Janeane Garofalo Starring In... Far-Left Racism-Obsessed Virtual Reality Moonbattery

When a would-be media figure is as marginal as Janeane Garofalo, they certainly face continual pressure to stay relevant.

For her own part, Garofalo has no idea how to do that. So when appearing on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, she decided to re-hash her greatest hits: accusing conservatives of racism.

It's something she tried before, when she accused the Tea Party of opposing the policies of US President Barack Obama out of "racism, straight-up". Her most recent dip into her arsenal of weaponized racism is a little more confusing. They support Republcian Presidential hopeful Herman Cain out of racism.

Get it? If they oppose a black man politically, they're racist. If they support a black man politically, they're racist. Garofalo's argument basically amounts to "they're racist, no matter what."

"Herman Cain is probably well liked by some of the Republicans because it hides the racist elements of the Republican party. Conservative movement and tea party movement, one in the same," Garofalo declared. "People like Karl Rove liked to keep the racism very covert. And so Herman Cain provides this great opportunity say you can say 'Look, this is not a racist, anti-immigrant, anti-female, anti-gay movement. Look we have a black man.'"

Olbermann being Olbermann, he declines to offer any critical comment or question of Garofalo's comments, even the one that seems entirely elementary to any rational human being.

(Considering that Olbermann began the segment by noting that Palin didn't focus on what GOP hopefuls were doing wrong in the debates, it's pretty clear that Olbermann is allowing his personal bias to absolutely overwhelm ration.)

To describe Garofalo's argument as childish is beyond understatement. But examining it logically for any more than two seconds immediately reveals something abotu Garofalo that rathional people... already knew.

As an argument, this is intellectually lazy. It's exceedingly intellectually lazy. It essentially amounts to virtual reality reasoning.

Originally posited by Norman Mailer, virtual reality reasoning describes a closed system of thought. The virtual reality thinker locks themselves into a narrow, compact realm of possibilities. Not only may no answer to any question be found that is not already programmed within the system, but no question may be asked that isn't already programmed into that system.

For Garofalo, the question is "why are conservatives racist?" The answer is "because conservatives are racist, no matter what."

In a previous outing on Olbermann's show, Garofalo suggests that someone may even be paying Cain to run for President. She offers absolutely no evidence other than her own demand that any visible minority give her their undying political allegiance.

It seems necessary to wonder whether Garofalo herself is the nut or the dolt in the "nuts and dolts"-themed segment until one realizes that she's both.

Any information that Garofalo is presented with -- including an impressive level of support for Cain's ideas within the Tea Party -- will, in her mind, immediately be warped and twisted to reach one conclusion: the Tea Party, Republicans and conservatives are all racist. No matter what.

And yet Janeane Garofalo wants to be the absolute arbiter of who does and does not have credibility. It will be a sad day for American politics if she ever actually achieves that level of influence.

Happy Birthday, Tea Party!

Conservative political movement came a long way in a short time

Today, the Tea Party celebrates its second anniversary.

In a very short time it's come a long way, accomplished a lot, and overcome many obstacles in order to do so.

Bolstered by the Tea Party, and set back on a path toward fiscal conservatism -- although not solidly enough for many, including Tea Party luminaries Rand Paul and Ron Paul -- the Republican Party swept through the 2010 midterm elections, taking control of the federal House of Representatives, and of governments at the state and local level.

They also provoked the fear and hatred of the American far-left. Acting on the modus operandi recommended by Spencer Ackerman, the far-left accused the Tea Party of racism. In many cases, they doctored evidence of that alleged racism. In other cases, they resorted to Alinsky-ite "crash the Tea Party" tactics to attempt to demonize the Tea Party by publicizing the outlandish and outrageous behaviour of deliberate provocateurs.

If they received so much as a dime in donations from wealthy benefactors, they were deemed "astroturf". If so much as one legitimate Tea Party protester or organizer made an outrageous remark, it was used to condemn the entire movement. If Tea Party organizers or protesters denied they were racist, it was treated by the movement's opponents as evidence of guilt.

The Tea Party was subjected to the ultimate in left-wing McCarthyite tactics. And it persevered.

The Tea Party restored the Republican Party to honesty, rejuvinating the party and making it competitive again. A party that seemed on the verge of complete collapse instead re-surged to a striking 2010 victory.

