General Politics Discussion [ARCHIVED] • Page 15

Clinton blasts reporters w/ white noise so they can't hear fundraiser

Why aren't things like this on the fucking news. This is so ridiculous and unacceptable. Makes you really wonder what she was telling these wealthy donors.

 

There are protests happening in London right now, calling for the resignation of UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

 

Nah I'm going to keep in mind that trump runs a campaign demanding my communities be monitored and my people be banned from the country. Same goes for Cruz or whatever islamophobe the GOP nominates. But glad to know you think that's "bullshit".

 

No, what I think is bullshit is this form of politics in which racism isn't seen as mutually reinforcing, where the candidate that has actually participated in the mass murder of Muslim people abroad, whilst championing authoritarian measures at home for black and brown people, is seen as the best option to combat racism. What Muslims and people of color from the Middle East have experienced is not to be discounted, but understood within the context of a repressive apparatus that was perfected on other racialized bodies being turned towards them. That is to say, Islamphobia is intrinsically linked to anti-black racism, sexism, etc. This idea that one has to support a racist (Clinton) to combat a more virulent racist (Trump) misses the point, which is that both are defenders of policies that make violence against marginalized communities possible. Clinton, for example, has made no secret of her support for American imperialism in the region of the Middle East. Legitimating that project necessarily calls forth a racialization of Muslim populations so as to make them a complete Other we can then justify destroying. The ramifications of this we have seen, as hate crimes towards people of Middle Eastern descent or perceived as Muslim increases since we have been at war. What you're arguing for, to me, is a continuation of that policy. Moreover, it actually plays on the historical anti-black racism that has plagued those communities by being more accepting of racist behavior towards black people than when it is overtly directed at them. That isn't the answer. The answer, obviously, is organizing together and separately against all forms of injustice. That isn't going to be found in candidates whose position is to kill less people of color, whilst continuing to shore up the racial hierarchy.

 

Someday, someone is going to need to educate me on how black community organizers have allowed the Clintons to remain perpetually untouched and sure up a presidential nomination on the back of overwhelming black support. It's understandable that a Clinton would dominate Southern black support given what Bill's election meant insofar as giving Southern minorities a regional tie to a White House that was apparently moving away from out-of-touch authoritarian race-blaming. What is harder for me to understand is how, here in the former-industrial Midwest, Clinton got bested in every demographic besides African Americans, which she once again won overwhelmingly on her way to a comeback win despite being tied to the two major regional plights of this area's black community: (a) the militarization of policing and (b) the sudden relocation of manufacturing, which turned East St. Louis from a fairly productive home for black America to a jobless quagmire that rural whites use as a reference point for their justifications of racism.

 

Think it's pretty important to keep in mind that 1996 was two decades ago and about the only good thing about the Clinton's being so beholden to whatever is politically popular at the time means that they're currently beholden to what is politically popular now. In other words, there's no reason to believe Hillary is suddenly going to go back to 90's style policies or rhetoric just because she wins. Believing that would mean they actually have a principled stance on the matter, and outside of a very few pet causes, I doubt they have many of those. Not saying that makes it okay, just pointing out that there seems to be some sort of implication that she still believes these things (if she ever actually did believe them and wasn't just bending with the political winds) and will make efforts to implement policy based on those beliefs.

I also think it's a little rich to tell a person of Middle Eastern descent that they need to be more worried about the possible theoretic beliefs of Hillary Clinton towards all Muslims than the actual, realized beliefs of the Republican party and their attitudes towards Muslims. We don't have any proof that Clinton is going to try and turn Muslim populations into "a complete Other", as even in her most war mongery days she has gone out of her way to speak up the virtues of Muslim Americans. Meanwhile, you have a major political party and it's leaders talking about banning all Muslims, patrolling their neighborhoods, and "sending them back". There are a lot of things you can say about the Clinton's, but they have not yet given a reason to believe they think of the entire Muslim world as "other", let alone that they're going to shift to policies like those. Pretty sure she realizes she needs the rainbow coalition to get the things she wants done at this point.

You can try and tie it in theory to 90's Clinton racism all you want, but that doesn't make it actually true (It may be), and it's surprising that you'd try and convince a person of Middle Eastern descent that they should feel the way you think they should on an issue that is burdened most by them at the moment.

 

My guess is it may come back to African American support for the crime law in the 90's. There was a lot of support from those communities even if some of them realized it was an imperfect solution at the time, let alone 20 years later. They may be more willing to forgive the Clintons if they perceive it as a mistake they themselves made by supporting it.

