Longterm commentor The Conster linked to Propane Jane’s post last night, and I found it really interesting. Yes, the string-of-tweets format can be… visually intrusive… for some of us, but in the Storify format, all you have to do is read from the top to the bottom. These are extracts:
Matter of fact, anyone who thinks they can win the 2016 Democratic primary without "hugging" Obama is doing it all the way wrong.
— Propane Jane (@docrocktex26) January 25, 2016
It's not rocket science, folks. Stop trying to build a new coalition when you already have one that works and wins the White House.
— Propane Jane (@docrocktex26) January 25, 2016
The conservatives who love Trump weren't hooked by his faux economic populism. They came for the bigotry and oppression like they always do.
— Propane Jane (@docrocktex26) January 26, 2016
They couldn't care less about the big banks because they're already convinced that Blacks, Muslims, and Mexicans are their worst enemies.
— Propane Jane (@docrocktex26) January 26, 2016
That's why they'll show up election after election to vote against socialism and anything else that might help folk they hate. Full stop.
— Propane Jane (@docrocktex26) January 26, 2016
Let me reassure you it's ok to call the GOP brand of institutionalized racism what it is on its face. Trump proves they aren't hiding it.
— Propane Jane (@docrocktex26) January 27, 2016
Baud
Baud! ? Obama.
Eric NNY
I think I love Propane Jane.
Yutsano
Background on Jane: she’s an African American psychiatrist in the Dallas area. I must say the amount I have learned from her on social justice issues is astounding. Not to mention she’s actually supportive and approachable.
jl
@Baud: Sorry, Obama won’t help your ticket as veep nom, and he won’t fly as a Baud! 2016! ally. He wants to leave the bad habits from his youth behind for good.
I also think good to ‘hug’ Obama. But I think also important to recognize that the Obama administration, like all of the others, contained weaknesses that need to be addressed.
One I think is the Obama macroeconomic policy, that I believe produced a horribly weak job recovery, and one of the reasons the Democrats had horrible midterms under his watch. I think a good argument can be made that this is not really Obama’s fault, since his approach (aided and abetted by Summers to some extent) was then the responsible middle consensus road (unlike the crazy radical commie road advocated by nutcases like DeLong and Krugman, for example). But the history is a fact that has to be addressed.
I want Bernally Clinters to win the nomination. I would like HRC to hug just as much as she does, but emphasize more that helping working and middle class will be as high priority with her as it would be with Sanders. And Sanders needs to do more friendly safe man-hug of Obama.
Iowa Old Lady
That is clarifying.
Archon
I always wondered if America would be a banana republic or a full fledged socialist nation without black people? My instincts tell me it’s the latter but I do think the ethnic differences between Europeans would have been a MUCH bigger problem in the U.S without blacks to, in effect unite European immigrants under the banner of white supremacy.
Germy
I’d never heard of her until she was mentioned here, and now I’m hooked. Some great commentary.
jl
@Eric NNY: I love that name and I like what she wrote.
jl
@Archon: History has gifted the US with Hispanics. They would be here to rescue racism for the con people and the marks.
jake the antisoshul soshulist
Right wing populism is always driven by nativism.
Germy
Triumph the Insult Comic has been following the candidates. He showed up at the democratic debate.
http://splitsider.com/2016/02/watch-a-sneak-peek-from-hulu-and-funny-or-dies-triumphs-election-special-2016/
His description of the MSM: “Lightweights, enablers, propagandists . . .”
geg6
She just appeared on my radar in the last week and I’m seriously in love with her.
FlipYrWhig
This.
Baud
@jl: I want to have Obama’s babies.
FlipYrWhig
@Archon: Yeah, there’d be tribalism without a color line, or, to put it another way, some of the migrant populations who came here wouldn’t be considered white. And there’s also the spectacularly unresolved matter of the indigenous peoples of North America and what their status would have been in the absence of African/Caribbean slavery.
FlipYrWhig
@Baud: Check your (metaphorical?) breeder privilege!
trollhattan
@Baud:
Michele calling Baud, line 3….
jl
@Baud: Desperate measures for desperate campaigns I guess. Start yelling that and sobbing in public, might get the woeful Baud! 2016! campaign some free media.
Germy
Triumph interviews Debbie Wasser Schultz and complains about the scheduling of the debates:
“The last time I saw something buried this deep was when I was pulling it out of Lassie.”
Okay, I’ll stop quoting Triumph now.
Immanentize
This x 10K. The same is true for the labor and income inequality arguments. In the US, race Trumps class when it come to identity voting.
jl
I’ve heard news reports that Jeb is climbing in the polls for NH primary. Should I hope it is true? TPM put out a highlight real of Jeb!? Andy Kaufman campaign performance art.
Jeb’s Most Awkward, Dignity-Losing, Cringey Moments: The Definitive Guide
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/jeb-bush-saddest-funny-moments-mac-book-pro-baby
jl
@Immanentize: I think race trumps class for a segment of white racists and bigots. But where it really trumps, it is in hard core GOP and their associated indy voters that Democrats will not get anyway.
I think both issues need to be addressed to convert fence sitters within reach of Democrats. Party needs to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time to win.
Anoniminous
@jl:
CNN has him rising from 6% to 10%.
ETA:
Democrats have yet to figure out there are some votes they are never, ever, going to get. The second half is more controversial: by going after those votes they lose votes they could be getting. I note this is not necessarily a Left/Right thing, it also plays out as a Populist thing.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
Thanks for front paging her AL. I hoped someone would, because as I said in an earlier thread, it’s damn near impossible to untangle the race class intersectionality from the white perspective. Her analysis helps with my clarity around this complicated subject, and I think she’s absolutely right.
Schlemazel (parmesan rancor)
@Germy:
Pretty funny, but I notice that guy can’t not laugh, too impressed with his own jokes.
He does ask a lot of questions the msm should be
Mnemosyne
My lightbulb post in that series:
White people looked the other way while black and brown people were exploited and stripped of whatever assets they had, but when the greedsters perfected their moves and started victimizing white people, too, suddenly it’s a fucking crisis.
Roger Moore
@FlipYrWhig:
I think that’s obvious; they’d be extinct. Europeans started out by trying to enslave the natives, but they were unsuccessful because they died too quickly from Old World diseases and overwork. They only started importing slaves from Africa when there weren’t enough usable local slaves. In the absence of an African slave trade, they would have pushed much harder at enslaving the natives, and they wouldn’t have stopped until they were all dead.
WereBear
What are HRC’s plans to combat racism?
I find her lukewarm to cold on such social justice issues as marijuana legalization, elimination of privatized prisons, and reform of sentencing laws.
What is her detailed plan?
Because from what I hear on BJ, if a candidate doesn’t have a detailed plan, it’s not going to happen!
bin Lurkin'
POCs should vote for the blonde haired blue eyed ultra privileged white woman who said that black kids are super predators who need to be brought to heel.
Roger Moore
@Immanentize:
I think this is fundamentally missing the point. In the US, race is inseparable from class. The reason racism took over so thoroughly is because it tied into the existing class structure and guaranteed poor whites that they would never be at the bottom.
gogol's wife
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I love the commentary in the OP. Right on point.
singfoom
@WereBear: Her reply about marijuana last evening was particularly painful to watch if you ask me. It felt very triangulated. Just say “I endorse the legalization of marijuana nationally” and watch a bunch of people vote for you. How goddamn hard is it?
boatboy_srq
@Archon: Ethnic/religious distinctions play a remarkable role in majority-thite locales as it is. Northern New England for example has been divided on English/Irish/French-Canadian/Everyone-else lines for generations, and the infighting often gets ugly. Expecting a near-zero AA population to automagically foster socialism is unrealistic beyond naivêtê.
bystander
Glad to see Jebula! is rising in the polls. To quote the Master:
Success is swell
And success is sweet,
But every height has a drop.
The less achievement,
The less defeat.
I want to see Jebula! get the maximum defeat. Much more painful that way.
FlipYrWhig
@Roger Moore: That’s pretty bleak. Not hard to imagine, though, either, alas.
Germy
@Roger Moore:
And yet many upper-class black people still can’t get a cab in Manhattan. How much does Al Roker make? He recently complained he couldn’t get a cab when he needed to get his daughter to the doctor.
FlipYrWhig
@bin Lurkin’: Come the fuck on. She did not say that “black kids are super predators.” You’re such a fuckwit.
WereBear
@singfoom: Oh, I know!
I keep getting told I am not giving her a chance, so I make the effort to visit her website or watch her latest speech/press thing.
And then I hear something that makes me cringe.
Geez, lady, are you a Democrat or a Dixiecrat?
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom: “But 20 years ago you were doing interviews about being tough on crime, what changed, yerk yerk yerk, trying to be all things to all people.”
Applejinx
@Mnemosyne:
But they have. I agree it’s ridiculous and blindered to take this long to notice, but they have and yes it is a fucking crisis. It’s less of a crisis now?
FlipYrWhig
@WereBear: Yes, Hillary Clinton is a segregationist. This is getting even more idiotic than before.
bin Lurkin'
@WereBear:
“Cut it out” sufficed to bring Wall Street to heel, no doubt it would prove equally efficacious on various bigots and racists.
singfoom
@FlipYrWhig: Sure, that’d be the response from some people. But she even acknowledged in her answer that drug abuse / addiction should be handled as a health issue and not a justice issue.
“My views have evolved as I have seen the suffering of the incarcerated and their families over the last 20 years. The fact that several states have legalized it already without negative effects that have shown up so far helped convince me this is the best course for the nation.”
I mean, you’re never going to get the people that yell FLIP FLOP if you change your position.
Hell, she could talk about how EVERYONE 20 years ago was freaking out about crime. Your point is still valid though.
Gimlet
@Applejinx:
My impression was that the Flint fiasco happened during a drive to “privatize” the local water distribution. The issue of race was not really a consideration.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Yutsano:
This. She’s got the knack for tweeting, which is actually a thing. She teases out the essence of the thing.
