Someone Has To Do It: US Elections 2020

[E10 Rifle]

This is a good take-down of the awful Biden

[Tactical Genius]

Some Grade A smearing of Bernie Sanders here.

The media's corporate owners clearly consider this guy a threat to their tax-free bonuses.

Sanders was being booed due to evoking Dr King when he has proven himself as someone who doesn't share or agree with King's ideology.
When asked directly about what he would do about white Supremacist tyranny, he started getting "all lives matter" which didn't go down well.

[anton pulisov]

He was asked about white supremacy. He said white supremacy is a form of discrimination that has no place in society. You are now saying that makes him an "all lives matter" apologist?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

TG, I tried to answer point by point and it got seriously out of hand and a bit repetitive.

The first point is that https://qz.com/1569005/has-america-paid-reparations/] The nature of who has got reparations in the past and how[/url] isn't as straightforward as you make it. There are a couple of features there that are problematic. the first is reparations are generally only paid to the people who actually suffered the damage themselves. (the only exception are the families of the tuskegee experiment victims, because they were made sick as a direct result of the 'experiment) It's not their families, its not their descendants, it's them, and if they die, their claim to compensation generally dies with them. that's why I keep making the point that one major problem with hanging it all on slavery is that it is four to six generations ago. There are no living slaves. there are a relatively small number of people who met someone who was a slave. There are however millions of people who lived through jim crow, (Including half the senate) there are way more than ten million people who lived through the war on drugs etc.... It makes it a considerably stronger case to ground demands for legal equality based on a consistent pattern of discrimination dating from slavery, while focusing claims for economic damage on the more recent past.(that list is not exhaustive, but seems to include the major examples)

Another thing about it is the crushingly inadequate nature of the sums of money involved. The US interned 120,000 japanese americans for 4 years for no clear reason, and they lost everything. Homes, Jobs, businesses, property, The accumulated wealth of three generations, and they had to start again from scratch. The US govt waited until a third of them were dead, and despite being fully aware that the financial losses suffered were actually massive, and could be fairly easily demonstrated, they paid them an absurdly small amount of money. they straight up murdered those people in the tuskegee experiment, and they got very little.

But this just isn't an american thing. One thing that strikes me as so odd about this focus on reparations, is that they are a huge part of our political culture here. See, we've spent the last 20 years having tribunals of inquiry into utterly horrendous scandals. Huge horrible scandals, with clearly defined victims. Unarguable serious wrongs, Whether it is slowly killing women by giving them hepatitis C infected blood, or slowly killing women by systematically misdiagnosing their cancer, or slicing open their pelvis with a saw to avoid caesarean sections, hacking out their wombs to stealing the babies of women and selling them through orphanages, or burying them in septic tanks, through the massive number of victims of our industrial school system, which seemed to ultimately be about beating and raping children. These are all situations where a clear, identifiably, horrendous wrong has been done to people. Everyone is completely agreed that they deserve compensation for the appalling way that they were treated, schemes are gradually set up, and that's when the fucking begins. Having fucked these people the first time, the Irish state then proceeds to drag everything out as long as is humanly possible, to kill off as many of the complainants as possible. it's absolutely horrendous. There is no-one anywhere saying that these people shouldn't be compensated, there is no-one anywhere saying "Where's my compensation, why should those women who were given hepatitis C infected blood get it and not me." But there have been too many instances where Dying women, holding their children have to turn up in the high court to try and force the state to pay them the money they said they would pay them before they die, and still not getting the money in time to think that this is anything like a simple or as straightforward as it seems, or is even remotely the best way to get money.

There is a real problem with this proposal, and that is the requirement that it be exclusive to one group. Now you can have good reasons for wanting it to be this way, but on the other hand you simply have to accept, that virtually no-one outside the community that will benefit is going to support this, and a substantial number of people will be vigorously opposed to it. When I say it's not me you need to convince, what i mean is that you need to convince a Democratic party candidate to accept this as part of their platform, and then he needs to convince half the primary voters to vote for a platform that contains money for ADOS people, and nothing for them. And if that candidate manages to convince the primary voters, then they have to convince half the electorate to vote for them. Then it needs to get through the senate, which is half filled with people from states with confederate statues from the 70's, and where a lot of people think the end of jim crow was the worst thing to happen in their twenties.

