The Gray Conservative said...
Wait wait wait.Only one comment on this story?
I am stunned that no one is talking about this.
It's not that we're wrong to focus on Alvin Greene, and focusing on Olbermann and the media's response to this man completely misses the significance of what happened here.
We should be focusing on the circumstances of how we came to know the name Alvin Greene.
How?
How did a random, unemployed military vet with pending obscenity charges (showing porn to a 19-year old?) win 60% of the vote in a state-wide primary thus giving him the chance to face DeMint for a seat in that oh-so-venerable institution, the U. S. Senate?
I'm not interested in the various theories about how he's a "Republican plant" or how it was because "his name was first on the ballot", or how "people may have thought he was Al Green".
That is all beside the point.
Bubba from Forest Gump just became the Democratic nominee for Senate in South Carolina without doing much of anything. At this point we have to ask, "What the hell is going on in South Carolina?"
I can't believe that no one sees how big of a deal this is.
Alvin Greene is the ultimate example of the failure of central political planning. The Democratic Party needs to fall back, and seriously. What does it say about the nature of central planning when a political machine such as the DNC cannot keep Bubba Gump Shrimp from winning a state-wide nomination while operating from his father's house?
Denmark Vesey said ...
Brother Gray! Long time. Where you been? These squares had me surrounded.Question: How is Alvin Greene different from Barack Obama?
How is the Republican party any different from the Democratic party? It is my contention that they are the exact same party, financed by the exact same people, doing the exact same things when they get in office.
It's not Alvin Greene that I find ridiculous, it's our sham of an electoral process that I find ridiculous. It's hard for me to think of adults who still believe in the Democratic party any differently than I think of adults who still believe in Santa Clause.
There is no "Democratic Party". It is a myth. A political Wizard of Oz. A memetic menagerie designed to pacify the occupants of the Plantation with the ritual of democaracy.
6 comments:
Brother DV:
You and others keep focusing on Alvin Greene.
You NEED TO BE focused upon the "Snarling Fox White Liberal Bigots" like Olbermann and their line of questioning of Greene.
The sign of a Snarling Fox is when he KNOWS what he would do if there was a WHITE MAN standing before him with such suspicions glaring yet he does not ACT THE SAME because he sees a BLACK MAN in front of him.
* Urban Street Pirate Gangs don't make it onto the "Southern Poverty Law Center" list
* Olbermann, Maddow and Schultz don't see any benefit in attacking Black Democrats in pursuit of the truth. There is far more downside in remaining consistent.
Wait wait wait.
Only one comment on this story?
I am stunned that no one is talking about this.
It's not that we're wrong to focus on Alvin Greene, and focusing on Olbermann and the media's response to this man completely misses the significance of what happened here.
We should be focusing on the circumstances of how we came to know the name Alvin Greene.
How?
How did a random, unemployed military vet with pending obscenity charges (showing porn to a 19-year old?) win 60% of the vote in a state-wide primary thus giving him the chance to face DeMint for a seat in that oh-so-venerable institution, the U.S. Senate?
I'm not interested in the various theories about how he's a "Republican plant" or how it was because "his name was first on the ballot", or how "people may have thought he was Al Green".
That is all beside the point.
Bubba from Forest Gump just became the Democratic nominee for Senate in South Carolina without doing much of anything. At this point we have to ask, "What the hell is going on in South Carolina?"
I can't believe that no one sees how big of a deal this is.
Alvin Greene is the ultimate example of the failure of central political planning. The Democratic Party needs to fall back, and seriously. What does it say about the nature of central planning when a political machine such as the DNC cannot keep Bubba Gump Shrimp from winning a state-wide nomination while operating from his father's house?
Just think about how the private company which is referred to as "the Democratic Party" operates.
Political parties operate like machines. They plan their agendas and select their preferred candidates with ruthless, top-down enforcement. Everyone is fetted and vetted. When a candidate pops up who isn't their preferred choice, they offer them a job or come up with creative tactics to get them the hell out of the way.
There are local, county, and state chair persons—and the various minions and agents who operate beneath them. There are the Democratic Congressional Campaign and Democratic Senatorial Campaign committees. Layers upon layers of management complete with the DNC chairman and the President at the top of the heap.
Do you mean to tell me that absolutely no one in this vast, insane bureaucracy noticed this guy?
We think of the modern Senate candidate as literally being surrounded by political consultants, professional pollsters, stage handlers, makeup artists, speech writers, focus-group statisticians, and every element of the insane public relations industry in America.
Read the quote on the margin of this site which is currently (ironically) right next to the Olbermann interview: "The knowledge required for political rationality, once available to the masses, is now in the possession of a specially educated elite, a situation that creates a series of tensions and contradictions in the operation of representative democracy."