Gimlet
@bin Lurkin’:
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/268178-clinton-defends-wall-street-speaking-fees-thats-what-they
Hillary Clinton on Wednesday night defended accepting huge speaking fees from Goldman Sachs, arguing that it won’t influence the way she treats the banking industry if she becomes president.
Speaking at CNN’s Democratic forum, anchor Anderson Cooper pressed Clinton on whether it had been a mistake for her to reel in more than $200,000 per speech for three speeches before the Wall Street giant.
“Look, I made speeches to lots of groups. I told them what I thought. I answered questions,” the former secretary of State said.
“But did you have to be paid $675,000?,” Cooper asked.
“Well I don’t know,” Clinton responded. “That’s what they offered.”
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Mnemosyne:
Also with opiod addiction. It’s a law enforcement matter, until it’s a white people problem, then suddenly ta da! it’s a public health crisis.
kc
O rly?
WereBear
I noticed their first “test case” was in a city with a lot of poor people AND a lot of people of color.
bin Lurkin'
@singfoom:
She tried to conflate cannabis and heroin so fast it gave me whiplash. Drug policy makes perfectly rational adults into babbling idiots, I can’t imagine what the drugs themselves do.
debbie
@Gimlet:
As with redlining, I’d bet AA neighborhoods were considered the ideal place to start with privatizing water. Why do you think they picked Flint?
nutella
@bin Lurkin’:
Better to vote for one of the people who voted in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994
Congressman Sanders of Vermont voted ‘Aye’ for that.
A lot of Democrats did, too. And Joe Biden wrote it.
kindness
@jl: I should read all the comments before saying this as no doubt someone else has….Are you suggesting
that this is Obama’s fault? Yes you mentioned Summers but you never mentioned Republican efforts to torpedo anything and everything there. That’s kind of a big deal. And while saying Bernie would be better no one has yet explained to me adequately how Bernie (or Hillary for that matter) would be able to do anything more with the composition of the House as it is.
Mike J
@bin Lurkin’: That was when she was stumping for the crime bill that Bernie Sanders supported, wasn’t it?
Mnemosyne
@Applejinx:
It’s been a crisis for decades — 1979, at a minimum. But the majority of white people in the US think the crisis will be solved by making sure only black and brown people are victimized. How do you suggest getting those people to help us solve the crisis without agreeing to give them the special privileges they want?
When you have a Republican voter who’s convinced that the crisis is because black welfare queens are taking his money, how do you get him on your side without agreeing with him?
FDR solved the problem by making sure the New Deal primarily benefited white people, with a few bones thrown to everyone else. That solution is no longer acceptable. Now what?
Roger Moore
@Germy:
That’s because black attaches to upper-class rather than to people; they may be upper-class compared to other blacks, but they aren’t upper-class compared to a middle-class white person.
bin Lurkin'
@FlipYrWhig: It’s like none of the hard working white folks here ever heard a dog whistle.
Gimlet
@debbie:
Probably because they had an “emergency Czar” in place and could push it through without much trouble.
FlipYrWhig
@singfoom: Well, what I was answering was “why doesn’t she do it?” not “what should she do?” But when you get pilloried for changing your mind and _also_ pressured to admit that this and that and the other thing were all Big Mistakes, you get caught in feedback loops like this: admit a mistake and you’ve validated two strikes against you.
nutella
@nutella:
Most of the Democrats who voted for that realize 20 years later that it was a mistake.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@kc:
ORLY.
Gimlet
@kindness:
I’m willing to bet Bernie can play political hardball with obstructionists in ways Obama and Hillary can’t/won’t.
Tyro
She really, really doesn’t like Bernie Sanders. Conveniently, she forgets that the white supporters of Obama in 2008 have a heavy overlap with the current supporters of Bernie.
Immanentize
@Roger Moore: by being white
gene108
@singfoom:
Considering allegations that her husband smoked pot once or twice in college nearly derailed his Presidential campaign, in 1992, I think I can understand a certain amount of trepidation on the issue, with regards to outright demanding legalizing it nationally.
What would be interesting is how would Republicans, the “law and order” party, handle Washington state and Colorado’s efforts to legalize pot? Would they enforce national laws over states rights or would they let things be, like President Obama has.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
Neither of those is a coincidence. You needed both of those in place in order to do it. Nobody cared that Flint was being taken over because the people there are poor and black. Most people still don’t care, because the people there are poor and black.
FlipYrWhig
@bin Lurkin’: It’s like you don’t remember that the black public _also_ wanted the government to do something about high levels of crime in neighborhoods that had been left behind. That was the big bargain in the bill: law and order (Republican priority) meets community policing and prevention (Democratic priority). Or do you not remember that big stink over “midnight basketball”?
hellslittlestangel
So who is this Propane Jane? Besides, I mean, totally fucking awesome.
Gimlet
@Tyro:
Unless they became disillusioned with “Hope and Change”, all Hillary has to is crank it up to “11” with her closeness to Obama and his policies and they will support her to the last man.
FlipYrWhig
@Gimlet: What “hardball” does Bernie Sanders play? What’s he going to threaten to do?
Mnemosyne
@Gimlet:
You’re almost there — they were able to put the emergency czar in place and push it through without many protests because … ?
You may want to Google “white flight Michigan” if you need some background.
gene108
@nutella:
Violent crime had been increasing year after year for the past 20-30 years, with no end in sight.
No one realized – that for reasons still unknown – the crime rates would come down to 55 year lows 20 years later. The lack prescience by our Congress people and President is disturbing.
I think along with a Parliamentarian the House and Senate need to employ a Fortune Teller, in order to know what will happen 20 years in the future and tailor laws accordingly.
singfoom
@gene108: I’m pretty sure they’ll send the DEA in and fuck shit up. The only “respect state’s rights” when it’s for taking away voting rights for people who don’t vote for them.
That’s 20+ years ago as well. My point was if she’s losing the youth vote to Bernie and wants to energize the youth vote in the general, just come out for legalization. It’s going to happen anyway, the momentum in the states and popular opinion is going that way. Ride the wave!
By doing so, she’s really hitting two birds with one stone, it’s a social justice issue AND a youth issue….but that’s just my take.
Cheers.
Tyro
@Gimlet: Yes, I agree. But it’s not as though Sanders is some sort of phenomenon that came about because of young white voters’ hostility to Obama (other than maybe, “he wasn’t left enough” disappointment). It’s because Sanders appeals to the same group of white voters that Obama appealed to. Propane Jane seems to have this fantasy that Bernie’s support is all coming from a bunch of Democrats anxious to get revenge against that black guy for taking over the white house.
Roger Moore
@Gimlet:
Not really. Flint was in the process of switching from getting its water from Detroit to getting it from a regional pipeline to Lake Huron that several other cities were participating in. This was part of a cost-saving move driven by the city’s emergency manager. While waiting for the pipeline to be completed, the emergency manager decided to switch to water from the Flint River rather than temporarily extending the contract with Detroit, again as a cost-saving move. The thing that really precipitated the crisis was that he also decided to try saving money by not treating the water to minimize its corrosive potential, even though that was the standard recommendation of the EPA and it would have cost only an estimated $100/day to treat. They probably could have gotten away with the switch if they had been willing to pay the relative pittance for the anti-corrosion treatment.
Gimlet
@Mnemosyne:
Skin color was not the consideration, just lack of political power and greed.
bin Lurkin'
I don’t think politicians can really do much about racism and bigotry in people’s hearts, that sort of change has to come from within.
If you think Clinton has a better chance of winning in the general and you find that’s enough to support her in the primaries I don’t think anyone has a problem with that but trying to defend every damn thing she’s ever done starts to look ridiculous and ends up quickly in farce.
The default in DC is a sort of endemic corruption that humans all too easily fall into, Clinton is a symptom of a system that desperately needs a high colonic.
jl
@kindness: I said that it is not really Obama’s fault in that very comment, though for a different reason.
I’ve said in the past that Obama should have requested the full amount Romer’s calculations indicated were necessary, and beat the GOP, and anyone else who opposed it, over the head with the results of an inadequate stimulus plan that were disappointing.
That is my opinion, and if people want to disagree, that is fine.
But this is not really Obama’s fault either. It is getting into the realm alternative history, a world where Summers didn’t hedge, Washington consensus macroeconomics did not have such a commanding influence on centrist economists, Christina Romer headed all the exec branch economic advisory positions, etc.
So, no, I don’t think reasonable to say it was ‘Obama’s fault’ unless one does think he is an evil super genius with access to a working time machine and alternative counterfactual paths of world history.
Archon
@Gimlet:
I’m prepared to listen and potentially flip my vote if it came from Bernie Sanders. He’s not making that argument though.
randy khan
@Gimlet:
(a) What would those be? and
(b) What makes you think they would be effective in changing hearts, minds or (the key point) votes?
Frankly, I suspect it’s more likely that the Republicans would be scared of Clinton than Sanders, since I bet many of them now believe their own propaganda about her. Nobody wants to be the next Vince Foster, if you know what I mean.
Gimlet
@FlipYrWhig:
I don’t know what would be the response in a particular context, but as an executive administrator he controls allocation of lots of resources to those obstructionists political base. It’s a variation of the “power of the incumbent President” in elections of yore.
kc
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
That doesn’t address the bit I quoted, though. Do you think if there were no people of color in the U.S., the one percent would happily share their wealth?
WereBear
Maybe she should get some therapy to get over things that happened 24 years ago.
Look, I’m not targeting HRC personally, I’m just fed up with obvious idiocy continually being enshrined into law. Show some ‘nads on things like climate change, 1%er theft which targets everyone who is not a 1%er, drug legalization, and so forth.
Is the Drug War a failure or isn’t it? Is climate change real? Doesn’t the golden showers from The Top fall on everyone?
To quote John Lennon:
kc
@bin Lurkin’:
Oh, we’re already there. People are defending her Iraq vote on the basis of “everyone was doing it!” They’re saying that her whopper speaking fees from Goldman Sachs are a triumph of feminism and that we would be celebrating them if a male politician took them. I mean, the bullshit is DEEP.
