White supremacist Thomas Jefferson took his own pleasures with the female slaves that he owned. Strom Thurmond, supporter of Jim and Jane Crow, and Dixiecrat, had a black mistress and "love child." A large percentage of African-Americans, as hinted at by our varying hues, have rapist's blood from white on black violations across the color line flowing in our veins. Interracial sex is part of the cultural and political typography of the United States. Consequently, these are common matters.
The Daily Mail's story about the relationship between Paul Ryan and Deneeta Pope is rich with entertaining details. Ryan was/is a gym rat. Pope was an attractive young scholar and cheerleader while in college, and to my eyes, a woman with many potential suitors. Ultimately, the Daily Mail has provided its readers with a solid human interest story. It tries to locate Paul Ryan's life trajectory relative to a story about interracial relationships, and is grounded in the bigger question of how a white man who is the vice presidential candidate for a racist political party could have been in love with an African-American woman.
The relationship and the negative reaction he said he suffered from his so-called friends were a formative experience in the political evolution of the VP pick who described himself as a 'big, big fan' of Martin Luther King and is a staunch advocate of civil rights.
But Pope, an I.T. specialist and realtor living in Chicago, denies that they experienced any racism as a couple. Pope also said that while their relationship was not very serious, they have remained friends through the years.
'It tells you the kind of guy Paul is when you learn that he has remained friends with all of his friends that he met in college.' Michael Steel, campaign spokesman for Ryan, confirmed to MailOnline on Thursday that 'Mr Ryan dated Ms Pope in college' in the 1990s.
In a 2005 interview, Mitt Romney’s future running mate said that he had been confronted with racism personally, because he had dated an African-American and also had a brother with a black wife. I have a sister-in-law who’s African American,’ he told Milwaukee Magazine.People are complicated and contradictory in their ways. My answer on these matters is a simple one: a person can enjoy having sex with someone who is a member of a group which they despise, have animus towards, or otherwise look down on. These are not complicated matters.
‘My college sweetheart was black,' he added.
‘I just experienced some ugly comments, some racist views from people who I thought were friends of mine.'
There is a second problematic here as well: if Paul Ryan is such a principled anti-racist who had his eyes opened to the realities of bigotry and prejudice because of his relationship with a black woman, how can he be a party to Mitt Romney's race-baiting, Southern Strategy 2.0, efforts to use white racial resentment and hostility to defeat the country's first black President? The layers of Ryan's hypocrisy are deep.
The Daily Mail offers some details on a semi-related matter that are for more compelling and important as we assess Ryan's fit for the White House, and if he would be an advocate for the Common Good.
Apparently, Paul Ryan is a devotee of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. Ryan also counts legendary civil rights warrior and icon John Lewis as one of his personal heroes.
He told Milwaukee Magazine in 2005 that his political mentor the late Jack Kemp, who ran as the Republican vice-presidential candidate with Bob Dole against Bill Clinton and Al Gore in 1996 but was defeated, had ‘taught me a lot, too’ about broadening the Republican Party’s appeal to blacks.
Five years after being first elected to Congress, accompanied Representative John Lewis, a Democratic congressman and civil rights icon, on the Congressional Civil Rights Pilgrimage to Alabama.
In that 2005 interview, Ryan described Lewis, who still bears the scars form a beating by state troopers in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, as ‘a hero’ and said that while he had experienced racism he had little knowledge of what Lewis and other blacks of his generation had gone through.
‘I didn’t know anything about that. I just learned so much about the Civil Rights movement and the absolute bravery it took. And I’m a big, big fan of Martin Luther King.’[Two questions.
Did Paul Ryan personally experience racism, i.e. is he some "victim" of anti-white male animus and "reverse racism? Or did he "experience" racism because of his friend's disapproval of his relationship with Deneeta Pope?
It is mighty curious that Ryan's brother married a sister. Our formative experiences have an impact on who we are attracted to later in life. Was there a black woman, perhaps a family friend or caretaker, that influenced the Ryan brothers' being attracted to women of color?]
Name checking Dr. King is par for the course in 21st century American politics. Nevertheless, Paul Ryan's claims are laughable, and suggest a particularly narrow and dishonest understanding of Dr. King's radical social justice vision. If President Obama, a right-leaning corporatist is a "Socialist" in the eyes of Paul Ryan and the New Right, Dr. King would an enemy of the state and radical Communist who they would want to disappear to Gitmo.