I don't really know what else it could be other than lack of exposure to Bernie, who is clearly a better candidate as far as minorities and civil rights go. As much as we pay attention to politics and the election, 80% of people don't. They hear and see things in passing but carry on living their lives, they don't sit and break it down with a few other nerds on a message board. So it is reasonable to believe a lot of voters haven't looked much into Bernie at all, let alone looked into Clinton's record and how it has leaded directly or indirectly to consequences that negatively effected an issue close to their hearts.


The free trade thing is getting really interesting to me. Bernie and Trump on the same page, far leftists and Trump supporters on the same page. The issue of jobs vs. cheap goods for poor people, etc.

 

Do you actually read anything I say? I never said that he needs to be more worried about anything. I said, quite plainly, the decision should not be between someone two racists. The other point is, there is a direct connection between imperialism abroad and racism at home. It isn't theoretical, it is fact. Hillary is a hawk, therefore, despite the lip-service she pays to Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent, she is in favor of policies that contribute to Islamaphobia and actively causes the indiscriminate deaths of Muslims abroad. We know this because she was Secretary of State and has repeatedly supported intervention abroad. Or one can just look at her AIPAC speech and understand how much she values the lives of Palestinians, for example. You seem to think actions abroad have no weight or influence at home and seem to see no contradiction in claiming to value the lives Muslims and middle easterners, while using methods and developing rationales for killing innocents who happen to be near a target. As for telling Richter how to feel, I don't understand his oppression. I never said I did. But, I do take issue with this idea that, despite Clinton's anti-black policies and rhetoric, I need to support the campaign or I am somehow abandoning Muslims. This has a legacy in anti-black racism, wherein our interests and our fight against oppression is told be set aside for the greater good; it actually ends up rejecting the premise that our forms of oppression intersect and require a broader solution. I reject that logic and for precisely the reasons I set forth: a decision between two people that have racist policies/views will not help either of our communities, because we will still be harassed, subject to scrutiny, monitored, etc., so long as the war on terror, as well as well the genocide being perpetrated by all levels of state against the black communities, exists.

As to your other comments about Clinton, I think Bill's response to the activists was intentionaland his defense of the crime bill is emblematic of the types of politics one can expect from her administration.

 

Black Faces in High Places | Jacobin

 

Um

 

A Wisconsin circuit court overturned Walker's right-to-work law: Judge strikes down state's right-to-work law Looks like Bradley's election to WI Supreme Court will have early returns for Walker.

I'm happy with the outcome at this point but honestly, the judge's reasoning seems flimsy. Can someone knowledgeable in these areas weigh in? I'm also uneducated on the legal basis for unions being required to negotiate for all workers, not just due-paying members.

 

The legislation successfully declawed union organization in Wisconsin by making joining one absolutely unnecessary absent an actual philosophical belief in unionization (as opposed to self-interest, the motivation of most members).

Walker is fucking poison. Hate him more than anyone in America and sincerely wish the worst on him.

Funny story: my girlfriend went to DC to work in the capital last summer. She and her friends met Walker's chief of staff, who corralled them to meet Walker. One of the more outspoken friends grilled him on being an incompetent piece of shit and then the whole group stonewalled him and just walked off when the chief of staff asked them to take a picture with him.

 

I reject the idea that there is a "direct connection" between imperialism abroad and racism at home, insofar to say that the will to go war is driven by racism. It is very, very possible to a support a war abroad without it being connected to individual or even structural racism, though the ladder would be hard. If anything, the Clinton's history of war hawking shows that it's pretty indiscriminate and they've bought into the idea of America as world police is best. It happens to be that a lot of hot beds in the world today are in the Middle East, but I don't think Clinton would be shy about going back into Eastern Europe for another "humanitarian crisis". Nor do I believe a suddenly dovish Clinton would help to assuage anti-Muslim sentiment at home. Islamaphobia doesn't happen because we bomb other countries. It may at best contribute a very, very small amount to it, and for the ignorants in the population it definitely helps them not feel guilty about it, but the action itself doesn't hold a candle to an entire political party demonizing them in rhetoric as well as in policy, domestic and foreign.

I also don't think you could categorize a Muslim vote for Clinton as being strictly about "The greater good". Considering the policies being proposed by the current GOP, it's far more about self-preservation for Muslim Americans at this point. When you're dealing with self-preservation, I don't think you have the luxury to vote on theoretical ties between 90's Clinton racist policies and 2016 war hawking and it (possibly) being rooted in racist policies.

