Bernie Sanders looks like a freshman philosophy professor whose office hours are fuck you pic.twitter.com/k3Wvbn8sP0
— Brian Gaar (@briangaar) August 9, 2015
For some reason, the mere mention of Julian Bond brought out the ugly, so let’s just have a dedicated thread where people can argue about this insane bullshit:
Host Chuck Todd began by asking about a Buzzfeed piece revealing that his campaign had reached out to #BlackLivesMatter protesters after they stormed the stage of a Sanders rally and took his mic. “I apologize it took our campaign so long,” the campaign’s African-American outreach director Marcus Ferrell told them in an email.
ADVERTISEMENT“Well, that was sent out by a staffer, not by me,” Sanders said. “Look, we are reaching out to all kinds of groups. Absolutely I met with folks at Black Lives Matter.”
“I understand that you said a staffer put it out, but you felt an apology was necessary?” Todd asked.
“No, I don’t. I think we’re going to be working with all groups. This was sent out without my knowledge,” Sanders said.
Personally, I am beyond caring about this rift. I have no say in who the Democratic candidate will be because the WV primary will be held so much later than the primaries that will decide this thing, so I am just resigned to vote for the Democrat, whomever that may be.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
Well you are a man of your word, Mr Cole. Thanks.
I look forward to a discussion of race and the legitimate/illegitimate boundries of the use of language…
…
Omnes Omnibus
@Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™: I anticipate squid clouds of butt hurt.
Oatler.
I love Bernie but the Larry David comparisons have to sting. Every time I see him with his Doc Brown hair shouting, the HBO show’s theme song starts iup.
rikyrah
this is the mainstream of the GOP.
this is who they are.
he is NOT on the fringe. AT ALL.
……………………………………
Donald Trump Unveils His Immigration Plan, Calls for End to Birthright Citizenship, Will Deport the Undocumented
Aug 16, 2015, 11:03 AM ET
By JOHN SANTUCCI via THIS WEEK
Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump has released his specific plan for immigration reform.
In the 6-page report titled “Immigration Reform That Will Make America Great Again,” Trump is calling for an end to birthright citizenship, saying it “remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration.”
Trump again repeated his commitment to build a wall on the United States’ southern border. Outlining his plan, Trump’s policy seeks to “impound all remittance payments derived from illegal wages; increase fees on all temporary visas issued to Mexican CEOs and diplomats (and if necessary cancel them); increase fees on all border crossing cards — of which we issue about 1 million to Mexican nationals each year (a major source of visa overstays); increase fees on all NAFTA worker visas from Mexico (another major source of overstays); and increase fees at ports of entry to the United States from Mexico [Tariffs and foreign aid cuts are also options].”
“We will not be taken advantage of anymore,” Trump added in his most specific policy statement to date on immigration.
abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-unveils-immigration-plan-calls-end-birthright/story?id=33114832
scav
@Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™: I somehow doubt it. Starring in one’s own parade is just dull dull dull because one’s own parade is just expected and one’s due. Now, all those other events . . . I’m assuming a wedding will pass along soon and Bob will swan off to grab the gown. I swe-ah, I can see the fluttering of Bob’s ingenue eye-lashes from over he-ah. Poor little thing is just so con-fused and opp-pressed, and this he-ah’s not an event about his little ol’ well-meaning self? Passive-aggressive ingenue is also entirely a genus to itself of bridge-dwellers.
srv
The Bern has done it now.
At least when Trump doesn’t apologize he’s funny about it.
I can’t wait to see what all the Sunday shows have to say about it.
iCarly is surging:
BGinCHI
I still don’t really understand why BLM is after Sanders but not Clinton.
It’s like protesting the vulnerable to be more attentive to vulnerability.
Kropadope
Least inflammatory thread title ever!!!!
dmsilev
@rikyrah: So he’s going to pass a constitutional amendment repealing the relevant section of the 14th? Or he’s blustering to appeal to the GOP base?
Who knows?
different-church-lady
@BGinCHI: They were just slow out of the gate with Clinton, and others for that matter.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: She has Secret Service protection. No one could get on stage with her.
JPL
@BGinCHI: Both Jeb and Hillary were asked questions by representatives of BLM. I think shutting down a candidates speech, such as Sanders, was wrong.
Suzanne
@BGinCHI: I think they, perhaps rightly, see him as the most receptive to their message.
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: Who knows indeed.
Kropadope
@rikyrah:
Just amend the Constitution, easy peasy. There’s even already a process in place. I believe it involves a Sharpie.
Roger Moore
@BGinCHI:
I don’t think they’re particularly after Sanders; he’s just been an especially easy target because he’s been holding big rallies. They have gone after Clinton (ineffectively) and even Jeb!
JPL
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but both Fiorina and Trump are anti-vaccine. Carly did preach choice for vaccines, though.
BobS
Thanks for being good to your word, but I’m still wondering about what “the ugly” was in the previous thread?
Amir Khalid
I sense in Senator Sanders a certain — how shall I put it? — persistent deafness to tone. And a degree of intransigence about it that doesn’t reflect well on him.
scav
@different-church-lady: Yeah, I’m willing to wait on that too. Not confuse opening skirmishes with the overall focus of the entire campaign. Especially a campaign that may still be largely acephalous.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
How exactly were comments 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9 or 15 about Julian Bond and not the more general issue of racism?@Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™: And that quote is lifted from where?.@Amir Khalid: your sanctimony?
Dragging up here where response is more appropriate.
First bob citing comments that bring up racism im the context of the death of Julian Bond in the interest of highjacking a thread to make it all about you is utterly in poor taste…
My quote, as it were would be an example of a “shorter”. P.S. an internet tradition. Mine was a shorter of your first comment on the last thread…
And attacking someone for sanctimony when you want to complain about the proper use of words like racism is a little rich.
…
Steve from Antioch
The BLM people showing their ass is just yet another example of how having the “right” political beliefs has no relationship to knowing how to put those beliefs into action.
Really n different than how the notorious RBG is apparently going to stay on the Court until she dies with a Republican in office.
dmsilev
@Omnes Omnibus: So I read Trump’s actual white paper (not hard; there’s lots of white and not many words), and here, in its entirety, is what he says about birthright citizenship:
Perhaps Trump thinks an American President is like the Pharaoh Ramses in The Ten Commandments; all he needs to do is say “so let it be written, so let it be done” and it will be done.
(The Reid quote, by the way, is from the early 90s and he pretty quickly recanted it)
srv
Here’s how you get Oil money for your Library:
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@Omnes Omnibus:
Took a minute, am on the fone, one fingered reponses take time. Enough to realize that not only were you correct, that I have just realized that willful ignorance is a component of said ink.
Same as it ever was.
If it werent raining buckets id take this show to s’bucks and have at it with proper bandwidth and a keyboard…
…
BobS
@Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™: My comment wasn’t about racism?
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: I wonder what the people who want to end birthright citizenship intend to replace it with.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@scav:
:-)
I dont hang often in these parts, tend to lurk much more than contribute to the conversation, so i dont know all of the players, and thus am attempting to comport myself in a gentlemenly manner.
Oh and i recently reread pride and prejudice…
…
schrodinger's cat
@rikyrah: I love how Trump and other bigots like to portray immigration as a one way street. In their telling it is America that is being taken advantage of. They don’t see Mexicans or other immigrants as people.
Kinda like the British and their Indian subjects during the days of the Raj.
different-church-lady
@Steve from Antioch: So you think RBG is gonna live to the age of 91, eh?
schrodinger's cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Equivalent of the yellow badge of the Third Reich.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@BGinCHI:
I dont think BLM is specifically after Sanders…From a current tactical perspective it seems easier to get his mike.
Not saying I agree, but if I wanted to make a noise about a pretty serious issue, one that has been given short sheets forever, i might consider it as an option.
..,
Amir Khalid
@Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™:
You should also read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It has zombies, and the Bennett sisters do martial arts. Enhances the story like nobody’s business.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@Steve from Antioch:
Yep, here we come with the ‘splaining.
I might just have to put up with a soaking…
raven
Is there ONE person here who doesn’t know that the comment section of news stories are full of racist bullshit? One? So what the fuck is the point of going on a thread in honor of someone and warning “Don’t read the comments”?
scav
@Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™: Rather a Persuasion person myself, or Mansfield Park despite the deliberate flatness of the technical lead. Odd that, as (to switch authors) I want nothingsomuch in the world as to dropkick Esther Summerson into the outer fringes of the next millennia.
