Harvard Astronomy Professor Dimitar Sasselov examines the composition of life in the universe and reveals the interconnected nature of the planet earth and human existence. Plus, a special post-interview, Oscar-related bonus!
Renown for his anti-racist writing, author, teacher and activist Tim Wise (@timjacobwise) joins Sam today to discuss the state of American society, the GOP and his book Dear White America: Letter to a New Minority. Your calls and IM’s — lots today! Use this post as today’s thread and click thru for links and a show UPDATE.
Check out this Tim Wise Interview on Blacking It Up!
NSFW
Violent Clash Between NYPD and OWS At #J29 from Gothamist on Vimeo.
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11:21 am
Good morning Majority Reporters. For those of you who’ve never heard Tim Wise before, get ready; you will never look at issues of race in America and its implications in the same way again.
11:31 am
‘Morning and looking forward.
12:19 pm
Another show dedicated to bashing Ron Paul using some left gatekeeper hack as a front.
Listening to this is like watching MSNBC spending a whole hour bashing Paul with lies and half truths.
Why are you so terrified of Ron Paul?
Kudos Sam,you are now the mainstream media.
Shame!!!
12:36 pm
Care to point out the half-truths and lies? There’s clearly a well-documented link between Ron and his newsletters and his voting record and comments he’s said.
Either accept this and say it doesn’t matter to you, and you support Ron anyways, or admit that it is terrible and Ron should be apologising for these!
12:43 pm
“Another show dedicated to bashing Ron Paul using some left gatekeeper hack as a front.”
Thank goodness! What hack? We need to get the truth out about Ron Paul. His hacks, er, followers table at left events and convince people he’s a leftist. Here’s a recent episode of a Pacifica radio program telling more about Paul’s ties to KKK’s David Duke and other big time racists:
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/76422
Guns and Butter
“Critique of Ron Paul’s Austerity Plan” with Webster Griffin Tarpley. Ron Paul’s “Plan to Restore America” includes $1 trillion in cuts to the federal budget in one year. We take a look at what this would mean for the American people. Ron Paul is the republican front runner to win the Iowa Caucus on January 3rd, 2012. (was true at the time of broadcast, Dec. 28th, 2011 – bike)
12:57 pm
Ron Paul did not write the letters in question and has stated that he in no way agrees with the sentiments made by the author.There’s clearly NOT a well-documented link between Ron and his newsletters.
Please Check your facts before you post.
1:09 pm
There’s a lot more than letters and newsletters. Mr. Tarpley documents much more, including campaign funding from David Duke. Please listen to the program I posted the link to, above.
3:04 pm
LOL So if David Duke came out in support of Ghandi,is Ghandi then a racist?If duke donated to Ghandi does that mean Ghandi supports him?
Duke might support Ron Paul but Paul does not support duke.
C’mon,stop buying into the mainstream talking points.The only reason Paul is being attacked is because he threatens the military Industrial Complex.Period.
1:09 pm
So he knew nothing about them, but he said he agreed with them in the 90′s. He doesn’t agree with them now, but offers little to no proof that hes changed as hes still saying the same rubbish.
Not a “well documented link” – haha hes such a joke, that hes willing to take a million from a news letter he knew nothing about? who else lives in this kind of world where they get to put there name on something and take a pay check without ever checking what there linked too…
This is why Paulites are such a joke. The lies you allow Ron to tell because you dont like the truth weaken your candidate and strengthen the case made against “States Rights”
3:11 pm
First of all,please wake up and stop watching CNN.It’s warped your mind.
Second,Ron Paul stands out because he DOESN’T lie.Again,please try to use facts instead of corporate rhetoric.
If you want to see a world class professional liar just look to your white house.Nobody does it better than Obama.
12:41 pm
Like I’ve said before: Libertarians, like Ron Paul, are all about personal responsibility until they are personally responsible for something.
I voted for Obama in ’08. I also like some of what Ron Paul says. However, neither are free from critique.