MomSense
@jl:
Summers was asked directly about this on the radio show Marketplace and he said that the entire team was in agreement that they would have preferred a much larger stimulus. He didn’t nix it or demand cuts. They were dealing with the political realities of needing Specter and the “moderates” Snowe and Collins who all extracted additional cuts to secure their votes.
I personally held phone banks in my house for weeks to call the offices of Snowe and Collins to lobby for their votes on the stimulus. I went to their offices, with lots of others, to talk to their staffers. From my perspective, it seems there are a lot of progressives who would rather pretend that Summers and the rest of Obama’s economic team caved, were naive, or somehow didn’t understand what needed to be done. The reality is that organizing for liberal policies is much fucking tougher than just using the bully pulpit or playing hardball or any of the other fantasies that are constantly invoked.
hellslittlestangel
@bin Lurkin’: ” …blonde haired blue eyed ultra privileged white woman … ”
Are you trying to say she’s white-icky white-icky white y’all?
ETA: Just to be clear, I think you sound like a fucking asshole.
Mnemosyne
@Gimlet:
And you wonder why people of color keep telling you they don’t trust Bernie.
kc
I’ll reiterate that I don’t HRC and if she’s the nominee, I’ll vote for her, because she’s far better than any Republican, but I can not get enthusiastic about her candidacy.
Gimlet
@jl:
I’ve said in the past that Obama should have requested the full amount Romer’s calculations indicated were necessary, and beat the GOP, and anyone else who opposed it, over the head with the results of an inadequate stimulus plan that were disappointing.
It seems Obama’s a conservative in economic policies. As such, Keynesian policies were not going to happen much beyond tokenism.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@kindness: also Nancy Pelosi told the administration that “a trillion dollars” would spook the horses. And Claire McCaskill and a whole bunch of others were determined to show their fiscal responsibility by shaving it down. The Stimulus was not, as Krugman may well still insist on thinking, a debate between Romer on Obama’s Left (but Right) shoulder and Summers on his Right (but Wrong), it was fight in Congress, mostly among Democrats.
Sweet jumping christ
kc
@Tyro:
Yeah. People who know the system isn’t working for everyone.
Roger Moore
@gene108:
It’s looking very likely that lead poisoning was a driving force behind the late 20th Century crime wave. Good thing we’ve started poisoning black people with lead again (viz Flint, MI), or we might run out of people to throw in prison.
Mnemosyne
@kc:
Except that’s not the question. Great Britain, Germany, France, Sweden, etc all have 1%ers. Every country has them.
The question is, If there were no people of color in the US, would the 99 percent be willing to rein in the 1 percent?
jl
@MomSense: I think Krugman is correct that Summers was an economic advisor and should have stuck to economics. In fairness, Summers hedged because of both political considerations, and influence of Great Moderation Washington Consensus macroeconomic view (edit: which is now a smoking bombed-out wasteland of wrong, but still influential) . But if he had stuck to economics, his hedge would have been less.
But opinions can differ. I don’t want to derail the class versus race discussion on this thread.
@Gimlet: In fairness to Obama, that is what the consensus expertise was back then. Even Krugman has admitted to being concerned that a real test of his views would be coming, and he was relieved that it turned out he was doing some actual empirical science, rather than ideological BS.
Edit2: For better or worse, Obama is not a ‘eff it’ kick of some butt and try something else FDR or Truman type of leader. In many was that Obama is the better course for these times, but in a few, maybe not, But that is just how life roles.
Gimlet
@MomSense:
Summers was asked directly about this on the radio show Marketplace and he said that the entire team was in agreement that they would have preferred a much larger stimulus.
Summers says things like that, just as the WP and NYTs says gee they made a mistake cheerleading for the Iraq invasion.
All of them faced today with those decisions would do the exact same thing.
eemom
@kc:
I don’t get that either.
Strikes me as an incredibly oversimplified assertion by this supposedly brilliant person.
FlipYrWhig
@Gimlet: Why wouldn’t they say, “Fuck you, Mr. President, and we’ll settle it at the next election”?
Gimlet
@FlipYrWhig:
??
They can always undo it later but the consequences will be in effect until then.
PhoenixRising
@MomSense:
Yeah, the Green Lantern theory is pretty tiresome. Particularly since I’ve found no one promoting it (‘the people want a new way of doing things, not another experienced worker doing things the same old way, and they’ll vote if you give them something to vote for!’ #feelthebern) has been able to tell me their history of progressive organizing to get Obama a more workable Congress at the time that was possible.
If you’re 21, OK. You’re excused. But if you’re 25 or older and didn’t bust your own personal ass beyond ‘I voted’ to affect the ’10 election…spare me your theories of what the people want until after you’ve knocked on their doors and asked about 300 of them. Strangers, mind you, and homes, not dorm rooms.
We all have to live with longterm consequences from that election; neither fantasies about people power nor scary stories about how Obama didn’t do enough of what he promised will move that ball.
FlipYrWhig
@kc:
No, but I’m tempted to say if there weren’t people of color, the 99% who didn’t have wealth would be much more likely to have greater solidarity when it came to opposing the 1% that did. The problem with my own answer, though, is that there are ways to supply a people-of-color surrogate: if there weren’t people of African descent, maybe people of some other descent would be treated as Those People sponging off the government with their lazy, violent, lawless ways.
FlipYrWhig
@Gimlet: What are you imagining him doing, putting new toxic waste dumps in their districts?
Baud
@FlipYrWhig: Japan is pretty homogeneous. That’s one example of how things might turn out if it weren’t for non-class-based divisions in society.
Gimlet
@FlipYrWhig:
There are always differences to exploit. As an example Catholic vs Protestant Irish.
Gimlet
@FlipYrWhig:
Thumbs up!
Baud
@Gimlet: Is Bernie promising FEMA camps? Cuz that would be cool.
WereBear
Very true. The other side has more money. The only way we can balance it, in fact, the entire promise of Democracy Its Own Self, is to have more people who vote on our side.
Mike in DC
The correct answer to “why we no haz soshulizm” is 1)The Republican party and 2) Racism. The latter is most frequently employed by the former to help block any incremental implementation of socialist policies.
Gimlet
@Baud:
Bird Sanctuaries in Eastern Oregon with no electrical power.
FlipYrWhig
@PhoenixRising: We just went through a whole political process in Iowa and learned, for instance, how many college-educated and self-described liberal people there are in the state. And this state’s past two Senate elections resulted in Charles “Obamacare Kills Grandma” Grassley and Joni “Hog Castration” Ernst. Don’t tell me about your glorious “political revolution” if you can’t even get liberal Democrats elected in places where liberal Democrats _actually are._
Mnemosyne
@FlipYrWhig:
Great Britain had “tax exiles” in the 1970s who moved away and became citizens of places like Switzerland that had lower income tax rates.
So I’m not sure why some people are even questioning “whether” other countries would take steps to rein in their 1 percenters when history already shows that they actually DID. It’s not a hypothetical.
Baud
@Gimlet: Don’t people have to self-deport to their own sovereign nation for that to work?
MDC
The Propane Jane tweets you quoted are great. The ones you left out from that whole string… not so much. Such bile against a straw-man versions of Bernie Sanders.
Apparently (she says) Sanders is trying to “steal” Obama voters… because they rightfully belong to Clinton, don’tcha know? And he’s “insulting” her (and all black people, by implication) by getting the endorsement of the rapper Killer Mike — because (stay with me here) the fact that Bernie is able to gain that endorsement without being denounced is a flagrant act of flaunting of his white privilege. How dare he earn the trust of a mock-menacingly-titled black entertainer and activist who possesses the ability to make up his own damn mind?
MomSense
@jl:
No, Summers did not hedge. They were trying to get as much as possible. Go back and look at Pelosi’s comments about what she thought would be needed before the ARRA was proposed. She was talking in the 325 to 400 million ballpark. Again, this is one of those zombie lies that only makes us less able to organize future battles. An accurate understanding is essential.
Gimlet
@Baud:
Remember bottled water and platform shoes for the NH campaign. It doesn’t look good though. I still don’t know how you’re to explain the deranged Baud “scream” they keep playing on CNN.
MomSense
@PhoenixRising:
Yes it is.
MazeDancer
Love Propane Jane. (AKA @docrocktex26 on Twitter). Thank you, Anne Laurie, for bringing her to our attention.
She’s a bit prolific. And a fearsome retweeter. But it’s all grade-A stuff. Which is good. Because Billmon (aka @billmon1) – another fine Tweeter also include din the past in Anne Laurie’s excellent round-ups – may have to be unfollowed. Have enjoyed his smarts and wit for a while. But his Clinton Derangement Syndrome has gotten old.
Propane Jane is pro-Hilliary. And seems to have gotten to that camp the same way I may soon arrive – as a long-time feminist who is just, plain done with the media-enhanced misogyny against Mrs. Clinton.
Hilliary not being able to raise her voice – while Bernie has only one volume level: yell – because it’s too “shrewish” or “shrill” or reminds people of their mother or who knows what – being like Mr. Obama not being able to get passionate because he risks becoming “Angry Black Man” is about the last straw for me. All the massive misgivings I have about Hillary may be back-burnered in the firey rile of “Enough!” on sexism.
And Propane Jane, and many, many, many, many, many, many others on Twitter show me that I am not alone.
Mnemosyne
@MDC:
Obama had to denounce his war veteran ordained minister because that minister said some mean things in his sermons about racist white people. You really think Obama could have brought Killer Mike onstage with him at campaign events?
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@kc:
If my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle. It’s an impossible hypothetical to answer, and obfuscates.
jl
@MomSense: I’ve read what Pelosi thought would be needed, and I don’t care what she thought was needed. She is not Christina Romer, who did the estimates, which, corrected for lack of concurrent info on rapidity of the economic collapse. was very accurate.
I think you are conflating political and economic considerations. But, yes, I will go back and review the saga of Summers’ advice, even though I don’t want to slog through DeLong’s apologia again. Can’t guarantee I will change my mind.
eemom
@Mnemosyne:
Except that no one’s questioning THAT. (Typical disingenuous bullshit from you.) The question is whether that would have happened HERE….and it’s absolutely ridiculous to suggest that there’s a simple answer to that question.
