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| The duck and jackass dynasty | |
| 2013-12-23 | |
| Disclosure: I have never seen Duck Dynasty, nor do I intend to start. In fact, when the NCAA Final Four ends, I prolly won't switch on the TV to watch until the Hall of Fame game next August. Talk about bizarre. The writer, a business reporter for the L.A. Times, of all things, starts with Phil Robertson, calling him a bigot and ends up criticizing Bobby Jindal, Republican governor of Louisiana for his remarks in support of Robertson. Also, in case you were wondering, Hiltzik got his "facts" straight from a Think Progress press release. This article is the kind of insightful and deep analysis you come to expect from the professional left. By Michael Hiltzik I got the gist of the "Duck Dynasty" thing after my first and only viewing: bunch of rural jackasses who somehow struck it rich get brought into our living rooms to be laughed at by the rest of us aristocrats. This has been confirmed recently. A writer is calling Duck Dynasty the show that got away. It was intended to belittle the media's political opponents, but instead the basic decency of the stars have destroyed that. A&E is trying to regain control by chucking Phil Robertson out the window. Well, all right. When the archetype first appeared on television via the "Beverly Hillbillies" it was also enormously popular, but also taken as an illustration of how TV was living down to its condemnation by FCC Chairman Newton Minow as a "vast wasteland." A&E totally agrees and will do something about that when they finish distributing the profit they make from the show. In any event, A&E knew what it was doing when it put these people on the air, so its show of indignation in "suspending" one of them for speaking out against gays and the aspirations of African Americans falls a little flat. Again: Robertson did not "speak out against gays", rather he expressed a preference and his lack of understanding of that activity. What's truly ghastly, however, is the reaction of a couple of political figures. Sarah Palin's opinion isn't worth the eleven words I've just written to dismiss it.
Bigotry existed long before Phil Robertson got his mug in front of a camera, and will exist when long after the worms are through with you, Michael. The article writer's beef was with Robertson's observation that blacks were happier under segregation. They may or may not have been, but that was the man's experience. That doesn't make him a bigot. In the old days, news that public funds (via the Louisiana state film and television incentive program) had helped finance racism and gay-bashing of the variety espoused by Phil Robertson, the outspoken duck dynast, would have presented a moral dilemma and created a political embarrassment for a governor. Most self-respecting political leaders would have run away from association with such views; that's the essence, after all, of the "leadership" part of the equation. Not for Jindal. His only public statement on the matter thus far has praised Robertson as a member of a family of "great citizens of the State of Louisiana." He defends Robertson's views on the "it's a free country" principle, which as a debating point generally gets dropped by most people before the fourth grade. "Everyone is entitled to express their views," he says. After the fourth grade, we assume that the right of self expression shouldn't exist. In Jindal's seven-sentence statement, not a word of defense for gay people so crudely mocked by Robertson. Not a word to remind us that the life of black sharecroppers in Louisiana's Jim Crow era was not "godly" or "happy." Prolly because Jindal doesn't agree and wouldn't include it in his statement. In January of this year, Jindal lectured his fellow Republicans on the need to "stop being the stupid party." Remember? He talked about how the Republican brand had been damaged by its candidates' "offensive and bizarre comments." That was supposed to represent the launch of a new GOP outreach to communities that had been excluded by Republican doctrine, including the gay and minority communities. Republican doctrine is supposed to be freedom, free markets and human dignity for all, not just the aggrieved class. There can be no outreach if you do not hold to basic principles. But that was eleven months ago. Now, according to Jindal, Republicans are supposed to embrace offensive and bizarre comments. The party's transformation into a marginal and regional movement thus continues. Jindal has made himself the biggest jackass in the story, and his career as a national political figure the thing to be laughed at. | |
| Posted by:badanov |
| #19 I have been to Monroe. I have been to West Monroe. The Ouachita River runs right smack down between the two. The Whites are in one Monroe, the Blacks are on the other side of the river in the other Monroe. That is just how it is. And no one is complaining about it either in Monroe or in West Monroe. |
| Posted by: Threreling Munster6125 2013-12-23 21:41 |
| #18 urbanist vs non-urbanist. Cuddled in their NIMBY echo chamber cocoon sustained by the energy, food, clean water, and resources they leach off of those they have so much disdain for. |
| Posted by: P2kontheroad 2013-12-23 18:27 |
| #17 Looking at what is happening in America from down under..the GAP between main stream Americans and their values and the left/media/socialist who think they are informed and elite is becoming so very very evident. |
| Posted by: Sundown 2013-12-23 17:33 |
| #16 And while I'm here, I'd like to recommend Fred's book, Phoebe Clayton, as a great example of people from different races and social classes living happily together with mutual love and respect. Fred, when are you publishing your next one? |