Ryan is an Ayn Randian, drown the baby in the bathtub anti-government zealot. His proposed budget, which has been called unconscionable by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, would ruthlessly punish poor people, further decimate the Middle Class, and enrich the financier and plutocrat class at the expense of the American people.
Like Romney, and other Tea Party GOP elected officials, Ryan wants to destroy the very programs which he relied upon in a time of need (Social Security after his father died), and that personally enriched him (Ryan's family made their money on government contracts). In all, the government tit is good for Paul Ryan and the white populist conservative classes to suckle on with fervor; others had best find another source of sustenance and support.
Paul Ryan does not get a pass on his hypocrisy because he laid with a black woman in college; Ryan needs to get Dr. King out of his mouth. Now.
Ryan is an Ayn Randian, drown the baby in the bathtub anti-government zealot. His proposed budget, which has been called unconscionable by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, would ruthlessly punish poor people, further decimate the Middle Class, and enrich the financier and plutocrat class at the expense of the American people.
Like Romney, and other Tea Party GOP elected officials, Ryan wants to destroy the very programs which he relied upon in a time of need (Social Security after his father died), and that personally enriched him (Ryan's family made their money on government contracts). In all, the government tit is good for Paul Ryan and the white populist conservative classes to suckle on with fervor; others had best find another source of sustenance and support.
Paul Ryan does not get a pass on his hypocrisy because he laid with a black woman in college; Ryan needs to get Dr. King out of his mouth. Now.
46 comments:
Thank you. Truer words were never spoken.
*bows*
Hear..Hear!!!
Preach!
Good analysis. But this criticism, as with other criticisms of Republican policy objectives, rings hollow...
"Like Romney, and other Tea Party GOP elected officials, Ryan wants to destroy the very programs which he relied upon in a time of need"
...since Barama wants to do the same thing.
@nomad. i know that obama has caused you great angst but your answers on these matters are always the same thing, i.e. Obama is a great disappointment and a monster who wears a mask as he betrays America.
Some questions:
What is your alternative? what policies would you like to see in place? which of those policies is realistic in this political environment? do you not think that there are substantive policy differences between obama and romney/ryan?
From now on, I'm calling him Paul Lyin'. At a very basic level, he is dishonest. He had to backtrack over a marathon time claim one wonders why he made in the first place. Afterall, unless you are one of the pros, finishing a marathon in any time is the achievement; no need to exaggerate. So clearly he is given to embellishment in order to promote himself or his causes.
I wonder why this woman is now in the news. It doesn't seem fair, and it's certainly not relevant. My friends and I have kept our college lives in our memories, not intended for public consumption.
Lyin' married and built a life with someone else. She is the only woman whose relationship to Lyin' is relevant.
I agree that he doesn't get to claim both MLK and Ayn Rand.
Ryan--like the entire current GOP--lies like normal people breathe. He even apparently lies about shitte that doesn't even mattter, like running a sub-three-hour marathon. These fuckers don't even believe in the very notions of truth and falsity. So I don't believe a single goddamn motherfucken word he says about who or what influenced him, what the reaction was to his relationship to Deneeta Pope, or anything else he has to say about anything whatsoever.
i know that obama has caused you great angst but your answers on these matters are always the same thing, i.e. Obama is a great disappointment and a monster who wears a mask as he betrays America.
as the pro-barama propagandist, the burden of proof is with you CDV.
and you best not go to hella-slippin like you did the other day with the borricuan chick and the whole cockamamie lie that the republican riff-raff were worked into a racist lather about her presence onstage. decidedly not a good look, even for a defender of the black camoflaged 4th reich...,
"What is your alternative?" (addressed to nomad)
This is an old rhetorical trick, CdV; it's raising the bar rather high to make coming up with a solution to a problem the pre-condition for pointing the problem out. Is there a "feasible" or convenient alternative? In such cases (a nation ruled for generations by very slick despots) the alternative will tend to *feel* impossible. This is deliberate.
The first step is clear-eyed analysis. Not starry-eyed evasion.
The alternative, expatriot dilettante-noir, is relentless, sophisticated, and massively destructive subversion.
Participation in the bread-and-circus, lumpen sideshow theatrics - is plainly not acceptable.