The elites who operate the Democratic party are dumbfounded by this. The elite media cannot figure out how it happened. Why?
They can't figure it out because it was completely random!
"RALEIGH, NC (WCSC) - A polling information center has concluded the surprise primary victory for Alvin Greene was not a GOP plot, but a completely random outcome based on an election in which both candidates were unknown."
Read that again. Both candidates were ...unknown? How? How is it possible that voters had (seemingly) no clue about who was running State-wide for a Senate nomination?
Alvin Greene is the ultimate example of the failure of the American news media. This is your meme on steroids.
So, how did this guy get 100,000 votes without a single campaign ad? How? Not one campaign rally. Voters in South Carolina had no clue who this person was. Why?
The media in South Carolina simply did not cover one iota of this man's campaign because they determined that he was not a
"serious" candidate.
It's the same as when they report on a political figure as being "outside the mainstream": a candidate who is deemed to be not "serious" gets no coverage. His opponent did not do one iota of opposition research on him.
Alvin Greene's opponent was the "presumptive nominee." He raised almost $200,000 and had access to elite political and logistical resources, the lack of which completely stunned the media and elite party operatives all the way up to David Axelrod.
So, in the absence of any substantive media coverage and with an elite opponent who thought he had it in the bag to the point that he didn't bother getting his name out there, the people just picked someone randomly. I can easily picture how it went down in the voting booth:
"Hmm, okay, um, Democratic Senate. Uh, Alvin Greene. And uh, Vic Rawl. Who? Erm, fuck it, whatever, Alvin Greene."
How is the Republican party any different from the Democratic party?
It isn't different, but what conclusions do we draw from that?
We can say that "the Democratic party" has the believability of Santa Clause, but that's a (prescriptive) normative statement. Normative as distinguished from descriptive.
To speak descriptively we'd have to acknowledge that at the end of the day, he still had to pay over 10K to the "chairwoman" of the "Party" to get on the ballot.
So, "the Party" materially exists to that extent, but its claims about being a legitimate alternative to the Other Guys are still pretty weak, hence the lack of substantive differences.
There's your ritual of democracy, sure, but what's a ritual compared to the hefty ten grand one has to pony up to throw just to their hat in the ring? That's the other part of this story, that baseline monetary hurdle to elite rule.
"There is no "Democratic Party". It is a myth. A political Wizard of Oz. A memetic menagerie designed to pacify the occupants of the Plantation with the ritual of democaracy. "
If there was ever a case for democracy being a farce, this is it.
I agree that there apparently is no effectively functioning Democratic Party in South Carolina. I mean, it's South Carolina. At worst, this was a fundamental breakdown of the elite machinery in that state, because I do not believe that anyone wanted this guy to win. And it's a trip.
"To speak descriptively we'd have to acknowledge that at the end of the day, he still had to pay over 10K to the "chairwoman" of the "Party" to get on the ballot. So, "the Party" materially exists to that extent," TGC
Au Contrare Mon Frere
• $10K exists
• A "chairwoman" exists
• A ballot exists
• News reports on all media channels
A "Party" implies a group of persons with common political opinions and purposes organized for gaining political influence and governmental control and for directing government policy.
Where are the "persons"?
Where are the people?
I submit to you my conservative friend ... that the people have been replaced by corporations who perpetuate the illusion of political discourse to an increasingly dumbed down population.
The use of terms like "winning" and "losing" suggests the existence of genuine contest.
That is not the case.
There was no true contest in the case of Alvin Greene.
There was no true contest in the case of John McCain vs. Barack Hussein Obama 08.
I get what you're saying and agree.
- $10,000 is real.
- "Chairwoman" is real.
- Ballot is real.
- News reports are real.
- Differences between the political "Parties", not so real.
Saying that "there was no true contest in the case of John McCain vs. Barack Hussein Obama 08"—well, that's how it appears to you and me—but to most people, that's just an iconoclastic statement, delivered in your particular style.
There's the "parties", and then there's the State. No matter which "party" is in charge, the managers of the State stay pretty much the same.
I submit to you my conservative friend ... that the people have been replaced by corporations who perpetuate the illusion of political discourse to an increasingly dumbed down population.
Right. The two "Parties" are private companies.
But...
The "State Democratic Party" took Greene's payment.
The "State Democratic Party" put his name on the ballot.
The "State Democratic Party" did not bother to check a single detail about Greene.
The "State Democratic Party" is not pleased with the result.
I mean, if you say that the "Parties" are corporations "who perpetuate the illusion of political discourse to an increasingly dumbed down population", then don't you think Alvin Greene represents a major failure on their part?
Even if you believe that the choices are false and that it's nothing more than Elite Candidate A versus Elite Candidate B, essentially all for show, you have to admit, Greene is the complete opposite of an elite candidate.
I don't know. The whole thing makes no sense.
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