“It’s not about racism” (fl. 2016- ) is a phrase I have been hearing in the days since Donald Trump was elected US president. Some people, most of them Black, say Trump mainly won on racism. Other people, most of them White, say that “It’s not about racism” but class, in particular White working-class men and their economic woes.
The early exit polls, which are only a first approximation:
- Hillary Clinton won:
- by income: those making less than $50,000 a year.
- by issue: those who think the economy is the most important issue facing the country.
- by race: people of colour, regardless of race, age, education or gender.
- Donald Trump won:
- by income: those making over $50,000 a year.
- by issue: those who think that terrorism or immigration are the most important issues facing the country, issues that Trump ran on and made about threatening dark-skinned others.
- by race: White people, regardless of age, education or gender – with one exception: White women with a university education, whom Clinton narrowly won (51%).
Jamelle Bouie in Slate:
“Pundits and observers will attribute Trump’s win to ‘populism’ or his ‘anti-elite’ message. This is nonsense. Trump ran for president as a nationalist fighter for white America. He promised to deport Hispanic immigrants. He promised to ban Muslims from the United States. He refused to acknowledge Barack Obama’s legitimacy, casting him – until the end – as a kind of usurper of rightful authority. When faced with the fetid swamps of white reaction – of white supremacists and white nationalists and anti-Semites – he winked, and they cheered in response. And for good reason.”
Cognitive dissonance: Trump’s appeal was openly racist. But few want to admit they are racist. So most Trump voters will pull the Anything But Racism argument. And the White and Whitewashed who voted against him, most of them too will avoid or downplay race because otherwise they will have to face up to the fact that the country is far more racist than they thought, bursting their faith in a colour-blind US.
Racist Uncles: For the White Liberal press, White working-class men make a useful scapegoat, a good Racist Uncle for this story. They already saw them as uneducated and racist. Scapegoating them draws attention away from the fact that Trump won Whites across the board, not just working-class men. The White middle class went for Trump too.
Obama-Trump voters: Some say Trump voters are not racist because some had voted for Obama in the past. But White people can have Black friends, lovers, wives, husbands and even children and still be racist. “Some of my best friends are Black.” And, for those who forget, Obama did not run on anti-racism (if only), while Trump ran on naked racism.
To be clear: I am not saying it was only about racism. But racism was a huge part of it and most White people, whether they voted for Trump or not, will have reason to downplay that. Going forward they might try to normalize his racism.
– Abagond, 2016.
Update (November 14th): Trump just named Steve Bannon as his chief strategist as president. Bannon was the head of the racist Breitbart News. Some count him as part of the alt-right.
Update (November 20th): In the first week after the election, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported 315 hate incidents, more than 20 times the ordinary rate. Blacks were the number one target.
Trump has named Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, a further sign that he means to carry out his racist rhetoric.
See also:
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I struggle with how to act around family members and acquaintances who try to dismiss concerns of racism. These people think Trump’s bigoted comments are part of a goofy persona, or indicative of a minor character flaw at most. They feel that most liberals are naive, idealistic, and oversensitive, so they don’t take our statements seriously. They live in other decades in their minds, ones when they felt America was great, or at least good enough – for them! They fail to think about the people who didn’t have it so good.
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Racism played a big part but the distinction between playing a part and being the only reason is significant. I don’t like any narrative that refuses to examine all the factors or he might be president again in 4 years.
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First of all the votes have not been evaluated, so any conclusions that anyone comes up with is just plain guessing.
Second not one sentence has been written by this site that reflects the true economic status of the previous affluent working class, who today are suffering from the loss of their homes, retirement income and working future. These losses started in the beginning of 2000 however the recession 2005 finished them off.
The Black vote in the Southeast was down from the last President Obama election which effectively handed NC 15 electoral votes to Mr. Trump. In effect that represents 30 votes (15 down for Mrs Clinton 15 up for Mr. Trump) If Mrs Clinton had won NC she would only have needed approximately 10 more votes to win.
So why don’t we wait for a while before we yell and scream racism.
Study the following and see how close Mrs Clinton was to Mr Trump and realize that if the Black vote had been up Mrs. Clinton would be the President Elect.
https://www.google.com/search?q=electoral+college&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#eob=enn/p/pa/0/0///////////
Is there racism, damn right there is; however there are other issues at play. There will always be racism, ethic hatred and religious garbage.
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Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
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The comment section on this post will probably be a lot of noise. I pretty much said what I wanted to about what I think are the salient factors in the recent circus of an election.
Trump received roughly the same number of votes as the last two Republican candidates (Romney and McCain). What happened, was the democratic candidate (cackling Hillary) suppressed voter turnout by virtue of her total lack of appeal with much of the voting public. People just do not like her. And the fools at the DNC suppressed voter turnout by running her as their nominee and disregarding the Bazooka in front of their very eyes: Mr. Sanders.
Even if racism is more of a factor than I realize it still doesn’t matter in some ways* because the racism has a symptomatic character, that is to say, other factors are causing the racism or making it more incendiary than it otherwise might be, address the factors and the so called racism will diminish.
(some ways= racism in the police force, something should be done about such a thing because institution is supposed to serve all equally; racism from your neighbor, who cares, so long as he or she leaves it at “I’ll never invite that so and so over to my house for Super Bowl Sunday)
—————————————————————————————–
Abagond, you see and saw racism when a hapless reporter with (probably or perhaps) her producer yelling in her ear and whatever other distractions were going on, mispronounced that (at the time) little black girl who had had a motion picture debut. And many commenters jumped on the band wagon vociferously claiming the same thing, it was one of the most pathetic, victim minded, complaint oriented things I had ever seen on your blog,but it didn’t surprise me.
(I’m not mentioning the young lady’s name not because I’m being dismissive of her but because I just don’t recall it, I’m sure you remember the thread, though.)
You also saw racism when that utter fool of a mother led a cop on a high speed chase and damn near got her children, in particular, her coming of age young son killed. That woman was so, so, soooooooo, in the wrong and you did not criticize her one bit. It was all about the evil racist cops. Refreshingly, the comment section, on that occasion anyway, saw how ridiculous the woman’s behavior had been and how she needlessly created a massively dangerous situation, that had real potential to turn into a literal death spiral, by a freakin’ miracle things did not turn out that way. As I recall, at least the initial cop she was dealing with was trying to be reasonable throughout, and boy did she make it hard for him. (I’ve forgotten her name too.)
So, do you see racism in everything? Who knows? But it seems to me you see it too often and/or accord it too much weight in some situations.
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@Legion
Trump received roughly the same number of votes as the last two Republican candidates (Romney and McCain). What happened, was the democratic candidate (cackling Hillary) suppressed voter turnout by virtue of her total lack of appeal with much of the voting public. People just do not like her. And the fools at the DNC suppressed voter turnout by running her as their nominee and disregarding the Bazooka in front of their very eyes: Mr. Sanders.”
I agree with that. People didn’t go for Trump more than the usual Republican candidate (even though his dogwhistles might have made some people particularly enthusiastic). However, enough Americans told Hillary Cllinton to get lost, even if they didn’t like Trump, that it allowed Trump to win even without the popular vote. Clinton’s campaign tried to signal that rejecting Trump should be the priority because he’s “divisive” [I’m with Her, Better Together, Love Trumps Hate] but many people rejected being told what their priorities should be. “I’m not the other guy” was not enough.
As far as I can see, that’s the major story that the information we have so far is telling. The DNC is going to spin things many ways to avoid taking the blame for selecting a bad candidate. I know how persistent racism is in America but in the political realm, where we have a black president with higher favorable ratings in his second term than Hillary Rodham Clinton had as a presidential candidate, I’m not willing to concede that racism is the DECISIVE reason that a very wealthy and connected white woman is not now president-elect.
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This was a poll from August:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/page/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2016/08/31/National-Politics/Polling/release_441.xml
Trump: 35% favorable rating
Clinton: 41% favorable rating
In November, Obama’s job approval rating was as high as 58% (Gallup), average 52%.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html
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And to rub salt in the wound, as of March
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_sanders-5565.html
Trump vs Sanders
49.7 to 39.3 (average)
Meanwhile, back in March, Trump vs Clinton
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html#polls
Rasmussen Reports 5/23 – 5/24 40 39 Clinton +1
ABC News/Wash Post 5/16 – 5/19 44 46 Trump +2
LA Times/USC 8/14 – 8/20 43 45 Trump +2
NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl 5/15 – 5/19 46 43 Clinton +3
Rasmussen Reports 5/17 – 5/18 37 42 Trump +5
FOX News 5/14 – 5/17 42 45 Trump +3
CBS News/NY Times 5/13 – 5/17 47 41 Clinton +6
Gravis* 5/10 – 5/10 50 48 Clinton +2
PPP (D) 5/6 – 5/9 47 41 Clinton +6
Wilfull blindness, hopium addiction, identity politics, sheepdogging, whatever the cause, the democrats decided to cut it close with a marginal candidate and failed. It’d be unwise to merely curse the electorate for being racist and sexist instead of examining their own missteps. If the party that’s supposed to be an alternative presents no alternative you’re truly **** so perhaps it’s better for the shakeup to happen now before both the “greater” and “lesser” evils up the ante.
Next up, Hitler or Saddam Hussein.
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oh yeah, it was about racism. well, now that all the roaches have emerged we know which ones to spray.
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oh, and I always remember my grammy’s favorite bible quote: “He who is pregnant with evil, gives birth to his own destruction…” psalm 7:14
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Re banner image:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obama-hatecrimes-idUSTRE4AN81U20081124
Point being, if the sun rises we have to deal with racism, It’s a constant. Likely same **** would have happened if Clinton had won.
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“I am not saying it was only about racism.” Oh, please, that’s exactly what you’re saying. If you weren’t you’d try to explain why Obama got more white votes than HRC. Try to analyze what it was about the last eight years that might have turned off a lot of people. You are stuck in the same racial groove in all your posts since the election.
Three white guys and a white woman were competing for president and vice-president of the USA, the losing team got more votes but lost the Electoral College vote. Wikileaks emails revealed HRC to be a two face hypocrite. Greg Palast claims that Blacks were scrubbed from voter lists, etc.
You’re right, it wasn’t only racism. So tell us what else it was about?
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The more I look at these numbers, the more angry I am. Not at Trump voters – no, there were fewer of them than the number that voted for either Romney or McCain – it’s that those who knew Trump was unacceptable failed to do the only thing that would have stopped him.
Anybody who didn’t vote for Clinton: I don’t want to hear it. You don’t get to complain. Trump is your fault, absolutely. So shut it. Your precious sensibilities “she’s just as bad” or even “she’s even worse!” no what you wanted is for other people to do the dirty work of voting for her for you. Just childish. You deserve Trump. Good job. Thanks for that.
This fella on CNN the other night, Marc Lamont Hill. Very outspoken person about racial justice etc. Lives in Pennsylvania. You know what he did? He voted for f’ing Jill Stein, he “voted his conscience”. Marc: F’ YOU.
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Being angry at people who couldn’t vote for a proven lying corrupt warmonger is a waste of anger, IMO. I don’t consider that “precious sensibilties” but “f-ing good reasons” not to vote for someone. But I suppose people will have to process the result in their own ways.
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My comments on other threads do reflect some of Abagond’s points.
So while it’s true many whites voted for Trump because they saw his message as white centric and nationalistic others voted for Trump as a vote against Clinton who they feared more. The lesser of two evils vote. But even looking at that you have to ask yourself why whites felt comfortable voting for someone who is a racist to stop Clinton. Doesn’t that suggest that whites were willing to over look Trump’s racism because they don’t take racism seriously ? To suggest that race.did play a larger role is too implicate whites as being racist. So the media won’t go there because to do so would point the fingers at themselves.
I find I want to over analyze everything when the answer maybe much simpler then I imagine.
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We want Godzilla! We want Godzilla!
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There are three factors that had undue influence in this election that people rarely mention:
1. Lower turnouts by African Americans are in part due to the gutting of the Voting Rights Act. In many states, north and south, restrictive identification laws targeted Black voters with (as one judge termed it) “surgical precision”. There were other tactics that contributed to lower Black, elder, and student voter turnouts. They included ending or limiting early voting, limiting Sunday voting, limiting same day registration. One of the most effective tactics since the Shelby County v. Holder ruling was the closing of polling places.
According to the Common Dreams website prior to the election,
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11/04/voting-rights-protections-gutted-polling-places-shuttered-massive-scale
2. The news media in this country was completely derelict in its traditional duties to probe for underlying stories, question the candidates and inform the American public of the issues. They breathlessly repeated every Trump utterance giving him millions of dollars of free airtime and print space. One media executive went so far as to say that, “Trump is bad for America, but good for business.”