There can be no clear-eyed analysis without recognition and admission that the contest is rigged, the outcome predetermined, and the policies and procedures prearranged.
It's sad to see negroes sellout their precarious perch on truth and soul inc. for a few measly crumbs underneath the table....,
@cnu. the burden of proof is not on me. the burden of proof is on the person advancing a claim about the great evil that is Barack Obama. Marshal up some evidence for that conclusion and we will agree or disagree. That is life. I stand by my read of what happened at the Tea Party GOP rally, given the nativism and racism being peddled there I will defer to the obvious that yelling USA when the delegate from PR is about to speak is a bad look. I don't give those people any benefit of the doubt and nor should you.
Also, calling Obama the leader of the 4th Reich is a bizarre overstatement that demands clarification. That sort of exaggerated mess is what actually damages your otherwise reasonable claims. That is one of the ironies of this political moment--the fringe/mainstream right calls him a socialist; the fringe left calls him a traitor and a villain who is a fascist.
I am transparent. I would like Obama to win. He isn't perfect. I criticize him when necessary. But, when I have to choose sides and see the Romney-Ryan alternative on some basic policy matters which I care about I am going to back Obama. Am I going to be running down the candidate I am supporting in the weeks running up to an election. Of course not.
Call that what you will.
"Call that what you will."
Pragmatism?
"when I have to choose sides and see the Romney-Ryan alternative on some basic policy matters which I care about I am going to back Obama."
Then you might want to consider how closely their policies resemble each other. For example Obamacare is virtually identical to its parent Romneycare. Here's some other things they agree on
15. Although unemployment is the highest it's been since the Great Depression, the federal government should NOT enact any sort of WPA-style program to put millions of people back to work...
14. Medicare, Medicaid and social security are "entitlements" that need to be cut...
13. Climate change treaties and negotiations that might lead to them should be avoided at all costs...
12. NAFTA was such a great thing it really should be extended to Central and South America and the entire Pacific rim...
11. Banksters and Wall Street speculators deserve their bailouts and protection from criminal liability, but underwater and foreclosed homeowners deserve nothing...
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/11289-closer-than-you-think-top-15-things-romney-and-obama-agree-on
There are 10 more. Romney looks like Obama's brother from another mother.
@nomad. gay marriage, tax policy, and trying to maintain some bare semblance of a social safety net. voucherizing medicare, and eliminating social security, unemployment insurance and other programs, are also no goes for me regarding Romney and Ryan. Read Ryan's budget and tell me that you would support it.
never mind their race baiting and open anti-black strategy. on first principles i can't support a group of neo John Birchers. I saw that editorial and can list many other areas of overlap. Radicals don't become president. You can take your "principled"--and Utopian naive vote--and do with it what you would like. Your choice.
Where you wanna start;
1. Bailout of banksters and not a dayyum thing for wanksters?
2. Global worldwide drone wars? (assassination program)
3. NDAA?
4. Violation of posse comitatus with the Northcom?
5. Broadening of war in Africa with Africom (under the auspices of a corrupt boule muhhuggah fitna get brought low because of his and his spouses extravagant excesses?
6. Continued prosecution of the so-called war on drugs?
7. Continued buildout of Total Information Awareness?
8. Grand Jury extradition and planned prosecution and execution of Julian Assange?
9. Psychological torture and privation of Bradley Manning?
Obama isn't the leader of jack shit. He's a just an actor sent out from central casting to place hold and role play, specifically, to put a black face on and squander black moral capital in service to fin d'siecle american fascism.
Day-by-day you demonstrate that your morals and aspirations don't command a particularly high asking price. You want the 4th reich to succeed because you're perfectly comfortable being the beneficiary of evil imperial largesse. Makes you no different in any meaningful way from the tea party riff raff you pretend to excoriate. They want exactly the same thing.
Your shared way of life is your common polity. Everything else is light and shadows superficial conversation.
I'm entirely reasonable, internally consistent, and brook no exaggerations. Obamamandius is a race traitor and a fascist stooge - and like a rorschach ink blot, the highly suggestible and infinitely racially maleable read into his cult of personality whatever they most desperately want to see.
Radicals don't become president.
Black men don't either.
You can take your "principled"--and Utopian naive vote--and do with it what you would like. Your choice.
lol, pace yourself dood.
Shit was shrill as hell last week.
After this week's - as yet unretracted hokum - it's down to some gut bucket Tawana Brawley type'a isht in support of your fuhrer.