El Caganer
@Omnes Omnibus: Deathbed citizenship
Steve from Antioch
@different-church-lady:
I sure hope so.
schrodinger's cat
@rikyrah: BTW what is the border crossing card? Does he mean a temporary non-immigrant visa? Or is he taking about the I-94 card, which one has to surrender when one crosses the border if one is on the said temporary visa?
shell
92 degrees here. But glad to have some AC, so I could bake a very nice blueberry and peach crumble. Trying to resist having another piece.
Infamous Heel-Filcher
@different-church-lady: Anyone else wonder if RBG offered to retire as long as she got to pick her successor, and Obama wouldn’t agree?
me
@srv: Only someone ignorant of her destructive record at HP could vote for someone as incompetent as Fiorina.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@Amir Khalid:
Oh yeah…@BobS:
Yeah. You really dont get what was obvious to a bunch of nice people you clearly refused to listen to.
And our gracious host set up a thread for your convenience, so we could have a discussion about race on your very own terms, a point which you have also seemed to miss.
Lets talk about how you may have thought to have been called a racist because maybe you said that you were unhappy with the tactics employed by those black people to get attention…just guessing here.
What i am not guessing is that this thread is for you…
Break in the rain.
Brb…
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus:
Get off America’s lawns!!! All of them!!! And the covert sweatshops, out of the kitchens, off the construction sites…
JPL
@raven: Some comments are funny. I remember reading the food section of the Washington Post one time, and it took maybe six comments before Obama was blamed.
Because the NY Times have moderators, their science page comments are quite good. Often you can learn additional information, that the article didn’t cover.
raven
@JPL: If you want to wade through the bullshit I guess it’s worth it. I just think it’s silly to post some big warning about how fucked up the comments are.
Amir Khalid
@dmsilev:
I have to wonder how President Trump will react to the White House Counsel advising him that his executive order repealing birthright citizenship can’t be carried out.
JPL
@Kropadope: It wasn’t that long ago, that the same folks wanted to amend the constitution to allow Schwarzenegger to run for President.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@BGinCHI:
Because Bernie’s campaign is responding productive and positively. After the Seattle interruption, here in Los Angeles the Sanders campaign had local BLM activists speak at the beginning of the rally:
rawstory.com/2015/08/black-lives-matter-activists-open-massive-bernie-sanders-rally-in-los-angeles/
I honestly don’t get why people are terminally pissed off about something that Sanders took in stride and has responded to in a constructive way. Okay, I do know why it’s happening, but it doesn’t make white “progressives” look very good and they don’t seem to have any clue that they’re showing their collective asses.
scav
@Amir Khalid: SHOUTING is the default, no? Swiftly followed by a revoking of tee privileges?
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Amir Khalid:
“Y**’re Fi**d”?
dmsilev
@Amir Khalid: That’s easy. “You’re fired!”
Kropadope
@JPL: Schwarzenegger immigrated the right way, with paperwork and a movie career.
Debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Why, with all the welfare moochers they’ve been told are out there.
JPL
I was streaming CBSN and Peggy Noonan was part of the round table discussing Trump. She said that it wasn’t just the working class that supported Trump, it was the middle class too. So does she mean that the working class are the serfs?
MattF
@Amir Khalid: It’s called (in English) the “Leader Principle”.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
I don’t understand why certain people arguing on BLM’s behalf, and some Sanders supporters too, can’t see this isn’t all about Sanders or any of the presidential candidates.
Kropadope
@JPL:
In my experience; the “middle” class, all the way to upper-upper-middle, works pretty damn hard.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
They want to grandfather it in — if your grandfather was a citizen, then you can be one. Of course, that leaves the question of nice white European-descended people like me, whose Italian grandfather may not have quite completed the citizenship paperwork after he was brought here at age 2. My maternal grandfather’s family has been here since colonial times. So which grandfather would “count”?
Ha-ha, just kidding — we all know that the non-citizen grandfather would automatically make me a non-citizen regardless of the other ancestry. Or at least it would if my last name was Hernandez instead of Pasquesi.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@MattF:
Incidentally, I’m imposing a new grading rule for political speeches. Any politician calling for Leadership to solve a problem will automatically receive an ‘F’ for that speech or appearance as punishment for the clumsy attempt to dodge an issue. I’m so tired of that.
Lisa Lampanelli
Bernie Sanders Is Your Stolen Bicycle
beltane
Many (most?) European countries do not have birthright citizenship. This fact has done absolutely nothing to reduce immigration, illegal and otherwise.
MobiusKlein
I don’t understand how a remittance impound can work, and I work on that business.
We would need a big govt site to vet each of our hundred thousand customers, so we can know if each is working legally. If they already have that list, they hardly need us to enforce things anyway
JPL
@Kropadope: Who the hell knows what she was spouting.
I corrected the comment for clarity, it should read just the working class. My name is not Peggy and I haven’t started drinking.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Kropadope:
Like I said, I know why so many white “progressives” are pissed off that black people dared to make their feelings known in public. I’m just embarrassed for you.
raven
@beltane: Yea but it’s easy to sell to the dumb fuckers who want a simple solution. Sort of like going back into Iraq, taking the oil and giving the profits to Wounded Warrior. HELL YES!!!
Heliopause
@dmsilev:
I’m no legal expert, but maybe not a bad strategy, actually. Consider how the GOP passes laws restricting abortion, forcing the other side to take it to court and try to get it overruled. So just pass a law saying no more birthright citizenship and see what happens to it in court. Just throwing it out there as an idea.
Plantsmantx
@Roger Moore:
But they haven’t protested at any of his big rallies.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (tablet): What was I saying? BLM definitely has the right approach. Racism would be over in this country if civil rights activists would have just pushed Henry Wallace off stage at an event instead of protesting at segregated lunch counters and boycotting segregated buses.
schrodinger's cat
@beltane: Without birthright citizenship the assimilation of the next generation of immigrants will be harder. They will have to jump through all kinds of legal hoops to become citizens and many may choose not to because of that. Thus creating a permanent underclass extending from one one generation to the next. So, making people who are not exactly like them suffer, is a win in the of book of Trump and his followers.
jl
Cole is trolling with BS.
Watching Todd on MTP now. Todd is an ignorant ass with poor news judgment and an abject corporate PR news information product hack. He asked a couple of good questions. Sanders did the ‘ignore the question and spout my platform act’ (which is fine, it is a campaign). Is Todd totally incapable of asking even one follow-up question, ever?
smintheus
@Kropadope: Birthright citizenship has been the law here since colonial times. The 14th refers to it as an accepted legal principle that needed to be applied to freed slaves as well as everyone else. So Trump is basically recasting himself as the guy who should have been asked in 1776 to decide what to do about defining who was a citizen of the newly independent states.
Me? The only thing that guarantees I’m a citizen is that I was born in the US.
Elmo
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s easy.
Blut und Boden.
BobS
@Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™: What I get is that a post on the death of Julian Bond pretty quickly expanded (understandably) into a thread on the more general problem of racism (including the valuable insight that comment sections of local newspapers are somewhat hate-filled) as well as a couple folks wishing a (well-deserved) death on Dick Cheney (whose sincere eulogy John Cole would have been writing had Cheney had the good taste to die a few years earlier). Inasmuch as a side topic for the thread seemed to include “racists” it did occur to me (since these threads obviously don’t occur in a vaccuum) to wonder just what made people “rascists”, as a broad net seems to be cast on Balloon Juice.
It was somewhat amusing to read the comments suggesting that what I wrote was inappropriate for such a somber occasion as an internet thread on Julian Bond’s obituary consisting of a bunch of people who didn’t know the man (including the guy who thought it was properly respectful to Mr. Bond to wish then and there for Cheney’s death). Was there a better word for “sanctimony” to describe the crocodile tears that were subsequently shed?
Kropadope
@schrodinger’s cat:
One of the new favorite arguments among my anti-immigration relatives is that there’s no point to reforming the immigration system because none of them actually want to be citizens. No matter how hard I try, I can’t make it occur to them that the current immigration system might be too onerous and not worth the effort.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Kropadope:
Yes, because sitting at segregated lunch counters was accepted at the time as a non-divisive thing to do and certainly wasn’t considered confrontational or obnoxious. Those people who were beaten and arrested for doing it were just the ones who behaved badly, amirite?:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashville,_Tennessee_sit-ins
wmd
What kind of pie does Cole like? It’s too hot to bake pie here in California… or I’d be baking a peach pie.
schrodinger's cat
@Kropadope: Quite simply there is no reasonable legal path for the undocumented/illegal immigrants who are already here. To get right with the authorities, they have to go back to their country of origin and wait for 10 years and apply for a visa after that. There is no guarantee that their application will be approved.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
I suppose you missed my point, which was “why not actually confront the sources of oppression?”
