Ha! McCain just had a "tar baby" incident.

[trackfan]

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070316/NEWS/70316033/1001/COMM04

[Fenris]

1. I can't get over this question.

"This is a little different than some of the questions," one woman said, before asking McCain if he knew of a plan for the United States to unite with Mexico and Canada.

"Ma'am, I want to assure you," McCain replied, "we will not be united with any of those two countries."

[Whoa_Nelly]

3. Found that one a bit strange as well

Did he mean those two countries don't get to become part and parcel of the US, such as in receiving statehood status? :shrug:

Darn strange answer, and a very unclear question on the part of the woman asking the question.

[NJCher]

10. my take on it

There is concern over a major highway being built through the middle of the country from Canada to Mexico. The people raising the concerns (and I wish I had an URL--I know there are organizations out there) are afraid that this will take more jobs from the country. An example would be transport jobs, which could go to Mexican truckers.

That's where I think this question is coming from. When I read it, I was startled that there would be that much awareness of this issue. It is the midwest, though, so perhaps there is more knowledge of it there.



Cher

[rinsd]

12. The North American Union conspiracy theory appears to be gaining devotees (nt)

[GliderGuider]

19. I think she's talking about the SPP - the Security and Prosperity Partnership.

It's a stealth economic union being driven by the North American corporatists now that their globalization plans have been thwarted for the moment. It's not a political union, yet.

More info at: Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP)

In March 2005, Paul Martin, George W. Bush and Vicente Fox met in Waco, Texas to ratify the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). The SPP takes NAFTA's goal of continental economic integration much further by including security and foreign policy issues, and by speeding up the process of regulatory harmonization integral to the first Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement. Despite a lack of public awareness or input, all three North American governments are moving quickly toward a continental resource pact, North American security perimeter, and common agricultural and other polices related to our health and environment. Working groups comprised of bureaucrats and corporate leaders are quietly putting this “partnership” into action, and to date only industry “stakeholders” have been consulted. The next meeting of the SPP is planned for Canada in 2007.

[Whoa_Nelly]

2. ROFLMAO!

Thanks for posting that story!

[Divide Et Impera]

4. BFD!

Tar baby has a legitimate, non-racist origin. I mean, calling someone a n*gger or 'Macaca' is different because those words have clear and actual racist roots. I can't stand McCain at all, but I can't pile on him on this one....

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. So what's the explanation for the "gook" incident?

[Catherine Vincent]

7. Geeze.

[Bluebear]

16. Are you concerned and troubled?

[MADem]

18. It's devolved since then. Tony Snow, Mitt Romney, now McCain...

It's not the term to use.

Hey, a faggot is a meatball in Britain. A fag is a cigarette. Go try telling some gay guy you just mean he's a bit of a meatball, or he resembles a cigarette, and see how well that works.

[trof]

22. Welcome to DU, and I agree absolutley.

[MADem]

6. Why do the GOP jus' LOOOOOVE that term? Hell, what's wrong with sticky wicket?

Or do they think that's too Brit, or maybe they think a wicket is something you were told not to touch or you'd go blind...????

[onenote]

13. you think its only repubs?

The late great Molly Ivins used it. Fortunately, no one sought to burn her at the stake.
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2001/650
Word police...sheesh..

[MADem]

15. She used it in 01. And even back then, it was "iffy." We don't know how she felt about it

subsequently and we will never know, unless she's gone on the record about it, because she is DEAD.

It's not a case of WORD POLICE, it's a case of sensitivity to others besides YOURSELF. Others who find offense in the whole "Uncle Remus" slave days, who take offense at subtle racial or ethnic jabs that are usually followed by claims of "meaning no harm".

We don't call someone who cleverly outwits a bunch of attackers, or who enjoys pancakes, Little Black Sambo, do we? How well would that go over with, say, a breakfast fundraiser? "Senator Obama settled himself into his chair, and eagerly shovelled pancakes into his mouth like Sambo after outwitting the tigers.."

Oh, gee, NO HARM meant...it's just a story about a little boy ....in INDIA, after all!!!!

Once Tony Snow got in hot water, that was that. Tar Baby 'IS'--no matter how much you gripe--on the "Be an Insensitive Fuck if You Use the Term" list.

[onenote]

26. so the person concerned about sensitivity to others

refers to others as "Insensitive Fucks"?

LOL!

[MADem]

32. Way to go far afield, there!!! What are you saying, that you are

voluntarily putting your name on that list? That's YOUR choice. Don't blame me if you pencil yourself in. You did it to yourself.

If the shoe fits, there...one note, indeed.

You're quite the One Note wonder! The only opinion that counts is yours, we see.

[hedgehog]

8. It's like telling someone not to think of the color blue.

I bet every politician raised on tar baby as a story rather than a slur refer to it at least once this election cycle. (When we went through this before, it was rather clear that the phrase has two different meanings depending on where you were raised.)

[trof]

21. I respectfully disagree. 2 meanings, yes.

But based on usage, not where you were raised.
I was raised in Alabama.
And I can tell when the tar baby in question is the sticky one or the 'n'-word one.

[Hubert Flottz]

9. He is eat up!

I love it when they step in Doo-Doo and then stick their sticky foot right on in their mouth.

MORAN!

[opihimoimoi]

23. McLame is no straight shooter....he shoots in a downward angle and now he got no feet

Wheels off the bus for this dude....he ain't going nowhere.....even Gary Bauer would beat ole Gramps....John is TOAST

[Hubert Flottz]

28. McLame is a lame dork right out of the chute.

The pubs ain't got anybody that can win and every day they sink deeper into their own bullshit!