PhoenixRising
@FlipYrWhig: Well said. You know, elections are won by whoever gets more votes, not whoever has better ideas. Lots of educated, liberal people live pretty much everywhere, but they still get representation elected by whoever actually organizes, and in a lot of places that is churches.
Example: Jim Jordan is such a bucket of hammers he didn’t know that Kim Davis was his SOTU guest…yet people keep not bothering to bust their asses to support his Dem challengers. This year, Janet Garrett, my niece’s kindergarten teacher, is throwing herself on the grenade in OH-21. Perfect way to mark her retirement from managing petulant whiny not-reliably-housebroken children…because Congress won’t be a change in the event she wins!
But Democrats will have to get off their couches and knock on doors to register voters for that to come true. Not just Kay, either.
Matt McIrvin
@jl: I see no evidence yet of a Jeb climb here:
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-gop-primary#!estimate=custom
though they don’t have many data points after Iowa.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@MDC:
Her point is that imagine Obama campaigning with a rapper named Killer Mike. She’s asking whites to check their privilege. That’s all – check your privilege.
Baud
@Gimlet: Meh. I prefer the scream to some of the other noises I make.
Botsplainer, Cryptofascist Tool of the Oppressor Class
@Mnemosyne:
So you met my mom, then?
Mandalay
@nutella:
Yep. Biden is well to the right of the Attila the Hun on law and order, and national security. Mclaren posts about it all the time here, but the message doesn’t seem to get through since most posters adore their dream of a warm and cuddly Uncle Joe.
MDC
Also, Propane Jane seems to believe you can EITHER denounce Wall Street and the 1%, OR be anti-racist, but not both. Dumb and divisive.
Frankensteinbeck
@Baud:
Media coverage of the ‘Baud O face’ has been really unfair.
MDC
@Mnemosyne: No, I absolutely agree with that observation… Obama couldn’t, and Sanders can, because white privilege. What I take issue with was her statement that Bernie was somehow “insulting” her by gaining Killer Mike’s endorsement. That’s dumb.
MDC
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: No, that’s not all. She said Sanders was insulting black people by gaining Killer Mike’s endorsement.
Mandalay
@Baud:
Any nation with errant one percenters who kill themselves when they bring disgrace to the company is fine by me.
boatboy_srq
@kc: Answer: No. And the rest would still demand someone to hate.
@FlipYrWhig: It happens today: where there is no substantial population of Other People™ there’s still nasty social striation. All you have to do is look at the trials Irish, Italian, Slavic and other “newcomer” populations have experienced on arrival in the US.
@Baud: Japan is very homogeneous ethnically as well as racially: there are very few people who would be Othered. Take Japan outside the Home Islands and the pattern repeats. Proof: Korea (1910-45) and Okinawa (1609-Present).
Mnemosyne
@eemom:
I think you and kc are both misunderstanding the underlying argument. It’s not that 1 percenters in other countries are nice people who are willing to share. It’s that the 99 percent in other countries are willing to hold their 1 percenters to account and make common cause against them to make the 1 percent pay their share.
Why don’t the US 99 percenters hold the US 1 percent to account? Her argument is that it’s racism. I find that argument persuasive. What’s your preferred explanation?
Gimlet
@Baud:
I think you can distract them from this by announcing Martin Shkreli as your running mate.
jl
@Gimlet: A Shkreli veep nom would really be loading up on the Baud! 2016! ticket smirk factor. What about balance?
Archon
When I saw Ted Devine squirm out of the, “Is Obama a moderate” question Chris Hayes posed to him I realized that in the final analysis Bernie Sanders needed President Obama to be less popular with Democrats then he now to win the nomination.
Bernie is a better politician then I imagined but it’s going to take an extraordinary amount of political skill to win the nomination as the change agent with the President running at 85 percent approval with Democrats.
Aleta
@Baud: If you’ll walk on to the stage in NH to this song, I’ll spot your campaign an extra $12 in Maurice White’s memory.
(Stand By Me, Maurice White)
the Conster, la Citoyenne
The right wing reactionaries in Scandinavian countries are getting popular. It’s coinciding with immigration. I’m sure that’s all just coincidental.
cat
@Archon:
Right… Because the Europeans showed up to North America and found it completely uninhabited so they decided they had to import 2nd class citizens they could easily discriminate against?
satby
@WereBear: Second. They had already taken over Benton Harbor and privatized away a beachfront park that had been donated in perpetuity to the city. Someone wanted a golf course.
cat
@jl: Or you know, Native Americans??? WTF?
MomSense
@jl:
Conflating political and economic aspirations??? Barack Obama wasn’t a benevolent dictator. The Congress controls the purse strings.
Just go read the Marketplace transcript where Summers was asked directly if he regretted advocating a lower stimulus. He emphatically explains that this isn’t true. Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker of the House. That she said one trillion would spook them is important because she has to secure the votes.
AAARRRGGHHH, why do we keep having to rehash this bullshit? The world is not as we would like it to be. We do not live in a world where reason and facts win the day. The history of social, economic, and political progress has always been that you have to work and fight for every gain.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Are you practicing your hearts for valentine’s day?
Mnemosyne
@MDC:
Perhaps she should have said “pandering” instead. Though many people do consider obvious pandering to be insulting.
The “insulting” part is also My Black Friend Syndrome. Every clueless white person has a Black Friend they can point to that supports their point of view. Sanders bringing out Killer Mike and Cornel West can be seen as him bringing out his Black Friends to demonstrate to other white people that he has some.
jl
Looks like there are Clinton rules for fact checks. This is, IMHO, one of the most BS fact checks I’ve ever read.
Fact check: Hillary Clinton says ‘every secretary of state that I know’ has been a paid speaker
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/fact-check-hillary-says-every-secretary-of-state-205259379.html
The bottom line is that the statement is flat out true. But the agents for some others will only release qulaitative info, or give lowest fees paid.. and DEPUTY Sectys of State definitely get less. so… we dunno… looks like HRC’s claim is only sorta true.
Yeesh. People get paid money for pushing out this dingbat dreck? Well, they got my click, I guess that is all that counts.
sparrow
@debbie: very, very good point. Yes, they wanted to privatize Detroit’s water supply, and if a bunch of black/brown people had to have severe health consequences as a result, well, that’s just the cherry on top for these assholes. People can be BOTH greedy and racist.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@MDC:
She’s saying that Bernie’s ability to campaign with Killer Mike, who has every right to pick his candidate, is only possible because Bernie’s white and won’t be tainted with the thug brush. Killer Mike might have wanted to campaign for Obama, but that wouldn’t have been helpful, because then Obama’s a thug too. It is insulting to black people who are supposed to hold their own celebrities at arms length because of how they’re perceived by white people, yet white people expropriate everything else from black culture if it’s self serving, without giving black people a second thought as to how it’s perceived by black people. That’s pretty fucking insulting.
kc
@FlipYrWhig:
I do think that’s probably true, and I think that’s what LBJ was getting at in that quote. Plenty of people don’t have much, but they think the government is going to take what little they have away and give it to some other undeserving slackers. We need to reach enough of those people to make a difference.
WereBear
A fair assessment. But he does use that privilege for good.
I’ve been in upstate New York for over 15 years, and that entire time there’s been coverage of Bernie Sanders. And I’ve been consistently impressed, and occasionally, amazed.
Hillary Clinton gets 76% from the ACLU, and 96% from the NAACP (using roughly the same years of assessment.)
So let’s stop calling Bernie a racist, shall we? If Clinton “won” in Iowa by a tiny percentage, Bernie “wins” by beating her by 1% :)
jl
@MomSense: I’m not going to say any more on this. I’ll let my comments stand and let anyone who cares to read them make up their mind.
kc
@Mnemosyne:
Oh come on. He didn’t “bring them out,” how patronizing of you, they endorsed him voluntarily. Two prominent people endorsed him, what’s he supposed to do, tell them to fuck off? Then you’d call him racist for that. Godalmighty, don’t be ridiculous.
sparrow
@Archon: I actually don’t think Bernie is a great politician in the traditional sense. I think against a stronger Dem field he would not be doing so well. I think the fact he’s gotten as far as he has speaks to (1) some of the disappointment* with Obama RE income inequality and Wall street and the ‘bullshit jobs’ factor, which resonates very very heavily with the youngs and (2) the weakness of Hillary as a candidate on many issues but *especially* the above point.
* And by disappointment, I mean just that. People like me that think he is a brilliant, class-act president who was right on many things and one of the coolest heads I ever saw in politics, but also one who was disappointing in terms of left-wing political priorities. Fully admitting that any disappointment is the result of not appreciating that he was never going to push for those priorities, and our unrealistic hopes in that sense.
Mike J
@MomSense:
Clap harder.
kc
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
I do agree with the first part of your comment, that Obama would get a shitload of grief if he met with Killer Mike. The second part of your comment suggests that it’s somehow “insulting” for Sanders to accept the endorsement, I disagree (apologies if I misread it).
Peale
@Baud: It’s o.k. to hug Obama. It’s not o.k. if you’re the reason he leaves Michelle.
MDC
@Mnemosyne: Sure, I know exactly what you mean about My Black Friend syndrome. But does that mean Bernie is not allowed to be endorsed by black people? That black people can’t, of their own volition, speak out for him, or take the stage at his events? Surely Killer Mike and Cornel West can make their own decisions. They aren’t puppets with Bernie’s hand up their backsides.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@kc:
It’s not insulting for Sanders to accept the endorsement – that’s the way it is. It’s insulting that he can accept the endorsement without all the negatives. See the diff?
jl
@sparrow: I think that in terms of disappointment, and its effect on midterms and Democratic position at state and Congressional level it concerns daily economic reality working people faced during weak recovery as much as hopes and dreams.
It doesn’t make any difference whether Obama, or anyone else, could have done anything humanly possible to have changed that history much, but that is the history we have to deal with.