They played a major role in promoting Trump. Now that they have served their purpose, Trump has given them the heave ho, placing distance between himself and the White House Press Corps.
3. Some people were so turned off by both flawed candidates that they skipped over the president line and voted progressive in down ticket races in states such as Arizona, Nevada and North Carolina. There were historic firsts such as an Indian American woman and a Muslim American woman elected to the House and a Latina elected to the Senate.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2016/11/09/lights-darkness-celebrating-down-ballot-progressive-victories
✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰
One additional factor was the Electoral College system. Since 2006, a movement has been underway to abolish the Electoral College system in favor of popular votes in the states. According to the National Popular Vote website:
http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/
While there were other factors that contributed to the “wild ride” aspect of this past election season, I agree with Abagond that racial animus, fear and White Entitlement were certainly at the top of the agenda for many Trump supporters.
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It also seems that people forget Hillary and Bill’s dogwhistles when Obama was their opponent in 2008. I made my peace a while back (probably about when some people noticed I got more even-handed towards Trump) so I am here for anyone who needs therapy. j/k
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@Abagond, I think you forgot to put the words “who are black” in the sentence below.
“But White people can have friends, lovers, wives, husbands and even children and still be racist. “
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@Origin,
Are you seriously happy we ended up with Trump? The Democratics may have chosen a weak candidate but even with her so-called scandals, she was better prepared to do the job. And she showed that she was willing to consider the needs of poor and rich Americans alike. Trump had no real policies so he campaigned on fear.
I can tell that you believe that you have something to brag about because you didn’t jump on the Clinton bandwagon. I just hope you are still happy when the reality of electing Trump comes to bear.
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Saw this article and though I’d share
Deplorables 1, Empire 0
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/11/deplorables-1-empire-0/
[Conclusion]
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@Michelle
Not sure why you think I’m happy and not sure why it matters.
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To elaborate so I don’t sound so curt, I’m not elated and I’m not crying. I’m somewhat uncertain but hopeful; the same as I was on November 7. After all, anyone who was voting for the “lesser of two evils” (and most were) knew they were selecting “an evil” many months ago. There was ample time for me to process the eventual outcome in advance.
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@Abagond,
You might want to update your post on the alt0right.
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/11/alt-right-founder-trump-is-the-first-step-in-turning-america-into-a-vast-safe-space-for-whites/
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/white-nationalists-see-opportunity-to-pack-trump-administration-we-are-the-new-gop/
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@Afrofem
Interesting post. On the media coverage of Trump, don’t forget:
http://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/
To say it backfired royally, is an understatement.
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@Origin,
The fact that you consider the “Deplorables” the opposite of the “Empire” shows that you clearly think they are some kind of underdog who deserved to win. But then you probably don’t have anything to worry about in Trump’s America so enjoy your victory.
No matter how hard people try to tell me that this was some kind of referendum of the marginalized workers against the establishment, I see too many in consistencies to believe it. If the election was about hard working people finally getting a chance, then why is it that the initial reactions to Trump’s election are are various forms of harassment targeted toward racial minorities? A TRUE coalition of working class people would actually be a VERY racially mixed group, probably even more brown than white.
“As recently as 2013, more than 60 percent of working-class Americans between 25 and 54 years old were white. If you extend the age bracket to 64, that increases to nearly 63 percent. But in 2014, those numbers—for the first category—dropped to 59.6 percent. In 2015, it was 58.8 percent. This year, non-Hispanic whites are 58 percent of the working class, a historic low.
People of color make up more than a third of America’s labor force, and they’re a large and growing plurality of working-class people in particular. As of this year, 23.5 percent of working people are Hispanic; 15 percent are black; and 3.5 percent are Asian American. That’s a total of 42 percent. In 10 years, they’ll constitute nearly half of all working-class Americans. As it stands, the youngest cohort of working-class Americans—at 54.4 percent white and 45.5 percent nonwhite—is almost there. And close to half of all working-class people—across all races and ethnic groups—are women working in service jobs as well as traditional blue-collar professions.
Much of this “new” working class, including a substantial minority of its whites, leans Democratic; they backed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and many support Hillary Clinton in this year’s Democratic primary. They aren’t alienated by movements for immigrant rights and police reform; they’re sympathetic. They’re not just the beneficiaries of the liberal push for greater inclusion; they’re often the people driving it. These Americans, women in particular, are an integral part of the new liberal majority.”
link –http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/05/what_pundits_keep_getting_wrong_about_donald_trump_and_the_working_class.html
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“To say it backfired royally, is an understatement.”
That’s what I said before election day. And look at us now.
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Trump was racist. Clinton was a racist. Which racist did you vote for? King Kong or Godzilla?
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The lesser of two racists?
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@Michelle
“Deplorables 1, Empire 0” is the title of the article I linked to and quoted from. However, if you read the article you’ll see that he doesn’t claim that a Trump presidency is a certain win. The problem is that with Hillary we knew what we would be getting and it wouldn’t have been pretty.
For example:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-syria-no-fly-zone-third-debate_us_58084280e4b0180a36e91a53
So she tells her banker friends that her Syria plan will “kill a lot of civillians” yet she continues to “forcefully defend her position” in public knowing that it could ignite a wider war with a nuclear power if she shoots down a Russian plane. That reveals a lot about the cold character of Hillary Clinton. If you’d put a gun to my head and forced me to pick Clinton or Trump I would have taken a deep breath and picked Trump. I can deal with him saying “the blacks” if it means we don’t have a bloodthirsty maniac as president.
So like everyone else I’m now wondering what’s next but at least it’s probably not that. We can, at least hope, that it’s not that.
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Not even Obama, who’s Obomber, wanted the damn No Fly Zone.
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“If you’d put a gun to my head and forced me to pick Clinton or Trump I would have taken a deep breath and picked Trump.”
I was thinking the same thing. that’s why I cant call all trump voters racist
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[…] via “It’s not about racism” — Abagond […]
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@Abagond
Thank goodness Clinton wasn’t running against any Repubs from W Bush’s NEOCON set, like Rumsfeld, Cheney and some others of that ilk. They would have likely beaten her in the election. (Their collective laundry hanging on a clothes line isn’t as visibly dirty and stained as HC’s)
Moreover, that group of thugs are pretty much hawkish, crooked and evil as Clinton. Just not quite as scandalous. Doesn’t really matter much. In the end they’re the same establishment willing to do whatever evils to advance the plans/causes (Israel, war, power, wealth, depopulation, etc) of the puppeteers running the world’s governments from the shadows while filling their own fat pockets with favors and cash!
(Speaking of cash, those neocon thieves Cheney, Rumsfeld, et al, never did clear up what happened to $2.3 trillion that went missing from the pentagon)
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Please, someone, tell me how electing HRC would have been a huge blow against racism? DT ran a blatantly racist campaign, did you guys think that it would turn off everybody? If you did, then you couldn’t possibly believe that the USA is a racist nation. DT won because racism appeals to a substantial number of people. You need to explain what kept them at bay during the last eight years and what emboldened them this year.
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I don’t think the US is a racist nation. I think they’re wonderful!
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Lord of Mirkwood
“@Gro Jo
A Democratic president would likely have done less harm than somebody endorsed openly by the Klan. Clinton did not propose deporting 11 million people or banning an entire religious group of over one billion people from entering the U.S. ”
I don’t get the equation. Yeah that’s bad. But do I have to repost my comment referencing that she was planning war with Russia? That’s not less harmful. Banning and deporting is harmful. But not less harmful than World War III.
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@Origin
“To say it backfired royally, is an understatement.”
Thanks for pointing that strategy out. The Clinton Camp has operated in a Byzantine fashion for decades now and they finally hit a dead end in their labyrinth of lies.
I also agree with the sentiments of Paul Edwards in the Counterpunch article you quoted upthread:
It seems both parties were ‘hoist with their own petard’.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/hoist-by-your-own-petard.html
Those responsible will continue to live well since they are in the top income quintile. For the rest of the body politic, there is continuing trauma, uncertainty and more betrayal on the horizon. I’m more concerned about what happens to the lower four fifths of the population.
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“I hated Clinton too, and I fought tooth and nail against her getting the party’s nomination. And actually, now that she has been decisively blown up, I think the Democratic Party has an opportunity to start anew.”
Lordy, have you not heard Obama, HRC and “Bernie” pledge fealty to Trump? The unions are also lining up behind him to start trade wars with China and the others. What did Obama do to prevent Blacks from being denied the right to vote? The Democratic Party is useless and should be buried because it can only destroy social movements by co-opting them.
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[…] Source: “It’s not about racism” […]
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Racist. sexist, antisemitism, neo-nazis, white supremacists, and KKK may not be the entire Trump supporter base but they comprise a good number, that the company these sick people keep. These folks are also highly uniformed. The manufacturing jobs, not coming back, what it takes a warehouse of blue collar high school graduates to do, automation and robots can do 100 times better and more efficient.
Are the people who never went to school beyond high school not understanding that technology and the world changes, as seen in the industrial revolution with the switch of textile industry to mechanization. As for Immigration, nobody ever considers banning Russians(Russian mob) Italians (Italian mafia), Japanese(Yakuza/drug/slave trade), Chinese (Triads,sex trade,drug trade). It always seems to be the Muslims and Mexicans, blacks (Africans such as Somalians) who are the ones that many whites want out of their neighborhoods. Islamaphobia, fear of otherness and the browning of America.
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Well said, Mary Burrell, well said!
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Of course it’s about racism. That’s for the most part what this entire blog is about. What are we defending here? Why on earth does Abagond even need to write an article like this? If you’re a victim of white supremacy then you can recognize it instantly. You should be taken at your word.
But that’s not how it goes. Whites in America and elsewhere will have you explaining to them, asking for infallible proof that white supremacy had something to do with it. They keep you explaining and explaining and so you don’t have the time to do anything about it.
Trump supporters voted for him because of his racist rhetoric. It’s funny listening to people from my work who support them say “I didn’t vote for him because of that, I have friends of all races”. Get out.
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I’ve heard “I voted for him but I’m not a bigot, etc.” many times and I just don’t buy it. You can’t vote for a just a PART of a candidate. The candidate doesn’t know or care that you want him to do only some of the things he says. I’m not saying you have to totally agree with everything a candidate says to vote for him, but I do think you need to be able to LIVE WITH everything he says to vote for him. When you vote for someone you are empowering him to actually do the things he says. And you bear part of the responsibility for what that person does in office. You say you are not a bigot but if you help empower a bigot (or his followers) to put his bigotry into action there’s not much difference.
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/11/09/bernie-sanders-prepared-work-donald-trump/93570734/
The headline of this article indicates a willingness to do as I stated above.
“To the degree that Mr. Trump is serious about pursuing policies that improve the lives of working families in this country, I and other progressives are prepared to work with him,” Sanders said. “To the degree that he pursues racist, sexist, xenophobic and anti-environment policies, we will vigorously oppose him.”
What will be deemed racist, sexist, xenophobic, etc. only “Bernie” knows. If his capitulation to HRC is anything to go by he can be quiet flexible.
Lordy, I’m opposed to reading anything you write on your blog since I’m barred from it. I only read stuff I can criticize. This is not a request or plea to be unbanned.
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“As for Immigration, nobody ever considers banning Russians(Russian mob) Italians (Italian mafia), Japanese(Yakuza/drug/slave trade), Chinese (Triads,sex trade,drug trade). It always seems to be the Muslims and Mexicans, blacks (Africans such as Somalians) who are the ones that many whites want out of their neighborhoods. Islamaphobia, fear of otherness and the browning of America.”
This claim is false.
“The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by President Chester A. Arthur on May 6, 1882. It was one of the most significant restrictions on free immigration in US history, prohibiting all immigration of Chinese laborers.”
“The Immigration Act of 1924… This was aimed primarily at Japanese and Chinese aliens.”
“In 1891, eleven Italians in New Orleans, Louisiana, were lynched for their alleged role in the murder of police chief David Hennessy. It was the largest mass lynching in U.S. history.”
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“Clinton did not propose deporting 11 million people or banning an entire religious group of over one billion people from entering the U.S.”
To whom do we owe the Clinton-era immigration laws since 1996, and Obama’s mass deportation of immigrants? http://www.salon.com/2016/04/27/bill_clintons_shameful_legacy_on_immigration_terrible_laws_he_signed_rip_apart_families_and_authorize_unjust_detention_human_rights_watch_says/
People crying for the “anti-racist” HRC are either liars or fools. Learn the facts before having an opinion on a subject.