That's who you need to convince. You need to convince all those people. Only billionaires and retired white people wield that kind of power. It doesn't matter about the righteousness of your cause, or how fair you think it is, or how self-evident it is, you need to be able to convince most people that it is OK, otherwise this is dead before it even starts.

The exclusive nature of this proposal dooms it to fail on simple old fashioned clientelist grounds. There's an awful lot of people out there who don't really think about the intergenerational impact of slavery very much. they're going to look at this as black people getting a ball of money just for being black. The next question is going to be "Where's my money?" and this is the divide and rule trap. The US has been set up from the very beginning to effectively have a large continuous underclass, (With African Americans on the bottom naturally, because they were busy exterminating the native americans) which took some doing to create in a society where there was a near continual shortage of labour. This then eventually transformed into a system where many white people are relatively poor, most hispanic people, and nearly all black people are poor, reflecting the varying levels of discrimination, while the different groups are set against each other, so none of them realize that they are all being fucked by rich people.

The primary reason why most members of the ADOS community are poor is pretty much exactly the same reason as why most other people in the US are poor, and that is because their parents were poor. Now there's a lot goes into why that happened, and why those groups are treated differently, and those are the other reasons, and they are different for every group, and at this point you can separate these things out to address directly, while addressing the issues of economic inequality and discrimination as a whole. The thing is that I am profoundly unconvinced by the argument that you cannot compare poverty among different groups, firstly because it would eliminate all efforts to study poverty, and the impact of discrimination at a stroke, and secondly it is by doing this that you are able to highlight different levels of discrimination. I mean you're not going to believe what the conclusions of comparative studies of poverty in the US generally are?

But the main reason for doing so is that you realise that the majority of people are now in the underclass, whether they accept it or not, and try and form a coalition based on people acting in their own economic interest. And when you build that coalition of people, you can then propose policies that improve everyone's situation, but disproportionately improve the situation for your group. See the thing is that much in the way that you don't want to be the person who walks into A and;E, and gets shown straight past the room full of queuing people, (I've done this, it doesn't feel good) You don't really want to be the group of people that benefit the most proportionately from measures focused on improving the position of the bottom half of the income spectrum. But that in short is the clearest expression of the legacy of slavery.

This is why I don't understand your antipathy to AOC, or bernie sanders. they are offering by far the best possible deal, one that would massively and disproportionately benefit the ADOS community. while also appealing to a broad enough range of people to be politically viable, one that offers a way around divide and rule. I don't understand this idea that she's trying to steal reparations for hispanics. There is no pot of reparations money to steal from, and there is no way the african american community is going to get anything without being part of a broader coalition. This idea that AOC is some sort of white supremacist in whiteface is insane. It's easy to type, but impossible to understand.

the best short to medium term strategy is to try and force democratic candidates to move considerably to the left, and to campaign on issues that will directly benefit most people. Healthcare, housing, work conditions, the minimum wage, childcare, generally run on the idea of restoring the prospect of upward social mobility. These are problems that are most concentrated in the african american community, but not confined to that community. (So basically not cory booker) And if you have built an economic coalition like that, people are considerably more open to issues of legal equality. It all comes back to what it is that you ulitmately want. That way you get a) considerably more money in the medium to long term, b) a disproportionately large share of that money because it is the community that benefits the most from moves towards equality c) no-one knows or cares because they are getting something too. This is the key to clientelism......

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I appreciate that there is a certain level of vindication, to be gained from the idea of reparations that you outlined, but if you want to get a meaningful amount of money out of a political system, it's a lot better if you keep that side of things on the QT. It makes it easier to hang on to what you have got, and makes it easier to get more.