I think it's hard to say he's defending the crime bill itself at this point. Both he and Hillary have said a few times now it was a mistake and have apologized for it. His defense the other day seems to be more of him and Hillary themselves, and offering the (weak, IMO) defense that they did it at the time because that's what was wanted at the time. In other words, I think he's feeling more defensive about people questioning his person than the law itself.

Not sure what this is supposed to show. Whatever you think about trade, the fact is it keeps the prices of many goods lower than they might be otherwise. The overall inflation number doesn't always show that because of how it's calculated. I find it to be a very interesting philosophical discussion though and especially think it's interesting how Bernie supporters and Trump supporters converge on the subject.

I posted a week or so ago about Trump's possible ability to turn some blue states red because of it and never got to respond to others, but I do think people are underestimating Trump's ability to bring blue collar voters that may normally vote Democrat to the Republican party with the trade talk. Bernie being the nominee would go a long way to preventing that.

 

Real wage is wages in terms of goods that can be bought, that graph shows that poor people's real wages are lower today, so they can afford less of the same goods, than they could 10 years ago. The "lower prices" gotten through these policies are not offsetting the fall in wages, poor people are worse off.

 

Then, we have nothing further to discuss here. Suffice it to say, we know this isn't true because we have history books.

One more point: it isn't as though this isn't a matter of life and death for the black community. It is different, yes, but let us remember that your party is still home to a mayor that covered up the murder of a black man, a person the presumptive nominee continued to endorse. I understand the stakes for both communities, which is why I reject the Democratic Party completely. That has little to do with me privileging one concern over another, but because they are structurally part of the problem.

 

I don't understand how someone could possibly believe Islamophobia isn't directly related to US foreign policy.

 

No, I know that, but it's not showing what you think it shows in relation to trade deals. CPI and inflation are driven by a ton of things, and some of the most unpredictable commodities prices like food and fuel aren't driven as much by trade deals as things like apparel and electronics are. Obviously food and fuel are way more important to actually living, but there's no denying that trade deals help make certain goods cheaper here at the expense of laborers elsewhere. If you brought that production here, prices would go up. The flip side is jobs would increase too (depending on automation). It's not like I'm a big FTA supporter, I just find it to be an interesting debate with interesting bedfellows at the moment.

We have history books, and I've read a lot of them. Not too many draw direct connections with imperialism abroad and racism at home. I'm not saying they can't be connected, didn't mean to imply that. But you cut off the sentence to remove all context from it, I don't know why: "insofar to say that the will to go war is driven by racism". In other words, I think some people definitely are driven by Islamophobia when they want to war with the Middle East. See: The entire Republican Party, and quite a few Democrats. When it comes specifically to Hillary Clinton, or Bill, they've never been very selective about where they want to play police--it's been everywhere, including areas of Europe that aren't dominated by Middle Eastern peoples. The will to go to war doesn't have to be driven primarily by, or even secondarily by, racism. They've always seemed more inspired by the perverted jingoist-esque "American leadership is needed!" nonsense, regardless of whether it's white people or brown people they've bombed. Nor does refusing to bomb someone lessen racism at home.

It is when you look at the big picture/long view of terrorism exists primarily because of our foreign policy over the last 70 years. But when you're implying that Islamophobia would be as much of a problem if someone who wasn't an imperialist was president, or implying that Clinton would be just as bad for Islamophobia as the Republicans because she's imperialist, that's just flat out wrong, IMO.

 

Bernie won Wyoming 56% to 44%, but they split the delegates 7-7 (Hillary up 11-7 if you count Super delegates).

 

Why the 7-7 split? was 56% not enough to at least get him 8-6?

 

I'm not sure which books you're reading, but one need only look at this continent and how white supremacy as an ideology developed as a rationale for genocide and theft of people.

Let me be clear, for I fear something has been lost in translation:


I think Hillary is a racist due to her words, her policies and the people she supports. I also think Bill is a racist and a rapist.