Instead we got BLM big-footing immigrants and endangering densely populated regions.
jl
@smintheus: Trump really wants to do away with birthright citizenship? He said that?
Sure, the Hispanics will vote for him. So will Asians. So will any ethnic community with lots of immigrants.
I am glad today that I can write down another Trump entry in the Annals of GOP Outreach.
And I am less curious and less hopeful today about what Trump comes up with in terms of detailed policy, since this bit has a familiar ring to it. Which is fine with me. I only support Trump to the extent he can wreak havoc on the current GOP political crime syndicate.
BobS
@Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™: It’s not that I’ve lost interest in this discussion, but it’s a beautiful day outside and I’m forced to partake in the quintessential white-person pastime of sailing.
rickstersherpa
John, has there been any reporting on this story in West Virginia? popularliberty.com/comment/51855.
The twist is that the woman who was arrested for stopping the cop from killing the dog is be represented by a public defender who is married to the a West Virginia State Trooper who is the arresting cop’s immediate supervisor!!! I would be writing to the bar association about her ethics in a New York minute.
Kropadope
@jl:
He has actually done a marvelous job calling the GOP on its rampant bullshit.
jl
So, as long as Tood is going to do is job as the very model of mediocre meretricious hack, this is the way to deal with him.
Bernie Sanders’ Full ‘Meet the Press’ Interview, July
youtube.com/watch?v=_hmV2YwvQfM
Sanders:
No, that is not what I said
No, that is wrong
No, that is not what happened
No!
Strong work, Bernie. I hope HRC is taking notes. See, Sanders can play a constructive role in the primary whether he wins or not.
Kropadope
@Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™:
@BobS:
Translation: “I demur.”
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Kropadope:
“Endangering densely populated regions”? I honestly have no idea what that even means. What was the danger, exactly?
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@scav:
Regretfully I have not finished her canon, but the inner romantic of me was taken by P&P. Unfortunately over the years the library has had to be pared and I have not yet gotten used to ebooks, though I am working on it.
I made it across lake McDonalds, which was spilling into the starbucks parking lot, had to go a block out of the way to cross the street without getting soaked.
It will take a moment to catch up and answer any replies that I have yet to read, but at least I have a real screen and ten fingers at my disposal.
…
Villago Delenda Est
@Kropadope: It involves crayon. As in inserting “In God We Trust” and “One Nation Under God” into it. Which some of these theoasswipes insist was there from the beginning, and cause my angries to get riled up.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Kropadope:
Also, too, if you really think that clueless and otherwise well-meaning white people can never oppress anyone, even accidentally, then it’s probably fair to say that you missed the entire point of the protest.
jl
@Kropadope: That is true. Unfortunately, more than half of what Trump says is BS just as bad or worse, and not usually different enough to be distinctive.
I guess the best of all possible worlds, would be a Trump that, besides being a marketing and PR genius, could actually think straight following decent trains of thought and principles. I was curious but not hopeful and less of both today if Trump wants to do away with birthright citizenship.
Edit: I was holding out some slim hope that some of Trump’s outrageous BS was kind of an intellectual loss-leader to get attention as part of a political marketing ploy. But, I realized that was a slim hope, and looks like Trump is just as toxic on substance as the rest of them.
But, hey, it he will damage the current racist and white collar crime syndicate that is running the rump of a once great US political party, you go with the Trump you have, not the Trump you would like to have.
Geeno
At last! A thread for me to offer my mea culpa for Monday’s ugliness.
My rhetoric was anger and alcohol driven, but I am happy to report that even the basis of my irritation – that alcohol upgraded to anger – was completely without merit.
I am duly chastised. BLM has definitely put their message into the mainstream in the week with the trolling of a Hilary event, and the disruption of the Jeb(!!!!!) event. Bravo BLM. Well done.
When I’m wrong, I don’t go halfway. I was seriously wrong, not just on the incendiary rhetoric, but even on the supposition behind it.
Forgive me – I F’ed up big time. I will cheerfully step out of BLM’s way from now on.
ETA: none of that was sarcasm. I happily admit that I was grotesquely wrong, and watch eagerly as BLM develops into a major player.
Villago Delenda Est
@Elmo: The Pat Buchanan solution, which makes me angry at my WASP ancestors for ever allowing the Irish into this country in the first place.
smintheus
@jl: Yes. I think Trump plans to award citizenship in the future by giving every resident a list of 10 Herculean labors they must undergo; one of which must involve cleaning his toilets for five years. Then maybe he’ll give you back your citizenship unless he decides to welch on you.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Here is a story about where BLM protesters shut down a major highway near Boston. Traffic over several miles was snarled for hours and emergency services were, naturally, delayed for people who needed them.
Keith G
@BobS:
Forget it, Bob. It’s Balloon-Juice.
JPL
@Geeno: Were you with Little Boots. Boots offered an apology also.
@rickstersherpa: West Virginia is off my bucket list. That is just wrong.
Kropadope
@jl:
I’m praying for the day when Trump takes the stage to accept the Republican nomination and starts his speech “What the F is wrong with you people?!?!?!?”
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Kropadope:
So shouldn’t interrupting a speech be a better tactic in your eyes since it endangers no one? Or are you so pissed off at the group that you will not listen to anything they say at all, ever, because they pissed you off once with an earlier tactic?
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@JPL:
head/desk…
While I spend too much time tracking authoritarian cognative dissonence, there are some things I guess I keep in a protected memory space, apparently you have a key…
thanks bub.
;-)
…@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Thank you!
BTW did bob stick around for his special thread, or is he tilting at windmills downstairs?
…
raven
@JPL: I have the newspaper clipping from 1954 when my old man stopped a cop from shooting a dog that got hit by a car. “Coach Saves Dog”!
Cervantes
@Keith G:
Along the same lines, here (again) is the late, lamented Julian Bond:
Roger Moore
@Omnes Omnibus:
A permanent non-citizen underclass who citizens will be able to exploit and push-around. It’s the same thing they’ve always wanted.
Thoughtful David
@me:
This is what I think will happen if Fiorina actually starts to get some traction and starts pulling ahead of say, Huckabee: the other Republican candidates will start talking about her record, which is abysmal. She can only be viable as the nominee if no one ever notes her record, and as soon as she gets ahead of some of those egos, you can bet they’ll be mentioning it.
So I think she’s running for VP.
jl
@smintheus: I think eliminating birthright citizen ship on substance would be a nightmare, and change the basic fabric of US society.
And even attempting it through a constitutional amendment would be hazardous, since (though IANAL) my understanding is that it is an ancient principle in many Anglo-Saxon style legal systems, so ingrained in legal and social thought that it is not the case the it is established by the Constitution, but rather language in the Constitution can be better described as assuming it to be the case.
Anyone who suggest that policy, from any place in the political spectrum, is done finished and over and 100 percent unacceptable in my book.
Edit: I’d rather get rid of the antiquated ‘natural born citizen’ or whatever the text is, requirement for being President. Then we could get real genuine Kenyan-born president some day. And I would love to hear the howls from the racists and xenophobes over it.
M31
Here’s my proposed solution: any employer who knowingly hires an undocumented worker loses their citizenship to the worker.
Corporations, too, since they’re people.
Cervantes
@Roger Moore:
Or as someone once said, a “reserve army of labor.”
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Because it took him a few tries to get it right. In the interim, The Narrative had been set up, and people who wish to hew to The Narrative aren’t going to let a little thing like changing circumstances interfere.
Geeno
@JPL: I’d offer links to the relevant comments, but I’m too embarrassed.
I went overboard – even got myself tossed into moderation for my behavior – a first for me at BJ.
I can only say – I am deeply sorry, and the shite about not caring is just that – shite, For better or for worse, it my nature that I can’t NOT care even as I see how easy things would be if I didn’t.
I could even be okay with a republican president if I could just see my way to not caring, but I can’t.
Even when I just say I don’t care – I’m awake all night thinking “WTF have I become that I could even say that?”
Elmo
@Villago Delenda Est: Hey! Those were MY Irish grandparents!