More importantly than this, the Tea Party helped reveal the intellectual impotence of the modern left. A movement conceived on the basis of foundational beliefs, it challenged the mythos of leftist progressivism. In the face of a movement touting beliefs the left has seeked to supplant -- modernize, if you will -- the left could come up with no effective response.

It was the pathetic attempts to brand political dissent as racist that revealed the intellectual bankruptcy of the modern left. After the Barck Obama election, precipitated on populist promises of hope and change, the left had nothing left in the tank.

The Tea Party prospered off the outrage provoked by a Democratic Party that came to power with a hidden agenda, dropped its mask, and began to implement that extreme agenda. It put the Democrats on the ropes, and is now a year and a half away from sending the Democrats back to the drawing board altogether.

The Tea Party has come a long way, in a short time, and emerged victorious over the most draconian tactics the far-left has ever deployed without resorting to a violent revolution.

Hopefully, the next two years will be just as successful.

Are the Democrats Experiencing a Deficit of Hope?

The second ad in the Republican Party's "Deficit of Hope" ad campaign, entitled "Crazy" opens to an animated Air Force Once sitting on the tarmac preparing for departure.

"Attention passengers, fellow Democrats, we're just about ready to depart DC and go on my national fundraising tour to your homestates," an animated Barack Obama, dressed as a flight attendant, announces to the passengers. In his hand he holds an itinerary of his destinations, with revised unemployment rates -- all of them climbing -- on a clipboard.

"That's right, I'm coming to your hometowns," Obama announces.

At which point an emergency exit slide bursts forth from the jet, and the Democrats evacuate the plane.

In a television appearing on the bottom right corner of the screen, a series of newsclips are shown in quick succession. Viriginia Governor Tim Kaine is shown declaring Democrats who are distancing themselves from party leadership to be "crazy", while newsclips describe the growing discomfort Democrat politicians are beginning to show with Obama.

For good measure, it even includes former Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean's infamous scream from the 2004 Presidential primaries.

The ad presses a worthy question: are the Democrats themselves beginning to experience a deficit of hope? And for how long?

That the Democratic Party themselves adopted Spencer Ackerman's now-famed weaponized racism tactic indicates that they may have lost faith in their ability -- and that of their President -- to win the political debate by legitimate means.

Now that the race card is famously maxed out, the Democrats have been robbed of what they must have expected to be one of their greatest assets under Barack Obama.

With the political climate in the United States increasingly turning against them, it's becoming clear that the Democrats are experiencing a deficit of hope.

The Wrong Crowd to Sell Weaponized Racism To

On August 4, 2010, the Tea Party Express organization held a press conference in Washington, DC. At this conference a number of black conservative leaders and thinkers hosted reporters from a number of media outlets.

Those assembled -- including, among others, Alan Keyes, Star Parker, and the Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson -- discussed their involvement in the Tea Party movement, and answered questions regarding the charges of racism lobbed against the movement.

In recent weeks, a growing collection of smoking guns regarding the American far left, the Tea Party and weaponized racism have become apparent.

Journolist member Spencer Ackerman declared that questions regarding Reverend Jeremiah Wright should be shut down with accusations of racism, and more recently former Civil Rights Commissioner Mary Frances Berry publicly mused about the success of using racism as a political tactic in order to distract Americans from real issues.

"Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats," she remarked. "There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November."

"Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness," she concluded.

As far as smoking guns go, it may be even more damning than Ackerman's.

It's with this candour in mind that one turns to a question asked at the Tea Party Express press conference by Joyce Jones of Black Enterprise when she recycled the claims of the Democrat Congressional Black Caucus that they had been serenaded with racial epithets by Tea Party protesters.

"John Lewis put his life at considerable risk and danger so you could stand here and speak about freedoms," Jones began. "I want to know why it's so impossible for you to believe that someone did spit on him or call him the N-word?"

"Why would he lie about that when he's experienced so much worse?" she asked.

William Owens responded very simply: there is no evidence. So Jones asked a follow-up:

"Why is his word not good enough?" Jones asked.

"On the stage of public opinion, evidence is paramount," Owens explained. "It's one person's accusation against another. It was so public it should not be a difficult time to find evidence, and there is none."

Jones' explanation that she was there quickly faltered in the face of an admission that she didn't hear the epithet spoken, but that "there were crowds" present.