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Immigration reforms aren’t about those groups today. Russians and Italians are seen as white now, and Japanese and Chinese are such small minorities that white America doesn’t feel threatened by them. Just because a hundred years ago whites made a big deal out of those groups doesn’t mean that’s the way it is today. So to say the claim is false is incorrect.
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@grojo. The Supreme court. The DOJ. Trumps plan for black America was published on the Mediatakeout website. Thats where they sent it. Thats what he thinks of us. They sent a policy plan to a sketchy gossip website for black America. His plan is for more cops. Rudy believes in stop and frisk on a national level and now they will have the Supreme court to do it. So yeah this mattered.
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@ Jonathan
“Russians and Italians are seen as white now, and Japanese and Chinese are such small minorities that white America doesn’t feel threatened by them.”
I agree. However, small minority groups like Japanese and Chinese-Americans know how to play by the rules of white supremacy/white racism too.
Although Asian-Americans have been victims of white supremacy/white racism – The Chinese Masscre (1871), The Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), The Bellingham Riots (1907), The Japanese Internment Camps (1942-1946) – many of them don’t want any kind of trouble from White folks.
Whites, especially White supremacists, love to use Asian-Americans’ present-day socioeconomic status to downplay white supremacy/white racism. Many Whites are known for telling Black people that America is not a racist country because East Indian-Americans have the highest median household income ($100,000) in America. Whites would never tell you that East Indian-Americans only represent 1% of the total U.S. population, which, of course, is NOT a serious economic threat to White folks or the White establishment. Whites would never tell you that East Indian-American families are much more likely to concentrate in metropolitan areas where the cost of daily living is much higher. Whites would never tell you that East Indian-Americans may earn more but they also have to spend more to survive. In 2015, the cost of living index in states (e.g., California, New York, Maryland, Washington, etc.) where there are a significant number of East Indian-Americans were among the top 10 states. Whites would never tell you that despite having a low voter turnout rate 71 percent of East Indian-Americans vote Democrat. Some people just love picking their battles – battles that can easily be defeated.
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“sparger
@grojo. The Supreme court. The DOJ. Trumps plan for black America was published on the Mediatakeout website. Thats where they sent it. Thats what he thinks of us. They sent a policy plan to a sketchy gossip website for black America. His plan is for more cops. Rudy believes in stop and frisk on a national level and now they will have the Supreme court to do it. So yeah this mattered.”
sparger, tell me what Obama’s DOJ did to prevent this: “The GOP’s Stealth War Against Voters
Will an anti-voter-fraud program designed by one of Trump’s advisers deny tens of thousands their right to vote in November?” http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-gops-stealth-war-against-voters-w435890
Tell me that Obama didn’t deport more immigrants than any administration before his? Tell me that HRC did not help create the atmosphere where a number of black Libyans were lynched? https://humanrightsinvestigations.org/2011/07/07/libya-ethnic-cleansing/
Tell me that HRC and her man didn’t screw the Haitian people when they were in charge of the relief effort in 2010? http://newsjunkiepost.com/2016/11/13/six-ways-trump-can-help-haiti-recover-from-clinton-disaster/
Tell me why the people in charge in Zimbabwe hate her? http://www.herald.co.zw/trump-the-whisper-behind-that-turned-the-gale-in-front/
Maybe, now, with Trump you’ll know what other Blacks on the planet suffered at the hands of HRC and Bill. Maybe you’ll be forced out of your comfortable collaboration with the system and start fighting it again.
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The election results show almost an equal vote for the two candidates.
The black vote was down and it may be possible that the Democratic loss was due to the lack of Black votes.
If this is true those who failed to vote elected Mr. Trump.
Racism cannot be found in the voting pattern of this election, since the popular vote was so even.
I will admit that for those who look closely they can always find racism, anti female, and any other imaginary reason.
For those of you who wish to understand the vote you can review the following and see that even though the electoral vote count was different the popular vote was close to equal. In the end there is no real difference in the two.
https://www.google.com/search?q=2016+election+results&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#eob=enn/p//0/0///////////
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@rmanees
“You can’t vote for a just a PART of a candidate.”
Many people who voted for Clinton voted for “part of a candidate”, the part that wasn’t Trump. Perhaps you should ask some Hillary voters if they’re in agreement with everything she said or did or proposed. I already know what some will say. Both candidates were flawed so many who voted for one or the other did so with reservations.
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“Trump ran on naked racism.
To be clear: I am not saying it was only about racism. But racism was a huge part of it ”
Yes, but a lot of the racism was perceived racism. It seems a lot of the racial conflict at his rallies was engineered by the Clinton gang to create that impression. In addition people generally equate his questioning of Obama’s background with racism. I don’t. They give far to much weight to it as evidence of Trump’s racism. He had every right to question the background of a man who had himself intimated or at the very least let it be believed that he was born in Kenya. It’s not racism to investigate that. Not in my opinion. So I don’t count it against him.
Whats really racist is his belief in stop and frisk.
Also big in swaying Trump voters , aside from race,was his opposition to the TTP. That swayed a lot of nose holders,
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“It seems a lot of the racial conflict at his rallies was engineered by the Clinton gang to create that impression. In addition people generally equate his questioning of Obama’s background with racism.”
You don’t really know that, but that won’t stop you from using that claim to excuse Trump’s racism. The man has a long track record of racism. Being the well informed guy you are, you know that, but why tell the truth when a lie would do?
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do I need to post the video?
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some of the things he did were racist. questioning Obama’s background was not one of them.
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Update: Trump just named Steve Bannon as his chief strategist as president. Bannon was the head of the racist Breitbart News. Some count him as part of the alt-right.
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In other words, Trump is keeping his promises and being true to himself. Why is that a surprise? Will he go for an anti-China alliance with Russia?
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What I know too is that we have a thorough going charade being perpetrated by MSM, Google, pollsters and other players to paint a particular picture, to go so far as to cut the feed when an interviewee says something that doesn’t fit the narrative, The collapse of Clinton shows how much they can be trusted to paint an accurate picture. They were wrong about Clinton. Who knows how accurate a picture they have painted of Trump? The anti-Trump bias of Media, pollsters, Google, etc, has been overwhelming. Right now if MSM told me the sun was shining I’d have to look out my window to be sure. They have lost the last shred of their credibility.
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@nomad
I said a while ago that I didn’t think Trump was “particularly” racist. Some people thought I was defending him but it was just an observation. He’s about in the middle of the curve for a white American, neither a KKK member nor professional “anti-racist”. When you take a brash, unfiltered, wealthy, white grandfather and play each of his individual gaffes over, and over, and over again with a bullhorn it will create the impression that he’s the worst of the worst.
The media and Clinton campaign helped build Trump up as the re-incarnation of Hitler in order to make him seem unelectable against her. The man is 70 and I have no evidence he’s as evil as Hitler (not sure he’s as evil as Clinton). Hitler died at 56 and had done everything he’s now infamous for by then. Where’s Trump’s resume? How did a very evil man that’s always been in the public eye fly under the radar so long? He has obvious flaws but the unfairness of extreme characterizations probably alienated some people who saw themselves in him. But it was all part of the Clinton campaign strategy of demonizing Trump more than selling HRC.
I wasn’t swayed by the accusation that Trump hadn’t paid his fair share of taxes. Was it tax evasion or did he take advantage of the laws career politicians like Hillary passed? If it’s the latter, who volunteers more taxes than required by law? I sure as hell don’t and I wouldn’t even if I were a billionaire. I’d be hypocritical for me to knock Trump for doing the same. I bet Clinton doesn’t overpay taxes either. I remember reading that the Clinton Foundation had to refile years of tax returns because of erroneously underreporting the donations it received.
However, this is NOT a dismissal of the things Trump can genuinely be taken to task for. I differ with you nomad in that I think “Birtherism” had a racist subtext and Trump was appealing to that base. The accusation that Obama was not Amerian but Kenyan (and Muslim) was a dogwhistle that substituted for the overtly racist claim that his blackness disqualified him. I also don’t really want a president that supports a policy as discriminatory and degrading as stop-and-frisk. Yet was I supposed to protest that by voting for a person whose “bringing super-predators to heel” helped contribute to the era of mass incarceration? She said she’d end private prisons but still took their money? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/hillary-clinton-private-prisons_us_562a3e3ee4b0ec0a389418ec
Was that honestry or yet another public/private position?
That said, the choice between the two came down to personal priorities and evaluations of the threat each posed and the result is essentially 50/50 by the popular vote. In the end, Hillary Clinton’s dishonestly, carelessness and disrespect for protocol as Secretary of State and her dangerously hawkish foreign policy just tipped her into the “never an option” category for me. That left me with having to warm up to president Trump since *I* would not be contributing to a Hillary Clinton presidency. There are no guarantees that Trump will be any better but Hillary has a damaging record that I couldn’t ignore. Perhaps it’s my personality but I’d rather take a risk that might pay off or fail, than accept certain mediocrity, or worse. As a result, I was more scared of the known evil than the unknown and was free to make a conscientious decision.
That’s why, as I reflect, I can’t really say Trump won primarily because of racism. The numbers suggest that people who were thinking like me, who’re actually living in swing states, (I’m not) helped Trump win by either abstaining, voting third party, or heck, voting for Trump to stop Clinton. Race didn’t motivate me. By the prevailing narrative it SHOULD have motivated me (to vote for HRC) but it didn’t. The signalled virtuous choice was fraudulent in my view. Locking up African Americans, meddling in Haiti, Honduras, Libya and being ready to murder “many Syrians” is racist too even if it’s delivered with “politically correct” terminology and a false smile. So what was the “anti-racist” choice? Wasn’t “with her” IMO.
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We’ll see. I’m honestly not sure. They both sucked. It was almost a coin toss.
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Can’t help but feel a strong sense of deja vu after Brexit and the racist incidents sparked by that.
I also feel afraid for the future of PoC in Europe as well as the US because the far right has been encouraged by Brexit and Trump. It has already swung in that direction before 2016, with such parties gaining more support than ever before. As far as I know, all of them are anti-immigrant and stir up a lot of racist sentiments, despite their strong denial. A lot of negative things could happen in Europe very soon, especially if Marine Le Pen gains power in France.
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What is definitely true is that *we* need to wake up and be organized for our own prosperity and survival. This is as true as it has always been! We know the systems were not created to benefit us.
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Bannon will be whispering into the dictators ear.
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He’s going reward he conservatives who were loyal to him. I saw that Laura Ingraham was a possibility for White House press secretary.
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@ Michelle
Thanks!
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@Iris
A lot of negative things are already happening in France under Hollande. He is ruling by edict. His latest bright idea is “…the creation of a massive new database that will collect and store personal information and biometric data on nearly everyone living in the country.”
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/11/france-plans-to-implement-universal-biometric-ids.html
No need to wait for Le Pen or Trump. Their predecessors have done quite a job of limiting freedoms already.
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@Afrofem
“No need to wait for Le Pen or Trump. Their predecessors have done quite a job of limiting freedoms already.”
That reminded me:
http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2014/jan/10/jake-tapper/cnns-tapper-obama-has-used-espionage-act-more-all-/
Things have been “creeping” for a while. I think 9-11 was a turning point because it allowed the normalization of policies that would have been unthinkable before.
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“By the prevailing narrative it SHOULD have motivated me (to vote for HRC) but it didn’t.”
Rambling: On
The prevailing narrative = simply following the crowd. Doing what the crowd does.. going along to get along … doing an accepted thing simply because most everyone else is doing the same thing. Safety in numbers…
Following the pied piper. Most of society are pied piper followers! They cannot think outside of the box. Or follow another paradigm. Or reject present day norms, custom and traditions. They’re refusing to think/see for themselves. Permit others to do your thinking for you. They follow the party line because it’s expedient, politically correct.
THE PREVAILING NARRATIVE SHOULD NEVER MOTIVATE ANYONE TO ACTION – unless that action might extend your life span – BECAUSE THAT NARRATIVE IS PATENTLY FALSE (PROGRAMMING, CONDITIONING AND MC as in voting for a known and well documented criminal pair like the Clintons, somehow believing that they are the lesser evil.) The crowd yelling “Crucify him! Crucify him” or “Give us Barabbas!” against the Son of God was a prevailing narrative!
What are the controllers going to foist upon the people next? Believing that Lucifer (Clinton) is simply a regular guy (gal) … a not so bad person, empathetic, really kind if you look long and deep and far enough, misunderstood, marginalized, abandoned &mistreated, oppressed & victimized son (well meaning woman) of the Most High??