This whole Republican/New Right thing is just a hot mess, and as such it's a good thing that as many people as possible hold it up to the light. So good for you, Professor. I've been writing about it too, when I can sufficiently swallow my bile.
Mr. Nomad has a point about the strange new confluence of Dem's and Rep's. They now seem to be cooperating in our downfall. But he overstates his thesis; there's still air between them.
You know that, for me, the big problems are the permanent executive (with the growth of the whole security universe), the unending state-of-emergency, Economism, and maybe big money politics. How do you tackle all of that? It's like the doctor who finds you in fourth stage cancer and says, if only you had come to me when the lump was smaller.
Maybe our only hope is to one day get a Supreme Court in there that is willing to fight for the common good. They have a great authority, when they deign to use it, over the executive and congress. Good appointments and maybe an epiphany or two and, who knows, maybe it's possible to turn this Titanic around.
These appointments are my last and best reason to continue supporting the President. It's only Clinton and Obama that we can thank for our last glimmer of hope.
It's only Clinton and Obama that we can thank for our last glimmer of hope.
Truth and Soul Inc.?!?!?!
rotflmbao@priceless.comedy.gold...,
Cnu's characterization of Obama, while somewhat of an exageration, is becoming closer to the truth than it is the ravings of some ill-informed lunatic. The presidential fiats, executive orders, introduction of draconian laws and actions of Obama are beginning to take on similar form and substance. Unlike Hitler, who was the personification of facist White Nationist Power, Obama is the embodiment of the truest irony of all, in that he is a multi-cultural figurehead of White Power and, above all, the official stand-in for the plutocracy elite.
Whether he is a better alternative in the long run than the in-your-face racist style of the Republican Tea Part GOP, is to me, only a matter of style. What benefits would Americans, and particularly blacks, lose if Obama lost? I believe, only the illusion that blacks/browns are better off. Obama has had a Jim Jones type of affect on black folks who are drinking the laced kool-aid that is killing our dissent and while we're being raped and plundered.
Yet when he is attacked on the basis of his race, I feel it. I have a brotherly instinct to protect him that is in part, survival of self and group identifying. Yes, CD, that is the irony of this political theater.
What do we do with the rapist in our family? Do we turn him in?
@Cnu. I am all for polemical turns of phrase. That is ridiculous. Where is my money and connection at? Please send me the check. Re: Tawana Brawley, what garbage can are we gonna gimmick the beat down and assault with?
Retractions. Nothing to retract or take back. How "USA" becomes a default chant from a nativist party when a hispanic is on stage says volumes. Ain't no coincidence there.
@Razor. Depends on who they raped. Cnu isn't a lunatic or ill-informed. He has simply reached a different conclusion about the strategies that should be pursued on these matters than I have.
Bears repeating;
Yet when he is attacked on the basis of his race, I feel it.
Yet when he is attacked on the basis of his race, I feel it.
Yet when he is attacked on the basis of his race, I feel it.
I have a brotherly instinct to protect him that is in part, survival of self and group identifying.
Bingo!!!
The Devilishish psychopathocracy has turned the essence of blackness, a shared, collective response to interpersonal, political, and economic predation, into the razor's-edge of a weapon deftly used against us by one of "our" own!
Obama is the embodiment of the truest irony of all, in that he is a multi-cultural figurehead of White Power and, above all, the official stand-in for the plutocracy elite.
and, above all, the official stand-in for the plutocracy elite.
and, above all, the official stand-in for the plutocracy elite.
and, above all, the official stand-in for the plutocracy elite.
Taking the house-kneegrow betrayal to wholly unprecedented new levels of sold-out, turned-out, inside-out perversion.
"Massa, we sick" indeed...,
What do we do with the rapist in our family?
Do we turn him in?
As goes blackness, so goes america.....,
He has simply reached a different conclusion about the strategies that should be pursued on these matters than I have.
Help me out here CDV, what I've observed here-to-date, is a marshaling of the race studies arsenal in defense of an indefensible jack & jill quisling. I'd consider this a mainstream play of the first magnitude given the not insignificant mainstream corporate funding and support for a multi-cultural figurehead of white power.
Mika Brezhinski approves of this message. Far more importantly in the context of the reich, Jeffrey Immelt approves of this message.