Alfonzo Rachel then responded by asking why the word of others aren't accepted with the same value -- including the word of those accused. Jones effectively had no answer.

The episode serves as a reminder of the McCarthyite tactics adopted by those executing Spencer Ackerman's and Mary Frances Berry's game plan.

When Senator Joseph McCarthy orchestrated his reign of terror over the United States, he orchestrated a rhetorical environment in which denials were treated as admissions of guilt, and only admissions were accepted. In a perverse distortion of any reasonable standard of evidence, McCarthy allowed his own suspicions to stand as evidence, and abused the powers granted to him to pursue his own personal anti-communist crusade.

Those working so hard to brand the Tea Party with accusations of racism -- to the extent that they have to distort and fabricate evdience -- are utilizing the same tactics. The question of Joyce Jones -- why the words of Represenatives John Lewis and Emanuele Cleaver aren't simply accepted despite the wealth of evidence to the contrary -- is a stark reminder of that.

Needless to say, black conservatives are clearly the wrong crowd to which to attempt to peddle weaponized racism.

That in itself should speak volumes.

Who Weaponized Racism? Part IV

It is still worth repeating, and will remain worth repeating until the culprits come clean. The far left weaponized racism.

And MSNBC has been at the very forefront of it.

Consider this particular episode from earlier this year when Dylan Ratigan exploded on Tea Party Express spokesman Mark Williams, demanding that Williams answer a question about whether or not the Tea Party accepts "racist and Nazis".



Not getting the kind of answer he wanted -- instead being challenged about NBC's record with anti-Semitism -- Ratigan screamed himself hoarse while Williams tried, in vain, to give the following answer:

"We don't embrace racism."

Ratigan then entitled himself to a comically self-righteous flourish after cutting off Williams' microphone so that he couldn't answer the question.

But Ratigan must have simply forgotten himself.



After all, Dylan Ratigan was on MSNBC's Morning Meeting when the network aired selectively-edited footage of a man with an AR-15 assault rifle at an Arizona town hall meeting at which President Barack Obama was present.

The suggestion was that a racially-motivated assassination attempt on Obama was imminent.

The problem was that the man pictured on screen is actually a black man. In fact, he was interviewed by CNN on the very same day.



When Spencer Ackerman suggested, via the Journolist news group, that liberals arbitrarily accuse conservatives of racism in order to deter them from criticizing Barack Obama and his policies, it was one thing. Ackerman was at the time employed by the Washington Independent, and would later go on to be employed by Wired, where he continues to enjoy employment despite his obvious contempt for journalistic ethics.

But it's clear that MSNBC has been following Ackerman's play book and they aren't, by any means, alone.

The weaponization of racism has, in fact, been pervasive and well orchestrated across a variety of forums across a variety of media. Those complicit -- as evidenced by Dylan Ratigan, Janeane Garofalo, Spencer Ackerman and others -- have been utterly shameless about the socially irresponsible and ideologically selfish things they have done in the name of politics.

It's time for those who aspire to being responsible voices among the left to start denouncing the weaponization of racism. Given the stakes, they cannot afford to wait indefinitely.

Who Weaponized Racism? Thredux

It's still worth repeating: the far left did.

And they aren't even ashamed of it.

Worth revisiting is the sad, sad story of Janeane Garofalo. Following the smoking gun provided by Spencer Ackerman -- who has yet to stand up and account for his ruthless and ideologically selfish exploitation of the subject of racism -- it becomes clear what it was Garofalo was doing when she appeared on Keith Olbermann's MSNBC program in 2009.

She was deploying weaponized racism. Like Ackerman, not only has she yet to show any remorse for her actions, but she was rather shameless about them when later confronted.



"Let's be very honest about what this is about," Garofalo began -- a rather ironic remark coming from someone who was being as dishonest as she was at the time, and has continued to be. "This is not about bashing Democrats. It's not about taxes, they have no idea what the Boston Tea Party was about. They don't know their history at all."

"This is about hating a black man in the White House," she asserted. "This is racism straight-up."

"That is nothing but a bunch of tea bagging rednecks and there is no way around it," she added, before going on to wax incoherently about the limbic brain.

The fact that the Tea Party's central message has nothing to do with race, and has never had anything to do with race, seems to mean nothing at all to Garofalo.

