many to sacrifice for defeating the Nazis? As Germany commemorated the dead at Auschwitz, the NDP walked out of the Saxon assembly to protest the absence of any commemoration for the civilians we (Allies) fire-bombed in Dresden. At the risk of agreeing with fascistic Germans who are trying to relavitise the slaughter of the Holocaust, we might be permitted to wonder about the fire bombings and nuclear bombing of our enemies during WWII too. The fact that the Nazis and the Japanese Militarists were defeated is surely not something to deplore though.

you are very, very wrong. many survivors didn't want to talk about it, various Allied governments were hesitant to admit they knew it had been going on at all, Nazi apologists were eager to deny it, etc. Do some research.

x-post

I don't support military bloodshed in any way, shape or form, so I guess never. I guess you could call me an angry buddhist pacifist.

The fact that the US is not widely and publicly reviled like the Nazis for the mass murder of the Japanese at Hiroshima, Nagasaki (not to mention all the other firebombing - "100s of thousands of people killed in a single night" as McNamara says) is simply a result of the US being the ultimate victor. History is written by the winners.

No, I mean read up about how the Holocaust came to light, how it was documented, and how it was publicly addressed in the aftermath of the war. which you obviously have not done.

As to the Dresden, Nagasaki, and Hiroshima bombings, there morality is often called into question and, though I've studied these events for some time, I have not arrived at an easy conclusion one way or the other. People often bring up cynical rationales for Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such as the Soviet Union's late declaration of war on Japan, but it is worth noting that Hirohito personally intervened in the (diehard) cabinet to end the war only after two of his cities had been obliterated. U.S. Army estimates (of what accuracy or prescience?) put the number of U.S. casualties to invade and pacify Japan at at least 500,000. In the face of that much potential American blood spilled, it is unlikely that any president, even if not as hardened as Harry S. Truman, artilleryman who was shooting at the German lines even fifteen minutes before the 11/11/18, 11 am armistice, would have been able to justify failing to use such weopons. It is arguable that, as opposed to the huge tonnage of bombs dropped on Germany and Vietnam, the scale and shock of the nuclear attacks on Japan actually shortened the war. On the other hand, one cannot contemplate the photos and accounts of the survivors, the cancerous, and the malformed without recoiling in horror at the monstrosity of it all.

Does anybody here know who George Stevens was?

As for the Nazi analogies....are we on planet earth? The Bush administration, for all its faults, IS. NOT. THE. THIRD. REICH. The Reich's sole purpose, as Hannah Arendt argued extensively, was to think of new and ever more novel ways of exterminating massive amounts fo people. Next on the list after Jews, Gypsies, Catholics, and homosexuals were the old.

This is NOT what has gone on in Iraq and Afghanistan. To say that
"the two [Nazis and Bush] are both murderours regimes, killing civilians unprovoked" is just poor logic. The Nazis sent their own citizens to the gas stations

Yes, I have read my Gore Vidal, Charles Beard, and Edmund Wilson. You don't need to remind me about FDR "really" got us into WWII, our deplorable habit of propping up authoritarian regimes in the '50s and '60s, the Vietnam adventure, Reagan's equating the contras with the Founding Fathers, Clinton's bombing of the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in the Sudan, and countless other instances. These are all well-documented.

One of the reasons I, a liberal, supported the toppling of Saddam's regime is because we OWED it to the Iraqis, after 20 years of chicanery and false promises. Sometimes you have to accept the premises of a duplicitous adminstration like Bush's for an honorable cause. That's called politics. And only a pighead can look at the Iraqis who voted 10 days ago and say those people are deluded –or that the American soliders killed and wounded died in vain.

Get over the Michael Moore bullshit and do some real thinking.

Actually, I think that this is the Bush people.

I can't believe how much of an idiot you are. Why did you bring the Nazis up in the first place if you didn't want to draw an analogy between them and Bushco and why did you bring up the completely tangential documentation issue as if it was something that gave the Nazis just a little bit of credit?

HA! Now I would agree with that!

It ain't over yet.

"Why did you bring the Nazis up in the first place "

uh, cuz we were discussing why I was appalled at Condi and Cheney showing up at the Auschwitz memorial? My point about the documentation thing was just that DubyaCo doesn't even think documenting their casualties is worthwile (and as I've said, obviously because its against their best interests). The Nazis did - even though their reasons were sick and twisted - and as such the world is now aware of what they did. DubyaCo is burying what they're doing RIGHT NOW, and we're all looking the other way.

some of you are putting words in my mouth (Alfred). mmmm tasty.

x-x-x-post

xxpost

Hey, Shakey, do you realistically think we could document all the Iraqis we've killed, what with our understaffed Army?

Wouldn't have anything to do with the kind of war we are currently waging, would it? Nah.

No, it wouldn't, you're right. It has to do with the class system in this country and the post-Vietnam issues stigmatizing military service among educated people. Fuck you for insinuating some sort of moral high ground from this (NB it applies to both sides) and fuck Soto for doing exactly the same thing.

I'm gonna go be angry now. I'm sorry I read this thread.

Oh and that has shit to do with the kind of wars (and the general tenor of US foreign policy) the United States has waged post-WWII. It's just a fuckin' coincidence.

then there's the "disarmament" rhetoric, hilariously employed in every war ever but leaned on heavily against non-state actors (whose use of force is logically inconsistent with the sovereign state system) i.e. "you have weapons. drop them, or we'll fight you!"

watch your language, too, michael.. what are "warlords" exactly? why not call them "leaders" "tribal chiefs"? etc.