CNu, you know you ear--ritate me; but all I can say here is "Preach, bro."!
@cnu. what you have seen here is a partial marshaling of an arsenal to call out mitt romney's anti-black racism. love obama or hate him, one has little do with the other.
lol...,
I have no illusions about changing your point of view or commitment to your cause CDV.
But rest assured we will have achieved perfect objective clarity wrt the exact nature of what it is that you've personally, professionally, and politically pledged your allegiance to.
The fact that Romney has marshaled the Knights of Nordica to sell the exact same funky corporatist bill of goods to his cracka-azz-cracka contingent just makes the total irony of the thing that.much.more.scha-weet!!!
six in one hand/half-a-dozen in the other - sheeple fitna get exactly the political livestock management - that they richly deserve?
{nomad, you realize that that "german farm implement" goes back to Nazi times and is the source of "alien" abductee accounts of being anally probed?}
"As goes blackness, so goes america.....,"
Our endorsement is more important than we might think. They, the PTB, need our stamp of approval, because we are the conscience of America. We are the ancestral dissident voice. How is it this dissident voice is made to say "Amen" to war crimes and bankster looting of the nation?
{...er..german farm implement?}
{experimental human livestock management...,}
How is it this dissident voice is made to say "Amen" to war crimes and bankster looting of the nation?
That passive assimilationist voice has had 40 years with which to usurp the formerly dissident voice. Lowest cost/highest yield counter-insurgency OF ALL TIME!!!
MLK shined his light on collective American monsterism, as in "monsters of the id".
These soul'd out, paid-off, boule assimilationist jiggaboos are as antithetical to the Kingian baseline as any Tea Party GOP peasant unselfconsciously barking at black while off its leash.....,
It occurs to me that there are a few herein whose capacity for cynicism and despair over matches even my own, and I can tell you that anyone more cynical than me would probably benefit from professional assistance.
Re: my Supreme Court fetish . . . there are four justices on our present court who stand as bright lights (more or less) in the pervasive darkness that it Washington D.C. Imagine the fate that would quickly have befallen us if the death schedule had been different and they had never been appointed. They were appointed by Democrats, and for this at least we can thank those presidents, whatever else they may have done to disappoint us.
Unless, of course, one only wishes to draw closer to the White Whale of our destruction, like old Ahab, or Oedipus, and thrill to the sight of everything crushed and burned, exulting like children breaking glass.
I can tell you that anyone more cynical than me would probably benefit from professional assistance.
lol@fred
who'da thunk you're an unselfconscious poster-child for fundamentally fascist practices?
Can't take a joke, eh CNu? But we knew that already.
I lol'd fred..., but the subtext was in earnest - authoritarian American psychologists are eager to label anyone “taking a cynical stance toward politics, mistrusting authority, endorsing democratic practices, … and displaying an inquisitive, imaginative outlook” as worthy of a trip to the insane asylum. (Those traits may also get one labeled as a potential terrorist.)
CDV challenged me to Marshal up some evidence for that conclusion (the great evil that is Barack Obama) and we will agree or disagree - to which I supplied a laundry list, Nomad supplied a laundry list.
Crickets....,
Then you chiming in "Barack and Hillary" our saviors and four octogenarian justices on the supreme court - our saviors.
Between your marginalizing crack that certain levels of cynicism require mental health intervention, and CDV's threat to post up something about the importance of "optimism" - I can hardly wait to see what kind of "pie in the sky - by-and-by" post hoc rationalization supporters of the Hon.Bro.Preznit.Double-O (multicultural face of white supremacy) will implore us to swallow next?