Thankfully not everyone swallowed that apple!
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Re: It’s Hillary, stupid.
Trump did get some anti-Hillary votes, but 73% of his voters were not voting for him as the lesser of two evils.
Specifically: According to the CNN exit poll, 25% voted not for their candidates but against the others. Of those who did that, 51% voted for Trump. Trump got 47.3% of the popular vote, so that means 27% of his voters were voting against Hillary.
http://www.cnn.com/election/results/exit-polls
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@ gro jo
Most people are not single-issue voters. Some were voting for his racist policies, but others wanted, say, his tax cuts for the rich, or just had their Obamacare premiums jacked up, or hate Hillary, etc. But regardless of the reason, none of them saw his openly racist policies as a deal breaker. And only 27% saw him as the lesser of two evils.
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@ Allen Shaw
As far as I could tell, Hillary had no serious Black outreach – just some last-minute Barack and Michelle ads at the end. She took the Black vote for granted and got what she deserved.
BUT that hardly means that Trump, meanwhile, did not campaign and win on openly racist policies.
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The theory is that Hillary Clinton’s candidacy depressed the usual democratic support. I don’t think that everyone who voted for Trump did so because he was the lesser evil just enough to cost Hillary Clinton the electoral college in tight races. That’s what happened.
Glancing over the exit polls abagond linked, “It’s Hillary” is suggested, IMO.
Is trump qualified to be president? Yes/No : 38/60 %
18% of people *who voted for Trump* thinks he isn’t qualified
(Only 5% of Clinton voters things she isn’t)
Who is qualified? Both/Clinton/Trump/Neither: 5/46/33/14 %
Of the 14% that said “neither is”, 69% voted for Trump.
Opinion of Clinton and Trump. Both fav/Clinton/Trump/Unfav: 2/41/36/18 %
Of the 18% that said both were unfavorable 49% had voted for Trump (29% Clinton).
43% think Clinton doesn’t have the temperatment to be president 5% of which were Clinton voters.
63% think Trump doesn’t have the temperatment to be president 20% of which were Trump voters.
24% would be “concerned” if Clinton won and 18% of those were Clinton voters.
20% would be “concerned” if Trump won and 34% of those were Trump voters.
Why are those people voting for Trump with apparent reservations? A possibility is that some uncertain voters took their Trump medicine because they thought Clinton was worse. Forcefeed the people a 5hit sandwich and call them names for eating it? If democrats had nominated a candidate people could stomach, it’s likely that the outcome would have been different.
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abagond Well sir Black people will live with their decision to not vote or to vote for Mr. Trump.
No doubt by now Mrs Clinton is glad she is not going to be President and she can go home and rest.
A person should not just vote for the person who reached out to them, they should consider their future.
Please encourage your readers to study the issues more carefully. Unless there is some change in Mr. Trump many Blacks and others that are current federal employees will soon be without jobs.
When the school lunch programs are cut, and many other government programs disappear an understanding will start to arrive in many individuals minds.
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@Allen Shaw “No doubt by now Mrs Clinton is glad she is not going to be President and she can go home and rest.”
She has been after this job for years and who can say that she will not try again in 2020?
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And to take a trip down memory lane:
Obama/Mccain 2008
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#USP00p1
By Race
White: 45/55
AA: 95/4
Latino: 67/31
Asian: 62/35
Other: 66/31
Obama/Romney 2012
http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president/
By Race
White: 39/59
AA: 93/7
Latino: 71/27
Asian: 73/26
Other: 58/38
Clinton/Trump 2016
By Race
White: 37/58
AA: 88/8
Latino: 65/29
Asian: 65/29
Other: 56/37
She lost ground almost everywhere vs Obama. AA and Latin@ support all went down with whites remaining about even. Obama got 45% of the white vote in 2008. 41% of white men voted for him vs 57% for Mccain; 46% of white women vs 53% for Mccain.
Hillary’s splits for white Americans are very similar to Obama vs Romney. Hillary didn’t gain white women according to the CNN exit poll abagond posted. 43% voted for her compared to 53% for Trump (2012 split: 42/56). White men were also split very similarly to the 2012 race (35/62 then, 31/63 now).
IMO, her loss is more attributable to minorites not voting enthusiastically enough for her than racist white people suddenly going 80+% for Trump. They barely moved from 2012 so if racism is a factor it held relatively constant. While Hillary certainly lost white people, she also didn’t get strong enough minority support to make up the difference.
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This site has a large number of individuals who believe they can do some good by analyzing the vote and coming to some useful conclusion.
Mrs Clinton failed to do this or that!
There is a cold hard fact. Unless there is a revolution in the Electoral College Mr. Trump will be President on January 20, 2017.
That is the reality that is facing this nation.
If President Trump does the things he has promised a large number of individuals are going to be very unhappy.
All of the current yapping is going to be rather useless gibberish!
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@Allen Shaw
Feel free not to read it or ADD TO IT!
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“Sky is falling” people are not my type. “Just worry and act like we’re all going to die”. No thanks!
If and when the time comes to combat Trump’s policies we will have to deal with that. He won’t even be president until next year.
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Anyway, I just found a source to back up my theory.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/11/11/trump-got-more-votes-from-people-of-color-than-romney-did-heres-the-data/
Believe it or not, it seems Trump won pretty-much fair and square, despite everything. OMG what a monumental strategic backfire! I once asked if this election was a dark comedy and it has delivered.
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For the 2nd time in history, what the Nazis could not achieve in war, they have achieved through a “democratic” process which declares the loser of the popular vote the winner.
If you can’t beat them, they’ll join you one day anyway!
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Just read that Steve Bannon (Below)
He’s one of the big chiefs in the Alt-Right movement (Which is just another fancy name for white supremacy) and runs the website Breitbart.com which is Alt-Right central
He looks like a total slob, a goddamned alcoholic, look at the nose and blood vessels all over his face. And the skin cancer popping up everywhere.
So what positions do Hannity, O’Reilly and Limbaugh, the other stooges get.
Hate crimes on the rise in schools and on the streets – The president elect should be doing something to promote calm, but he instead tweets and complains about the media, threatens his political opponents via Conway , and promotes a white nationalist crazy bomb thrower to a top position in his revised “swamp.
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Origin
“@nomad
I said a while ago that I didn’t think Trump was “particularly” racist.”
Well said, Origin. I don’t expect many people to agree with me on ‘birtherism’, but I respect that.
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@Origin
not just that line. the whole post
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Not just Google, pollsters and MSNews media. I lost my respect for some comedians who became shills for Hillary Clinton and used her talking points as the basis for there jokes. And for a cartoonist I admired who did the same thing.
http://images.dailykos.com/images/297900/story_image/TMW2016-09-14color.png?1473522666
Not a shred of evidence for this. Something Hillary made up. But our entire media and cultural arbiters, practically, acted as if it were a fact. I thought I was living in 1984.
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Black voters:
Using Origin’s CNN exit poll numbers and the Wikipedia vote totals:
in millions:
2012:
1.2 Romney
15.6 Obama
2016:
1.2 Trump
13.5 Clinton
0.6 other
Clinton got 2.1 million fewer Black votes than Obama. It accounts for 42% of the overall gap between the two. Of those 2.1 million, 0.6 million voted third party and 1.5 million did not vote.
Black turnout dropped by 9%. It is unclear how much of that is due to:
1. Voter suppression
2. Voters sitting it out.
3. Votes not yet counted.
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@ Lord of Mirkwood
Right. While these guys are going through their intellectual jujitsu and high-fiving each other that Trump’s rise to power had little to do with racism, even going so far as to say Trump is not particularly racist, Trump appoints Steve Bannon as chief strategist.
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I’m a Democrat from Florida but I voted for Jill Stein even though I knew she wouldn’t mean much. For some reason, I just liked Jill Stein more than I liked Hillary Clinton. I definitely was NOT going to vote for Donald Trump.
But looking back now, I think I should have just voted for my party’s nominee, Hillary Clinton, even though I’m sure my one vote most likely wouldn’t have helped Florida swing towards Hillary.
I guess I didn’t take things seriously ENOUGH when I voted for Jill instead of Hillary. I guess because my parents and most of my neighbors voted Hillary, I said it wouldn’t hurt to vote for Jill. I blame myself.
It’s been almost a week now and I still can’t believe the electoral votes went to Trump, the loudmouth who’s been rated as being a much bigger liar than Hillary Clinton, absolutely no experience, and just more likely to be a potential disaster, as president.
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Hillary Clinton’s approval numbers were higher before she ran. Lets be honest she had no real scandals just nonsense ginned up by the Republicans. The press is their 2 sides narrative focused on emails and the Clinton Foundation. Throw in the FBI and she is cleary a criminal. They focused continually on emails. With Trump something new happened every day, None of it stuck. The republicans are done investigating Hillary unless some miracle happens and she is the President elect. Hillary was painted as a criminal Washington insider. Donald Trumps fans are already making up excuses for his backtracking that has already started. The man hired a neo-nazi to run his campaign and he is now his chief strategist. But hey Hillary had some emails and the DNC said some mean things about Bernie and never did a thing to him. Its all the same.
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@ Jonathan
Look at the thread and you can see why. This should have been a no-duh post, but it was not.
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@LoM
“@nomad
I presume you’re okay with someone like Steve Bannon as Trump’s senior adviser?”
you presume wrong
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I wasn’t for Godzilla. And I’m not for King Kong.
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@sparger
Her email scandal is going to seem so quaint in four years. At least to those who have not drunk the Trump Kool-Aid.
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@ nathan0
You live and learn. Hopefully there will be future elections and you will be allowed to vote in them.
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Hey, that rhymes!
You presume wrong.
I wasn’t for Godzilla
And I wasn’t for King Kong.
There’s no question about the overwhelming media bias against Trump and its efforts to make him seem more racist than he actually is, and which is probably about the same if not less than Hillary. As I have said before, the only difference is that King Kong’s racism is inyourface and Godzilla’s racism is stabyouintheback.
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@nomad
“There’s no question about the overwhelming media bias against Trump and its efforts to make him seem more racist than he actually is, and which is probably about the same if not less than Hillary. ” Was Hillary endorsed by the Alt right? Did Hillary say she wanted to deport millions of people or ban them from entering the country?
HOW is Trump “about the same if not less than Hillary?”
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@abagond
“Her email scandal is going to seem so quaint in four years. At least to those who have not drunk the Trump Kool-Aid.”
I don’t think so. I think you are minimalizing.
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@nathan0
see my above comment. better yet, here it is
I don’t get the equation. Yeah that’s bad. But do I have to repost my comment referencing that she was planning war with Russia? That’s not less harmful. Banning and deporting is harmful. But not less harmful than World War III.
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@nomad
I guess you are too young to remember 2015 and early 2016 when Fox News and even MSNBC at times became glorified Trump infomercials. He got way more coverage than anyone else and it was barely filtered or even fact-checked.
He made himself seem racist by the stuff that came right out of his own mouth. All they had to do was roll tape. And the racist things he said were not even hot mic moments – they were at the heart of his campaign and said over and over to great applause by his supporters.
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@nomad You said “But do I have to repost my comment referencing that she was planning war with Russia? ”
Literally, the only thing I’ve seen claiming such ridiculousness was a quote from Donald Trump. I haven’t seen anything else claiming that Hillary Clinton was planning to start a war with Russia. Help me out if I’m wrong.
http://www.inquisitr.com/3645891/trump-hillary-clinton-will-start-world-war-3-with-russia-over-syria/
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Of wait. More or less racist? “Superpredators”, mass incarceration , killed panAfricanist Ghadaffi, exploited Haiti. And, of course, And Black Lives Matter didn’t matter to the Clinton campaign
“If approached…don’t offer support for concrete policy positions.”
(https://youtu.be/50KWXJp3vI8?t=11m41s),
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@nathan0
“I haven’t seen anything else claiming that Hillary Clinton was planning to start a war with Russia.”
Then you haven’t read my comments. I’ve been saying it for a long time, over and over again. Nobody’s listening but I’ll be happy to say it again.
Wrap your brains around this. Clinton was the greater evil
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse says these fools were planning war with Russia -these fools Obama and Clinton.
” the neoconservative Barack Obama [demanded] that all of his top military generals support his goal of going to war against Russia…. … the view that Barack Obama holds and that Hillary Clinton holds even more strongly [was]that the war against jihadists must be subordinated to the war against Russia …
— is a totally upside-down view of the priorities”
Worse than that, it’s madness. This is what Americans, thank God, rejected. It’s criminally insane.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/11/salon-gets-away-deceiving-readers.html
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Who the heck is Eric Zuesse, and you’re basing the “war on Russia” conspiracy because of something he said? LOL Nevermind that it was Trump who said, in his own words, that he loves war.