So I have some skin in this immigration game – do away with birthright citizenship, and suddenly my own citizenship is in jeopardy…
Roger Moore
@Plantsmantx:
How do you describe the events in Seattle, then?
raven
No one ever does anything when they are drunk that they didn’t already want to do.
jl
@M31: National ‘Your’re Fired’ TV show on C-SPAN for employers who are convicted of violating law by hiring undocumented workers. Starring of course Trump. He will be in PR attention hog heaven.
A President Sanders would not go for it, but HRC or O’Malley… maybe… so give them points for flexibility.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
I’d like a little less focus on the presidential level, as the president by definition can’t fix these problems by his or herself. They rarely go after city councils, police departments, or Congressfolk. They also never try to have a discussion; it’s shut down and listen to me, I don’t care how you respond.
What pisses me off is that I care about the very issues important to BLM, but have to feel reluctant to participate with them since it always seems to be a shitshow.
Kropadope
@Roger Moore:
I’ve said in the past that I think these protests have helped Bernie as a candidate. I still believe that, I just don’t see how these protests help protect black lives.
Provider_UNE_AndPlayersToBeHatedLater™
@BobS: @BobS:
Enjoy the water and the wind, good sir. It is convenient and sad that your privilege will not provide the opportunity for a more protracted discussion.
I however, have doubts that you ever wanted on in the first place.
I am sure that you cut a jib in an admirable fashion…
…
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Cervantes:
Here is a video that includes footage from the lunch counter protests (footage that is still quite upsetting today):
youtu.be/f82cAuXM4IE
Although all of the protesters sitting at the counters certainly acted with dignity and firm leadership, I think it’s a little facile to claim that the counter-protesters recognized that leadership. Or perhaps they did, and that was why they reacted so violently.
M31
@jl:
yeah, and maybe make use of some of those “asset forfeiture” laws too. “This entire construction company now belongs to new American Citizen Juan Valdez!!!!!”
Kropadope
@M31:
Sentence first!!! Verdict afterward.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@raven:
Well, yeah, there are a lot of things we want to do but common sense restrains us from doing. When a car cuts me off on the freeway, sometimes I want to ram it, but I don’t, because it would be both wrong and stupid. So saying that the stupid thing someone said or did when they were drunk was because they wanted to isn’t really saying much.
jl
@Roger Moore: I think what the commenter is getting at is that the Black Lives Matter protests against Sanders were at his appearances, not his rallies. They protested his appearance at Netroots (Sanders claims he was blindsided because he was told that particular forum was about immigration reform), they protested at a rally on Social Security and Medicare at which Sanders was appearing. No protests that I know of inside his huge rallies.
Edit: maybe the venue of the protests were decided because of opportunity. Protesters are not usually treated like high priority guests of honor.
I just think people are worrying these protests to death for no reason. I don’t even think it is possible to judge the merits as a tactic over a few incidents that happen very early in the campaign.
Seems to me that most people in Black Lives Matter are reasonable responsible people. They have not run around denouncing individual politicians after their protests (though I am not sure what they are doing about Jeb!’s apparent lie about his meeting with them).
Look, if Black Lives Matter starts doing constructive work with politicians who want to engage seriously with the issue of institutional racism and criminal justice reform, then these protests will have done a lot of good.
And if scum like Jeb! did lie about his meeting with them, I hope they try to shut that skunk down repeatedly.
Let’s see how it unfolds. What is the point of worrying to death about it? Any commenters here have inside lines to BLM protesters and can have an iota of influence on what they do?
Roger Moore
@Kropadope:
The purpose of the protests is to get attention and raise the priority of police abuses as a political issue. That’s necessary if we’re ever going to bring the police under control.
satby
@Villago Delenda Est: Hey now!
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Of course you don’t, you pull out your firearm(it’s your right, don’t ya know) and shoot the other driver. That’s the American way.
raven
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Says you, Boots came on her whining about how sorry he was he was such and asshole and talking about how it was because he was drunk. The he proceeded to be the same asshole he always is.
jl
@Roger Moore: I agree. and most of my previous comment was not aimed at you, I was just ventilating opinions to the comment section in general.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Thanks for posting the link.
I like the pun on “counter” — but other than that I am not sure what you’re referring to, sorry.
Kathleen
@Ultraviolet Thunder: My condolences to you and your family. I was too late to the previous thread to convey that.
raven
@BillinGlendaleCA: Or at least shoot the tires out.
NotMax
@raven
I’ll drink to that!
:)
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Kropadope:
What kind of discussion are you expecting about police violence, especially since you say you already agree? What needs to be discussed about it other than tactics and strategies to end it?
The people blocking the streets and interrupting speeches are doing it because they’re convinced that you don’t agree with them that police violence is an urgent issue that needs to be prioritized. If your reaction is, Well, fuck you for yelling at me, you’ve just avoided dealing with the difficult question of what the actual solution should be by focusing on your hurt feelings instead.
Kropadope
@Cervantes:
The protesters’ white opposition either didn’t see the stand that the protesters took as leadership or, perhaps, did see it that way and thus had to shut it down more vehemently.
Kathleen
@jl: That is one of the best descriptions of Chuckles Toddler ever. I kiss the hem of your keyboard. And no follow up, unless he’s “interviewing” (with “gotcha” jazz hands) PBO or another Dem.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@raven:
Oh, I’m not defending LB. He still has a whole fuckton of making up to do. I’m only responding to what Geeno said.
Cervantes
@jl:
Those are two questions.
Anyhow, I’m reminded of the woman — can’t for the life of me recall her name at the moment — who once suggested to a group of civil-rights activists that they shouldn’t feel obliged to follow the advice that MLK was giving them.
PS: Ella Baker!
And I forgot to mention that the group of civil-rights activists she was addressing included, among others, one Julian Bond.
raven
@Mnemosyne (tablet): It’s cool, whatever you think.
Omnes Omnibus
I wonder how many people who are upset about the BLM protests have a “Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History” bumpersticker on their cars?
VidaLoca
This is about the way I feel about Sanders too, and the primary in WI is one of the more early ones (April 5). So I’m wondering — does anybody here have any information as to the state of Sanders’ field operation in any of the early primary/caucus states (Iowa, N. Hampshire, S. Carolina, Nevada)? Those are February/March, 6-7 months out. If he’s not organizing big, and soon, it matters little the size of crowds he draws in Madison. Or in Portland (IIRC the OR primary is late June, one of the last). Or CA (just before OR).
If Sanders isn’t serious about building a field operation than can win the nomination then he’s just trying to spread ideas around. And I’m fine with that, I think it’s a good thing — but then the only material result that will come from it, in the short term and insofar as the Nov. election is concerned, is a platform fight at the convention. In which case I can’t take him too seriously, whatever I feel about his ideas.
Kathleen
@jl: Chuck did say on the Today show this morning that Trump could surprise people and he has some deep intellectual thoughts. Or something like that. You could do a better job of translating ToddSpeak.
Ruckus
@BillinGlendaleCA:
What’s the difference? A small powerful weapon which if used can cause much destruction and death or a large, heavy object used as a weapon which can cause much destruction and death. The bigger one is easier to hit the target with but it has the added problem of most likely injuring the operator in the ensuing mayhem.
Not to mention both are stupid, dangerous responses which will teach nothing, the whole point in the first place.
But you knew that.
Cervantes
@VidaLoca:
There have been some write-ups. Here’s one re Iowa, from which:
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Cervantes:
Interesting quote from the Wikipedia article about Baker:
Sounds like part of the ongoing dispute about groups with strong centralized leadership vs groups with more diffused leadership (like Occupy and BLM).
jl
@Kathleen: I think Todd is only capable of follow-up questions if it concerns some horserace or political kabuki shit that he is interested in.
Todd was interviewing Sanders today, and Sanders was outrageous in ignoring his questions and just saying what he wanted to say.
Maybe because I get the feeling Sanders does not like Todd and maybe thinks he is an idiot. since Sanders seems grouchy on his show and doesn’t crack that delighted seeming little smile he does while listening to BS questions and generally inane and ignorant spew from other media news celebrities.
So, Todd asks a sensible question about Sander’s health care policy, Sanders uses it ti pimp his platform and ignore the question, and Todd just looks like a blank and moves on. Todd did this at least three times during the interview.
Edit: and pissed me off since I was interested in the answer.