John Kisses Bush's ass 24/7 and 70% of the people are looking for something better than the neocon con men.

I think he and Rudy are both toast.

[opihimoimoi]

35. Fort Pub surrounded and being shelled 24/7 by Treb Units using Pig Shit Ammo

[Hubert Flottz]

36. Pig shit is too good for the pubbies...

The way they stink they'd just blame the smell on each other!

[NJCher]

11. are they that hurting for expressions?

So what's the deal with republican politicians? Is their vernacular that devoid of expressions that they keep having to turn to that particular one?

A more sensitive person would simply avoid the use of the expression, period, regardless of whether it's rooted in racism.



Cher

[onenote]

14. So Molly Ivins was insensitive?

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2001/650

Enough with the word police.

[MADem]

17. Yes, she was. And you are obtuse.

Just because she's dead doesn't mean she never made mistakes. She was the first to admit she was a horrible lush. She wouldn't want you holding her up as a saint, I doubt, using that as an example.

Sheesh.

[onenote]

25. I don't think she was a saint, I'm pretty sure she didn't think she was either

But I also doubt very much that she would have felt the need to apologize for her use of the term tar-baby to describe the US position in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And it appears that you, not I, are the one being obtuse.



Or,maybe I should say, to the best of my knowledge she never did apologize for it.

[MADem]

27. Your insistence that the term isn't problematic is not going to change the reality that it is

Like it or not.

Ask Mitt Romney, ask John McCain, and ask Tony Snow.

You cry "Word Police" but if this were not an issue, there wouldn't be any news articles on it.

It is a story, that's why it got covered.

And to suggest that this isn't an issue IS, indeed, OBTUSE. No matter how vociferously you try to deny it by dragging a dead woman into the mix.

If it is in the paper, it's an issue.

[trof]

30. Evidently it is problematic for you.

Some of us understand the distinction between the sticky tar baby and the pejorative one.

And may I say that 'kinder, gentler' is more likely to engender rational discussion than calling fellow DUers 'obtuse'?
Just my very humble opinion.

[MADem]

31. One more time, it is problematic if it is covered in the media.

And it has been. SEVERAL TIMES.

Why is that so hard for you to grasp?

It's not MY opinion that is causing this to be featured in news outlets, yet you keep lecturing me as though I wrote all those articles on the subject.

If I could use my thoughts to put articles in the paper, I sure wouldn't waste that magic power on tar baby stories.

Obtuse as a word, and seeing as you have interest in Word Police matters, is an accurate description of someone, like yourself, who doesn't 'get the nuance' surrounding an issue. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/obtuse

And clearly, seeing as you ignore the fact that the media has covered this issue a number of times in the last two years, and the tar baby term has been regarded as offensive and has been so described in the media, you don't "get the nuance" and ergo, are obtuse. I don't say you are obtuse to be mean, I say it to be accurate. You don't "get" how the term is hurtful, and you don't "get" that people are offended. All you "get" is that YOU think the term is hunky-dory, and you get angry at "Word Police" who have a different, and dare I say, more NUANCED, view.

[trof]

33. Sorry. To continue this 'discussion' would be futile.

Have a nice day.

[MADem]

34. You got that right. You too. NT

[trof]

20. I can't figure out this dual-definition tar baby thing.

In it's original use it meant getting into a sticky situation from which it was almost impossible to let go. Like Iraq.
A situation best avoided altogether.

I guess, at some point in history, somebody called, or referred to, a black person as a 'tar baby'. And maybe, for some, it became interchangeable with the 'n' word. Whatever.

Now I would never carry any water for John McCain. In fact, although I used to have a modicum of respect for the 'old' John McCain pre-2000 campaign, I think he's totally off his rocker now and not a player any more.

BUT, if reasonable and reasoning people can't look at the context in which the term 'tar baby' is used, and see that it's the sticky one and not the derogative term for a black person one, then...I dunno.
Would it be too strong to say that we're losing some of our most traditional and evocative (NOT PROvocative!) descriptive language?

I guess we could say 'flypaper', but that just doesn't evoke the same readily understood simile (is THAT right?) as 'tar baby'.
At least not for me.

And now...have I beat this pore ol' dead nag enough?

[lectrobyte]

24. I can't either. I've always heard people use it as a metaphor for a

sticky situation that the more you try to fight, the worse you become ensnared. And I think this was from the Uncle Remus stories. I had no idea that some folks found it offensive.

[trof]

29. Bingo. Joel Chandler Harris's "Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings".

"B'rer Rabbit and The Tar Baby"

Some now consider the Uncle Remus books to be racist.
I don't. They were a product of the times.

From wikipedia:

"Brer Rabbit ("Brother Rabbit") is the main character of the stories, a likable trickster prone to getting into trouble who is often opposed by Brer Fox and Brer Bear. In one tale, Brer Fox and Brer Bear construct a lump of tar and put clothing on it. When Brer Rabbit comes along he addresses the "tar baby" amiably, but receives no response. Brer Rabbit becomes offended by what he perceives as Tar Baby's lack of manners, kicks it, and becomes stuck. Now that Brer Rabbit is stuck, Fox ponders how to dispose of him. The helpless, but cunning, Brer Rabbit pleads, "Please don't throw me in the briar patch," prompting Fox to do exactly that. As rabbits are at home in thickets, the resourceful Brer Rabbit escapes. Using the phrases "please don't throw me in the briar patch" and "tar baby" to refer to the idea of "a problem that gets worse the more one struggles against it" became part of the wider culture of the United States in the mid-20th century."