-Matt
1:21 pm
When it comes to politics, it’s not what politicians say which is important but they’re past record in politics and what’s public. If he owned a newsletter which was racist, this means he’s willing to cater to people who are racist. Having verification on this topic is only good. And really, the only reason he was brought up multiple times is it’s a hot-button item for him and he’s the only contender in the news with such an explicit record. This is all assuming there’s nothing overly racist about Gingrich and Romney, short of being in the GOP.
12:21 pm
Sam – You are just phenomenal. Excellent interview AGAIN!
12:25 pm
Good morning all. I like Tim Wise too, he’s been very good on issues of racial hypocrisy.
Sending kudos and hand slaps to jumpnjaques and Jimmy Reefercake, ty both (you know why) :->
1:28 pm
If the last part’s about the cool tunes last Friday, agreed. Those were great clips, even if the tirade caught my coffee-thirsty mind off-guard.
12:34 pm
Amongst my black *and* white friends, we criticize Obama *on the issues*. along with critiquing the rampant racism directed against him that pervades media and public discourse. Why is that so hard to understand? You can criticize Obama’s policies on their merits while also criticizing the racism directed against him that are obviously not directed against white presidents.
12:38 pm
I think the thing you have to keep in context is what the President can do and what his options are. Theres been quite a few things that Obama gets the blame for that really come down to a weak House and Senate. I think if the progressive Left option was doable he would do it.
12:53 pm
I do always keep that in mind. It’s definitely a double edged sword. But at what point do we risk pulling our punches and not criticizing Obama for those things we know are wrong? And I’m not convinced he would do the progressive thing if it were doable. He had a Dem majority early on and didn’t even propose rolling back Bush policies. He was already paid for by Wall Street and disciplined in realpolitik by Brzezinski, before he even got in. See the sidebar on the right of this article: http://www.zcommunications.org/election-2008-by-laurence-shoup
1:01 pm
Oh dont take my comment as a correction, I was just adding to you.
People keep saying he had a Dem majority. That meant nothing, Repubs Filibustered everything. The problem there was that the Dems never forced them to do the Bernie Sanders 8 hour Filibuster. They just folded and never pushed anything unless they had the 60 votes up front.
1:22 pm
Exactly – why did the Dems fold? The Repubs go on the offense even when they’re in the minority. It’s infuriating. Especially when I read that FDR closed the banks his first week in office, by executive power that is still in effect. He did this amidst howls of protest. FDR did some heinous things as well, not a saint by any means.
In this overly racialized and fragmented society, it is so hard for people to focus on the issues and not personalize, not do ad hominems, whether in code or blatantly. (Not saying you are, just commenting generally). This puts us in the position of trying to have rational discussions with irrational people. Not easy.
9:51 am
Yeah, I’m not in the kitchen, so I don’t know for sure, but if the souffle comes out flat, I’m not going to assume the chef did it on purpose. If the other dishes and the main course don’t give me too much heartburn, I’ll try to be a little understanding.
12:52 pm
BorowitzReport Andy Borowitz
Ron Paul believes 100% what he says; Gingrich believes 0% what he says; Romney says 100% what he thinks you believe
6:31 pm
For gods sake Matt put two and two together. You starting counting months when Sam was obviously talking about the election.
9:39 am
Great interview – my takeaway was not, don’t criticize Obama, so much as, go ahead and criticize Obama, but be aware of the racial/minority context and steer clear of generalizations – in other words, it’s not what you do so much as how you do it.
That said, I couldn’t help but think Tim missed the larger context, which is that the rightwing machine is geared to smear any Democratic president as incompetent. Jimmy Carter, qualified to command a diesel-electric submarine, obviously an incompetent weakling. Incompetent John Kerry earned a Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts in combat – hey, anybody can buy a band-aid box full of those. Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar who studied at Oxford – that’s so French and gay. What a bunch of slackers.
Why, Obama could take out Osama bin Laden in a super-secret commando mission where no American soldiers were killed, and the right would still find fault with him. Oh, wait, he did that.
So if the right is going to criticize Obama anyway, we might as well try to target some legitimate, constructive criticism and get some things done.