But, for lots of voters, it is more than hopes and dreams, it is history of lousy jobs and income recovery.
Though the Obama recovery has been better than GW Bush’s in many ways. But then, that is one reason for GW Bush having end-of-term polling numbers that make Obama’s look great by comparison. If voter memories were longer and more acute, Democrats would be in better shape, probably.
Mandalay
@jl:
True perhaps, but so what? She could have said every secretary of state she knew has been under seven feet tall, and it would have been just as relevant. The issue isn’t solely one of accepting paid speaking engagements.
The other former SoSs aren’t running for president, they aren’t bragging that they are progressives, they aren’t claiming that they are looking out for the little guy, and they aren’t claiming that they have been down on Wall Street for years.
And her claim that the payment she received from GS was “what they offered” is an obvious lie.
She has put herself in an indefensible position…which is precisely why she is completely unable to defend her behavior.
singfoom
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: That’s fair, but is that Bernie’s fault? What does he have to do to have his privilege considered checked? He didn’t one handedly build the system that we find ourselves in….sure as a Senator he voted for the crime bill mentioned up thread.
When will it not be insulting or rather, when will that insult not reflect on Bernie? I’m really honestly curious and I apologize if I make any offense.
humboldtblue
Maurice White dies and all you fumbledicks can think to do is to gather in a circle and start shooting each other.
Fuck Bernie Sanders and fuck Hillary Clinton.
Maurice White died and he brought a lot more goddamn joy and a lot more rhythm and a lot more pleasure than these two old fucks doing this absurd political dance will ever do.
Go dance.
Mnemosyne
@kc:
How many people do you think Obama had to turn down in 2008 and 2012 because the MSM and Republicans would have gone apeshit over the endorsement? Hundreds or only dozens?
Propane Jane’s point is that she thinks Sanders is bringing West and Killer Mike out to show other white people that he’s not racist. That’s what she finds insulting. But, hey, if you want to try and tell black people that they’re wrong when they feel that something is racist, be my guest. It’s not like white people do that all the damn time or anything.
JerryN
I gotta say, “For the umpteenth time, systemic racism is the number one reason why we don’t have socialism in America. It ain’t the banks or the 1%ers.” displays a complete ignorance of the history of the labor movement in the U.S. Haymarket, Centralia, the Pullman Strike, the Steel Strike and the armed actions against them, not to mention the Bonus Army and many others actions where government troops either participated in the killing of workers or stood by and let the private company do violence? The press coverage that was univerally supportive of the strike busters and thugs? That must have had no part in the demonization of socialism in this country.
Give me a break.
Mnemosyne
@MDC:
He probably should have turned down West’s endorsement. That’s really pissing a lot of loyal black voters off, because West has been pissing on Obama since 2008.
Someone said above that Sanders should be realizing by now that most Democrats are not nearly as disillusioned with Obama as the white, middle-class Democrats he talks to are. Obama’s approval rating among Democrats is 85 percent, so bringing major Obama critics onstage with him may not be a good strategy.
WarMunchkin
@Mnemosyne: I think the argument is that it’s racism. You can already see the social welfare state staring to fray in Sweden with an increase of browner-skinned people. If people’s benefits are going to go to “those people”, then they’d rather not have them. People say that Vietnam ruined Johnson’s Great Society, but as I recall from my history classes, race riots and resentment being in the news a lot had a lot to do with it. I’m young, so some of you have probably even lived through that. As far as I know, no non-racially virtually homogenous society has managed to pull off a true social welfare state.
But to bring this discussion to something more concrete – what’s the way forward here? If voting for someone who wants socialist policies(*) is, well, wrong and ignorantly racist (if not maliciously racist), what am I going to vote for (in terms of economic policies)?
Is the summary here that (1) liberal economic policies are racist-by-ignorance(**), or that (2)advocacy of liberal economic policies tries to nefariously and/or ignorantly get there by telling the wrong story? And if it’s option 2, why can’t I vote for option 1 while also recognizing option 2?
(*) To be honest, I’m tired of calling Sanders a socialist. What he wants really isn’t that big of a leap against historic Democratic Party goals. Even in the post-Nixonland era.
(**) Frankly, racism by ignorance is racism by malice, too, but I’m trying to be kinder to what I thought Democrats believed in, here.
And as a footnote, separately, but parallel to, issues of economic justice – the fact that I can’t get an ostensibly Democratic presidential candidates to note that brown people getting thrown in jail forever without being so much as charged with a fucking crime is morally reprehensible (rather than some reductionist argument about how it damages America’s reputation) renders this whole discussion heartbreaking in my eyes. But I’m still going to vote for a candidate that can materially and nontrivially stop systematic racism by the intelligence and foreign policy communities. This seems to be strongly correlated discussion.
J R in WV
@Baud:
Japan is racially somewhat unitary, but in terms of class, they are far more divided than America is.
This has probably been a fact since the samurai were ruling class, and everyone else was a peon. I suspect it is still a fact today.
Trentrunner
@JerryN:
She said “number one.”
Doesn’t mean there isn’t a number two.
randy khan
@Mandalay:
Look, I’m not thrilled she talked to them, but in what way is this an “obvious lie”? If you mean that she had a going rate and that they paid it, I think you’re splitting hairs. (And, honestly, if she bargained an extra $100K out of them, I kind of want to say “Good for her!”)
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@singfoom:
It’s not about fault – Bernie has never had POC as constituents. The point Propane Jane makes by linking to the Politico analysis is that he’s making a deliberate play to gather as many non-Obama coalition (read *white*) supporters in the overwhelmingly white states as he can, because he knows that’s in his wheelhouse. Bringing up the subject of race as an impediment to selling his brand of socialism to whites in other than overwhelmingly white states isn’t something he’s going to do, and Killer Mike and Cornel West aren’t going to help with that either. Again, as Propane Jane says, whites prefer racist capitalism, because it hurts POC more.
gwangung
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah that’s a real puzzler. Running against the incumbent when most of your party (particularly one of your most loyal segments) likes him is puzzling. And wondering why you aren’t making inroads in that segment (inroads that you need) is doubly troubling. And to craft a strategy that pointedly ignores that segment just does not smell like a winning strategy.
Archon
@sparrow:
I disagree. Bernie has been talking about an issue that have real salience now for 30 years. It makes him look like a principled and consistent politician with a lot of foresight. He’s also adept at making arguments that aren’t particularly antagonizing to certain groups (well, beyond billionaires).
Bernie is good at this, it’s just that he’s running against a lot of political and structural headwinds. If most Democrats wanted to hear a, “I’m disappointed in Obama and here’s why” argument he’d be on his way to the nomination.
eemom
Jesus Christ, what a clusterfuck of a thread. So many different issues all jumbled together into an incoherent mess.
@Mnemosyne:
To answer your question, I certainly agree that racism is a factor in the 99% not going all French Revolution on the 1%, but my point is it’s more complicated than that….and to say that racism is the only reason this country is not socialist is just flat out nuts. Racism, per the LBJ quote above, is a TOOL that the 1% have used to convince dumbass poor white people to vote to fuck themselves over. If that particular tool were not available, the 1% would find something else to substitute for it, as others have noted above. Or more specifically, perhaps, someone else to demonize.
WereBear
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: It works both ways: if Sanders refused the endorsements of Killer Mike and Cornel West, how would that have gone down?
Barbara
@singfoom: Of course it’s not Sanders’ fault. It’s not my fault either, but I have lived in the South for a long time and it took me a while and it is still shocking for me to understand how visceral racism is, it’s like crack, you return to it time and again even when it only hurts yourself in the end. Of course the banks don’t help but there is NO WAY they will be reined in so long as racism is the lens through which you view your well-being in relation to others.
Sanders seems to be saying that the only thing that separates the U.S. from a more socially progressive and egalitarian society is money in politics, reining in Wall Street and so on. It’s simply not true. Sanders is confusing cause with effect. The primary reason why things have gotten so out of hand with declines in the middle class and politicians and the Supreme Court justices elevating money and inegalitarian policies is because people have been so willing to vote based on their racial resentments, especially in the South. They still are. Donald Trump could not possibly have gotten this far if that weren’t the case.
Frankensteinbeck
@JerryN:
That was part of the point. It’s racial issues that have gotten in the way of labor unity like that for at least the past 35 years. Probably more like 60. A very large portion of whites would rather let the rich grind them down than let non-whites benefit from anything. The 99% can and has overpowered the 1%, under much less fair conditions than this. But they haven’t for decades. Why? Race.
singfoom
@the Conster, la Citoyenne: Ok, but that’s kind of a myopic viewpoint, isn’t it? The Obama coalition included a bunch of white people. A winning coalition for the democratic nominee here will also have to include white people.
Thinking tactically about states and their demographics isn’t bad. It doesn’t seem racist to me. I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he’s not a racist. Whether Killer Mike or Cornel West endorses him or not, that doesn’t change the perception for me.
He hired Symone Sanders as his national press secretary. He’s tried to respectfully engage with BLM as evidenced by that hiring and the platform adjustments afterwards. He’s going to be tone deaf by the token of where he’s coming from, but isn’t he seen as trying?
gwangung
@WereBear: I think Sanders SHOULD have turned down West. I killer Mike is a different story.
WarMunchkin
@Trentrunner: Well that’s the trick, isn’t it? The fact that the Democratic Party that we have right now is the heir to fights against racist, classicist and sexist oppression dating back to the founders. I don’t agree with, but on some level get the idea that the Sanders campaign has a blind spot on sexism and racism. And at least on sexism, Clinton very definitely has none, given the sheer volume of the shit she has had to tank from the right wing. But I don’t understand how we (as someone non-white) have come to the conclusion that Clinton gets racism (SLYT). A reaction against Sanders’ supporters and/or a view of Clinton as the Default Candidate is different from viewing her as a worthy heir.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@Roger Moore:
It looks to me like Snyder and his pals were aiming to break the Detroit Water and Sewerage system in order to sell it off for parts. It’s the only thing, other than absolute, 100% incompetence, that makes sense.