We all understand that one needn't be an overt bigot like Trump in order to be racist. Racism is structural and inhabits all layers of the state, daily life, infant mortality, etc. So, for example, just as the war on drugs is racist in nature, though some people genuinely believe in their actions are for the good of the neighborhood and they have arrested white people, the war on terror is racist as well; just as the drug war feeds into this idea of racialized criminality, the war on terror feeds into the devaluing of all Muslim life precisely because they are racialized as "terrorists". This is what I mean when I say that Hillary and the others reinforce Islamaphobia. Like other comparable phenomena, the perpetrators of policy do not view their actions through the racial lens, but the results are always detrimental to a particular segment of society. This works in concert with the white man's burden myth of foreign policy, in which we call upon ourselves to intervene to bring "reason" and "order" to the region, though it is merely an organization of the region to our benefit. Implicit within this is an understanding that the "savages" need to civilized, which places their humanity in question and makes it more acceptable when civilians are killed. The dehumanization and slaughter doesn't stay abroad because that isn't how racism works. Knowing that, I also know that if we suddenly changed foreign policy, Islamaphobia would not cease. That will take time, but I do believe that we can do the work to end that structural racism and that foreign policy is one of the many fronts from which it flows. It also requires rejecting those that would continue the aforementioned racial projects. Hillary is one of these people.

 

Because America is perfect, duh!

 

Don't disagree with the first part of your post. Just disagree that it is always the reason. I think the first sentence can be true without it being true all of the time. It has definitely been used as a rationale for genocide and theft--but it's not always THE rationale.

I think we disagree on a chicken and egg problem. I think islamaphobia reinforces the war on terror moreso than the other way around. In other words, I don't think a lot of white people need the US Government to bomb some middle eastern nations to be fearful or hateful towards Muslims. But I think many US politicians recognize they need to be seen as "doing something" about terrorism, even if it's seen as "passive" like many say of Obama's strategy with the War on Terror. They do what they think they need to do to pacify the masses, which is sadly what politicians do, and why people say we need statesmen and women. I do believe that US action in the region has intensified radical responses to the West in the form of terror attacks that then help intensify Islamaphobia at home, but I think that's a little different than saying Hillary Clinton is painting Muslims as the horrible Other.

The one thing we know to be true about Clinton and Bill is they do whatever it is they think they need to do to make their base voters happy. They want and need the power and they know they need voters for that. That in itself can be dangerous, some may say even more dangerous than Trump, but for now it means she must support policy and take stances that are in line with Obama's rainbow coalition. She's hopped on the refusal to say radical islam train because she knows she has to or her voters won't be happy with her. While I don't think that changes much about foreign policy and warhawk ways, it's really, really hard to make the case that she'll somehow be just as bad for Muslim Americans as the party that is currently saying we need to patrol their neighborhoods and ban them from entering the country.

 

Evicted by Matthew Desmond – what if the problem of poverty is that it’s profitable to other people?

 

Ideological practices and beliefs hinge on material foundations. In particular, racism is tied to the imperial nation-state. It may manifest differently across social formations, but the outcome remains the same. You can disagree with this, but then you lapse into idealism. There is no explanatory power, other than the constant reference to individual personalities and what they may or may not do. You are not taking into consideration the structure of dominance, which acts as a sort of feedback loop that establishes a common sense when it comes to particular populations. In other words, the comparison to the drug war still holds. Is Hillary engaging in open bigotry? No. Is she calling on the banning of Muslims? No. Does she support a system and project that consequently devalues the life of all Muslims? Yes. That is the bottom line. I think this is true of her policies towards the black community as well. You can say that she HAS to do something, anything, but implicit within the appeal to fear you consistently put forth is divestment of any responsibility on her end, because she just needs to not be the republican candidate. And if she gets elected and does not live up to any of those promises, five years from now, you will be making the same argument. Luckily, BLM and other groups have been smart enough to refuse to participate in this and organize outside of this sort of cynical politics.

 

"
Yet to me, and to many black millennials, the Clintons are the problem to be solved. They should be ashamed of using Trump-like tactics to win votes that they could have chosen to win in an honest way -- playing on the fears of white voters, all the while telling black voters that they know exactly what's good for us. Black voters should be appalled and disgusted, and we should continue to hold them accountable for their role in harmthat devastated black communities across the globe.
For many black millennials and other millennials of color, Clinton's comments formed the straw that may have broken the camel's back. If Chicago and Cleveland are anything, they are indications that millennials have the power to unseat politicians who are hostile to our agenda.
It is long past time that black voters, in particular black women and black millennials, decide they've had enough of this game, once and for all. My back is tired of being the path to the White House."

Bill Clinton's shameless answer to Black Lives Matter protesters - CNN.com