Maybe Todd is as slow upstairs as Wolfie? Maybe that is how the suits pick them these days. Dickerson might be a little better, I think he is miserable hack too, but at least you don’t need to time his neurons’ firing with a effing calendar.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Ruckus:
Aaaah, Bill’s just joshing me like he usually does. :-)
Joel
@dmsilev: Trump saw his poll numbers peaking and decided more fresh meat was the solution.
Ruckus
@Kathleen:
They may be deep thoughts, but intellectual? To me that indicates that one looks at an issue from all sides and weighs the available information, looking for additional if what’s available is insufficient before forming an opinion. Said opinion is then based upon facts, not beliefs or political expediency.
That is not a description of T Rump.
raven
@jl: Todd asked Trump what was the time when America was great and Trump thought a bit and then said “when Reagan was in office”. Todd then showed him several of his own quotes about what a lousy job Reagan was doing.
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Of course I knew that. Just giving back a bit.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: Excellent points, but you don’t want to dent up your own automobile. So the firearm wins out.
jl
@raven: OK, thanks, maybe I was too harsh on Todd. I boycotted the interviews with GOPers today. I just can’t take any more sight or sound of them right now.
Except I was involuntarily exposed to a minute of crinkled paper bag face and cranky old uncle Kasich when I turned on the TV. Kasich was talking about how he was more moderate than the other GOPers and then yelled out (crankily) an economic philosophy just as reactionary as the rest of them. Not sure if the hack Dickerson asked any follow up, since I reached the TV by that time and changed the channel.
Kathleen
@jl: I think he’s a shallow thinker and a blind follower of conventional wisdom. He may be great at statistics or whatever job he had before he became an “analyst” or “reporter” but he doesn’t seem to possess “emotional” intelligence because he’s too focused on his agenda and talking points. He doesn’t know how to handle challenges, perhaps because his first position was not as a journalist or interviewer. I also think he’s a partisan hack and has an agenda.
Geeno
@BGinCHI: They’re NOT anymore – see trolling the Boston event – Let’s face it, jumping up on stage with HRC and the Secret Service could end badly for everyone, trolling the event was the exact right touch. They did that Jeb! event, and there were boatloads of his supporters chanting “White lives matter” – You couldn’t choreograph that any better if you tried.
BLM has moved on from Bernie, though they reserve the right to revisit him at any point in the future.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Me, snarkin’? Hehe.
Ruckus
@raven:
If chuckles is hitting him back and reasonably then I may have to rethink my take that T Rump has a narrow, possibly rocky, path to the nomination. Of course it could backfire on chuckles and actually help T Rump. One never really knows.
VidaLoca
@Cervantes: Thx Cervantes, that’s helpful.
Others: any info w/r/t the other 3 early states? Specifically, I’d think there would have to be something appreciable going on in NH by now if Sanders has any chance of coming out of that one looking like a serious contender.
MomSense
@Roger Moore:
And even those of us who are citizens will only be able to vote if we pay federal income taxes. The wingnut who proposed this to me helpfully clarified that withholding for SS and Medicare does not count.
Kathleen
@Ruckus: Interestingly enough, while Todd said Trump reads a lot, he didn’t know exactly what he read. But Todd seemed to imply that Trump met your definition.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Kropadope:
Also, too, I don’t know if Boston has any kind of civilian oversight of the police, but that might be a worthy movement to attach yourself to, because your police commissioner seems to be kind of a dick:
bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/08/boston_police_commissioner_wants_law_to_push_ba…
Short version: he wants Boston to make it illegal for people to film cops because it makes the cops uncomfortable when they’re beating people up. Seriously.
Ruckus
@BillinGlendaleCA:
OK got point. Don’t forget to roll down the window before firing. And wear ear protection.
raven
@jl: Oh I don’t know, everyone here just hates him and he does say some stupid shit. His panel was pretty good today as they responded to segments of the interview and I enjoyed that.
Villago Delenda Est
@satby: I can say that because I can trace ancestry on this continent back to before 1776.
Please not to bring up the fact that they were immigrants as well, though, especially to the ghosts of all the locals they gifted infected blankets to, thank you very much.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Well, what she deprecated was the traditional model of the African-American church, where the congregation was more female while the leadership was almost exclusively charismatic male.
But yes, I think she would have appreciated aspects of how Occupy and BLM are trying to organize — which is not to say she would have appreciated every aspect.
Here, by the way, is something else Ms. Baker said:
“All lives matter,” perhaps?
Geeno
@Amir Khalid: Whenever Bernie has had a problem with his minority constituents, he’s been able to invite them to his house for dinner, and they’d all fit. He’s never had to deal with a minority action group, and it certainly showed in his initial reactions to BLM.
Villago Delenda Est
@Kathleen: Chuckles the Toddler makes “journamalists” look like professionals.
raven
@Ruckus: I thought it was interesting when Trump said he just found out that Iran was going to get the money no matter what we did with the deal. He also said he knew he couldn’t just “tear up the deal”.
jl
@Kathleen: OTOH, if Todd and his staffers understood that Trump would respond to a Reagan question with Zombie Godhead Reagan BS, Todd may have had the challenge and follow-up mapped out. And Todd was doing ‘gotcha’ which requires a zinger follow-up. Even Blitzer can do that.
I bet these jackasses have gotcha woodshed boot camps before every election, kind of like the Daily Show election coverage news team training center.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@Roger Moore:
It’s brilliant: block off the immigrant underclass who are slipping through the cracks, then create a new underclass of people born here, who have to pay taxes yet have no rights and can be exploited.
Evil genius at work, folks.
Ruckus
@Kathleen:
That’s not high praise coming from chuckles. From what I’ve seen he’d have trouble responding if the counter person at McD told him they were out of 1/4#s
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Oh, I shredded that on Facebook. Not only does he want to make it illegal to film, he wants people forced to step into potentially dangerous situations if requested by an officer.
Goblue72
@Roger Moore: The German model in other words.
jl
@raven: When I can bear to watch GOPers again, I will see if I can get through a whole show and get a better picture. Todd looked like he was slogging through a script in his Sanders interview today. I thought he did a poor job on that one.
Cervantes
@Kropadope:
Are you sure?
Amir Khalid
Since it’s Open Thread:
Chelsea FC, whose manager Jose Mourinho has been universally denounced this week over his scapegoating and unjustified demotion of the first team doctor and physiotherapist, lost its second match of the Premier League season today. One of my favourite football websites reported the match result as “Manchester City 3 Karma 1 Chelsea 0”.
JPL
@raven: Nice. You should make a copy and send it to WV.
Cervantes
@Kropadope:
Perhaps, but here’s the statement I was puzzling out:
Who made this somewhat-facile claim?
jl
@Goblue72:
Yeah, I guess, we will adopt it just as Germany moves away from it as a failure. The GOP certainly knows how to fight for outmoded and failing social policies. Germany has been moving in the wrong direction as far as US GOP is concerned, despite Merkel letting her undemocratic bigot flag fly on immigration recently. Germany has been making citizenship for undocumented people born there easier.
Turks in Germany
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks_in_Germany
Edit: and birthright citizenship is not part of Continental legal heritage, so Germany has a perfectly good excuse to just keep the status quo, but I don’t see them doing that. I see them doing something to fix problems. That is not the GOP way.
rikyrah
SUNDAY, AUGUST 16, 2015
Everything Isn’t Always About Us
But here is the irony, here’s the thing that all the angry Black people know, and no calmly debating White people want to admit: The entire discussion of race in America centers around the protection of White feelings. From I Don’t Discuss Racism with White People by John Metta.
I’ve been working on this post for a couple of weeks now, ever since I read John Metta’s piece, which I thought was spot on. As I so often do when I’m writing, I struggled with this piece and would put it aside for a day or two. I discussed my observations with friends, both black and white, because I needed their feedback. Finally, because of events that occurred this last week, my thoughts really crystalized, and I was able to finish. My words will certainly make some angry and defensive, which isn’t my purpose but is always a byproduct of a piece like this. My hope is some will have an “aha moment,” a moment of clarity about our role, or if we even have one, in the Black Lives Matter movement. The fact is, folks, the movement isn’t about us, our feelings, criticisms, or advice. The sooner we understand that, the sooner we can be honest participants in BLM.
My sense is that many white liberals and progressives are just so tired of all this Blackness stuff. Sure we loved Pres. Obama, but it’s time for him to move on. His whole hope-change thingy was so stressful, and he seems like he’s going to do that change stuff till his last day. We need a break. We need to gear up for the next Great White Hope.
