Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member Latest Breaking News General Discussion The DU Lounge All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

CatWoman

(79,293 posts)
Thu Aug 15, 2013, 10:48 AM Aug 2013

Peggy Noonan: Obama Should Defend Missouri Rodeo Clown

Peggy Noonan offered a "classy" suggestion to President Barack Obama on Tuesday: go to bat for that rodeo clown in Missouri.

A rodeo clown who wore an Obama mask last weekend at the Missouri State Fair drew condemnation from many, including Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO). The clown subsequently received a lifetime ban from the state fair.

But Noonan, writing on her blog for The Wall Street Journal, believes that Obama should put a stop to the outrage.

Let me suggest a classy Obama move that might go over well. From his Vineyard vacation spot he should have the press office issue a release saying his reaction to finding out a rodeo clown was rudely spoofing him, was, “So what?” Say he loves free speech, including inevitably derision directed at him, and he does not wish for the Missouri state fair to fire the guy, and hopes those politicians (unctuously, excessively, embarrassingly) damning the clown and the crowd would pipe down and relax. This would be graceful and nice, wouldn’t it? He would never do it. He gives every sign of being a person who really believes he shouldn’t be made fun of, and if he is it’s probably racially toned, because why else would you make fun of him?


http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/peggy-noonan-obama-should-defend-missouri-rodeo-clown

20 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Peggy Noonan: Obama Should Defend Missouri Rodeo Clown (Original Post) CatWoman Aug 2013 OP
I think that Peggy spelled "crassy" wrong. greatauntoftriplets Aug 2013 #1
She has gall, given that she worked for the President who made genteel racism HardTimes99 Aug 2013 #2
Peggy Noonan was a big part of setting America on a course to the antebellum south. Octafish Aug 2013 #11
I wonder if Peggy plans to apologize anytime soon for 'Martin Lucifer Coon'. Nah, I HardTimes99 Aug 2013 #14
Who pulled her string? hobbit709 Aug 2013 #3
Gray Goose n/t HangOnKids Aug 2013 #10
So when did Reagan apologize for announcing candidacy in Philadelphia, Mississippi? Octafish Aug 2013 #4
Thanks for retaining that crucial bit of history, lest it be too HardTimes99 Aug 2013 #5
Gee Ronnie Wore Mom Jeans! HangOnKids Aug 2013 #13
You know, Peggy Noonan would make a great addition to "Drunk History." msanthrope Aug 2013 #6
Clownishness is something Peggy Noonan knows a lot about. marmar Aug 2013 #7
The president is supposed to interrupt his vacation to defend a guy who mocked him? DetlefK Aug 2013 #8
I loved Chapelle Show xmas74 Aug 2013 #12
I wish I could link to my local paper xmas74 Aug 2013 #9
Interesting … 1StrongBlackMan Aug 2013 #16
That's a good idea. xmas74 Aug 2013 #18
Piggy wouldn't know "classy" if it punched her in the face. GoCubsGo Aug 2013 #15
Piggy Nooner is bought and paid for by the owners and operators of Corporate McPravda... Octafish Aug 2013 #19
Glenn Beck just declared himself to be a rodeo clown in solidarity with this tool! backscatter712 Aug 2013 #17
This message was self-deleted by its author polichick Aug 2013 #20
 

HardTimes99

(2,049 posts)
2. She has gall, given that she worked for the President who made genteel racism
Thu Aug 15, 2013, 10:52 AM
Aug 2013

acceptable once again in American life.

I know it's sexist, but one really wishes one could deploy the b**** or c*** words to describe her.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
11. Peggy Noonan was a big part of setting America on a course to the antebellum south.
Thu Aug 15, 2013, 11:05 AM
Aug 2013

Remember the story from Terrel Bell, Prunefaces's shocked Secretary of Education, who heard White House staff refer to Dr. King as "Martin Lucifer Coon"?