WereBear
@gwangung: I repeat, Sanders gets a 97% positive rating from the NAACP
Or are they tools of the oppressor?
sunhaws
@Tyro:
Interestingly during the Iowa caucus last week, the 2008 Obama white caucus voters became Hillary voters this time around. Hillary’s 2008 white caucus voters went to Bernie.
http://iowastartingline.com/2016/02/03/the-fascinating-flip-in-clintons-iowa-support-from-2008/
singfoom
@Barbara: I just don’t think it’s an either or. You can look at a problem of economic and racial injustice and say “This is where we can start unravelling the problem.”
They’re intertwined. Yes, systemic racism is blended INTO economic injustice. Perhaps they can both be addressed at the same time. He thinks that addressing the economic will have a beneficial impact on the racial side (I think).
TL;DR – I don’t think it’s binary, I think you can address both, perhaps that’s wrong… YMMV
Frankensteinbeck
@singfoom:
I am whiter than Ronald McDonald. It is not physically possible to be more white. But from the very loud statements of blacks on this forum, appearing on stage with Cornel West is seen as the opposite of trying.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WereBear: I don’t know from Killer Mike. He didn’t have to refuse West’s endorsement. didn’t have to bring the bitter old crank to Iowa with him. What was the point? Did that really get him votes? “I was gonna caucus for Clinton, but Bernie has the guy who called Obama “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats”, among other charming observations. I have old crackpot relatives I love in spite of their nuttiness. I don’t make an effort to bring them out to meet my friends.
eemom
@MDC:
This. Maybe that’s not what she means, but that sure as hell is how
comes across.
Ella in New Mexico
@MDC:
Exactly my take. She has a whole lot of anger and hate for someone who has been an ally their entire political career, supposedly because he’s got white privilege—and I guess Hilary has never benefitted from that.
Is it possible that sometimes, just maybe, what we’re supposed to take as an unquestionable, irrefutable position from a person of color on behalf of all POS’s might actually just be that individual’s own personal, possibly flawed opinion?
My take is she’s in the Hilary camp for issues other than positions effecting the black and other minority communities.
WarMunchkin
@eemom: For all of the pushes towards intersectionality, I find it interesting how hard it is for us to hold it in our heads at once. But thank you for mentioning that racism is a weaponized ideology as well as a base one. One of the things a history mentor-ish person of mine rammed into my head is that through the years the Republican Party has always been about big business – and that has stayed absolutely consistent, pre and post re-alignment. I don’t know how Teddy Roosevelt managed what he did.
Mnemosyne
@WarMunchkin:
The election problem that Sanders is facing is that people of color are the most loyal Democratic voters, and they feel like Sanders is ignoring them to try and win back the Reagan Democrats. The problem is, Reagan Democrats have been voting Republican for 30 years, so they ain’t coming back. The Obama coalition is what will win the 2016 election, not the magical unicorn of white voters suddenly seeing the error of their ways.
Sanders actually seemed to be listening over the summer and taking some good steps towards being more inclusive, but it seems like some idiot told him to go after disgruntled white voters instead, which is where Cornel West steps onto the stage and ends up pissing off black voters.
If you look at the last two presidential elections, McCain and Romney both got the same percentage of the white vote that Reagan did in 1980 … and they both lost. The white vote just ain’t as important in presidential elections anymore, but some consultants just can’t let go of it.
JerryN
@Frankensteinbeck: Huh? Business with the backing of government troops broke labor’s back in the early part of the 20th Century. They were ready to do it again in the ’30s except that FDR got in the way. Labor was tamed after that, and they still managed to get more marginalized through the lobbying efforts of major corporations and industry groups. I’m not saying that racism hasn’t helped to keep labor under control, but it’s a second order effect at best.
different-church-lady
What a shame nobody has yet invented a way to post things on the internet in chunks larger than 140 characters. Must we stay locked in to this early 21st century technology forever?
Elie
@gwangung:
You are right on… I cannot figure it and as a black person who individually is not a fan of his, it makes me pissed off and willing to influence others against him. You see, it doesn’t leave me neutral — though I would vote for him if he were the nominee (which I strongly doubt). Like a dead key on a piano key board, his approach and strategy just aint right. Maybe he thought that was the only approach to differentiate himself from Hillary who definitely hugged up on Obama and left Bernie no where to go? Dunno. Seems to me from the git go he communicated that “meh” attitude about Obama and his accomplishments. Perplexing if I didn’t already know how some of the left progressives already felt that way about Obama.
Mandalay
@randy khan:
Do you honestly believe that GS gratuitously made offers to Clinton to speak out of thin air? Clinton sets the price on her attendance, not the host, yet she said “that’s what they offered”. Well that may be what they offered after she told them her fees, but it’s a highly evasive and disingenuous way of stating the situation. What “they offered” is actually what she demanded.
And if you still still believe that GS just threw the money at her consider this…
Her lawyerly evasiveness over GS is just another great example of why voters don’t trust Clinton.
Elie
@Mnemosyne:
Well said…
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@singfoom:
Both candidates are deeply impure vessels of our desires and aspirations. It’s binary now – are you a Bernfeeler or are you with Her? Bernie has picked up the educated whites, the college kids, and a weird amalgam of Rand Paul/Trump Curious/gamergate white males from the Obama coalition, but the Democratic base – the real base that is organized to turn out, are POCs. Have been for 50+ years, and they will vote. They stood in line for hours to vote. So, Bernie needs to up his game with the Democratic base which he’s too pure to do, and Hillary will need to step up her game with the youngs. She missed a huge opportunity to talk about legalizing marijuana. I hope someone on her team noticed that – she should atone for her investment in private prisons by touting an initiative for everyone who was incarcerated for pot possession, gets to invest in a pot farm. Like that would get through the racist House.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@JerryN:
Not in the South. That’s where right to work legislation as we know it began after WWII. The white supremacist crowd just pointed their fingers to Chicago and Detroit- where black people had gotten good union jobs during the war- and screamed in horror.
Archon
@WereBear:
He absolutely should have turned down Cornel Wests endorsement. Easily could have said something like, “While I share some of Cornel West’s disagreements with the Obama administration, Cornel West’s attacks on Obama went beyond a spirited disagreement and into personal attacks on Obama’s character and integrity…”
Refusing Cornel West’s endorsement only would have hurt him with people that agree Obama is an Uncle Tom-like puppet taking orders from his white superiors in the monied class because he is afraid of real black men.
PJ
@eemom: Indeed, the GOP of the past 40 years has used cultural issues like abortion and gay rights to get working class people to vote against their economic interests. But the US is also peculiar, as opposed to the European countries that most of its “white” people emigrated from, in that many, if not most people, do not believe that there is anything such as class here, and, as a result, as Steinbeck is supposed to have put it, the poor see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
WereBear
I am seeing how racism keeps the Republicans in power as they harness the vote of bigots. But that is not a winning strategy like it was in the 1960’s and beyond. Maybe because whites are losing dominance as a percentage, and okay, I’ll take it
But it we were all one color, what would the Republicans still have? Contempt for the poor.
It is, greatly, about economic mice. But it’s more do-able to get kids jobs and educations than change a bigot’s mind.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
“That’s a Bingo!” ~ Colonel Hans Landa
I’ve been saying this forever.
This cycle is the great test case. You have Sanders offering Free College, Free Medical, Free Tacos, higher wages, bigger Social Security checks, more construction jobs and Whites with only a high school education are rejecting it in favor of Trump’s naked racism and nativism. Meanwhile Sanders is being propped up by the highly educated workers who will be paying the redistribution taxes.
Sanders has good policies, but don’t expect any electoral rewards. Working class Whites would rather cut off their own noses to spite minorities.
WereBear
@Archon: I agree.
JerryN
@Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again): I guess I’m talking past everyone here. The point I’m trying to get at is that what Louis Adamic labeled “class violence” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries went a very long way to foreclosing any options to move towards socialism for a very long time. Post WW-II, in addition to the race-based union busting legislation in the South, we had the Cold War and I guess I would also argue that the latter was at least as big a factor as the former in preventing any moves toward socialism.
WarMunchkin
@Mnemosyne:
Where on earth does this come from? This is a Democratic primary – and that involves making the Democratic case for governance. As you say, those Reagan Democrats – they’re gone. They’re part of the White Nationalist party, and they are never coming back. I don’t see this idea that he’s trying to appeal to white nationalists in order to win a Democratic primary.
Mnemosyne
@singfoom:
What I am hearing from people of color (because I too am Whitey McWhiterson) is that they’ve been told before that if we take care of the economic problems first, the racial problems will take care of themselves, and they feel that’s been disproven. Black people have a much different history with the New Deal than white people do, because they were deliberately excluded from a lot of it, so telling them about a New New Deal makes them wonder which parts they’re going to get screwed out of this time.
At this point, there is some trust building that needs to be done. Like it or not, Hillary Clinton is a known quantity. She’ll probably screw people of color, but I think they feel like they have some idea of how she’s going to screw them and can mentally prepare for that.
Sanders is an unknown quantity, who may screw people in ways they haven’t thought of. That’s why he seems to be a much bigger risk to a lot of people. The devil you know, and all that. Bringing Cornel West onto the campaign stage was a major mistake and broke a lot of the trust that Sanders had started to build up over the summer.
Frankly, I’m seeing the heavy hand of Tad Devine, loser political consultant, here.
PJ
@different-church-lady: But reducing thoughts to the level of bumper stickers has freed discourse from tiresome subtlety and complexity! I mean, srsly, how does nuance help with personal branding? LOL!
WereBear
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Working class whites will keep their own kids from going to college. They will push the kids out of the house when they are barely of age and into dead end jobs. They will do their best to crush all hope and aspiration.
I don’t know why. I’ve just seen it, over and over.
Mandalay
@PJ:
That’s an absurd claim, and the exact opposite true.
This survey asked 2,508 people “Which class do you belong in?” and only 1% replied “don’t know”, or refused to answer. So at least 99% of the respondents believed that class exists.