When later confronted about her comments, and called upon to defend them, the best Garofalo could offer up was the example of a sign featuring a pop culture reference, and would simply refuse to defend herself any further:



Perversely, Garofalo, being unable to produce any evidence for her claims, simply chose to question the motivation of Tea Party protesters, and self-indulgently allowed her suspicions to stand as evidence.

As Griff Jenkins -- the individual who confronted her -- noted, Garofalo does indeed seem bitter to be asked to defend her remarks. This is largely because they were never meant to be questioned. Aired on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Garofalo made her accusations in a forum where they were most likely to be found to be ideologically soothing.

Olbermann -- who never offered anything more than an agreeing nod -- clearly found Garofalo's remarks to be rather soothing.

People like Olbermann and Garofalo have taken a certain amount of delight in calling for the Tea Party to account for any racism -- whatsoever, on any scale -- that one may find within its ranks.

But given the consequences of sewing cynicism on the topic of racism, perhaps it's time for the far left -- from the race-baiting demagogues at MSNBC to the NAACP -- to account for the weaponization of racism.

It's time for individuals like Keith Olbermanns and Ben Jelous to start denouncing the disingenous, irresponsible and ideologically selfish weaponization of racism wherever they may find it. Olbermann can feel free to begin with Janeane Garofalo's comments on the April 16, 2009 edition of his program -- then follow that up with a denunciation of Spencer Ackerman.

Of course, no one familiar with the brand of invective typically spewed on Olbermann's program should really expect Olbermann to do the responsible thing -- although one can always hold out hope.

Who Weaponized Racism? Redux

It's worth repeating: the far left did.

In its most virulent forms, weaponized racism relies on rhetorical self-indulgences by the far left wherein they entitle themselves to various sophistic means by which they never need provide any actual evidence.



Instead of offering actual evidence of racism, Dyson instead proposes that he can identify "code words" -- coded racism.

Moreover, when Breitbart points out that Limbaugh was a staunch defender of Justice Clarence Thomas, Maher insists that Thomas doesn't represtent "95%" of black people. Dyson objects to Breitbart envoking the "black studies crowd" by referring to it as coded racism.

Dyson seems rather desperate to cut off Breitbart's point at the knees, and with reason: in order to make his argument, Dyson relies on a collectivized notion of race, with a political agenda attached to it.

Dyson further suggests that white supremacy can inhabit black skin -- further inferring that Thomas is such a case.

In other words, because Thomas doesn't share the political agenda championed by the far left -- including, frankly, many X-studies professors of various sorts (black studies, women's studies, etc) -- it's inferred that he, as a black man, is a white supremacist.

Of course, what Dyson is all but outwardly accusing Thomas of is perhaps the most damaging breed of racism -- racism against one's own race. And, just as with his "coded racism", Dyson need not offer any actual evidence outside of Thomas' disagreement with a specific political agenda.

Which, conveniently, will always be their political agenda.

In fact, Dyson's allegations of "coded racism" actually allows him to take any statement he believes he can twist into inferring a racist statement and use it as de facto evidence of racism.

For example, Dyson has entitled himself to the privilege to twist any criticism of President Barack Obama -- an individual black man -- into a broader racist meme in which one criticizes Obama not because there's anything wrong with his policies, but rather because they can't stand to see a black man in charge.

Where Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- clearly "running things" as a black male -- falls into this is anyone's guess.

Then, quite comically, as Breitbart gets set to rebut, it's Michael Eric Dyson -- a guest on the show, not a producer, or even its host -- who says "we're out of time".

Naturally, there's a few things that Dyson and Maher wouldn't want Breitbart to bring up -- that Limbaugh's McNabb comments were used out-of-context on numerous occasions, that former black NFL player Eugene “Mercury” Morris would defend Limbaugh on another such occasion, and that Limbaugh's infamous "slavery" comments were wholly fabricated.

There's a reasonw why Dyson wouldn't want such facts to see the light of day: as a black man with a specific far-left-wing political agenda, Dyson has learned as well as anyone that racism is an extremely convenient political accusation. As such, it's individuals like Dyson who have participated in the weaponization of racism -- all in the name of advancing said specific agenda.

The cynicism people like Dyson are breeding on the topic of racism is dangerous and socially irresponsible.

It's to the great credit of western society that we have come to understand the civic threat posed by racism, even if we have yet to fully conquer it. It's to the great discredit of people like Bill Maher, Michael Eric Dyson and Spencer Ackerman that they have decided to risk undermining the western public's understanding of racism by sewing such cynicism.

