Roseanne Barr made me laugh. Alas, it was 20 years ago. It was while she was a guest on Arsenio Hall's late night show and decided to rib the host. It's not often you meet a black nerd, Barr told Hall. Most nerds are white -- like you.
If Barr has said anything as piercing since, it's passed my attention. And what she said on the most recent Smiley & West radio show demonstrated how Barr has crossed the line from funny to delusional.
Barr used her appearance to officially end her Green Party candidacy for president after losing the party's nomination to Dr. Jill Stein of Massachusetts (who ran for Bay State governor against Mitt Romney in 2002.) (audio) --
BARR: It has not been easy (her life after sitcom "Roseanne") and but in so many ways it's just been, in so many ways, talk about like blowing the lid off of the whole fantasy of this
country and how its politics work, how its election cycles run, and what it takes to win.
TAVIS SMILEY: So now you know how funky it is.BARR: Oh, I just know, I always knew that it was just about money. I knew everything was for sale but, I mean, as we all know now, our whole government is for sale and to the highest bidder and the people who have the money are, you know, they're not the best people. They should have any power at all.
Presumably Barr meant the wealthy should "not" have any power. Otherwise the "any" in that sentence makes no sense at all.
Barr then showed how she didn't mean all people with money. Her formulation doesn't apply to wealthy leftists. Her, for example (audio) --
SMILEY: Does this seem in some ways like deju vu for you talking now about the sitcom and what it was about and when it aired? Does this moment in American history have a deja vu feel for you?
BARR: It does in so many ways because, you know, in so many ways it's sad because, oh I tried so hard, I tried to tell people what was coming. Of course I was rewarded handsomely but of course, you know, like a lot of professional athletes who get, like, contracts for $20 million to play a sport and that, you know, that looks like a lot of money 'til you look at what the owners are taking down. So, I did make, I did become rich but I never became anywhere near as rich as the people who, you know, I was working for who made billions when I made a few million and did all the work.
Take that, John Goodman, and all you "Roseanne" layabouts. She's waited years to say that!
Barr says she made millions while the people who employed her made billions. As sob stories go, this one won't generate many tears outside of Green Party conventions. Apparently it's never occurred to Barr that while she worked hard and made millions, the people who employed her apparently worked harder, or smarter, or both, and made billions. Poor Roseanne, that underpaid millionaire. Or did she squander her wealth and become a former millionaire?
Next targets -- the "tight and white" Green Party's appalling lack of "diversity" and racism on the left (audio) --
BARR: The Green Party I had great hopes for, the Green Party, because I like the ten key values of the Green Party and if anybody wants to look into those ten key values I'm sure they'll agree. Diversity is one of the ten key values of the Green Party and to me it is the most important in America. The most important value is diversity, beside grassroots democracy, justice and all those other things we care about.
But the Green Party has a real problem with diversity. So in that way, you know, it's been shocking to me and greatly disappointing to me. I just want to say, I don't know if you guys know this, but I ran as a candidate, as a spokesperson for the Black Caucus of the Green Party. And I was so proud because I thought, wow, this is a brand new day because I felt a little bit like Obama because, you know, I have white skin and I was chosen by that caucus to raise the specter of racism and, you know, lack of diversity but particularly, racism in the left and the Green Party itself. And, you know, people who have done that before me find ourselves smeared and, you know, it's just tight and white in the Green Party like it is in every other party. So now, I've like, totally back here on the street, (Smiley and West laugh), back here on the street, by myself, and still going to talk about it.
Race is what really's going to determine this next election. Romney is a race baiter, and I mean, I really want to say that. Romney and people, money has figured out how to, like, totally divide people in America on that issue 'cause, you know, that helps money to keep people divided so that they, you know, go against their neighbors, their brothers, you know, so that there's just like as close to civil war in this country as there is in every other country where the United States has gone.
.... as those raging civil wars in Germany, Japan and the Korean peninsula tragically show.
Needless to say, the Green Party is short on people of color when Roseanne Barr represents the party's black caucus -- whose members still cling to the hope that Elizabeth Warren might jump ship, conjure up a convenient ancestor, and represent them instead.
Barr could be correct in her claim that race will determine the next election, but not for the reason she claims. It could well depend on how race hustlers like her succeed in maligning Romney as racist.
Woe is us, Barr warned, if Romney is elected. It would be, she hyperventilated, our last election (audio) --
CORNEL WEST: When you said, God forbid, Mitt Romney, I agree with that. A right-wing takeover of White House and Congress would be just cat-a-strophic. The Democrats are disastrous, but disaster is better than catastrophe. What argument would you give to me and many others who resonate with what I'm saying? (Yes -- "who resonate with what I'm saying" -- and the man, uh, teaches at Princeton).
BARR: Well, just that I agree, we cannot help Romney get in there. That guy, that is like, if that happens, I don't even think there will be another election. I think that if he wins, we won't have another election and we already have pretty fixed and rigged system as it is. But it'll just keep going that way.
Just as there hasn't been an election in this country since Bush stole Florida in 2000 and his underlings on the Supreme Court certified the theft. Except for all those elections won by Democrats. Except for them.
Not only that, Barr claimed after removing the paper bag from her head, a Romney victory would mean nothing less than the return of -- re-enactor drumroll, please -- the Confederacy (audio) --
I don't want Mitt Romney to win. I don't want a weak Obama to win either. I want a strong, strengthened Obama to win who actually listens to the voters and to the women and to, you know, all who have been marginalized by big bankster money buying our government. And you know, what I'm terrified that Romney already has the receipt for the White House. I'm terrified because he does have enough money to buy it and since the Supreme Court put it up for sale, you know, he might have already bought it. And I hope that isn't true. Because if it is true, you know, it's just a return to the Confederacy.
Engineered by a Mormon from Michigan and former Massachusetts governor who struggled in Southern primaries. Bet you didn't see that one coming.
(h/t, Brian Maloney, Radio Equalizer)