 

HardTimes99

(2,049 posts)
14. I wonder if Peggy plans to apologize anytime soon for 'Martin Lucifer Coon'. Nah, I
Thu Aug 15, 2013, 11:09 AM
Aug 2013

seriously doubt it. Why? Because, deep down, Noonan probably agrees with that slur.

Yeah, only the second or third greatest American in history (after Lincoln and FDR), so what's the biggie?

Again, your service in keeping history alive should not be under-valued by anyone who cares about such subjects.

Much appreciated.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
4. So when did Reagan apologize for announcing candidacy in Philadelphia, Mississippi?
Thu Aug 15, 2013, 10:53 AM
Aug 2013


Nooner and Rayguns, two prunefaces in a pod.
 

HardTimes99

(2,049 posts)
5. Thanks for retaining that crucial bit of history, lest it be too
Thu Aug 15, 2013, 10:57 AM
Aug 2013

easily forgotten. (See my post upthread for my comment in the same vein.)

DetlefK

(16,423 posts)
8. The president is supposed to interrupt his vacation to defend a guy who mocked him?
Thu Aug 15, 2013, 11:02 AM
Aug 2013

"This would be graceful and nice."
A day without a republican going into end-of-world hyperbole would be graceful and nice.

You know why Dave Chapelle ended "Chapelle's Show"? Because racists kept retelling his nigger-punchlines, not as a way to laugh WITH blacks, but as a way to laugh ABOUT blacks.

xmas74

(29,669 posts)
9. I wish I could link to my local paper
Thu Aug 15, 2013, 11:04 AM
Aug 2013

but it can't be read without a subscription.

Turns out that's not the first time this clown or this rodeo troupe has dressed a clown up like the president and then had bulls charge at him, according to my local news paper.

Unfortunately, this story isn't going away and it makes all of us living around here look bad-really bad.

 

1StrongBlackMan

(31,849 posts)
16. Interesting …
Thu Aug 15, 2013, 09:03 PM
Aug 2013

I heard an NPR segment on this. The segment featured a guy (from a paper in Missouri … can’t remember which one) that has been doing stories on this from the start. (My take from him was he was pretty apologetic … his report was full of “those out-raged by this display, say … but those on the other side of the outrage say …” kind of reporting. He indicated that he explored whether this had been done in the past and found nothing. He, also, indicated that a bunch of folks told him that it had been done in the past, and to his credit, he asked them “when? Which event?” and those “leads” did not produce anything. And, according to the reporter, he spent a significant amount of time trying to find something.

So my suggestion is, two-fold: First, google the event that your paper cites to and see if you find anything; and if not, write an LTE indicating that you did some research and found their story to be untrue AND ask them to either verify their claim or print a retraction.

xmas74

(29,669 posts)
18. That's a good idea.
Fri Aug 16, 2013, 10:54 AM
Aug 2013

I might just stop the editor sometime in town and ask about the event. He's a smart man-he'd remember it. And he's something of a rarity in this day and age-a true moderate.

This is a smallish town and it's not uncommon to catch him out around town, taking pictures of whatever catches his eye.

GoCubsGo

(32,069 posts)
15. Piggy wouldn't know "classy" if it punched her in the face.
Thu Aug 15, 2013, 11:20 AM
Aug 2013

It's beyond me why this imbecile continues to be given a platform to spew her ridiculous tripe. Hell, I don't understand why she was ever give that platform in the first place.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
19. Piggy Nooner is bought and paid for by the owners and operators of Corporate McPravda...
Fri Aug 16, 2013, 10:58 AM
Aug 2013
Wanna Know Why We the People Really Don't Know Squat?

Corporate McPravda owns the airwaves.



And Corporate Tee Vee is still where most Americans get most of their information, including their ideas about these two statues. Wonder what people would think were they to learn from the tee vee what pater and fils have really done with their power?



The Propaganda System That Has Helped Create a Permanent Overclass Is Over a Century in the Making

Pulling back the curtain on how intent the wealthiest Americans have been on establishing a propaganda tool to subvert democracy.