But ultimately the bit I have most trouble with is this idea that the african American community should just sit out the next election, unless a candidate promises something that is essentially politically impossible in the way that you outline it That is the political equivalent of threatening to hold your breath unless you get given a real life unicorn. Bad things are going to happen to you and you're still not going to get what you want. All the white supremacists will be wondering, "Why did we bother to try and take away their vote, when they're perfectly happy to do it to themselves." .

There are a lot of reasons to be frustrated by the American system, but saying that both sides are the same is not remotely accurate, and thinking that things can't get worse just demonstrates a lack of imagination. Things can always get worse. Things can always get a lot worse.

[Tactical Genius]

He was asked about white supremacy. He said white supremacy is a form of discrimination that has no place in society. You are now saying that makes him an "all lives matter" apologist?

Giving generalised answers to specific questions doesn't usually go down well with voters.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

He was asked about white supremacy. He said white supremacy is a form of discrimination that has no place in society. You are now saying that makes him an "all lives matter" apologist?

Also when he says all lives matter he actually believes that, and has done all along. he's an old jewish man who was born as the holocaust was getting into full swing. He's going to have a wider perspective on this. I would be more inclined to believe that he got booed because his answer was doddery and shit, rather than because the crowd was particularly militant. They loved Kamala Harris, and it's hard to get further from Martin Luther King, than keeping people in jail in order to use them as fire-fighting slaves.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Giving generalised answers to specific questions doesn't usually go down well with voters.

Perhaps, but White supremacists don't think he's "white" either.

[anton pulisov]

Giving generalised answers to specific questions doesn't usually go down well with voters.

I agree that his answer was too general. It's a thing with him, his heart is generally in the right place, he's fighting against the right people, but his policy isn't fleshed out very well.

But in the CNN piece they are speficifally trying to smear him as an old white man out of touch with minorities. (The CNN presenter is herself a white lady, who went to a leafy private prep school).

[Tactical Genius]

You're reading something into my comment that isn't there.

I assumed you were thinking the criticism of him is overplayed due to the polling results. If I misunderstood, then I apologise.

[Tactical Genius]

I agree that his answer was too general. It's a thing with him, his heart is generally in the right place, he's fighting against the right people, but his policy isn't fleshed out very well.

But in the CNN piece they are speficifally trying to smear him as an old white man out of touch with minorities. (The CNN presenter is herself a white lady, who went to a leafy private prep school).

Come on, enough with the Splaining.

Sanders has been in politics his entire life and has been in public office for the best part of 40 years, longer than AOC has been in charge.
He has fought enough elections to have a coherant policy on matters like racial inequality and white Supremacy. These aren't thing that only popped up in the last 6 months.

He is floundering, not because he is a good natured old dude who has been blindsided. He is bumbling as until this time last year, there was no punishment in the polls for not addressing this issue. Finally, black Americans are putting politicians feet to the fire and are demanding tangibles and not warm words, generalities and aspiration like in the past.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

.....while cheering for Kamala harris.

[Tactical Genius]

.....while cheering for Kamala harris.

Trust me, nobody is voting for Kamala Harris in large numbers, despite the media manipulation. The black media have been attacking her hard, She is seen more as a culteral appropriation joke. Even her own Dad is distancing himself from her.

[anton pulisov]

Come on, enough with the Splaining.

Sanders has been in politics his entire life and has been in public office for the best part of 40 years, longer than AOC has been in charge.
He has fought enough elections to have a coherant policy on matters like racial inequality and white Supremacy. These aren't thing that only popped up in the last 6 months.

How am I splaining? I agree that Sanders is vague on race issues. He is vague on pretty much everything. He wants to take on corporate interests, etc. But how? Warren is at least publishing policy on that.

Sanders' main defining characteristic is that he is one of the very few people in a position of power in the past decades who has been pointing out that the US is a billionaires playground that screws over its people. That's his spiel. And the billionaire class who pull the strings in the media are exactly the people he is going after. So of course they are not going to go lightly on him. By all means, they can go after him for a lack of specifics, but they go further and use race to smear him (the CNN reporter mentions how he is a white male who isn't allowed to name drop Dr. King).