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@abagond
“There’s no question about the overwhelming media bias against Trump and its efforts to make him seem more racist than he actually is”
“He made himself seem racist by the stuff that came right out of his own mouth. All they had to do was roll tape.”
That’s the irony. They didn’t need to do it and in the process destroy their own credibility, but they did it anyway.
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“Who the heck is Eric Zuesse, and you’re basing the “war on Russia” conspiracy because of something he said?”
Not just on that, but read the link. Zeusse is quite credible as are the sources he cites.
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From now on I’m only gonna refer to Trump him as “DT” Never by his full name (to the best of my ability) and certainly never as P……….nah. can’t do that. He’s an elected neo-fascist dictator, and that’s about it.
No one should miss an opportunity to point out that Steve Bannon’s fellow travelers in the White Supremacist Movement, the movement that he has championed, were responsible for the Oklahoma City Bombing along with numerous other terrorist acts including the killings of police officers. It’s your spokesman who is now going to be the de-facto chief of staff in the White House and now white people have no excuses.
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So long as he stays within the bounds of the constitution, I will respect him as the duly elected president, but nothing more. I am not going to drink the Kool-Aid.
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“Eric Zuesse is a cultural anthropologist, general systems theorist, economist, and investigative journalist. He has published articles in numerous periodicals.”
http://infidels.org/kiosk/author/eric-zuesse-474.html
On one hand we have a blogger who claims expertise in several academic areas (but lists no degrees) claiming Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton wanted to go to war with Russia based on hearsay.
On the other hand we have Donald Trump himself publicly and repeatedly pledging to deport one group of people due to their ethnicity and to ban another from entering the U.S. due to their religion.
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@ Solitaire
To some Hillary haters, hearsay and allegations are enough, while reporting Trump’s actual words is dismissed as “media bias”, or so it seems.
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@ nathan0
You have to take Nomad’s sources (and his interpretation of them) with a grain of salt.
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Zuesse’s quote: “the neoconservative Barack Obama [demanded] that all of his top military generals support his goal of going to war against Russia” is linked to the London Review of Books, presumably his source.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n01/seymour-m-hersh/military-to-military
I just read through the entire thing and I didn’t see any statement that Obama wanted to go to war with Russia. There was a lot of criticism of Obama’s handling of Russia with regards to Ukraine and Syria, but nothing about a desire to attack Russia, much less Obama demanding his top military generals support such a desire.
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@ nomad
Huh? How did they destroy their credibility by playing back Trump’s words?
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“On one hand we have a blogger who claims expertise in several academic areas ” LOL. That’s rich. If that’s meant for me I claim expertise in only one area. The rest I glean from what I see. Barack Obama marched NATO right up to the border of Russia. That alone tells me we are preparing for war. Barack Obama did that. And Hillary is even more Hawkish than he. I leave it to investigative journalists to provide the details. Hey, don’t shoot the messenger, but Barack and Hillary are insane fools.
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Huh? How did they destroy their credibility by playing back Trump’s words?
Their performance has been shameless. Did you watch the debates? Did you notice any bias?
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@ Nomad
No, it was meant for Eric Zuesse. The guy is a blogger who occasionally gets published in periodicals but says he’s a cultural anthropologist, etc.
I think of you as my ST:TOS comrade whose comments and observations I often agree with, except when it comes to some of this conspiracy stuff.
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How bout undocumented concealed carry for all, us citizens even. Hi canada.
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Solitaire
Ohhhh…. okay. LOL. Silly me.
I didn’t go to the source but that was the way Zeusse interpreted it, apparently. That’s cool. As I say, the primary evidence for the buildup to war with Russia has been US and NATO’s geopolitical movements. Surrounding Russia with military bases and demonizing Putin as well as Hillary’s direct threat of military action against Russia.
Do I need to dig up and repost that video, nathan0? I’ll do it if you want.
@nathan0
So I just thought of another credible guy that said Hillary was pushing towards WW3. Paul Craig Roberts. I can dig up some of his comments if you like,
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Okay, I don’t know if you want to read Zeusse again but itoday he says what I said he said more directly.
“Obviously, the likely outcome if Hillary Clinton were to have been elected President would be nuclear war between Russia and the United States. ”
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/11/47-americans-voted-war-russia.html
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The elites that control the media and the government. This is what they fear most about Trump. And its probably why they pulled out all the social control and media blitz stops to prevent his election. If only it were true!
“If this account is true–unless Trump merely intends to blame the Saudis which would be a continuation of the cover-up in different clothes–the CIA, Mossad, and the neocon nazis will kill him before he is inaugerated.”
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/11/14/trump-im-reopening-911-investigation/
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“To some Hillary haters, hearsay and allegations are enough, while reporting Trump’s actual words is dismissed as “media bias”, or so it seems.”
Seems to me that there are two types of people in this ongoing debate.
Those who can clearly see that the emperor has no clothes.
And those who cannot.
Apparently the majority here cannot, or will not – under any or all circumstances short of a court conviction. That’s like saying Bill Clinton NEVER raped anyone because he’s never been convicted of rape! Or George W Bush never murdered innocent Iraqi women and children because he’s never been convicted of murder while serving as the commander in chief… Or, that the police in Baltimore didn’t murder Freddie Gray because a court of law said that those six officers in that police van didn’t do it. (Freddie must have killed himself after he made the cops chase him… )
Amerikans, collectively, have no spine or backbone when it comes to standing up and staring into the mouth of the Beast. Cowards are too afraid to call out the lies, or peer into the mouth of the Beast to see that it actually has no teeth (truth). Amerikans seem to love to believe in illusions, lies, half-truths, spin and stage productions – like Oswald assassinating JFK despite all the evidence to the contrary that he couldn’t have done it.
Abagond’s light has recently shown some small flickers of hope, but at other times his light is totally extinguished, “or so it seems.”
Hillary’s dark scandalous/criminal/evil past and present is very well documented in emails, in detail on various youtube posts/channels, as well as various websites. It goes well beyond hearsay and mere allegations. Many people have given sworn affidavits, testimonies, signed statements, written books and spoken of their first hand experiences when dealing with this woman off camera. The truth is out there for anyone WILLING to FIND IT FOR THEMSELVES and see it, instead of dismissing it as some vast right-wing conspiracy or mere allegations.
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Fan Just in case you missed the news. The election is over.
Mrs Clinton lost the election and the President elect is Donald Trump.
No need for you continue to talk about Mrs. Clinton she is no longer a part of the problem.
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well the MSM liasions are probably in an advanced jockeying status now!!! in terms of being the official recepticle of the official news
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@ Abagond
“Clinton got 2.1 million fewer Black votes than Obama.”
However, during the primaries wasn’t Hillary doing much, much better than Bernie with African American voters?
If Bernie had been the Democratic candidate, do you think there would have been any significant difference? (Leaving aside the question of deliberate voter suppression for the moment.)
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Hello new here, but I’ve been lurking for quite a while.
To tell the truth…I didn’t vote for either candidate. There was no point in voting at all. Neither of them appealed to me. Maybe 20 or so years ago I would’ve voted for Ms. Clinton. (totally wasn’t old enough) That’s before she sold herself to special interest,committed serious crimes, and became jaded. She is untrustworthy, but I gotta give her props for maintaining the role she has in such a corrupt institution. She’s a fighter, but her time has passed. Donald Trump is a load of flaming shit who should’ve never even looked at the White House.
He disgust me and I find him to be very infantile. Maybe he’s different personally, but his public persona is shitty.
There’s a problem when only people w/ wealth can run for presidency.
This is a systemic issue that goes deeper and it’s insidious. We have a broken machine that we ignore and still expect it to work. Times change, things are reinvigorated, or reshaped. Maybe we should revision our political system. I find it insane that we have only two main political parties for a country w/ 300 million plus people. why are the views so dismissive and opposing? These people are suppose to be working together for the betterment of our country. They bitch and moan more, than a married couple. They each live in a bubble that isn’t touching or recognizing the reality of daily citizens. The parties are shells of what they use to be. The people have no heart and they don’t believe in equality. A few decent people aren’t going to change this reality.
Legislators are lifers. Why? If they aren’t doing anything get rid of them.
Both parties are tainted puppets that need to be abolished. Period. This is a rigged game of pre-selection. The public believes in it’s gullibility that it has a choice. There is no such thing just the illusion of choice. Of course makes people feel better and important. Like we matter. People find it easier to be governed, than to govern themselves. What can a government do when it already bought and sold it’s soul? Nothing.
Corporations and the extremely wealthy hold sway. Their interest matter. Creating a better healthcare system for us, regulating the FDA to make sure they actually do their job, funding for classrooms, equipment, art, music, and history, investing in people, rebuilding our infrastructure, making sure people get paid a decent livable salary, protecting the environment, saving people from being bullied from their property or their rights violated really isn’t on their agenda.
This is a classism issue and a racism issue. Racism has always been there and is unconsciously working through this country as it always has. This is a legacy that’s apart of the human condition (America’s Identity). It’ll take time, changing consciousness, empathy and understanding to do away w/. Class is something that is glossed over, but the middle class is shrinking greatly. The poor have no safety net and it is literally criminal to be poor in this country. No one should ever be poor or outdoors. Too many abandoned building for that. All people need is a little dignity. Love isn’t something some will accept, confidence comes later and everyone has a story.
It’s easier to keep the noise up when people are fighting like dogs over scraps. Too busy surviving to see the big picture. Wailing I have it worst than you. The media programs you. Blinded by “stars” and molded to think giving up certain things and accepting others is worth it. Race is used as a barrier. Everything is divisive. Nothing is collective. The topic matters, but it’s easier to control people when they think their a step higher, than someone else. Even though their in the same shit.
The thing is we all live in this country. No matter what age, color, lifestyle whatever. If this ship has holes and it starts sinking. We’re all sinking together.
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@Shaw
lol Don’t play coy with me you sniveling dummy! I thought you might have some dumb thing(s) to say. You never disappoint.
You’ll never have the authority to enforce upon me what I need or don’t need to talk about. It’s enablers of criminals (like you) who give folks like HC your vote and more than a leg to stand on – for nothing in return except blind allegiance and worship of whiteness.
“Fan Just in case you missed the news. The election is over.”
In reality (not what YOU can imagine) the election won’t be officially over until around the middle of December. Al Gore thought the election was over… until W Bush via the supreme court stole it!
“No need for you continue to talk about Mrs. Clinton she is no longer a part of the problem.”
She remains a major part of the Trump election debacle. Why aren’t you going to every talking head and pundit discussing HC telling them that they no longer need to talk about HC?? Why are you so invested in defending HC???
She and the DNC are the reason that Trump IS the president-elect. Any viable (half decent) democrat instead of HC would have soundly beaten Trump. How you missed that major fact in turn suggests a lot of uncomplimentary facts about you.
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Trump’s strategic advisor.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/11/why-its-fair-and-necessary-call-trumps-chief-strategist-stephen-bannon-white-nationalist
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Fan …No Fan she is not responsible. The people that failed to vote for her are responsible. Also the people that voted for Mr. Trump helped.
Good for you, you believe in the end the Electoral College will change the results. Probably like “Pie In The Sky”. I hope you are correct.
We will see.
By the way I had no desire to attempt to tell you what to do; just wanted to remind you that the election is over and continuing to talk about Mrs. Clinton is a waste of time. She is now past history.
Even if Mrs.Clinton wanted to run in 2020 it is doubtful that the Democratic Party would select her.
Fan you decided to be an anti Mrs. Clinton individual and you are now living with the results. Be proud.
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@ Allen (Arrested Development) Shaw
“Good for you, you believe in the end the Electoral College will change the results. Probably like “Pie In The Sky”. I hope you are correct.”
Show me where I said that, Mr Bobble Potato Head.
Were you confused by my statement that Bush stole the election from Gore to mean that Hillary WILL steal it from Trump??? lol
You should stop making crash test dummies look like Einsteins, comparatively speaking! It’s unbecoming.
Finishing grade school is paramount, Shaw, if you’re going to debate anyone with at least an eighth grade education.
“… just wanted to remind you that the election is over and continuing to talk about Mrs. Clinton is a waste of time.”
Talking to YOU is a bigger waste of time, yet I don’t see you reminding me of that!
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@ Michelle
Thanks for the link.