Because I find those disculpatory and euphemistic. National unity and progress will not be achieved by needless coddling of tribal chiefs or local leaders. They are armed and they hold sway by force = warlords.

but we CAN'T, not without running into all kinds of pseudo-imperial horseshit like we're doing now. The BEST thing to do as a sovereign nation state in that situation is to wipe out those who done you wrong and then exit the stage as quickly and cleanly as possible. If we had done this, if this had been our actual purpose in going after Saddam, then the picture in Iraq would be very different indeed. There are other differences relating to our initial motive in attacking Iraq such as our inability to build a half-decent coalition but really if we could have just had the cojones to say "mission accomplished" and MEANT IT, eg we're mostly going to leave you be now, see you around, then I think the picture would be much better than it currently is.

I think your worries about Afghanistan aren't very well founded. The state is in transition, but they're on the right track towards self-reliance and independence, and they seem to like what they have. By sticking around for so long in Iraq we've only managed to muddy the situation and give the Sunnis a passel of easy targets.

-- The Ghost of Dan Perry (djperr...), February 8th, 2005 6:28 PM. (Dan Perry)

AND HOW!

well technically isn't she an "aunt tom" then?

-- latebloomer (posercore24...), November 17th, 2004.

I think the late breaking term is Aunt Jemima; though Mammy is probably more historically correct wrt Uncle Tom, don't really think it's appropriate in this instance...

-- Jimmy Mod always makes friends with women before bedding them down (Mod...), November 17th, 2004.

haha remember when ppl on my lefty racism thread said that nobody anywhere ever had said condi was an uncle tom/aunt jemima

-- gabbneb (gabbne...), October 5th, 2005.

But anyway, I don't like her either.

So many will be be so disappointed.

Also, still needs a little trainin' on the whole "diplomacy" bit:

Said that U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad may talk to Iranian diplomats about Iraq but that broader talks would "run the risk of granting legitimacy to a government that does not deserve" it.

http://static.flickr.com/34/68412018_4b77497bb3.jpg

Not necessarily the best/only thread for this post but folks here at UCI have set up this new archive -- available online to all -- which might be of interest to political/modern history wonks:

---

>> UCI Libraries have created a new website to showcase "The Quest for
>> Peace Interviews 1983-1989" (www.lib.uci.edu/quest/) which are
>> collections of half-hour interviews with a wide range of world-renowned
>> experts such as Condoleezza Rice, Norman Cousins, John Kenneth Galbraith
>> and Julian Bond on the pursuit of lasting world peace in a nuclear age.
>> These interviews were conducted between 1983-1989 by UCI Prof. John M.
>> Whiteley and were broadcast throughout the country on cable and public
>> access stations. This project is a collaboration of Professor Whiteley
>> with the University of California Irvine's Libraries, the Teaching,
>> Learning and Technology Center and Network and Academic Computing
>> Services.
>>
>> This site is now available through the Library Publications page
>> (http://www.lib.uci.edu/libraries/libpubs.html) under Digital
>> Collections (http://www.lib.uci.edu/libraries/pubs/digital_coll.html).

Direct link to the site:

http://www.lib.uci.edu/quest/

this needs captioning!
http://img.breitbart.com/images/2007/10/24/071025054533.fb999mfx/SGE.NHO89.251007054503.photo00.photo.jpg

i posted that on the Jazz Hands thread, that's all i got

"SLEEP"

What's the context of that photo?

code f***ing pink helping the republicans again

holy fucking christ

shes wearing an oink shirt

She was a girl from Birmingham
She just had an abortion
She was case of insanity
Her name was Pauline, she lived in a tree

Protestor painted in 'blood' accosts Condoleezza Rice

Despite the admission that errors had been made, and a Canadian inquiry which cleared him of any links to terrorism, Rice suggested Arar would remain on U.S. security watch lists.

Arar, fyi, was kidnapped and sent to Syria to be tortured for a year. (not sure how much play this is getting in the U.S.)

I assume next to none.

There were mentions -- but noticed mostly by those who were already interested in/appalled by the subject.

Despite the admission that errors had been made, and a Canadian inquiry which cleared him of any links to terrorism, Rice suggested Arar would remain on U.S. security watch lists.

Arar, fyi, was kidnapped and sent to Syria to be tortured for a year. (not sure how much play this is getting in the U.S.)

-- The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall, Friday, 26 October 2007 04:59 (Friday, 26 October 2007 04:59) Bookmark Link

Presumably he's on the watch lists because he now has a damn good reason to be pissed off with the US.

My government teacher gave me a quarter because I knew how to spell "Condoleezza" and he didn't. (THERE ARE TWO Z'S, PEOPLE)
-- Curt1s St3ph3ns, Wednesday, 26 October 2005 21:57 (Wednesday, 26 October 2005 21:57) Bookmark Link

And, when I first read it, I thought that read Condolezza.
Which would explain the rumours, I guess.

"Code Pink" Protestors: Classic or Dud

http://www.portfolio.com/images/feeds/blogs/condi%20workout.jpg
http://www.portfolio.com/images/feeds/blogs/condi%20barbell.jpg