Mnemosyne
@JerryN:
You’re glossing over the effect of labor unions being forced to desegregate in the 1960s. Many blue-collar whites voluntarily neutered themselves rather than have to accept black union members as their equals.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good christ, Lawrence O’Donnell talking about Bernie Sanders sounds like Chris Matthews, not just the weird reference to Clint Eastwood, but the meandering daddy issues.
JerryN
@Mnemosyne: Damned straight I’m glossing over it. By the ’60s, US labor unions were back to their roots as protective guilds, not adversaries of business. The moment for change was long gone.
PJ
@Mandalay: I have lived in this country all my life, and I have never met anyone who professed that they belonged to a hereditary classes like those that existed in Europe. Whereas in the Europe of the 19th century, members of the proletariat didn’t have many illusions that they were going to rise up to the middle class, or, god forbid, the upper class.
Mandalay
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Not only that, but Trump tells the people who love him that they are being paid too much!…
Mnemosyne
@JerryN:
IIRC, Europe didn’t exactly move peacefully towards unions and socialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. There were a lot of violent strikes in England and many workers were killed.
So again the question becomes, why did Western Europe adopt socialist policies and the US did not? Heck, why did Canada and Mexico adopt them and the US did not?
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@Archon:
Sad to say it, but Sanders (and a lot of his white supporters) has got a limousine liberal’s perspective on who represents the African-American community. Of course there isn’t a single representaive for any community, but if I was seeking an endorsement and the choices were Cornell West, Killer Mike and a guy most white people haven’t heard of- Marvin Sapp– I’d pick Sapp in a heartbeat. The man’s an evangelical cretionist, and not really for the legalization of teh eebil eebil, but he’ll turn out that solid middle and lower-middle class African_American voteer whose only other bone to pick with the GOP is that part’s blatant racism.
randy khan
@Mandalay:
To paraphrase, you don’t trust her, so you subject everything she says to a filter that lets you conclude that it’s a lie if you don’t like it.
That’s fine. But I hope you don’t do that with everyone in your life.
Mnemosyne
@Mandalay:
How many of them said something that didn’t have “middle class” in it?
Elie
@WereBear:
I am not white but have seen what you speak of here in the semi-rural NW. The desire for dead end jobs and push for early marriage and pregnancy is very very true and completely a mystery to me. Also up here there are not the numbers of blacks and browns that really push whites in other parts of the country to be absolutely insane. It is a complete ?????? to me. All around us and in Seattle, the competing Asian Pacific trade reality stares all of us in the face, yet many folks just aren’t ready for it and want to borough into a time machine taking them back to the early 1900s
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@WereBear:
That is such a real and sad thing, that attitude, but goes to show the row to hoe with selling any kind of socialism to those people. It’s a total lack of empathy – if you don’t have aspirations for your own kids, you’re going to care about giving aspirations to “those people”? That’s big gubmint. Yeah. No.
Mandalay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Absolutely everyone at MSNBC has jumped the shark. The presidential race is interesting, but there is far too much coverage. After a while there is simply nothing worthwhile left to be said, at which point the hosts are forced to repeat themselves, or spew drivel.
In the lead up to one of the earlier Republican debates MSNBC did a piece on the distance between the podiums for the upcoming debate as opposed to the previous debate. I was on the edge of my seat.
JerryN
@Mnemosyne: For Europe, WW I and the loss of a generation of workers might have had something to do with it. WW II destroying most of the manufacturing base as well having to put new governments in place probably did the rest. Canada is probably somewhere between us and Western Europe and, other than a national healthcare system, I would say much closer to us. Mexico – I got nothing, Being a Northerner, I’m kind of ignorant about their history.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Agreed.
Elie
I have no proof of this, but I believe that Christian religiosity has given a fair number of white Americans a fantasy structure that allows them to borough in to the reality they want even as the world tracks along on a different level. Christian belief, like some of the Islamic fundamentalism, has become the means for mass psychological and social suicide fostering a world view and belief system that can be at times violent in its reaction to modernity and the demands to live in reality. Whether we are talking about ISIS or the folks taking over the bird sanctuary, these are folks motivated by a distortion of belief to accomplish escape and avoidance of needing to adapt or change.
randy khan
@Mandalay:
For what it’s worth, I know somebody in the speaker bureau business, and the way it works, generally, is that a potential customer calls up the agency that represents a speaker and asks about availability and price. The agent then writes up a proposal and sends it to the speaker, who decides whether to accept or not. Sometimes the prospective customer offers a sweetener to get the speaker to accept. (For people with books to flog, it’s usually purchase of some number of books.) So in practice, the potential customer really does make an offer that the speaker chooses to accept or decline. (I’ve heard my friend talk about this a hundred times – usually in the context of speakers who turn down what she thinks of as perfectly good offers and prevent her from getting her commission.)
gwangung
@WereBear: Um, what does this have to do with my point?
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@JerryN:
I think you’re viewing this too narrowly. Look at the FHA: It steered the prospective home-owner to a bank, insuring the loan so the bank would lend. Black people, for all intents and purposes, need not apply. Everything about the FHA but for the racism screams progressive, regulated capitalism, yet it wouldn’t have passed without measures that kept black people out of the program.
Racism is the overarching factor, not socialism.
Mandalay
@randy khan:
It is fair to say that I don’t trust her, but I am hardly alone in my views on her speaking engagements, or the way she handled legitimate questions about it last night.
And her comment “That’s what they offered” was an obvious lie. They paid what she demanded.
Like many others, I think her responses just didn’t pass the smell test for a reasonable person, but YMMV.
beltane
@Elie: The problem can partially be laid at the feet of the Calvinist form of Christianity which has always predominated in the United States. It should also be noted that the USA is the only major country in the world adhering to this rather idiosyncratic version of Christianity.
WereBear
@Elie: I think that’s an excellent theory.
Their mindset is all the more stubborn for being less monolithic than in the past. They are more and more forced into fantasy as the rest of the world is less than welcoming to their beliefs. Once upon a time, a small town was a snow globe, sealed against outside influence.
Not any more.
WereBear
@beltane: I do believe that religious extremists fled Europe for the Americas was Europe’s gain and our loss.
@gwangung: Sorry, don’t know how that got pointed at you. It was meant generally.
Mandalay
@randy khan:
That was not how it worked at all in the Clinton article I linked to – the opposite was true: “the former secretary of state’s representatives quoted a fee of $275,000”.
(I am not so naive that I believe GS really care whether she charges $200k or $300k – they would invite her regardless – but nor am I naive enough to believe that GS do it out of the goodness of their hearts. You’d have to be a complete idiot to believe that.)
p.s. Trump operates at a lower level than Clinton and GS, but he is constantly leaking solid stories with hard information about the links between money, favors and politicians.
Elie
@beltane:
But is shares some traits with fundamentalist Islam. Both deny reality and eschew adapting to “the world”. Some of the Islamists want to install a 12th century caliphate. Again, you have to see this as rejecting a reality that they do not feel that they can or want to participate in. Unlike other periods in our history, they won’t be able to skip the impacts of this. They will be poor and ignorant and isolated. The Islamists will be battered and shattered and will lose their people who, as we have already seen, will vote with their feet to escape. Sure, we can’t see the end of all this just yet, but they will be unable to hold to their mythology without paying a mortifying price. They will lose their people as it becomes more and more clear that this is suicide.
the Conster, la Citoyenne
@Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again):
Social Security when passed didn’t cover 50% of the workforce. Guess what race the vast majority of those workers were. That’s the only reason it passed.
Elie
@WereBear:
No more snow globes….
Sadly, we have dismantled public education but it will have to be re introduced to bring them back. I call it “secular re-education”
beltane
@WereBear: This brings to mind the time Bush, Jr. lectured Jacques Chirac about the threat posed by Gog & Magog. Really, to a European this is the language of the mentally ill, even the most conservative of Catholics do not speak this way. Incidentally, there are plenty of virulently racist European fascists who think the health care system in the USA is too “out there”.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@the Conster, la Citoyenne:
Yeah, I know. But for the sake of the argument- that it’s racism and not beliefs in economic systems that keeps us from having nice things- the FHA is the better example. Money to be made, yet the powers that be went for exclusion instead.
randy khan
@Mandalay:
Once again, you’re reading selectively. Of course there are standard rates. But the prospective customer proposes an actual rate and an actual date for consideration by the speaker. (I can tell you that, in particular, an agent is not permitted to accept offers until the speaker says the date is available.) That’s an offer by any reasonable standard.
AxelFoley
@Gimlet:
Really? So what has Bernie accomplished in all his time in Washington playing this political hardball of his?
I’ll wait.
Mandalay
@randy khan:
Oh FFS. You made a false claim about how Clinton didn’t set fees, and I supplied a quote that showed you were wrong.
You really are pushing shit uphill now.
Joel
@Mnemosyne: Tad Devine was Al Gore’s campaign manager before he was Sanders’. Maybe there’s a common thread here.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Joel: and in between, he managed John Corzine’s NJ gov campaign
WereBear
@AxelFoley: Here’s some:
What Bernie Sanders got done in Washington
JerryN
@Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again):That’s where we differ. Mainly through the New Deal, we got some socialism for some as a result of the last real threat of widespread public unrest during the Great Depression. That it was only for some was because of racism, but it was probably as much as we could get. Don’t forget that there were at least preliminary plans for a coup to stop this from happening at all.So, I’m buying that racism is the overarching factor as regards our political economy.
Loviatar
Which candidate seems closer to replicating Obama’s coalition?
Obama’s 2008 Democratic Primary Coalition
1/3 African Americans (AAs): Once AAs perceived a credible, electable AA candidate there was no way they were voting for anyone else. I know AA citizens who had retired to the Caribbean who flew back to the US just so they could vote for Obama. By the way this is the main reason Hilary Clinton lost in 2008.
1/3 Clinton Haters (Coles): Those who hate the Clintons for one reason or another; a sizable portion of which didn’t regularly vote Democratic anytime before 2008. The Coles are made up of disaffected Republicans and R leaning Independents along with Democratic loyalist who were fucked over by the Clintons. I’ve included the press in this section (small in number,but sizable in influence).
