I was e-mailed this story from labor activist/blogger* Mike Elk, written under the banner of MichaelMoore.com. In it, Elk gives his, um, unique account of what was really going on when those misguided buffoons rioted over the firing of Joe Paterno. These are just excerpts, but if you think somehow I’ve selectively quoted, I encourage you to read the whole piece.
Penn State Riots About White Men Not Liking to Be Held Accountable
By Mike Elk
“If, like me, you scanned the crowds rioting at Penn State last night after the announcement of the firing of Joe Paterno, you may have noticed that nearly all the people there were white men. The riots were about white men not liking to be held accountable.
“As a native Pennsylvanian, I never once considered attending Penn State University. Penn State always seemed like a place full of cliquish white people recalling their glory years of making fun of the dorky kids in high school. More progressive white people and people of color went to big city state schools like Pitt or Temple while whiter, more conservative types tended to dominate the settings of the rural, fraternity-heavy Penn State campus.”
[. . .]
“Old, conservative white men around the state revered the football coach who stayed on well past his prime into his eighties. . . . Paterno’s perseverance in the face of his deficiencies was a beacon of hope for many white men in Pennsylvania who felt their power challenged by liberals and people of color seeking to change their ways.
“That’s why I paid attention to the crowd rioting on television at Penn State last night. The firing of Joe Paterno upset the natural order that white men like Joe Paterno could rule not based on merit — as Paterno’s coaching deficiencies showed — but because white men always had.”
Oh yeah? Well I was born in Bucks County, and I say every single idiot at those riots was a gay-married welfare queen selling stem cells to feed his thin-film solar habit!
Seriously, though, folks. Elk’s ideological purity is breathtaking. I had thought it could only be synthesized — for a few milliseconds at a time — under laboratory conditions, and then only with access to certain rare isotopes. I feel like Ron Burgundy after Baxter ate that entire wheel of cheese. I’m not even mad. I’m kind of impressed.
*UPDATE: Elk has asked for a correction, and I agreed to print the e-mail I received from him in full.
Daniel, I am demanding a correction to your story you described me as a labor activist. This is inaccurate since I receive absolutely no money from organized labor and calling me an activist infer that I do. Can you please correct this I feel this is an important point.
For the record, I don’t think what distinguishes an “activist” from a “non-activist” in a given field is monetary compensation. I think that’s an odd thing to think, actually. All I meant by calling Elk a labor activist is that he’s super-psyched about the idea of organized labor (a fact that can be gleaned by a cursory examination of his past writings). Maybe I should have called him a labor enthusiast.
4% black, 5% Hispanic, 5% Asian, and 6% non-resident aliens, and 76% white, and only 59% from Pennsylvania. A bit of a generalization...
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhere's the evidence that any of the people involved were conservative?
I'm not making any claims, I have no knowledge regarding the ideological bent of any of the people involved, and I'm pretty sure "Mr." Elk doesn't either.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePaterno is a big (R). He spoke at the '88 convention.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHe's also a donor to Joe Sestak and Barack Obama.
Not that any of that really matters. His supporters like him for football reasons, not ideological comity.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePaterno was in the riot?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHmmm...overprivileged, out-of-touch middle class whiney white kids tipping cars and throwing a hissy fit over some baseless nonsense that they can't even articulate? Perfect description of your average OWS mob.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse". . . throwing a hissy fit over some baseless nonsense that they can't even articulate . . ."
Actually, that's how I would describe this load of tripe from, er what's his name?, Elk?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseColor me a confused. I thought, according to any doctrinaire liberal, the most likely assumption about those supporting Paterno is that they carry deep-seeded anger linked to puritanical sexual repression of their youth and that anger was ignited by the punishment of behavior that secretly fascinated them.
Also, color me disappointed that Mr. Elk only feebly deployed the race card in his blog post. He really needed more cowbell.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo for this guy, the important part about children being raped is that he gets to score cheap political points off it.
That's...deranged.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbusePretty stupid I admit, but any less so than Gingrich blaming liberals for Susan Smith killing her children?
"I think that the mother killing the two children in South Carolina vividly reminds every American how sick the society is getting and how much we need to change things." Gingrich concluded, "The only way you get change is to vote Republican. That's the message for the last three days." Two days later, less than 24 hours before the polls opened, Gingrich defended his comments on the Smith case as no different than what he'd been saying for years -- that violence and related ills arise from a Democratic-controlled political system: "We need very deep change if we're going to turn this country around." Asked if the change he was offering the country would stop killings like those in South Carolina, he replied, "Yes. In my judgment, there's no question."
