General Politics Discussion (III) [ARCHIVED] • Page 601

Well, the last time you folks had a president, he rewarded the same people that actually destroyed over one half of black wealth in this country, talked consistently about personal responsibility and "Cousin Pookie",i.e., black folks as inherently dysfunctional and rejected specific programs targeted at addressing the poverty that has been historically affixed to black people as "politically untenable". So, uh, I guess it is good that there were some words in there that referenced historical oppression.

 

He also did a lot of things that are opposite of those things, way more than any Democrat since LBJ, but yeah, part of addressing systemic racism is in fact inserting it into normal public discourse.

 

and sticking with the party has gotten us.....

 

I still have to listen to this. In any case, I think some interpretations of Afro-Pessimism can lend themselves to a lack of political action, but the ultimate point of it is, providing another framework through which to understand the social life and death of black people; that is, understanding the framework of the world in which we live as necessarily anti-black. Where I disagree with the pessimists is, they put this violence outside of the frame of political economy, whereas I would argue that the gratuitous violence visited upon black bodies is part and parcel of reproducing race within a stratified/hierarchical division of labor. Alternatively, my main gripe with RL Stephens and others is, they focus so much on the materiality of racism that they ignore the forms of consciousness produced by this anti-black world, which, in many cases, is what Coates and Afro-Pessimists are speaking to. Fanon, using psychoanalysis, offered great insights as to how colonialism produces a psychology of subjection among the colonized. I do believe that this is important, particularly as it relates to a globalized white supremacy and black people functioning as a non-human medium through which white people and the junior members of civil society make themselves feel whole.

 

Side by side with the aforementioned personal responsibility discourse, which effectively means he has said: racism still exists. We have to deal with it, but also, some of this is on you.

As I said, this is one of the ways in which anti-blackness and systemic racism is able to reproduce itself. It knows no party. It exists as part of the entire structure, which was my original point.

 

Historically this is what we have seen. Politicians move to where the voters that vote are. The rust belt WWC obsession is the latest in a long line of trends like this (where something like voter suppression IMO would be more worthy of the time and energy).

 

Expanded access to health care
Highest taxes on the rich in the country since the 70s
Less involvement in the middle east (still way too much, but the differences between Bush-Obama-Trump in approach and results are pretty easy to see)
Better access to mental health care and support for mental health issues (expanding SSDI to certain mental health problems, Medicaid covering mental eahtl hcare, etc)
More environmental regulation, including expansion of federally owned and/or protected land
Unprecedented investment in renewable energy

I'll stop there because, well, yeah. It's not worth it because it's never good enough. Most of it isn't even good enough for me. But I'm still going to vote, because the other otucome is by far much much worse, with zero chance of improvement.

 

point went over your head. we now have a more right wing country. and its not because the party was abandoned.

 

And that is literally a huge step forward from a time when our politicians barely recognized it existed, if they did at all.

Right, and your original point goes hand in hand with your declaration that capitalism must end and only communism can solve this problem. Hence why I brought up Communism, and your apparent refusal to support anyone who will make things even marginally better because it's not better enough...aka, it's not communism.

 

I had a professor I couldn't stand in college. A class that should've been about oppressed minorities was always about him, a white man who bragged about his Latina gf like it gave him a pass. He was very beloved by students tho (idek). After the pdx stabbing I was like lemme just wait for his thirsty self to appear in the news cause he'll literally comment on any and everything that gives him exposure and lo and behold, there he is on my Twitter feed acting like he's an exception or something. Vom.

 

It's because the party was abandoned in 1980, and especially 1984 and 1988. This is literally why we have a more right wing country today than we did in the 70's.

However, we have a decidedly more left wing country today than we did in the 80's and 90's, and that's specifically because the Democratic party is shifting back towards the left.

We already saw what abandoning the party does.....it drives the country right. Not sure why we think doing it again will work this time.

 

Voting's like 1/100000th of what people should be doing to enact real change in the world IMO. So, make the quick check, and get back work. The change doesn't usually happen with the vote, it mostly happens before and after. I can argue "game theory" strategy about what a vote or non-vote will do to candidates and the country as a whole, but really, I think voting itself should be be pretty easy and done with so we can get back to what I would call the "real" work.

 

As far as I can tell from your posts, you're hoping for more involvement in the middle east from America, just in a different way. I think many on the left beleive this "different way" isn't really possible.

But yeah, laugh all you want, it's still undeniably true.

 

do you get off on talking down to minorities

 

Can confirm he does

 

I don't get off on talk, but I do at least partially enjoy pointing out when someone trying to be snarky is wrong.

Anyone who thinks that Obama's involvement in the middle east exceeded or even matched what Bush and/or Republicans were doing/are doing/want to do is lying to themselves. The "tell all" books and stories that have come out of the admin just in the 4-5 months he's been out of office have shown this pretty unequivocally, especially as it pertains to Obama himself and his own personal feelings/instincts on the region and our involvement.

 

so..yes, you do

 

being a minority doesn't protect you from having your snark thrown back in your face. Sorry.

 

if only you could show a shred of empathy of why they might be acting snarky. too bad you cant. and have to throw it back in their face.

 

Technically David is right. Bombing via a drone takes less involvement. You don't actually have to be there.

 

The Yemen thing is really scary. We are talking millions of people at risk of starvation.

 

I still feel like there's a (very) small potential for an offshoot conservative third-party, where either the Establishment/"Moderate" Republicans leave that party and start their own, or the Trump wing revolts either after Trump is out of office or in the unlikely event he gets impeached by a GOP-controlled Congress. But even then, splitting those votes would only help the Democrats win so I don't know how likely it is to happen. Or, if it did, I don't know that it happens in more than one election cycle. Nobody will want to be Teddy Roosevelt and hand the election to the Democrats more than once, if at all.

 

Damn, didn't expect to see well known libertarians quoted in here on foreign policy. Haha, Bonnie Kristian and all that libertarian stuff always gets me riled up.

 

Snark about something factual, definitely. I applaud snark from leftists especially, when they are right on an issue and the person they're arguing with is wrong, especially a right winger. I get the whole "you should make your argument more nicely and maybe that person will be more open and understanding!" idea and I do agree with it sometimes, but I don't expect minorities or anyone else to keep their composure about certain issues when arguing with someone who says shit like "systemic racism doesn't exist it's just an excuse blah blah". So snark away, and get all my empathy.

Snark about something that is factually incorrect? Why does someone get empathy for that? Unless you can prove that Obama was somehow NOT less actionable in the Middle East than Bush was or than Trump would be/is going to be/already is. Circumstances change of course so many you can make the "Trump's hand was forced" excuse but I'm leaning more towards the Republicans are just hungry for war and are going to be way more active in the Middle East than Obama was.