1/3 white liberals (Hippies): Used to being abused by the party they leaped at the chance to vote for what they wrongly perceived to be the more liberal candidate. I’ve included young voters in this section.
—
Clinton’s 2016 Democratic Primary Coalition
1/3 African Americans (AAs): For all the huffing and puffing, Bill Clinton is still very beloved within the AA community. Now that their isn’t a credible, electable AA candidate running against his wife guess who is going to get these votes. Bernie who???????????????????????????
1/3 Women (Moms): Same reasoning I gave above for AAs in 2008 apply to women in 2016 with very little minority votes being lost this time.
1/3 pragmatic/moderate Democrats (Obots): Lets see the Obots run away from her this time. According to the 7+ years narrative, we shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
—
Sander’s 2016 Democratic Primary Coalition
3/4 white liberals (Hippies): Used to being abused by the party they leap at the chance to vote for what they perceive to be the more liberal candidate. I’ve included young voters in this section.
1/4 Clinton Haters (Coles): Not as much this time so the actual numbers will not be enough to put Sanders over the top.
?
?
?
Joel
@Ella in New Mexico: It doesn’t take a detailed reading into Jane’s tweets to figure out why Sanders angers/alarms her so — it’s the (non-Democratic) people that he’s reaching out to. You know, the ones who are currently throwing their hat in the ring for the openly racist, xenophobic candidate in the election. There’s a lot implied in the effort to reach out to these people.
WereBear
Here’s another Sanders accomplishment:
Bernie’s accomplishments (this is a link that this not showing up on my iPad, click it)
WereBear
Part of Jim Crow was continuing to steal labor from people. Outright, as in chain gangs (not today’s privatized prisons) or more subtly by simply not employing people of color in any significant position and not letting them into college, not giving them enough money to keep their education on a par with whites from primary on, not allowing them, as businesspeople, to join clubs or organizations where a lot of deals are made.
It’s a complicated issue, I agree, but eliminating racism will not help people out of poverty if there are not enough jobs. And that is where we are now. Economic issues actually make it worse because now there is competition, and shrinking to pool is easy when you eliminate half the population (women) and then knock down much of the remaining men with class (when an unpaid internship is key to getting ahead, a poor kid can’t) and color (takes care of a lot of aspiration and talent with racist exclusions.)
And how to you eliminate racism? The only thing has has helped in this country has been legal action that does not let institutions, of any kind, discriminate.
It’s stealing labor. From the beginning. All oppression is designed to steal labor.
So I don’t find an economic emphasis a lesser issue. It’s the only racism solution that is dependent on legislation, isn’t it?
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@JerryN:
But that alleged coup plot didn’t seem to involve anyone but Wall St. bankers, whose biggest fear was regulation of their sector of the economy and the switch off of the gold standard. Maybe. It could have been a couple of doofuses taking into their hands something that was agreed to with a wink and a nudge by a couple of drunk CEOs. Had Roosevelt really thought much of it, some heads would have rolled, but the only one that did was that of doofus number one, who, iirc, offed himself.
Barbara
@singfoom: I have said this before and it’s very unpopular but I will try to say it a different way. Addressing economic injustice will have salutary effects for most people, including minorities, however, it is possible to broaden the safety net in a way that still leaves some people much further behind. It cannot be forgotten that as Americans benefited from the social legislation of the 30s and 40s, those programs critically failed African-Americans, often deliberately, even as they lifted up whites. So today, programs could not be redlined in the same way but that doesn’t mean that all efforts to address income inequality will equally help everyone. Let’s take one Sanders proposal: free state university tuition. I think making public universities cheaper is a truly worthwhile goal, but who benefits most can vary a lot depending on how proposals work. Surely you can look at the University of Michigan and the University of California, and the University of Texas to name three to understand the contested landscape of university admissions when it comes to addressing the effects of unequal access to quality K-12 education. Making them free will disproportionately help people who are most primed to take advantage of college generally, whatever their income level. I benefited from cheap tuition. I’m in favor of it, but it won’t even begin to address educational inequality that leaves minorities behind. And, of course, if you go to private schools, especially the for profit kind, it won’t help at all. I think Hillary Clinton has thought this through a whole lot more than Sanders has. Maybe living in Arkansas all those years sensitized her in ways that living in Vermont probably would not have.
WereBear
@Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again): I have read that he was pressured by the very business interests he needed to build all those tanks and ships and cans of K rations.
Misterpuff
Rachel, please shiv Chuck Todd, Villager and crypto-GOPer.
We won’t prosecute, Really!
Tyro
@sunhaws: Wow. I had no idea… That genuinely shocks me.
eemom
@singfoom:
Of course it’s not wrong. What’s wrong — or rather, inexplicable — is why it’s so important to so many here to bend over backwards to insist that economic inequality, and the fact that we’re not socialist, is all because, and ONLY because, of racism.
Oh — the labor movement example doesn’t prove that? Let’s try the FHA.
OTOH, maybe it’s explained by the fact that the above is the view of AL’s latest copycat crush, and a lot of folks here apparently are equally crushed out.
eemom
What is also interesting is that this absurd insistence on taking sides about the non-issue of whether racism or economic inequality is the genesis of our non-socialism and general fucked-upedness as a country, is so clearly just another battle in the War of Hillz-Bernie…..and that somehow Hillz has emerged as the Knight of Anti-Racism in that battle. I hear the exact opposite from some friends of color on FB.
Omnes Omnibus
@eemom: Isn’t this supposed to be a both/and blog?
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@WereBear:
I just don’t buy it. The whole thing comes across like Jim Garrison’s hypothesis concerning the JFK assassination. Too many David Ferry’s involved in the story to take it all that seriously.
cokane
2010 and 2014 were lost because people simply didn’t turn out. It has nothing to do with “hugging Obama” it has to do with poor fucking civics education in this country, first article of the constitution is what? As long as Democrats are the party that caters to younger voters this is always going to be a challenge. Saying these elections were lost for any other reason is not accurate.
Barbara
@eemom: But we are socialist. Social Security and Medicare are socialist programs. So is Medicaid. And Europe, including Sweden, is capitalist. England has one of the biggest financial sectors in all of Europe. It also has private health insurance if you want to purchase it. What we are talking about is the degree of social programs, and the breadth of the safety net. I agree that there are nuances and complexities to this issue, but it’s just impossible to overlook the fact that we are as “socialist” as we are — enacting Social Security for instance — only because Roosevelt was able to get the necessary votes by bartering away protections for those occupations that were disproportionately engaged in by African Americans in the South. Of course tycoons didn’t want it for anyone — but there were a lot of others who were willing to sell out their own constituents in order to preserve Southern racial hierarchies. Roosevelt paid their tribute (although, of course, it was the workers who paid the real price), but once enacted, eventually, most African Americans also became beneficiaries of those programs. The point is that racial polarities have been indispensable to putting a big fat wedge in what would otherwise likely be a more unified reaction to capitalist excess, which is really what we see in European social democracies, not that they are not capitalist.
Omnes Omnibus
@cokane: This is a primary. Obama has 84% approval among Democrats. Aligning oneself with Obama is a smart play.
Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again)
@eemom:
” I hear the exact opposite from some friends of color on FB.”
Yeah, I’ve got a friend or two who are the same way, but those are the same people who push anti-vaxx and “Big pharma is covering up the cure for cancer” links on FB (and, yes, the people to whom I’m referring in this comment are real, old-school friends, not just people with whom I’ve become “friends” on Facebook), who are Baby Boomers who were in college in the late ’60s and early ’70s. They’re outspokenly for Sanders. But I’ve got more friends who are my age (50), who were military lifers, or joined the business world after college, and they’re all about Clinton, if a bit more quietly.
Omnes Omnibus
@Temporarily Max McGee (Soon Enough to Be Andy K Again): I think Bernie appeals to 60s activists because he is one of them and many young people because of his real indignation at the things that are fucked up in this country. I understand his support. I just doubt that he will be as effective as Clinton at defending the Obama accomplishments and moving forward from them.
eemom
@Barbara:
Great points all.
Intelligent discussion of complex issue — ur doing it right.
Jane whoever, not so much.
cokane
@Omnes Omnibus: Jane’s tweets aren’t geared towards a primary, cos. Jane is ostensibly giving advice about winning a general, that’s why there’s so much damn talk about Trump and Republicans.
Omnes Omnibus
@cokane: And?
cokane
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks for adding nothing to the discussion.
eemom
@cokane:
No, that would be you.
Admiral_Komack
@Gimlet: Bullshit!
Bernie will TALK about revolution, but he won’t DO shit.
How will he get ANYTHING through a Republican Congress?
Singing “Kumbayah” won’t cut it.
TheronWare
Good on Propane Jane for telling it like it is! Truly righteous post!
AxelFoley
@WereBear:
Oh, so the NAACP speaks for all black folks?
Just so you know, a lot of us think the NAACP lost its way years ago. But, if you were up to speed on the black community, you’d know that instead of trying to pull a “See, Bernie’s got black friends” stunt on us.
Paul in KY
@Roger Moore: I think Mr. Roker is ‘upper class’ compared to any color.
Paul in KY
@JerryN: The biggest torpedo to Labor (IMO) was when General Strikes (sympathy strikes) were outlawed. That took our biggest hammer away.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: He does get Prime Ministers elected!
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: I think in those countries, you can still call a ‘general strike’. That’s a great power for unions to have. Thus the unions are stronger & do more for their members.
Loneoak
So, I definitely appreciated that Twitter rant, especially for pointing out that incrementalism is sometimes the most just route to justice. If you have a slew of privileges propping up your personal safety net then it is easier to dream big.
But … the notion that Bernie’s caucus-heavy route to the nomination is a slap to the racially diverse Obama coalition is really odd consider that is precisely how Obama beat Clinton in ’08. Remember how Marc Penn didn’t know how to do math and Clinton couldn’t organize an electoral coalition for shit? No one called that strategy racist, so I don’t quite know how well to trust the rest of her analysis.