On a side note, they don't go after other candidates for lacking specifics or having thought through their ideas in the same extant. For example, you have Pete Buttigieg saying nothing (and actually bulldozing black neighbourhoods), but he'll probably put another Tim Geithner in charge of the Fed, so they don't mind him. Just like how Obama had nothing to say of any content, but nobody in the mainstream media brought that up either. Turns out he was not a threat to them.

The media has embraced the race card and turned it into identity politics in the same way the record companies embraced grunge and turned it into landfill indie. It creates a lot of noise, and it becomes difficult to figure out who the real racists are. And in such an environment, the waters are muddied, and it only paves the way for Trump 2.0. Because if everybody is a racist, then what gives if Trump is a racist?

[San Bernardhinault]

Also when he says all lives matter he actually believes that, and has done all along. he's an old jewish man who was born as the holocaust was getting into full swing. He's going to have a wider perspective on this. I would be more inclined to believe that he got booed because his answer was doddery and shit, rather than because the crowd was particularly militant. They loved Kamala Harris, and it's hard to get further from Martin Luther King, than keeping people in jail in order to use them as fire-fighting slaves.

The thing about "All lives matter" is that it's firstly utterly trite bollocks, and secondly it is used to detract and distract from the actual campaign point of BLM. Of course everyone can comfortably say "all lives matter", that doesn't contrast with "black lives matter". But "all lives" aren't at massively greater risk because of police violence and prosecutorial apathy. The point about "black lives matter" is that it's saying "black lives should matter as much as white lives", which they currently appear not to given the impunity that the US police service have.

If you start an "all lives matter" response to a "black lives matter" question, it means you either don't understand the problem, or you're deliberately trying to avoid addressing the problem, and maybe implying that it's not actually a problem at all and that we have other, more important, things to worry about.

[anton pulisov]

But where does he revert into "all lives matter" apologism? I'm not seeing it.

[anton pulisov]

I'd call it more feigned PC than PC-overreach.

[DCI Harry Batt]

If you start an "all lives matter" response to a "black lives matter" question, it means you either don't understand the problem, or you're deliberately trying to avoid addressing the problem, and maybe implying that it's not actually a problem at all and that we have other, more important, things to worry about.

If you start an "all lives matter" response to a "black lives matter" question, you're being racist.

[San Bernardhinault]

The media has embraced the race card and turned it into identity politics in the same way the record companies embraced grunge and turned it into landfill indie. It creates a lot of noise, and it becomes difficult to figure out who the real racists are. And in such an environment, the waters are muddied, and it only paves the way for Trump 2.0. Because if everybody is a racist, then what gives if Trump is a racist?

Only if you think that there are no ... erm... shades?.. of racism. That it's only a binary condition.

[San Bernardhinault]

People who claim to be anti-PC are almost all bigoted arseholes trying to find a way to couch their offensive language in a "respectable" framework. There's no reason to not be PC unless you actually want to be a racist or homophobe or whatever.

So, you know, who the fuck cares what they think or what distinctions they draw?

[DCI Harry Batt]

People who claim to be anti-PC are almost all bigoted arseholes trying to find a way to couch their offensive language in a "respectable" framework.

Either they are actual bigoted arseholes, as you say in 99% of cases, or they are utter bellend edgelord wankers who "like to provoke", ion which case they are just as bad and should be treated the same way anyway.

IMHO.

[Sporting]

Who at the moment would be the least racist Democrat contender of those who have thrown their hat into the ring?

[ursus arctos]

That's a rather impossible question.

TG, how sure are you that black folks are going to turn out in numbers in the Democratic primaries? They certainly aren't centered with the early attention focused on the very white states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Who at the moment would be the least racist Democrat contender of those who have thrown their hat into the ring?

Wayne Messam?

[Sporting]

[QUOTE=ursus arctos;n2140819]That's a rather impossible question.
/QUOTE]

Partly why I asked it.