It's amazing how well this ploy works. I can't really blame anybody for going for the lesser of two evils. I heard two ladies in the supermarket the other day talking about how important it is to re-elect Obama and keep Romney from getting in. That's the conventional wisdom among black voters. They also believe that a (obviously)racist opposition has prevented him from accomplishing the progressive things he wants to do. And its hard to argue against that reasoning. I don't try. Because its really not reasoning. These convictions arise out of the opposite hemisphere of the brain. Not irrational; just emotional (and I don't mean that in a bad way). The appeal of Obama in 2012, even moreso than it was in 2008, is to passion. But then that's the subliminal appeal of all political campaigns, regardless of the "policies" advocated by the candidate. And race is the quintessential lever of mass manipulation. It is being used in unique an innovative ways in this and the recent presidential campaigns. We have to look beyond the election if we are to understand what's going on here. Sure we "win" when we elect the lesser evil. But not really. There is a rightward ratchet effect going on here. (http://smithbowen.net/linfame/stopme/chapter02.html)
Each election cycle we move further to the right as a nation. The arc of America is toward totalitarianism. Dem pawl plays its coordinating role with the Rep's rightward torque. We have already moved so far right that we now have a Dem President implementing what would have been Rep policies 30 years ago and the progressive agenda has all but disappeared from national politics. Even if there is some marginal difference between Romney and Obama and that Obama would be a pawl to the Rep torgue, the danger we face is bigger than this. Bigger than a single election. There is something more than the election and Obama winning that needs to be addressed. Recognize that at Dem moderate pace or GOP doubletime, we are still marching towards fascism. So vote Obama if you want; I'm not going to say it makes no difference at all; but wakeup to the goodcop badcop gameplan. Choosing between two bad choices every 4 years. Is that really democracy?
"Choosing between two bad choices every 4 years. Is that really democracy?"
Hey, it's the free choice between two mysteriously-appointed candidates each owned by the same corporate interests, and, depending how one votes, a few good things may happen, and quite a few bad things will happen, to the serfs... what's not to get patriotically sentimental about?
And how can one resist admiring the clever audacity of having right-wingers running as Republicans and... right-wingers running as Democrats, too! Well, of course, they'd never get away with this blatant prank if they hadn't been dumbing down the electorate, for forty years, with media programming and pharmaceutical tap water...
There's a real rhetorical problem with having these discussions in a comment thread. There's hardly any room to move; there's little space to really make a point; and there's much too great a temptation to leap to conclusions.
Let me be frank: Nomad, CNu, we feel exactly the fucking same about this mess. Good cop/bad cop, check. Creeping (or galloping) fascism, check. Look at the four evils I listed further up the column, none of those will be affected at all no matter who is elected in the fall, and the doom that is overtaking us will consume us as certainly as Jonah was consumed by his whale.
Maybe I should have said, "anyone who is even half as cynical as me . . ." Would that have been okay? I'll bet you guys are little rays of sunshine compared to me. Did your families ever nickname you "Mr. Happy?" (In the manner of fat guys named "Tiny?")
But maybe the Professor's point is: is despair really an option? Would a little bit of optimism be totally useless? Me, I think that optimism is too much to ask, but how about just a little bit of engagement? Monitoring? Piping up? Working in the corners? Recognizing the occasional, tiny good that does still happen once in a while? And not just on some blog, although I do think that this is a good one, and useful.
And no, I'm not talking about anything in particular that you could start bothering me about, so lay off. I'm much, much less than thrilled with Mr. Obama, for instance. He's not that great a speaker, he drank the permanent-executive Kool Aid immediately, and he lacks the killer instinct necessary for that job as completely as I lack the ability to perform calculus. So what? If you managed a baseball team with a lousy first baseman, would you fire him unless you had a better one to replace him?
Do you guys actually get up in the morning and try to provide for yourselves? Do you eat meals and wash? Do you have families? If the answer is yes, and I'm sure that it is, you have not as yet totally given up. The people who have given up are off in some closet somewhere with plastic bags on their heads.
To be clear: we're on the same team and my advised opinion is that I love you guys.
"Would a little bit of optimism be totally useless?"
"Optimism" is as pointless as "pessimism"; it won't change a thing. What is needed is "Realism".
Realism tells me that the "vote" is a red-herring we've been trained to consider a mechanism for change; we're like circus animals "steering" bumper cars... for the amusement of the Owners.
There are things we could actually *do*, you know, and they aren't dangerous (for *us*) or illegal...
Targeted boycotts is the first option that comes to my (un-fluoridated) mind.
A few million Serfs boycott gasoline for a month: that would damn-sure get someone's attention. Of course, some charismatic figure would have to stick her/his head above the parapet, a la Mr. King, to organize such an action on a scale that would be truly meaningful... but that would be literal suicide (Death by Hegemony).
But your "vote" is just a thumb (or something similar) in your mouth. You should sorta kinda have noticed that by now. Rombama is going to do what he's going to do and you will have zero impact either way.