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Dave Winer:
http://scripting.com/2016/11/14/dontWorryAboutDrowning.html
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Fan Your words “In reality (not what YOU can imagine) the election won’t be officially over until around the middle of December. Al Gore thought the election was over… until W Bush via the supreme court stole it!”
“Show me where I said that, Mr Bobble Potato Head.”
See above.
The only thing that could change the election is the Electoral College.
I was unaware that graduating from 4th grade was a requirement.
By the way I do not debate individuals who have fixed mines. I just remind them of other facts.
In the final analysis the failure of Blacks to vote for Mrs. Clinton is going to be one of the major reasons for her defeat. And the reason for the failure is the negative comments published about her by those Blacks who were unhappy with her.
I said all of that without indicting that you are an inferior individual the way you try to imply that I am.
Small minds use profanity and negativity instead of facts.
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@Brandie M.
“No one should ever be poor or outdoors. Too many abandoned building for that. All people need is a little dignity.”
I agree.
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@abagond
“So long as he stays within the bounds of the constitution, I will respect him as the duly elected president, but nothing more. I am not going to drink the Kool-Aid.”
From following the thread, there is a clear implication that I am among those who “drank the koolaid”. I had to make sure my understanding if this term is correct so I looked it up:
Now, I leave it to your own sense of fair-mindedness to re-evaluate whether than term really applies to me (or nomad for that matter) since I have never supported Trump or expressed unquestioned loyalty to him. It probably applies more accurately to staunch supporters of Hillary Clinton some of whom are now rioting because their candidate lost a democratic election. If Trump had lost and his supporters did this, esp. after he had said he wouldn’t immediately accept the election result, he would have been thoroughly condemned and told to calm his people. Now the hypocrites wink.
Furthermore, you seem to be implying (when you said this should have been a ‘duh’ post) that I said racism played no role when I clearly said it did but was probably not THE decisive factor in Trump’s win. How could it have been when the white vote was no more favorable to Trump than in 2012 when Obama won against Romney? If Trump is the very personification of racism, he didn’t energize a greater proportion of white people as a result even if his actual support was enthusiastic. He also didn’t motivate minorities to vote as heavily against him as needed for Clinton to win. Why? Weren’t they feeling threatened enough? The vote was less racially polarized than last time!
Anyway, on another point, I agree that the media was biased. You actually made a post, before the election, in which you said as much along with an appropriate image showing Clinton’s scandals swept under the rug. Both candidates manipulated the media in their own way and were doing it to further their own agenda. Clinton used her connections to encourage focused coverage of any Trump controversies, real or manufactured, in an attempt to make him look as bad as possible. Trump’s play was to be deliberately controversial at times to use the media for the free coverage while simultaneously discrediting them for the negative coverage. It helped that he was running as “anti-establishment” in era where people are already distrustful of the MSM. The net result of the machinations on both sides was FREE coverage for Trump. I saw a ridiculous story about a mother emotionally abusing her young son because he voted for Trump in a school mock election. The reason the son gave was that “he saw him a lot on TV”. Perhaps Trump’s gamble paid off since he won while spending less money than Clinton.
In any case, the media was exposed as asking the lowest price for “favors” and has egg on its face. They heavily editorialized and told us Trump would lose and now they have to be publishing mea culpas because they picked the wrong horse when, lest we forget, they should have been reporting the facts neutrally. They look stupid as hell because they were trying to MAKE the story of a Trump loss instead of investigating and reporting the ACTUAL story (Trump’s genuine chance of winning) As a result they, and their loyal viewers and subscribers, were blindsided by it on election night. Definitely lost credibility.
@abagond
“To some Hillary haters, hearsay and allegations are enough, while reporting Trump’s actual words is dismissed as “media bias”, or so it seems.”
You have said many times that you hate Hillary Clinton. Is that also because of hearsay and allegations? If not, them why are you minimizing Hillary Clinton’s ACTUAL damaging record of doing various despicable things while being a prophet of doom about things Trump hasn’t done yet? I could also say there’s no guarantee there would be future elections after Hillary led us into war with Russia and martial law at home. If she’d won I’d be hoping that wouldn’t happen and I’m still hoping for the best under Trump. Yes, it’s a volatile time, but at least people haven’t been lulled into a false sense of security and we won’t have a cheerleading media.
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“In the final analysis the failure of Blacks to vote for Mrs. Clinton is going to be one of the major reasons for her defeat. And the reason for the failure is the negative comments published about her by those Blacks who were unhappy with her.”
.
No Shaw. The reason HC lost the election is because HC is one big hot ratchet mess. Would you knowingly put your small child in the care of a child molester? I hope not. Why then would you expect Black people who are aware of the depth of HC’s criminality, along with her husband’s criminal tendencies, to vote for her?? Sure, many Black people did, but thankfully not all Black people lost their minds and did the unthinkable. Those informed people with functional brain cells in good working order had every right not to be happy with her. I know you can’t fully comprehend the points I’m making here, but hey, you might someday if you can catch up to the simplicity presented to you. No wonder Amerika finds itself in a critical moral crisis. There’s an inordinate amount of non-thinkers (just like you) running to the polls to vote for the criminals you adore and look up to. Shame on you people who worship evil!
PS – I didn’t know that “sniveling” & “dummy” are considered profanity!
You really should try to escape the debilitating conditions of that bubble…
It’s killing off too many of the few synapses and dendrites you have left in that bobbling potato dome! G’nite
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[A previous post is in moderation, not sure why. If it doesn’t show up later, I’ll repost.]
One final point, I don’t consider criticism of extremist Islamic ideology equivalent to racism. We can express concern about the threat posed by dominionist Christian thought but if one ever asks why some believers in another Abrahamic religion, from Nigeria to Paris, will blow others up and admit it’s FOR their religion, you risk being branded an Islamophobe.
After a terrorist attack in which the perpetrators praise their god, the first thing our dear leaders remind us it that “Islam is a religion of peace”. This is an almost Orwellian disconnection from the reality that some dispensations of Islam are not so. Trump, with all the finesse of a sledge hammer and subtle appeal to us-vs-them, has nonetheless tapped into a certain frustration about this. The door was left open.
I saw an interview with a lady, who is an immigrant from a muslim country and described herself as a lifelong liberal, who voted for Trump. When asked about Trump’s statements about Muslims she reasoned that she preferred to have the conversation. As a feminist, she said she was more concerned that Hillary Clinton admitted, in leaked emails, that Saudi Arabia – a country where women are not allowed to drive – exports terrorism yet she still accepted money from the Saudi government. She wondered whether this would serve as motivation to prevent any ideological examination of Islamic terrorism.
Asra Nomani’s Interview with Anderson Cooper:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0daVZVxCVk)
I don’t think it is racist to say that people should not be admitted into the US from countries “regime-changed” by the Bush and Obama administration and where ISIS now reigns until they are carefully vetted for terror links. However Trump did not say it like that. Now I bet Obama could wordsmith such a policy so that it was not taken as an attack but Trump not only lacks such skill, but I also believe he *wanted* to appeal to a more extreme crowd.
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“drinking the kool-aid” means like Jim Jones
https://stevenwarran.blogspot.com/2013/03/david-hume-kennerly-aka-fisheye-friends.html
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Worried about White House turning fascist and mass deportations? About 8 years too late.
“Barack Obama was the President who expanded the White House’s power to kill anyone, anywhere, including American citizens. If wielding power like a führer is the mark of fascism, then Obama qualified as of the 2012 passage of the NDAA.
It seems like every dire warning about the Trump administration starts with a bit about the millions of immigrant families that might be torn apart. Many Trump voters would salivate over the prospect of deporting 2.5 million people, as Obama has done—more than every 20th century president combined. Along the way, the Obama administration has created countless millions of refugees by destroying Honduras and Libya, towards whom the president has shown a remarkable callousness that doesn’t seem to trouble these Democrats suddenly frightened on behalf of immigrants.
Trump said that he wants to ban Muslims from entering the United States. In 2009, as Obama began his time in the White House, prosecutions for “homegrown terrorism” shot up, as the Obama Department of Justice focused on a Muslim enemy within.”
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Fan You see you do not know how to communicate without putting someone down. You could not prove one of your statements, yet you publish them anyways.
Good luck.
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If we are already have a rigorous screening program for immigrants from countries that support terrorism and we already deport a large number of undocumented people, why were they brought up as campaign issues?
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that’s the problem with having a faux Democratic president. He takes right wing positions –locking up whistle blowers, deporting huge numbers, escalating wars. These right wing positions become normalized as centrist and Democratic, which allows for Republicans to take up even more extreme right wing positions. Calling for even more deportation. Not for more war or more whistleblower persecution in the Trump case,. He deviates from the establishment there. And that’s good.
but basically that’s why. trying to appear more right wing than Obama . And that’s very very hard.
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@Shaw
“… you do not know how to communicate without putting someone down.”
Don’t get it twisted, Bub. There’s a huge difference between putting someone down and talking to someone who’s inherently down/odd/off.
I don’t (need to) put you down. You put your own self down, and you do that particularly well.
Remember this?
“Yours truly bubble head, nincompoop!”
or this gibberish:
“… so you believe that the word “White” is the dreaded word.
Thus closing your mind to all thing European.
Explain why the Africans are doing so well while your gang is suffering. Could it be your closed mind.”
and:
“I am a gang of one. Forgive me.
I do my own research, I have my own opinions, I read history, do not know the name of many actors, sports players or many things that you know much about.
I no a racist when I read their writings and I do look up meaning of words in the dictionary. “
There’s more, but it pains me (and others) to read too much of your drivel at a time. You might consider finding a writing coach/tutor.
What are you?? A refugee? Your syntax (i.e. “the blacks”) and language skills suggest that you weren’t born in the US, although I may be incorrect.
Your thinking and reasoning skills seem to suggest you’d be out-gunned/out matched by the average 10 year old in Amerika’s already seriously dumbed down schools.
Anyone got some Excedrin they can share??
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Fan Again nothing but negative babble.
What is wrong with any of the statements you just quoted, except you might have a different view.
Is a person required to have a Doctors degree to communicate with you. Are you really that highly intellectual that you can not communicate with a working person.
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I have noticed the national and local news media push the “Trump is not so bad…give him a chance” meme. They are also extremely critical of dissent and the well founded fears of segments of the population that were attacked by Trump during the election season.
I don’t recall such efforts when Obama was president-elect. His election was greeted by:
⚑a huge increase of Whites joining White Supremacist hate groups
⚑a spike in gun sales to Whites
⚑numerous petitions for states to secede from the Union (I think Texas had the most signatures)
⚑he beginnings of the White Supremacist Tea Party
There are the policy wonks who are still dissecting the election and the voters. Their primary concern is geography and class, not race or ethnicity.
All of this misdirection would be infuriating if it were unexpected. Like many Black folk, I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop…and dreading the thud it will make when it lands on our necks.
✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳✳
It is important to remember that Trump did not win by a landslide. More people voted against him than for him, even though the alternatives ranged from distasteful to ineffective. Many Black people, elders and students were prevented from voting through the suppression schemes executed by the Republicans over the past seventeen years.
A local Black columnist wrote a thoughtful and tactful opinion piece that urged a different course of action——continued engagement. Cut the period of mourning and find a way to stay involved with the political process.
He said:
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/voters-who-lost-must-stay-engaged-now-more-than-ever/
How can we make a difference? How can we limit the damage? How can we imagine a different future and make it happen?
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My main point of posting is to challenge the narrative about why Trump won not to suggest people should be politically asleep during his presidency. I don’t believe racism was the decisive factor but one among others. It’s important to understand the factors, if one desires a different result next time.
We are in a post Wall Street Bailout, post Occupy Wall Street, and indeed, post Tea Party world. Trump defeated the old guard to become his party’s nominee and the democratic party was seeking to arrest the revolution among it’s own by nominating Hillary Clinton, a candidate many see as beholden to Wall Street.
They did this despite popular support for Sanders. I remember Kshama Sawant saying that the democrats wanted to beat Trump but they had a greater priority to quell their own popular uprising. They accomplished the latter but not the former. Hopefully the right lessons will be learned and priorities re-evaluated but I have my doubts.
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It’s interesting that both of the candidates with the enthusiastic grassroots support were not loyally associated with the party whose nomination they were seeking. Sanders was an independent and IIRC Trump was actually a democrat in the past. Both parties generally feigned concern for the issues of the people who vote for their candidates while actually doing the bidding of their real masters. The time was ripe for outsiders to come along and yank their base (as the counterpunch article I quoted before suggested). They’re both reeling and the bought media is reeling.