If they legitimately cared about the topic of racism at all, they would be ashamed of themselves. Of course, that brings one back to a very, very big "if" -- and all the available evidence demonstrates that they really don't care about it at all: they only care about racism so far as they can ideoligically benefit from it.

Who Weaponized Racism?

Use of racism as a political tactic breeds cynicism

Simple answer: the far left did.

Savvy political observers have known this for years. With the revelations emerging out of the "Journolist" story in the United States, in which a number of journalists colluded with one another to shape an ideological media narrative with the goal of electing Barack Obama as President, many more people are waking up to the weaponization of racism by ideologically-motivated individuals.

Hopefully, more people will wake up to the peril of this, and be prepared to confront them.

The smoking gun of the matter is an email by Wired blogger Spencer Ackerman, who at one point writes the following:

"If the right forces us all to either defend [Reverend Jeremiah] Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they’ve put upon us. Instead, take one of them — Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — and call them racists. Ask: why do they have such a deep-seated problem with a black politician who unites the country? What lurks behind those problems? This makes them sputter with rage, which in turn leads to overreaction and self-destruction."

Why did Ackerman want this to become a generial meme amongst the media? The answer is actually rather simple:

"What is necessary is to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. In other words, find a rightwinger’s [presumably, face] and smash it through a plate-glass window. Take a snapshot of the bleeding mess and send it out in a Christmas card to let the right know that it needs to live in a state of constant fear. Obviously I mean this rhetorically."

Meaning this rhetorically, of course, doesn't really excuse absolve Ackerman from the notion underpinning this particular comment.

Ackerman declares, simply, that in order to create an opportunity for the left to impose its agenda unopposed, it needs to make it hurt to stand up to them. The opposition is to be utterly destroyed -- and in order to do that, Ackerman recommended that he and his fellow Journolist members utilize the one issue that nearly everyone finds so repulsive that it virtually guarantees a social ostracism: that of racism.

Those observing the culture war raging in the United States -- one that Canadian pollster Frank Graves so desperately wants to bring to Canada -- have long noticed this, and have noticed the extent to which the left-wing media has twisted the narrative in order to meet their goals.

Various left-wing media commentators were more than content to lob vapid accusations of racism at the Tea Party. The New York Times took it a little further. They lobbed such accusations based on the notion that not many visible minorities were participating. Then they tailored a poll to confirm that after already reporting it as if it were fact.

The detail that their poll drastically diverged from various other polls on the racial and ethnic make-up of the Tea Party was also conveniently overlooked by many of the other organizations that reported on it.

That was, by no means, the most blatant attempt to link the Tea Party -- whose message, interestingly enough, has never had anything to do with race -- to racism. Perhaps that prize goes to the MSNBC producers who heavily edited (read: doctored) footage of a black man with an AR-15 assault rifle at an Arizona Tea Party rally in order to conceal his race. Footage of the man -- edited so that no skin would appear in the shot -- was coupled with commentary alleging that a racially-motivated assassination attempt on President Obama was imminent.

These are people who know exactly what they're doing, and they know exactly why they're doing it. And they seem to believe that no one else is smart enough to figure it out.

But the greatest danger of the tactics these individuals are emloying doesn't actually lie in false accusations of racism themselves.

Rather, it lies in the risk that cynicism on the topic of racism will proliferate -- that whenever an accusation of racism is made, people will simply dismiss it out-of-hand. Even when that the accused is actually racist.

The Ackerman tactic -- as it should henceforth be known anywhere and everywhere the topic of race is discussed -- risks providing cover for actual racists. Using racism as a political accusation allows racism to be dismissed as such.

That is the extent of the social irresponsibility of individuals like Spencer Ackerman, who couldn't honestly give a flying fuck about racism. Not really. They are more than willing to risk the breeding of widespread cynicism on the topic of racism for short-term ideological gain.

Moreover, Ackerman seems to have very little to say for himself to date. He seems rather unashamed of his actions, even in the wake of such a public revelation.

This is a point that, quite naturally, will be lost on the ideologues most eager to use accusations of racism as a weapon.

But it's time to hold the far left accountable for their blatant and shameful exploitation, for selfishly ideological ends, of what is actually a lingering social illness that still infects western society.

Who weaponized racism? The far left did.

It's time to make them wear it.