I heard two ladies in the supermarket the other day talking about how important it is to re-elect Obama and keep Romney from getting in. That's the conventional wisdom among black voters. They also believe that a (obviously)racist opposition has prevented him from accomplishing the progressive things he wants to do. And its hard to argue against that reasoning.
lol, Saturday 9/1/12 - 8:30AM the bruvvaz were loudly proclaiming that Double-O had been blocked at every conceivable turn by evil republican bigots who wanted him out of the white house by any means necessary. I chimed in that the Hon.Bro.Preznit had ample room to do a great many things under executive fiat, but consistently and systemicatically failed to do so, citing it as a failure of "testicular fortitude". You'da thunk I'd spoken sacrilege.
The loudest Baromney supporter demanded examples, I give him the crimogenic failure to prosecute banksters, continuation of the deeply disparately impactful "war on drugs", continuation and enlargement of TIA, establishment of Northcomm, continued enlargement of and aggression by Africomm, "stop, stop, please stop NO MAS!!!!" the bruvva says.....,
"Who you gone vote for, Romney?"
Nope, I says, I'm going to withold my vote and continue with all due haste my ongoing efforts to shore up as against iminently impending reality corrections, as well as communicating the truth about what the Hon.Bro.BrerRabbit has been up to and will continue to perpetrate if granted another term to continue the failed policies of the Bush Administration.
"Optimism" is as pointless as "pessimism"; it won't change a thing. What is needed is "Realism".
Realism tells me that the "vote" is a red-herring we've been trained to consider a mechanism for change; we're like circus animals "steering" bumper cars... for the amusement of the Owners.
There are things we could actually *do*, you know, and they aren't dangerous (for *us*) or illegal
We can organize into SMART Community cells (specific measurable achievable results in time) around issues like DIY urban agriculture (podponics), lowering utility bills and improving energy efficiency, book clubs, DIY secure wireless networking and communications (autonomous Interwebs) and a host of other constructive, productive, and flatly insurgent monkey-wrenches into the encroaching fascist machine.
@Cnu. I never mentioned optimism. I think you misread me. I also did reply to your thoughts and nomad's. The language of Nazism and the 4th Reich is hyperbolic, inaccurate, and an over-reach. Using the language of racial fascism like some nutty Ron Paul supporter protesting some basic level of health insurance as a cousin to the Final Solution or Tea Party clown is problematic on any number of grounds.
I also read what you and he shared on the policy issues that matter to you and influence your choice to participate or not in the electoral process. Great. I have a different set of concerns and will make different choices. That is okay too.
I remain fascinated by how everything descends into a Barack the onerous evil monster who wears a mask and is the greatest betrayal of black people in history. Folks detour there when we talk about the weather--it is humid today and 88 degrees, and that Barama Monster is to blame.
Meh. The lunatic right and the fringe left are peddling the same garbage.
Yes, this is a corporateocracy. Yes, there are many anti-democratic forces at work. I have chosen to focus on the most nakedly racist and hostile to black and brown folks, and the working class, campaign I have seen in recent memory. As we discussed another time, Romney is running to give himself and the kleptocrats a tax break. For that reason alone I will vote against that robber baron and his cabal.
Is there a sophisticated game of 3 card monty going on in mainstream electoral 2 party politics? damn right there is. we can discuss what, and if anything can be done about, without distracting Nazi references.
Hyperbole? I don't know. There are some disturbing parallels between Nazism and Americanism. The metaphor is on point.
@ CNu
How does a "SMART cell" help in the real world? Book Clubs... Wireless Networking...how about water, daily meals, clothes and health care. The Agriculture is a great idea but these are things done by people who already have basic needs. Go to Detroit, Akron, Jacksonville, and New Orleans.
"I remain fascinated by how everything descends into a Barack the onerous evil monster who wears a mask and is the greatest betrayal of black people in history."
The only thing erroneous about this statement is that he wears a mask. He is a mask.
"The language of Nazism and the 4th Reich is hyperbolic, inaccurate, and an over-reach"
Depends on exactly where on the Third-Reich Timeline we care to compare THIS moment with. '33? '36? Pretty close. Though Addy didn't have any drones to play with, it's true...
"The only thing erroneous about this statement is that he wears a mask. He is a mask."
He is definitely the most progressive-looking Right-winger since Dennis Hopper.
Nomad's anti Obama theme is becoming as tiresome as CNu 's crazed genius meme enough already!!
At some point reality must take hold and clearly both of you will vote for Obama...