We’ve had enough of black folks’ grievances. We are weary of all their issues. We want to go back to saying 95% of cops are good people so we can dismiss the few as rotten apples. Just get rid of a few rotten apples and all will be well. You see if the problem is just good cops versus bad cops, then we don’t have to acknowledge the pervasive racism that is imbedded in America’s justice system. Getting rid of some bad cops isn’t on us. It’s on someone else. By reducing the problem to some bad cops, it becomes manageable for someone else.
broadwaycarl2point0.blogspot.com/2015/08/everything-isnt-always-about-us.html?showComment=1439749432…
Booger
You know who else had a problem with BLM? Cliven Freaken Bundy.
Booger
You know who else had a problem with BLM? Cliven Freaken Bundy. Truth or fact…you decide.
Kropadope
@Cervantes: Evans said:
he said.
I assume he doesn’t mean that someone should help the individual(s) filming.
Cervantes
@rikyrah, quoting:
Suppose that were not true. How would you be able to tell?
JPL
@NotMax: How was the dinner?
Ruckus
@raven:
I make fun of him, like most of us, because he is a joke. But. Yes he started out a foot away from home plate with the other team all on a water break but he has continued to make a shit ton of money. No he’s not worth anywhere near what he wants to be worth or claims but 2.9-3 billion is not chump change. I think he is a slimy businessman, not just prone to self aggrandizement, but one who revels in it. It is his greatest talent. But he didn’t get to be this wealthy by living off of the 40 mil he started with, or only the appreciation of his fathers real estate holdings. He may be a vile person but he is not a complete idiot. No way does that bombastic nature take him that far by itself.
Geeno
@raven: Au contraire, I wish that were true. In a way, yes you become the ugliest form of yourself, but there are places in our psyches we would never consciously venture that alcohol cheerfully opens up to the outside world. Yes the troll that said all those things may live deep within me, and will never be expelled short of lobotomy. Would you have me just surrender and say “oh, well, that’s what I really am”?
VidaLoca
@Geeno:
Huh. If that’s true it would mean that they’ve made significant progress in achieving the tactical goals of gaining national recognition for their organization and it’s leadership around their main issue, and putting that issue into the political debate. All at the cost of nothing more than the bruised sensitivities of some of their more tepid and unreliable supporters.
Intriguing. I wonder if they have a newsletter I could subscribe to?
SatanicPanic
I really couldn’t care less about this. If Bernie gets the nom I will be all-in for Bernie. If Hillary does, then I will say she’s the best thing since Barack Obama. Same goes for O’Malley. I just want to win, I don’t give a shit about who it is.
dedc79
@rikyrah:
I know quite a few white liberals (no idea how representative they are) and not one of them thinks this. Most would welcome 8 more years of Obama (would certainly prefer it to 8 years of Clinton) and would like to see a hell of a lot more change than we’ve seen in the last 8.
This kind of broad generalizing (about anyone) is condescending and off-putting. Particularly the part about the search for the next Great White Hope.
ETA: If the author of the post truly thinks this, and is ashamed for thinking it, then he/she should have the honesty to say it rather than hiding behind the collective of “white liberals.”
raven
@Geeno: That’s what happens when you quit. You find out you were exactly the same person you always were and you have nothing to blame it on anymore. It’s not all that easy of a lesson when you think no drinking solves all you problems.
Geeno
@VidaLoca: Did you see any tape from that Jeb event?
“White lives matter, white lives matter”.
FFS, the whole point of non-violent protest is to make your enemy monstrous – you’re saying that was ineffectual?
Omnes Omnibus
@VidaLoca: They have the modern equivalent of a newsletter: blacklivesmatter.com/.
Iowa Old Lady
@SatanicPanic: You and me both.
Geeno
@raven: I don’t think no drinking will solve my problems, but I think there are parts of me I’ll be able to contain.
Nothing will get rid of them – save, as I mentioned, lobotomy, or suicide – but, I hope, they can be contained.
VidaLoca
@Geeno: No, didn’t see any tape of the event but from what you say, far from ineffectual it sounds brilliant. So yeah, I’d credit that as another tactical achievement that I wasn’t aware of.
raven
@Geeno: I don’t think that is it at all. It’s just that when you know who you are then you can work toward something better.
VidaLoca
@Omnes Omnibus: Hey thx, Omnes…
Myiq2xu
@Kropadope:
Is the Sharpie used to sign one of Obama’s executive orders?
jl
@raven: the policy Trump is going to be a very mixed and surprising bag, We know already that there will be enough completely toxic shit in the bag that you would never want him as President, or anywhere near that office.
But will be interesting to see how much intellectual work and coherent thought he is capable of putting out. The more reality based policy he can put out, even if it not particularly good policy, the more damage he will do to the GOP con game.
But I think on certain hot button issues where he needs to pander, he will out pander anybody, with a vengeance. Whether he believes any of the idiotic xenophobic bigotry he shouts, who knows?
Geeno
@raven: Thank you for that. I’m a terrible slacker and need all the encouragement I can get.
raven
@Geeno: Pete Hammill “A Drinking Life”:
raven
@jl: Yea I mean are people going to buy re-invading Iraq and taking the oil?
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
I like the piece. But I have a question about the title, which I think starts it off wrong. How do you change the stupidity and hate of racism if you don’t talk to the very people who hold those views? I don’t see progress that way. That their feelings are hurt is not an issue to me but a necessary step in the evolution of lessening racism, especially racism that invades places like the justice system. I don’t think racists have that light bulb moment on their own, they are too invested/convinced in their status quo of hatred. It has to hit home in a way that can not be redirected onto others, the exact point of the few bad cops mime. No the entire system is fucked, from the top to the bottom.
Kropadope
@MyiqDirt/2:
Executive orders don’t change current law and certainly can’t amend the Constitution, they offer guidance on how to enforce current law. This used to be an uncontroversial principle.
jl
@VidaLoca: I’m sad to hear that Jeb! supporters would do that. But if that is the way they feel, I am glad that BLM protesters brought it out into the open.
Now, did that miserable incompetent wretch Jeb! lie about meeting with BLM or not, and if he did, what is BLM going to do about it?
Kropadope
@raven:
Let me preface this by saying I’m totally not on board with that policy, but it sounds better than what we actually did by a wide margin.
VidaLoca
@Cervantes: I know you’re trying to test the falsifiability of the claim in the quote that rikyrah posted so s/he can respond as s/he sees fit — but it seems to me that the whole set of claims that “the Civil War wasn’t about slavery” it was about state’s rights/tradition/way of life/resistance to Yankee aggression — especially the repetition of those claims in the face of ample documentary evidence to the contrary — exactly suggests that white people need to protect themselves from, rather than confront, their feelings and the facts about white supremacy. Add to that every time you’ve heard “it’s not about race” (when it damn well is), “racism is a thing of the past” (Jim Crow might be, and even that’s a debate, but racism sure isn’t), “some of my best friends” (yeah uh-huh).
The white people that I’ve met that really want to think about history, really want to think about white supremacy as a model of social organization, are few and far between. If that level of myopia, of open denial and resistance to facing history and contemporary facts, can’t be ascribed to a need to protect feelings then what can it be ascribed to? Maybe the desire to preserve and protect that model of social organization, but isn’t that a distinction without much of a difference?
jl
@raven: I did hear a snippet on radio news in the car of Trump carpet bombing Jeb!’s BS revisionist history of Iraq. So now both Christie and Trump are going after the vile Jeb! on it. The media will have to cover it, since GOPers said it.
Which is also on my mind right now. So far I have not heard one bit of interviews with Democrats on the Sunday talkes reported by national news today. What the eff does a Democrat have to do to get on the top-of-the-hour sound bites on national news?
Whole horrific corporate hack corrupt and incompetent US news media has be blown up and rebuilt. It is a national disgrace.
Ruckus
@raven:
Agreed.
Drinking takes away your focal point, your basis for being you. Take the drinking away and what’s left is what you are. Drinking is an excuse, a hiding place for the real you, a savage balm on reality. And you can’t change that reality with it hidden/alcoholically medicated. You may not be able to sober either but there is a possibility, where there was none.
raven
@Ruckus: Yea, most people don’t want to hear it.
raven
@jl: Delete their emails.
Geeno
@Kropadope: If it was ALL about the oil, and people could be disregarded completely (see my previous comments about not caring), sure! we can steamroll the region and collect the oil after they’re all dead. Somehow, I’m not seeing that playing out well – whether you care about the people or not.
Unless you’re defining “the region” much larger. Just how big is this region?
