Fascinoma

Now, as a fairly archetypal WASP male, I have sometimes been keenly aware that I have received preference somewhat past my objective desserts. Nobody has ever said, 'Hey, straight white man, come right in here -- stand aside you brown people, queers and females.' But I'd have to be pretty oblivious not to note the many ways in which I've been welcomed to the club, just for showing up on time and in the right clothes. Indeed, the whole culture is so rigged for the the white folks that in many instances people like me enjoy a ghostly invisibility had by none other; we can walk through social walls, fail upward through glass ceilings, and nobody, not even the burly black guys hired to keep the rifraff out, ever says 'What the fuck is that guy doing here?'

But I must say, I'm often not very proud of my brethren. Too many white folks seem far more oblivious than even myself to the fact that that they enjoy a a lot of benefits that they did nothing to deserve. Rather than recognize their karmic debt, their noblesse oblige, they insist ferociously that they are entitled to every conceivable perk, prerogative and privilege, in view of their merits; it's all the smooth working of a Panglossian meritocracy. The Best of All Possible Worlds! is the one where they're born on third base, and left to think they're hit a triple -- as was said of their patron saint, George W. He is their paragon and true Fuhrer, for if ever there was reverse-affirmative action, an utter mediocrity given absolutely ultimate promotion by a biased system, he is its exemplar.

These angry white boys, so absolutely entitled, so jealous for their fantasized meritocracy, nonetheless raise as their prophets and prostrate themselves before the most banal individuals our society has to offer; shoeshine/haircut entities like Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, and of course virtually every Republican politician. And now, in the Santomayor affair they're going apeshit with charges of racism which is rather like Limbaugh attacking someone as fat.

It's pathetic really, whiny little pricks are so threatened by the thought of anyone else getting his (and especially her) way that they feel victimized. As I have said before these little assholes feel so universally entitled that they event want to claim victim status whenever possible. The rule of law, justice enacted by pure reason, these are threatened apparently by a judge with empathy. Please. None of these characters gives a rat's ass about the rule of law, unless by that we mean keeping the brown people down. And empathy? Of course they hate empathy, and in fact anything that might reduce their capacity for self-pity.