Wednesday, 17 April 2013 00:00
By Andrew Gavin Marshall, AlterNet | News Analysis

Where there is the possibility of democracy, there is the inevitability of elite insecurity. All through its history, democracy has been under a sustained attack by elite interests, political, economic, and cultural. There is a simple reason for this: democracy – as in true democracy – places power with people. In such circumstances, the few who hold power become threatened. With technological changes in modern history, with literacy and education, mass communication, organization and activism, elites have had to react to the changing nature of society – locally and globally.

From the late 19th century on, the “threats” to elite interests from the possibility of true democracy mobilized institutions, ideologies, and individuals in support of power. What began was a massive social engineering project with one objective: control. Through educational institutions, the social sciences, philanthropic foundations, public relations and advertising agencies, corporations, banks, and states, powerful interests sought to reform and protect their power from the potential of popular democracy.

SNIP...

The development of psychology, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines increasingly portrayed the “public” and the population as irrational beings incapable of making their own decisions. The premise was simple: if the population was driven by dangerous, irrational emotions, they needed to be kept out of power and ruled over by those who were driven by reason and rationality, naturally, those who were already in power.

The Princeton Radio Project, which began in the 1930s with Rockefeller Foundation funding, brought together many psychologists, social scientists, and “experts” armed with an interest in social control, mass communication, and propaganda. The Princeton Radio Project had a profound influence upon the development of a modern "democratic propaganda" in the United States and elsewhere in the industrialized world. It helped in establishing and nurturing the ideas, institutions, and individuals who would come to shape America’s “democratic propaganda” throughout the Cold War, a program fostered between the private corporations which own the media, advertising, marketing, and public relations industries, and the state itself.

CONTINUED...

http://truth-out.org/news/item/15784-the-propaganda-system-that-has-helped-create-a-permanent-overclass-is-over-a-century-in-the-making



Thankfully, to help spread light when the protectors of the First Amendment won't, Maria Galardin's TUC (Time of Useful Consciousness) Radio. The podcast helps explain how we got here and what we need to do to move forward, starting with putting the "Public" into Airwaves again:



Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda
The Attack on Democracy


The 20th century, said Carey, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. And, in his manuscript, unpublished during his life time, he described that history, going back to World War I and ending with the Reagan era. Carey covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII and shows how the continued campaign against "Big Government" plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power.

John Pilger called Carey "a second Orwell", Noam Chomsky dedicated his book, Manufacturing Consent, to him. And even though TUC Radio runs our documentary based on Carey's manuscript at least every two years and draws a huge response each time, Alex Carey is still unknown.

Given today's spotlight on corporations that may change. It is not only the Occupy movement that inspired me to present this program again at this time. By an amazing historic coincidence Bill Moyers and Charlie Cray of Greenpeace have just added the missing chapter to Carey's analysis. Carey's manuscript ends in 1988 when he committed suicide. Moyers and Cray begin with 1971 and bring the corporate propaganda project up to date.

This is a fairly complex production with many voices, historic sound clips, and source material. The program has been used by writers and students of history and propaganda. Alex Carey: Taking the Risk out of Democracy, Corporate Propaganda VS Freedom and Liberty with a foreword by Noam Chomsky was published by the University of Illinois Press in 1995.

SOURCE: http://tucradio.org/new.html



If you find a moment, here's the first part (scroll down at the link for the second part) on Carey.

http://tucradio.org/AlexCarey_ONE.mp3

It's important for there to be more than a handful of companies providing "news." Democracy depends on it.

PS: An old OP, but worth a read for those new to the subject, IMFO.

PPS: Agree, 100-percent, GoCubsGo. Piggy -- hah! -- doesn't deserve a platform or anything else to spew her lies.

backscatter712

(26,355 posts)
17. Glenn Beck just declared himself to be a rodeo clown in solidarity with this tool!
Thu Aug 15, 2013, 10:25 PM
Aug 2013

Well, he's half-right.

Response to CatWoman (Original post)

Latest Discussions»General Discussion»Peggy Noonan: Obama Shoul...