VidaLoca
@jl: Beats me but I’m looking forward to finding out…
Ruckus
@VidaLoca:
Much better said than I did.
Might it also be the seeming need to justify previous generations from which one came? If I am them and they were wrong, then I must be wrong. Not believing in any evolutionary forces, physical or mental is very short sighted. And not all that uncommon.
Geeno
@jl: Well DKos says it never happened. Jeb? is just trying to defuse the situation.
BTW: It should defintiely be Jeb? not Jeb!
Kropadope
@Geeno:
I’m not defining the region at all. Wasn’t this regarding Iraq? Iraq is a place with well-defined, albeit arbitrary, borders.
Hey, I said I wouldn’t be on board with that policy. But did the actual Iraq invasion play out well? I can’t imagine what Trump’s planning being any worse. If we’re going to be colonialists, no more of this half-assed shit.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@VidaLoca:
Did you see the YouTube link someone (maybe Cole?) put up the other day, with a uniformed West Point history professor calmly explaining that, yes, the Civil War was 100 percent about slavery? It was awesome, and it should be difficult to dismiss out of hand since it’s an old(er) white male Army officer doing the explaining:
youtube.com/watch?v=pcy7qV-BGF4
raven
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
These are his academic credentials
Colonel Ty Seidule
Washington and Lee University, B.A. 1984
The Ohio State University, M.A. 1994
The Ohio State University, Ph,D. 1997
And he ain’t even old.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne (tablet): That were me.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@dedc79:
(Note: the following comment is not calling out any specific person here at B-J today, especially since I doubt BobS or Steve are actual liberals)
I’ve seen a lot of the type of white liberals described in the essay, both online and IRL. Frankly, as a white person, it embarrasses me to see them act out and know that I’m going to be grouped with them.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks! I’ve been forcing it on people all over the place.
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: He’s older than me.
VidaLoca
@Mnemosyne (tablet): I did see it, I thought it was an excellent piece. Completely demolished the “not about slavery” argument in about 5 minutes.
It’s interesting to look at it in the context of a number of other books on the same topic. The best I’ve come across is The Half Has Never Been Told that situates cotton agriculture in the South in the context of both the global industrial revolution and the rise of US capitalism and completely tears the bark off of what slavery was about. And it’s interesting too to look at this current body of historiography in the context of a push-back against the writing of the 1890’s-1930’s which was all about a justification for the South’s side in the Civil War.
Of course, as we all know, you can argue facts and history until hell freezes and it won’t make a lot of difference in the minds of the people whose minds really need changing…
VidaLoca
@Mnemosyne (tablet): Hey, no worries! Just keep on trying to understand/deconstruct/criticize and act to overcome white supremacy and pretty soon people won’t think you’re a liberal, they’ll think you’re a leftist! Problem solved!
different-church-lady
@Kropadope: You’d think at least of one of those phone-filming folks would call the cops.
BruceFromOhio
Ohio is
a Super Tuesday stateTuesday, March 15. TeenFromOhio is a solid Sanderista, while MrsFromOhio and I are both looking forward to voting for the first female president, iCarly. Ha! No, we’re both familiar with the baggage and the triumph that marks the Clinton legacies, and as far as we’re concerned it’s Hillary’s to lose.During a recent long drive we mused what the world would look like if Sanders or Clinton wins the nomination and asks the other to be running mate: would he or she accept? Both have served in the Senate, both witnessed first-hand the power the veep can wield, both have strong personalities and arcs and agendas. Either way it would be a powerful combo. Throw Bill in the mix, and whether West Wing or Naval Observatory, this team could make some serious firebreaks against the idiocy of the Legislature, while keeping the liberal-progressive torches lit.
Or would the response be, fuck off, and run indy?
Either way, its gonna be a very interesting ride.
And as long as the fucking cops keep shooting unarmed black folk and getting away with it, no one in a position of power in government anywhere should rest easy, ever. “To Serve and Protect” means to fucking serve and protect. When the guy you are supposed to call because you need help pulls his service weapon and kills you instead, that’s murder, and should be treated as such.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
Depends on which party they might be collecting evidence for.
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: That is so true, I pretty much know why I liked the boozey stuff.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Aw, you’re a pup!
Cain
@schrodinger’s cat:
Nothing like being 2nd class citizens in your own country.
Even better, people in India don’t have any rancor with the British, and will happily cheer England against Pakistan. We still are sore about the Mughals taking over, but not the British. At least the Mughals did something positive, their work is in everything and most in our cusine. Modern North Indian cooking comes from fro the Mughals. They are also why India is very conservative country.
Groucho48
@rikyrah:
Good read! Thanks for linking it.
Cervantes
@VidaLoca:
More or less, yes.
Nevertheless, I can address your comments, but only briefly:
1. Have there been (eminent and other) pale-skinned historians who have said the opposite, or is the historical prospect uniformly bleak?
2. Among the contingent arguing that (for example) the Civil War “was about state’s rights/tradition/way of life/resistance to Yankee aggression,” can we allow some of them to be merely deluded by emotion, say, or must all of them be trying to escape a discussion of “white supremacy”?
3. And that “whole set of claims” you list: is it supported by multiple political parties? Or by some more than others? Or by none?
4. More generally, do you believe that “whole set of claims” is a majority view among melanin-deficient Americans? Close to a majority? A localized minority?
Do these questions matter? Some more than others?
By the way, I agree with you that the assertion “Jim Crow is a thing of of the past” is debatable, at best.
To some extent, sure, I agree — but the article we’re discussing made a universal claim (“The entire discussion of race in America centers around the protection of White feelings.”)
Is discussion of “race in America,” in fact, inhibited? If it is so inhibited, are there other factors that are doing the inhibiting? Perhaps shame for what others and self have done? Guilt? A sense of helplessness, albeit an artificial one? I can think of other potential factors but I don’t know the answer to your question.
As I said, I have time only for a brief discussion — and that was it!
Yes, it is, I agree.
Here’s a final anecdote for today. Julian Bond was from a prominent Atlanta family, his last name well known throughout the community — but in those days, few knew what he looked like. His face was not familiar to everyone. So when he ran for Congress, his campaign was rendered more effective when several activist colleagues canvassed the District each one claiming to be him!
What happened at the end of that campaign was amazing — but I have to stop here. Here’s wishing you a great evening.
schrodinger's cat
@Cain: The blood feud with Pakistan dates from Partition, I don’t think it has anything to do with the Mughals. Northern India has had Muslim rulers since the 12th century. Also I think the most conservative parts of the country are in the south of India, which were never under the Mughals.
India has had good relations with the British post-Independence that’s true.
ETA: Have you ever been to Bombay’s posh clubs like
the Turf Club or the Otters Club or CCI? During the British Raj they were whites only. Its where the hard working rulers of India hung out after hours. It almost feels like you have stepped back in time if you visit them.
Geeno
And just what ARE Bernie’s stances vis-a-vis India?
Seriously, this thread has officially outlived its usefulness.
Kropadope
@Geeno: Well, it’s not like they take the thread down when people stop posting.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Cervantes:
It appeared as though you’ve never heard of the Dunning school of thought about the Civil War that dominated the field of American history from the late 19th century until at least the 1950s:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning_School
If we really have to go back 100 years to explain to you that, yes, since the turn of the century, academic and popular historians have claimed that slavery had very little to do with the reasons for the Civil War and those historians were in the majority until the advent of the Civil Rights Movement at least, we’re going to be here all night.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Don’t be daft.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Betty Cracker
@raven: Awww! That story alone was worth reading this shit bucket of a thread!
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Cervantes:
I’m looking at your questions and trying to figure out how far back historically I have to go in order to answer them. Are you being deliberately disingenuous or are you genuinely unaware of how the history of the Civil War used to be taught and how many people persistently cling to that incorrect teaching?
debbie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Just watched, and that is a very good video. I don’t understand what the dispute’s all about. All anyone needs to do is read the friggin’ Articles of Secession. The states wrote them to explain why they were seceding and would go to war if necessary.
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Cervantes:
A piece of popular culture evidence that the “nuanced” view that it wasn’t really about slavery is more acceptable than the truth that is actually was about slavery:
http://youtu.be/_Q–iGgtRn8
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne (tablet):
Well, thanks for trying.
Never mind — life is short — have a good evening!