Another story is the democratization of information through wikileaks and the internet. Traditional media has lost its stranglehold on “the story” and “the angle”. One of the things we see in the wake of the election result is attacks on facebook and google for allowing “fake news” to be shared. (We all know the traditional media should have a monopoly on fake news.) Their main issue is not fake news but decentralized news and the weakening of their traditional role and therefore their value. We’ll probably continue to see attacks on net neutrality and whistleblowers.
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Fascism, for lack of a better word for nationalistic authoritarianism, did not die in a Berlin bunker 1945. It bounced around as military juntas and dictatorships in the developing world for a few decades but was largely marginalized to the extreme fringes in the politics of the developed world.
It was no longer considered acceptable in polite society to mention things like racial supremacy and ethnic cleansing without being chased out the door but its sentiments were still there, in the dank dimly lit corners biding its time.
It has returned.
Fascism will sweep the world. White supremacists are celebrating harder than a Bronco’s fan did this year on Feb 8th.
Vladimir Putin saw the writing on the wall years ago and manipulated this force to his will. Rodrigo Duterte, Nigel Farage, Marine Le Pen and Donald Trump are the leaders of the 21st century’s version of fascism.
Gone are the military regalia fetishisms. That was just too crude for today’s cynical internet generation. Now are the flashy business suits and the billionaire populism.
Donald Trump is a small man in a big chair.
He now wields more power than anyone is the history of humanity.
He has the power of global surveillance and swarms of drones ready to rain down death from a clear blue sky. He has the power of the NSA, CIA and FBI. Military conquests are not as profitable as they once were so there is hope that World War III will not kick off, just yet.
I hope.
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Another factor: Trump worked harder and campaigned harder.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/on-the-campaign-trail-donald-trump-leads-in-rallies-1475573406
Clinton managed to lose states, like Wisconsin, which democrats hadn’t lost since 1984. Apparently she hadn’t made a single stop there during the general election campaign. It’s interesting that Bernie Sanders had defeated Clinton in both Wisconsin and Michigan during the primaries.
This is why Obama said recently:
Clinton had a sense of entitlement and inevitability while all the polls and pundits were reinforcing that view. Did that contribute to her not doing enough? I’m certain diehard racists voted for Trump (and not for Obama either) but there were still paths to a democratic victory. However, they managed to make all the decisions that woud lead to defeat.
About WWIII, probably it is the case that this civilization is always marching towards such catastrophes. However if one situation is ripe (Supra-national globalism lurching towards war with its last major obstacle, Russia), while the other is nascent (a resurgence of nationalism), we may have bought ourselves time. Hopefully.
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Related to the above post I just remember a video I watched of Rachel Maddow laughing at Trump for being in Maine while “swing states slip away” (August). She said Maine was heavily democratic and even though it’s a weird state that assigns two sets of electoral votes, it had never been split. Furthermore, she said that even if he wanted the more likely counties he was campaigning in the wrong city.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzneP8UFcto)
Guess, what, Trump took one of Maine’s electoral votes for the first time ever.
http://www.pressherald.com/2016/11/08/mainers-take-matters-into-their-own-hands-after-bitter-presidential-campaign/
So it looks like he was the one leaving nothing to chance.
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Yes. Obama’s right. She didn’t have an active enough campaign. This may or may not be due to the illness she may or may not have. That was a failure on her part. But there is no guarantee that those she didn’t reach would have voted for her if she did. The huge numbers of black voters that were purged through Crosscheck, for example. There is no guarantee that, had they been allowed, they would have voted for Hillary. It could be like that expected Hispanic turnout not going for Hillary.
But on the other hand, the greater fault lies with Obama. This is the first Democratic administration that has been more right wing than the prior Republican administration, including Bush II. Exceeds him on every measure. War, persecution of whistle blowers, even mass deportation. Worse than any previous administration. The emperor was demonstrated to have no clothes. Clinton was just going to be an extension of . Obama’s dreadful policies. In fact. an amplification of them. Clintonism epitomized by Obama. It must end. And it did.
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it’s not new, it’s not about the machine gun or cotton gin or even handcuffs what the eff is that all about who does that
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“Are most Americans warlike, or are they just easily misled into going along with the War Party that dominates both halves of the duopoly? In a certain sense, the distinction doesn’t matter. Most American don’t care enough about the lives of the millions of victims of U.S. empire to do much of anything to save them. And, if they voted for Hillary Clinton, they did not even have the presence of mind to save themselves from nuclear annihilation.”
Glen Ford
Black Agenda Report
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Rolling my eyes at white folks wearing safety pins as a show of solidarity with black and brown people and others who Trump has oppressed with his xenophobic rhetoric. The safety pins are a cop out. When white folks see their white racist peers being racist why not just speak to them and tell them about their racist words and actions. The safety pins are just a way to make them feel better about them selves and convince them that they are not bad people. But if they are silent and do nothing or say nothing they are just as complicit in the problem of racism and wearing a damn safety pin is such a joke. If white people who claim they are in solidarity with racial groups Trump said he wants to harm, This wearing of safety pins is a joke. If that’s what they call being an ally, I would rather they just stay out the fight if they are too cowardly to do what is right, put their white peers in check when they see or hear something racist.
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@Fan …
“Are most Americans warlike, or are they just easily misled”
I’m gonna go with easily misled. I am surprised that my assertion that Clinton was planning war with Russia was thought so outlandish. No one (virtually) seemed to be aware she was leading us to war with Russia. So I’m gonna say “easily led”,
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Nomad,
While the majority of Amerikans may not be warlike, nonetheless a fundamental shift happened as a result of 911 when DUE DILIGENCE CEASED and extreme patriotism/blind faith began in Bush and his neocons’ fabricated excuses for war (and the murder of Hussein and his sons). So yes, Amerikans were easily manipulated (misled).
However, I have to disagree with Glen Ford on whether this distinction matters: are Amerikans warlike OR easily misled? It matters this way. While Amerikans may not be blood curdling vampires, they are still collectively responsible for not attempting to try to bring an end to the years of death and suffering the US military has wrought on smaller and relatively defenseless countries in that region of the world. Countries that never attacked US soil. That puts an enormous blood stain on the hands of most Amerikans, imo.
But, he’s absolutely correct where he states that, “… if they voted for Hillary Clinton, they did not even have the presence of mind to save themselves from nuclear annihilation.”
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That is what is so mind boggling. Clinton threatened war with Russia and none of her flock bats an eye. Unable to recognize the magnitude of her recklessness.
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More Glen Ford
“Just as the Black is Back Coalition warned, Barack Obama was the Black face of imperialism — a change of color without a difference. He tried to hand off the controls to Hillary Clinton, who got six million votes less than he did, and lost.
Back in 2007, when Obama and Clinton were pretending to be ideological opponents — as cookie-cutter corporate Democrats often do — we at Black Agenda Report wrote that “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference” between the two. Every decent, peace-loving person on Earth should be glad to be rid of both of them. Humanity would probably not survive another year of either one“.
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Obama’s foreign policy started to scare me. He’s arming and supporting terrorist rebels in Syria primarily to remove a friend of Russia, the Assad goverment. If that government completely collapses, how can anyone act surprised when ISIS takes over and deepens the humanitarian crisis and increases the chance of terrorist attacks elsewhere? That’s what happened in Libya, after Qaddafi was murdered and it’s what happened in Iraq, after Saddam Hussein.
The difference here is that Russia had apparently drawn a line in the sand over Syria. “No regime change!” There is a very plausible chance that a larger war could have been triggered if Clinton got her no-fly-zone. America has operatives on the ground, in the terrorist rebels, and the purpose of the no-fly-zone would be to protect them from Syrian and Russian air power. It’s not a neutral action to bring about “peace”.
If any good thing can come out of a Trump presidency one would be a de-escalation of the building conflict with Russia. To me it is absolutely topsy-turvy to be demonizing Russia and supporting terorists when the latter has been responsible for so many innocent deaths in recent times. This policy goes back even to the Kosovo war, and some Serbians HATE the Clintons as a result. Just as their domestic priorities are dictated the corporate interests that bought them, their international priorities are similarly compromised, IMO. I have to look askance at any politician that accepts “donations” from the Saudi government.
My feelings are mixed because, while I have doubts about Trump, I am very happy to see the back of certain policies of the Obama/Clinton administration. Russophobia is so 1960s and that’s before my time. The way I see the world now, Russia does not represent an imminent threat whereas state sponsors of terrorism certainly do (9/11).
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“Obama’s foreign policy started to scare me.”
It amounts to a calculated war crime of epic proportions. Created armed and funded ISIS and unleashed them on Syria creating hell on earth for them and creating an enormous refugee crisis. Treacherous. Despicable.
The best thing that could come out of the Trump presidency is the recognition of the incorrigible corruption of the Democratic party, its subsequent demise and replacement with a genuine progressive party.
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Heck, they could even call it the Progressive party. Its motto. “If you ain’t progressive f–k off”.
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” Every decent, peace-loving person on Earth should be glad to be rid of both of them. Humanity would probably not survive another year of either one.”
Truer words have never been spoken… however that last line (above) should read: Amerika’s humanity would probably not survive another year of either one.
The Russians are planning to survive a nuclear attack. They have constructed underground cities not only for the survival of their leaders, but for the ordinary people as well. Has Amerika taken any steps to protect its population, or the majority of its military??
Why hasn’t she? I think the answer lies within the long held belief regarding a plan or goal having to do with the imminent destruction of Amerika – so other things can happen…
http://allnewspipeline.com/WW3_Russians_Drill_Moving_40_Million_To_Bunkers.php
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@ nomad
Glen Ford does not always stick to the facts. Sometimes he becomes hysterical, as shown by what you yourself quoted:
Black Agenda Report was hysterical then and it is being hysterical now. If the world cannot survive Clinton, it is far less likely to survive Trump, who has way less understanding of foreign policy and who will turn back the clock on what little progress has been made on global warming.
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@ nomad
What is far more likely, if Trump does not self-destruct, is that the Democratic Party will move yet further to the right, seeking the Trump vote. Trump, by winning, has already shifted the political centre of the country to the right, to at least where Jeb Bush is.
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Jonah Goldberg’s column in the right-wing National Review on the subject of this post:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442210/racism-elected-donald-trump-according-people-who-make-everything-about-race
While I hardly expect him to agree with me, I was disappointed in this column because he makes no serious attempt to understand the other side.
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“Black Agenda Report was hysterical then and it is being hysterical now.”
that’s not hysterical. they’ve been right all along. they were especially prescient on the sheepdogness of bernie
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” the best thing the Democrats could do right now is just dynamite Hillary Clinton’s name from their history”
dynamite Hillary then dynamite themselves. theyre all the same. more or less. has anyone of them disavowed the heinous and insidious war crime of drone murder? did sanders? no. Ive had enough of Republican lite. tastes good. but less filling
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why do I always do this? wish I could edit my comments…
tastes good. but less feeling. teh heh
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@Origin @nomad
My minimalization: Unlike other Hillary haters, I try to stick to known facts. Those who push half-baked conspiracy theories, like Fox News and others, are destroying their own credibility. They are hurting themselves more than they are hurting her. At best they are preaching to the choir. At worst they wind up casting doubt on the documented harm that she has done.
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Fan …
Right. That was the other big clue that the US was preparing for war with Russia. Russia was holding drills preparing to defend itself from nuclear attack. Americans were blissfully insouciant. Russia knew what America was planning even if Americans didn’t.
“40 Million Russians Going To Bunkers During October 4th To October 7th Drills – What Do The Russians Know That The American People Don’t Know?”
Your lying media has lulled you into a dangerous complacency.
(https://youtu.be/Udeh92n9wG8)
It frustrates Putin, who is well aware of the apocalyptic danger.
“I don’t know how to get through to you people”
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Just saw this anecdote on HuffPost:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/this-ohio-town-voted-for-obama-by-huge-margins-then-it-flipped-to-trump-heres-why_us_582c9e20e4b099512f804de2
It’s a long article so I won’t quote all of it but it gives insight into why Clinton lost those big, traditionally Blue states like Wisconsin (which Obama won in 2008 and 2012 and where Sanders – who’s also against NAFTA and TPP – beat her in the primaries). Just castigating Americans is a way to distract from the flaws of the candidate the democrats chose to back which is probably why it’s a popular tactic of Hillary supporters. However one guy who wanted HIllary to win just to keep Trump out, says he doesn’t think that racism was the primary reason for Clinton’s loss.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2ifVTGJDZI)
Michael Moore:
I’m not dismissing racism as a factor, when isn’t it? After Obama won, hate crimes spiked and gun purchases went up during his administration. But he was still returned to the presidency in 2012 with almost 40% of the white vote and 332 electoral votes. I think it’s too simplistic to say that racial animus was the motivation for most Trump votes. Even then, he did not win a greater proportion of the white vote than Romney did.