I probably will. Well, actually, I probably won't. Not that it matters a whole lot. Did I say the GOP would march us to fascism faster than Obamism? I forgot one thing. Obama's rightward push will have no opposition. So he might actually get US there faster. He is quite effective at what he does. Can you imagine the kind of executive power the next white guy to be president will have? If not 2012, in 2016? I mean the power to assassinate anyone in the world including American citizens? And the next white president might not be as cautious as Obama about using the expanded executive powers created by Obama.
Anyway, a long time ago at street lights some busy intersections they had these buttons that pedestrians could push to change the light to red so they could stop traffic and cross the street. Ostensibly. Well, let me tell you, you could push and push that button as much as you like. It would be a while before the light changed. And when it finally did, you were left wondering if pressing that button had any effect at all. Seems like you would have waited the same amount of time if there were no button at all. I wonder if its that way with the vote. Its going to be the same agenda regardless of whether or not you pull that lever. It just gives you something to do to make you feel like you're in a democracy.
quoth CDV; I never mentioned optimism. I think you misread me.
lol, I took minor liberties. On the Nazi victory counterfactual you wrote;
@fictional. there are a few others. i will share on monday/tuesday. some interesting thoughts about the role of optimism in sci-fi.
as a lifelong fan of dystopian fiction and startled spectator of the rise of the 4th Reich, I never for a moment anticipated that significant portions of its control and surveillance apparatus would be shepherded in by a personable black face.
Using the language of racial fascism like some nutty Ron Paul supporter protesting some basic level of health insurance as a cousin to the Final Solution or Tea Party clown is problematic on any number of grounds.
lol@the language of RACIAL fascism, as opposed to simple fascism..., er, ok..., I see where this is going.
Just as on the Nazi triumph counterfactual thread, I would argue here that scientific corporatism arrayed around a resource (lebensraum) grab was the primary organizing issue. Euthenasia as against "lives devoid of value" began before Hitler hit the scene in the German healthcare system, and the big German companies were all closely aligned around it given national resource scarcity.
Thinkin in terms of the Hon.Bro.Preznit, I had confined myself to the explicit, violent control and improper surveillance apparatus..., but now that you mention it, universal healthcare coupled with longitudinal electronic medical records and the straightforward possibilities for the abuse of the same in the era of routine, low-cost genomics - is enough to make the architects of the nazi eugenic programs spin in their graves like tops - with envy.
I think it’s important to remember that the basis for fascism is the merger of big business with the government. In that context several elements of fascism already exist in America and more are constantly emerging: The Federal Reserve Bank; the MSM—“a great keyboard on which the government can play”; the Military-Industrial Complex; the Prison-Industrial Complex; TBTF bailouts.
While brutal repression is not yet the daily experience for the masses the ground floor is clearly being prepared via the acceptance of extra-judicial killings at home and abroad; the 2012 NDAA; HR347 making free-speech a felony; support for strip searches of protesters; EO13618—seizing all communications; immunity for torturers; unconstitutional war powers; new guidelines to aid spying on American citizens—the list goes on and on.
To the items outlined by Bro. Nulan and Nomad I would add the illegal war on Libya, and Obama’s expansion of the Prison-Industrial Complex.
http://www.claritypress.com/McKinney.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_0Ol5wTCqM&feature=youtu.be
This past Sunday I joined about 2,000 people in the Occupy Wall Street South march on the DNC. I’ve been in many marches over the past 40+ years, but I have never seen a demonstration surrounded by so many police officers. My purpose was to survey as many people as possible on their presidential preferences.
During my earlier conversations with the 99 percent it was clear that most of them could not break free from the lesser-of- two-evils syndrome. And I encountered some of that on Sunday as most of them would say “I fear Romney will be much worse.” However, many more than before have apparently broken the monopoly which the two-party system has on their mind. They say that they will not vote for either evil.
Those still mentally incarcerated always ask, “what’s your solution—a third party?” No way Jose! I think trying to organize another party to compete in a stacked and corrupt system is a colossal waste of energy. We need a grassroots-led movement for justice. That obviously starts with committed people organizing around the issues they face locally, then aligning with other forces regionally and nationally.
Dubois:
"In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no "two evils" exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say."
56 years later, not a whole lot has changed.
http://blackagendareport.com/content/why-i-wont-vote-1956
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