| Posted by: KBK 2013-12-23 13:46 |
| #15 A different view from The Atlantic. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2013-12-23 13:44 |
| #14 Robertson never said that blacks were happier under segregation. Here's the quote: “I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I’m with the blacks, because we’re white trash. We’re going across the field.... They’re singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, ‘I tell you what: These doggone white people’—not a word!... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.” Where's the racism? Or is it illegal, or at least completely beyond the pale, to mention that there is a black equivalent to Robertson's social stratum? And I'm willing to bet that a majority of his black acquaintances would agree with his remarks on homosexuality and the bible. |
| Posted by: KBK 2013-12-23 13:38 |
| #13 Ha ha, probably got in a tizzy and got the eleven words right, but went back and added something then forgot to re-sum. I don't watch the show, as by the genre in general, but I have seen it. There is a lot going on there - they are witty, funny, accomplished, dedicated, and most of all genuine. The parents and kids can watch it and both be entertained. Urban people can either point and giggle or learn something, Rural people see a good time and even success in Rural culture, there are solid family values to be admired. I know I'm in a rural setting - it seemed like 1 in 4 Halloween costumes had something to do with the Roberstons, as well as the winning scarecrow. That happened because the Robertsons are genuine, which is more than we should expect from someone who can't re-count the words he just typed. Beverly Hillbillies. You dork, that is a fish out of water plot, just like Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Trading Places, or Son in Law. Your best choice for your potty break would have been Hee Haw. |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2013-12-23 13:23 |
| #12 Re. Robertson's observation that blacks were happier under segregation - a reasonable observation, and one that says nothing of causation: the implication was that the cure for segregation carried unintended consequences in the breakdown of the family unit and morality, and that those breakdowns have led to decreased happiness bamong blacks, and everyone else. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2013-12-23 12:18 |
| #11 Which eleven words? The first sentence of this paragraph has thirteen words, the second, containing Gov. Palin's name, contains fourteen. The fact that Hiltzik is a business reporter and can't do basic arithmetic makes me wonder about the rest of his articles. Al |
| Posted by: Frozen Al 2013-12-23 11:54 |
| #10 The only explanation for this article is that Hiltzik is deeply prejudiced against South Asians, and can't stand the fact that one, Piyush Jindal, has become the two-term governor of an American state. |
| Posted by: Matt 2013-12-23 11:38 |
| #9 Interesting that he brings up "Beverly Hillbillies". Any time some anti-Christian bigot jackass like Hiltzik in the entertainment industry spews about how they just respond to the market and have no political or religious axe to grind, I just want to ask them about the Rural Purge (google it for those who don't know what it was). The ugly truth is that the coastal leftists who control TV programming routinely let their politics determine who goes or stays, and their contempt for all things rural and authentically Christian has been manifest for more than forty years. A popular show that showed people saying grace to end each episode? That was going to be taken out one way or another, since people of Hiltzik's religious and political persuasion hate Christians and would at minimum disenfranchise them all and probably wipe them out if they could. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2013-12-23 11:31 |
| #8 Seems to me the pendulum may be starting to swing the other direction. |
| Posted by: Glolump Barnsmell5758 2013-12-23 11:25 |
| #7 What we have here is a media clusterduck. |
| Posted by: BrerRabbit 2013-12-23 08:50 |
| #6 I LIKE Mr. Robertson. He believes and has good Values. He isn't afraid to stand up for his beliefs against the fascist PC Left, and he is trustworthy and decent. If I needed a man at my back in a Quang Ngai swamp or up in Quang Tin west of Monkey Mountain in Eye Corps...I would trust Robertson with the second squad and let him do flank. I think God would be satisfied that Robertson will play on the better team. I don't have a lot of affection for pinkboys either. Its OK by me they can live and not breed ( they can't ) in California. Dwayne and Bruce can do as they like, as long as they aren't teaching my son in school or telling me how to spend my money. Free Country is RIGHT., you PC Leftist nazi, and no apologies. |
| Posted by: Spereting Tingle4064 2013-12-23 07:33 |
| #4 Hummm... Snowy, who's the Congressperson in his corner of the swamp? Possible Mr. Robertson takes the bit in his teeth, you can't buy the kinda PR this guy is getting. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2013-12-23 05:25 |
| #3 Sorry, I don't see any racism. Robertson only said that the blacks he knew who were close to his own class didn't express any particular animosity against whites. If you have any other quote from him, let's see it. |
| Posted by: KBK 2013-12-23 04:20 |
| #2 Phil has returned :) |
| Posted by: Dale 2013-12-23 01:42 |
| #1 I wonder what the functional literacy rate is down in Watts, and why this isn't evidence that Los Angeles is racist. |
| Posted by: Thing From Snowy Mountain 2013-12-23 00:35 |