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWell, when one considers one has to have a mental issue when voting for the democrat party, it makes sense. After all, the democrat party is the party of:
- Slavery
- The KKK ("the terrorist wing of the democrat party")
- Racism
- Jim Crow
- Lynchings
- Black Church Bombings
- Segregation
- The Tammany Hall theft ring
- The KC Pendergast theft ring
- The Mafia (er, I mean, Unions)
- Stealing every dime they can from taxpayers and hard-working Americans.
200 years of tyranny, racism, seccession, lynching, and bombing young black girls while in church. What a history! This isn't a political party we are talking about. The democrat party is a walking, talking, living, breathing RICO case.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOr, how about the time Newt blamed liberals for Columbine?
“I want to say to the elite of this country – the elite news media, the liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite: I accuse you in Littleton…of being afraid to talk about the mess you have made, and being afraid to take responsibility for things you have done, and instead foisting upon the rest of us pathetic banalities because you don’t have the courage to look at the world you have created.”
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseHere we go. "Tu Quoque" flood detected.
We get it. Anything terrible (or good) that one side has done, the other side has too. No action can ever be criticized without criticizing every similar action ever taken in the history of all mankind.
Just to be safe, I'm sure that conservatives use the "tu quoque" fallacy as well.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseBut that is exactly my point. There are certain things where partisan politics does not apply. I don't care if Paterno was a conservative, liberal, Democrat or Republican. The article that is referenced to is an insult. But by the same token, printing it here was also a partisan attack that tries to paint "liberals" in a negative light. My point about printing what Gingrich had said in the past is that it is quite easy to do. You can show idiotic OWS protestors and I can show idiotic Tea Party protestors. You can find liberal politicians in sex scandals and I can show conservative politicians in sex scandals.
I just don't know how this advances anything. Predators are predators. Period.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat do you mean, your "point"? What point was supposed to be evident in your original response in which you simply offered a tu quoque quote with no context?
Anyways, congratulations. You've effectively just repeated the main takeaway of Mr. Foster's blog post - which is that it's absurd to paint episodes like these with the brush of partisan politics. Your repetition of this point adds absolutely nothing to what he already said.
And his post said nothing about how Mr. Elk's silliness is unique to liberals.
Predators are just predators, indeed - which is exactly the point of his blog post.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe Tea Party folks are not like the OWS folks. Period, Full Stop.
To suggest that the Tea Party was in anywhere near the same ballpark as OWS simply needs to be called out.
Flat out..Prove it.
Unless, in the case of the Tea Party, you can show:
- People experiencing sexual assault at rallys
- People dying in their tents (what is that about?)
- People urinating on cop cars
- People shouting incomprehensible demands
- People with no concept of economics
- People living in filth
- People breaking windows and vandilizing private businesses
- Etc.
If you continue to profess the equivalency without providing prooof, you are without self respect and below contempt. Rather than debate in an honest format, you continue with obvious intellectually dishonesty. It is an example of how little you have to defend your position.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSo, the article Foster highlighted was bad, but Foster shouldn't highlight bad articles because other people have written bad articles.
And your response to prove this is to highlight a bad article, just like Foster did.
I know you don't get paid to agree with conservatives when you post here, but maybe you should work on getting an exemption from your boss where you can skip every 45th Corner post or something.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYour link goes to Think Progress as a source? Plus the links go to expire sites, or other liberal sites. Sho us real sources. Hiere is a good source for ya
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Wow, Slide, that's pretty hilariously dishonest, even for you.
The article you link in turn links to a dead site. So I searched for the actual quote, because an elided quote is always suspect. Here's what Gingrich said, contextualized by CNN:
"The former speaker also had much to say about children and violence and criticized how the media covers such stories.
Gingrich said for every child that murders, there are hundreds of other children who are good and have good values.
"I want to say to the elite in this country -- the elite news media, the liberal academic elite, the liberal political elite -- I accuse you in Littleton and I accuse you in Kosovo of being afraid to talk about the mess you have made, and being afraid for taking responsibility for the things you have done," he said.
Gingrich blamed Hollywood and computerized games for "undermining the core values of civility -- and it's time they were stopped by a society that values free speech enough to protect it.""
So, yeah, not at all what you thought it was. Just a rather generic rant about media undermining society's values ... something Clinton himself echoed at the same time.
Certainly not up to the level of Bill Clinton blaming Rush Limbaugh for the Oklahoma City bombing, is it?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMethinks Elk is full of chocolate squirrels.
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