BobS
@Mnemosyne (tablet):Thank you — I certainly hope I’m not a “liberal”, at least as it seems to be defined around here, i.e. a “liberal” may be someone willing to eagerly swallow (& vigorously defend) whatever drivel this administration spoon feeds them regarding the persecution of whistleblowers like Snowden, Sterling, Rosen, et. al. who will justify the destruction of Libya with a bunch of fucking lies about impending genocide while overlooking an actual ongoing ethnic cleansing in Gaza (twice with tanks and bombs now during this “liberal” administration), will support neo-Nazis in Ukraine, is willing to excuse Obama administration responsibility for the metastatic growth of ISIL through it’s evil and/or ignorant Syrian policy, made excuses as the administration hemmed and hawed while BP befouled the Gulf of Mexico, supports the TPP, etc. With the kind of “liberals” that one finds here, who the fuck needs the bunch of clowns who want to be the Republican candidate?
BobS
@Mnemosyne (tablet): It’s a good video, but “liberals” would do well to learn about Prager University.
VidaLoca
@Cervantes:
Right, in case I wasn’t clear my sense is that you’re engaging in a logical exercise rather than taking a position one way or the other. Also, I believe it’s a valid exercise.
You’re asking for counterexamples? Well, Seidule (noted above) and Baptiste (the author of The Half Has Never Been Told that I linked to above) would be two examples that I’m familiar with but note that the argument they make is of more recent vintage. They’re trying to push back against a dominant ideology that (as Mnemosyne notes) does try to characterize the Civil War as being fought for other reasons than the preservation of slavery, and by so doing justify it.
I would say that as a rule, most peoples’ emotional responses to political questions (and history is always a political question) map closely to their political interests. That’s not always the case but where it is not, you can usually find an effort being made to stand outside of, and ask questions about, those interests.
I’d say in the period from the end of the Civil War to the mid-1960’s the reactionary set of claims about the Civil War was supported wholeheartedly by the Democratic Party and opposed tepidly and ineffectually — where it was opposed at all — by the Republican Party. Since 1964 that position is reversed.
I think the recent debate about the removal of the Confederate Battle Flag from the South Carolina statehouse offers evidence from which we can draw some conclusions. Are there regional variations in the degree of feeling on this issue? Yes — there were public demonstrations in support of the CBF in the some of the formerly Confederate states. Up here in Wisconsin though it’s not uncommon at all to see CBF bumper stickers on the back of pickup trucks. You’ll never see it carried in a parade or displayed on a public building — we were on the winning side and that’s whose flag we fly, thankyouverymuch. Up here the Civil War was about ending slavery though, it sure was not about ending white supremacy.
It is a broad claim, and a challengeable one. I think it’s valid but I do find that formulas like “discussion of race in America” aren’t the best because it’s hard to separate out “race” (an artificial social construct), “racism” (the ideas people, even people of color, have floating around in their heads) and white supremacy as a model of social organization and political control.
But don’t these alternative factors/explanations that you present (shame, guilt, helplessness) get us back to where we started, with emotions? So then we’re still asking, what underlies the emotions — why do (white) people cling to these emotions, even (especially) in the face of our observations that their material interests lie in rejecting them?
I don’t profess to have a profound answer to that question at all, but I have observed that when white people start to develop the idea that the system needs to be radically reformed, even overthrown, it’s then that they start to examine white supremacy.
To return to a question you asked above,
The only political party I know of that opposed white supremacy, consistently though not always perfectly, was the CPUSA from the late 1920’s into the 1950’s. And I have that both from reading histories and from conversations with people who were in a position to know. The CPUSA has a lot in its history to be humble about but that was actually one thing that they did better than any other party in the US that I’m aware of, past or present.
Kathleen
@jl: I’ve always felt that Chuckles wanted to save his “Gotcha” (Jazz Hands) zingers for when he wants to take it to the Liberal Man. Does he do it to McCain or Graham or any of the other Sunday Gasbag Staples? I could see him doing it to Trump because his talking points fax’d to him by his Republican Handler are telling him to.
Kathleen
@Ruckus: Oh, that one is easy for him. He’d blame Obama.
NotMax
@JPL
A stirring (pun intended) success. Thanks for asking.
schrodinger's cat
@Geeno: I was responding to Cain, does that bother you?
Ruckus
@Kathleen:
A very valuable person to be in charge, so omnipresent that he can micromanage a McD and still find time to get nuclear armament deals worked out among several of the worlds leading countries, while still managing to have somewhat of a family life and deal with an idiotic opposition congress.
Matt McIrvin
@Mnemosyne (tablet): They don’t even think it will require a constitutional amendment. I had an argument about this with some guy on Facebook a little while back. He had some strange line of argle-bargle about how the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” in the 14th Amendment really meant citizen parentage, because anchor babies were an invasion force, or something.
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne (tablet): why are you wasting time trying to engage with a centrist purity troll?
LAC
@Bobby Thomson: I agree. This is a waste of time. You should just let BobS go off and do something productive- like sue Massengil for royalties.
Cain
@schrodinger’s cat:
I haven’t. Regarding the Muslims, yes that might be true. I’m from the south so a lot of people here have a stick up their ass regarding the whole muslims coming down and conquering them. I assumed that was true up north as well.
Cain
@schrodinger’s cat:
South India is both conservative and yet more liberal. For instance, instances of ‘honor killings’ or bride burning or whatever that is, is more in the North than the South. Intermarriage between castes while frowned upon doesn’t result in a mob going out on a search and destroy mission. I think the North tends to be a lot more uneducated, superstitious and rambunctious. The South while religious are also sexually repressed and tends to be more sleazy, just like the American South. The exception being Kerala which is just a bright little spot in the South. How funny that it is both communist and christian.
Anger at muslims was always there even in the North. The english used exactly that tactic to divide people so that they can continue to rule there. They used that same tactic in South Africa, and possibly Iraq. In general, anywhere the British ruled, that place has been FUBAR’d. Except for possibly, Australia and the U.S.
BobS
@LAC:Let’s see — Gin & Tonic is the ‘neo-Nazis are people too’ Balloon Juice “liberal” — I’m gonna venture a guess you’re one of the slavishly authoritarian Balloon Juice “liberals” who gets apoplectic at the mention of Snowden and thinks he (& Greenwald!) should be lined up in front of a firing squad. Am I right?
Thoughtful Today
Ouch.
Thoughtful Today
re: Democratic Primary dates, eligibility, and State field organizations for Bernie
http://VoteForBernie.org lists Democratic Primary dates, eligibility requirements for each State, and sub-Reddits organized for all 50 States.
Upcoming events are updated on the Sanders For President main Reddit page (scroll down, on the right)> reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident
Chigaco, Illinois Monday, Aug 17: reddit.com/r/IowaForSanders
Reno, Nevada, Tuesday, Aug 18: reddit.com/r/NevadaForSanders
South Carolina: August 21 & 22 in Greenville, Columbia, Sumter, & Charleston: reddit.com/r/SouthCarolina4Sanders
Thoughtful Today
Sorry.
Thoughtful Today
re: Bernie’s brick & mortar op. v virtual operation
My search fu is poor and I haven’t been able to find a simple list of Bernie’s brick and concrete operations and I’m not in the loop to ask.
If anyone knows please post for those asking.
Several Bernie websites are working in various ways, I just exceeded the link limit pushing updates for the upcoming States and Cities he’ll be in via various Reddit pages set up for each State.
VoteForBernie.org is an excellent place to start to drill down into various national operations and learn more:
http://VoteForBernie.org lists Democratic Primary dates, eligibility requirements for each State, and sub-Reddits organized for all 50 States.
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Original Lee
@Mnemosyne (tablet): One would like to think so, but I had a rather heated discussion with a FB friend who thinks racism is basically over and people need to accept responsibility for their actions. I tried to explain victim-blaming to her, but I came away from the exchange with the definite impression that she thinks bad things happen to those who deserve them.
Thoughtful Today
BERNIE’S upcoming events updated on Reddit’s Sanders For President page (scroll down, on the right)> reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident
It’s got links to RSVP to Bernie’s evolving events in:
Illinois, IL Monday August 17
Reno, NV Tuesday August 18
South Carolina August 21:
Greenville, SC 11 am
Columbia, SC 7 pm
South Carolina Aug 22:
Sumter, SC 11 am
Charleston, SC 5 pm
New Hampshire Aug 23 & 24
TBD: Mississippi & Alabama
If you can, help. Thanks.
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LAC
@BobS: I just think you are an asshole. Why you are trying to elevate your assholery to the level of Glenn Greenwald is your sad journey. But play on, playa.