Anyway, I’ll stop hammering home the point (unless I’m challenged) because I think it has been made.
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@abagond
“My minimalization:”
At least you recognize that that’s what it is.
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@abagond
“My minimalization: Unlike other Hillary haters, I try to stick to known facts. Those who push half-baked conspiracy theories, like Fox News and others, are destroying their own credibility.”
Have I pushed half-baked conspiracy theories? Please identify them, if so. I don’t know why I have to keep asking you for clarification? Why speak so obliquely? Please make your accusations more concrete when it comes to who they are directed at and what exactly they are.
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“…who will turn back the clock on what little progress has been made on global warming.”
I’m much more worried about global warming than nuclear war, and none of the world leaders will take it seriously. Some are a little more serious about it than others, but none are doing what needs to be done. We may have already passed the tipping point a long time ago.
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@Origin
Re: Kool-Aid.
There seems to be a push in the White media to normalize Trump and his racism. Like by saying he is not particularly racist (something you yourself have said). Or by saying he will not carry out his threats – despite being celebrated for “telling it like it is”, despite the appointment of Steve Bannon, clinging to the idea that the right will somehow control him – something they said of Hitler too!
The country is going down a very bad road. But instead of shouting or trying to take control of the wheel, many are closing their eyes or making excuses. Unfortunately, the US is well practised in moral blindness. In a hundred years people will wonder what in the world possessed the US to trust this guy. Or, worse, they will carve his face into Mount Rushmore.
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Fake news problem:
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@abagond
That he’s not “particularly” racist is something I said months ago and that perpsective wasn’t influenced by talking heads.
When I say Trump is not particularly racist I mean that his racism has been trumped up, inflated, exaggerated not that he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. When a BLM activist told Clinton that the violence against black people is a “white problem” and there’s not much they can do about it she snapped, “Well, if that’s your perspective I’ll only talk to white people”. It’s very clear that she saw herself as deigning to speak with them. If Trump had said that we’d have heard it a MILLION times, over and over and over again.
I didn’t see voting for Clinton as any kind of protest against racism shen she’s a racist herself. She supported segregationist Goldwater as a young woman but claimed her political views changed. She was also for the TPP but also changed, and against gay marriage but also changed. Her tendency to be on the wrong side of issues that later come to a different consensus is a whole other matter but it does make it hard to use her words as proof of her actual convictions including her views on race.
So, yes, in the context of American society Trump’s racism did not shock me any more than Clinton’s. He’s always had black people around him and had black friends like many other Americans that are racist to some degree. I didn’t see him as the worst example of American racism, as someone fit to fill the KKK and Hitler’s shoes. And I did, to some degree, resent the media angle of always trying to push this perspective WHEN IT WAS CONVENIENT FOR THEM BECAUSE CLINTON LINED THEIR POCKETS.
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“Glen Ford does not always stick to the facts. Sometimes he becomes hysterical, as shown by …”
.
What about YOU Abagond? Do you always stick to the facts?? Have you not been extremely hysterical at times about Trump becoming POTUS and what that event might entail???
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@Solitaire
“I’m much more worried about global warming than nuclear war,”
Well now, sure, now that nuclear war has been pushed back by Trump”
If Clinton had had her way we wouldn’t have to worry about global warming ever again.
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@ Nomad
I understand your point, but I’ve felt this way since the mid 1990s. It isn’t a recent change in my mindset and has nothing to do with the election.
If there is a nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, no one’s going to survive despite what the Russians may think.
Global warming, even at its worst, will have survivors. How well they will manage depends a lot on how well we prepare now.
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@Solitaire
“. How well they will manage depends a lot on how well we prepare now.”
good luck with that
we can’t even face the primary cause of climate disruption.
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Oops, again an after-reply. Global warming at its worst? There will be no survivors.
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@ Nomad
Ok, let me put it this way: The people I know who specialize in climatology say that in a worst-case scenario there may be a chance for long-term human survival. They may be wrong, and at any rate none of them are optimistic.
I’m not convinced that we have any less chance of nuclear war with Trump. He may not be planning to declare a no-fly zone over Syria, but he is egotistical, hot-headed, and undisciplined. Russia is not the only nation with nukes who Trump could potentially p*ss off.
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Keeping my fingers crossed. The difference between Trump and Clinton, as Ford said, is that with Clinton the danger was imminent.
I’d be interested in climatologists who say ‘worst-case scenario there may be a chance for long-term human surviva’l if you’d care to share.
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@ Nomad
I’ll be honest: I don’t understand the science at that level. It’s way above my head. So I can only talk about it in a general sense which is the level of my comprehension.
Of course at a certain temperature human life simply couldn’t exist, but I’ve yet to hear anyone argue that for a worst-case scenario. What they are saying is the temperature will increase quickly enough to cause a massive rise in ocean levels, and there will most likely be a major reduction of the human population due to famine, disease, etc. However, there should be small human groups that survive the die-off, probably isolate groups. Whether those groups manage to survive beyond a couple hundred years is the question. It’s doable but not guaranteed. Civilization as we know it, though, is a goner.
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“I’d be interested in climatologists who say ‘worst-case scenario there may be a chance for long-term human survival if you’d care to share.”
“I’ll be honest: I don’t understand the science at that level. It’s way above my head. ”
LOL! What happened to those people who “specialize in climatology” who “say that in a worst-case scenario there may be a chance for long-term human survival.”
Pure dishonesty as usual.
Take note.
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“Glen Ford does not always stick to the facts. Sometimes he becomes hysterical, as shown by what you yourself quoted:
“Back in 2007, when Obama and Clinton were pretending to be ideological opponents — as cookie-cutter corporate Democrats often do — we at Black Agenda Report wrote that “There’s not a dime’s worth of difference” between the two. Every decent, peace-loving person on Earth should be glad to be rid of both of them. Humanity would probably not survive another year of either one.”
Black Agenda Report was hysterical then and it is being hysterical now. If the world cannot survive Clinton, it is far less likely to survive Trump, who has way less understanding of foreign policy and who will turn back the clock on what little progress has been made on global warming.”
Abagond, you are right to point out that the hyperbole was over the top in this Glen Ford comment. Are you, or anyone else, exempt from such exaggerations? I think not. Your statements on Republican presidential candidates aren’t that different from Ford’s. I’ll quote from your endorsement of Obama in the 2012 election: ”
Romney is a shameless liar. On top of that he will not make more than two years of his tax returns public. If he wins it will set the bar for president to a new low. As president he would be dangerous: I would not even buy a used car from him – why on earth would I trust the whole country to him?
Romney has no character:
He puts his money in banks overseas to avoid paying taxes, making the rest of us pay his fair share.
He lived in a mansion in France during the Vietnam War, letting others fight and die for his country.
He will say anything to get elected, meaning he stands for nothing and thinks the ends justify the means.
Republicans do not care about America: During the debt ceiling crisis the Republicans knowingly did harm to the country’s credit rating in order to make Obama a one-term president. People like that should not even be in Congress.
Voter suppression – the war on democracy: Republicans are trying to stop people from voting – voter ID laws, limiting early voting, putting up frightening billboards, etc. They cannot be trusted to make our laws or appoint judges to the Supreme Court. People have fought too long and too hard for the right to vote.
I am not happy with Obama but Romney would be worse: In most of the ways that Obama is bad – drones, Guantanamo, doing little about the War on Drugs, the apparent crackdown on the Occupy movement, assassinating American citizens, support for Israel, etc – Romney would be the same or worse. Obama these past four years has been way more like Bush than I would have liked, but Romney, with all his former Bush advisers, would be worse.
Even where I think I agree with Romney it is hard to tell: I am against Obama on things like abortion and same-sex marriage – but Romney’s back-and-forth positions on these things reads like an Onion article. Because deep down he stands for nothing but becoming president.
I want to help Obama win the popular vote: I live in the blue north-east which Obama is expected to carry. But he could win the electoral college vote and lose the popular vote – something we would never hear the end of.
Romney is only for rich white people. Certainly not for blacks and Latinos – or even most white people.”
You couldn’t prove most of the claims you made. No way you could prove that Romney would have been worse, so you substituted an opinion for a fact.
What did the Clintons do to make people apprehensive about an HRC administration starting WW III with Russia? Let’s start with the enlargement of NATO (http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-shifrinson-russia-us-nato-deal–20160530-snap-story.html) starting before Bill Clinton’s term in office up to the regime change operation in Ukraine under Obama. How about HRC’s talk of “no fly zones” in Syria? Let’s not forget the overthrow of Gaddafi. Glen Ford may have exaggerated, but not by much, at least, no more than you have. I don’t buy Nomad’s claim that Trump is different. The current state of hostility with Russia was built over Democrat as well as Republican terms in office.
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Of course Trump is different on this issue. Trump wants to work with Russia. Clinton wanted to attack Russia. It’s a matter of public record.
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“Of course Trump is different on this issue. Trump wants to work with Russia. Clinton wanted to attack Russia. It’s a matter of public record.”
You believe he can just snap his fingers and the bureaucracy will fall in line, I don’t. Assuming he’s sincere, he’ll find that he may order but won’t be obeyed. He can also be presented with faits accomplis where his decisions are already made for him.
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that’s quite a meme you got going there. trump wrong even when hes right.
and he would do wrong if he had been in position to do so.
ever heard the expression give the devil his due?
as I say, its public record. he said he wanted to work with Russia. and he got lambasted for it. while Clinton was threatened to attack Russia militarily over her fake dnc hack ruse. the difference between the two is public record.
whether he can snap his fingers is a non sequitur
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@ Abagond
All kind of racists and even fascists are coming out these days. Look at
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/17/politics/trump-supporter-internment-muslim-registry/index.html
The road ahead will very rough it seems.
Instead of loosing time speaking again and again about the bad woman, who actually is not a piece on the chessboard anymore, people should concentrate themselves with the actual pieces which remain on it. The future depends on them.
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“whether he can snap his fingers is a non sequitur”
We’ll just have to wait and see won’t we. My logic is rusty, so break it down for me how my conclusion doesn’t follow from what you assume is my premise? Given the fact that field commanders have the power to use tactical nuclear weapons, what could Trump do if one of them, say, in a Baltic state used one against Russia?
“If a relatively junior officer in control of a small tactical nuclear weapon (e.g., the M29 Davy Crockett) were in imminent danger of being overwhelmed by enemy forces, he could request permission to fire it and due to decentralised control of warhead authorization, his request might quickly be granted during a crisis.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tactical_nuclear_weapon
That would be a fait accompli unless Russia decided to overlook such attack and didn’t escalate.
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sure why not. the premise was mine. trump is different from Hillary. what he proceeds to do with that difference (snap fingers) is a different albeit tangential subject based on what you assume I think that difference means.
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Welcome to another edition of Hillary Clinton was leading us to World War 3. This episode featuring Andrew Levine.
“The good news is that Hillary Clinton won’t be starting World War III. ”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/18/trouble-ahead-with-trump-and-for-him/
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Yet another sign that Trump is seriously about his racist rhetoric: he has just named Senator Jeff Sessions as attorney general. I will be doing post on him, probably later today.
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A position echoed by Pepe Escobar
(http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/11/18/trouble-ahead-with-trump-and-for-him/)
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Oops. …another edition of Hillary Clinton was leading us to World War 3. A position echoed by Pepe Escobar
(https://youtu.be/T28pzdHaPkI?t=23m23s)
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He is taking flak over kushner and clearances for his kin. They compared him to jfk appointing rfk to ag this morning on the news.
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“sure why not. the premise was mine. trump is different from Hillary. what he proceeds to do with that difference (snap fingers) is a different albeit tangential subject based on what you assume I think that difference means.”
Thanks, nomad for clearing up the fact that you were having an internal conversation instead of responding to what I wrote. Carry on.
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” on Thu 17 Nov 2016 at 12:51:25
abagond
Jonah Goldberg’s column in the right-wing National Review on the subject of this post:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442210/racism-elected-donald-trump-according-people-who-make-everything-about-race
While I hardly expect him to agree with me, I was disappointed in this column because he makes no serious attempt to understand the other side.”
My advice to you is the same I gave Jacques when he made the same complaint against you: Re-write.
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gro jo
“Thanks, nomad for clearing up the fact that you were having an internal conversation instead of responding to what I wrote. Carry on.”
no. I made a point -Clinton threatened war with Russia, trump wanted to work with Russia- which you contradicted with a point that did not address the assertion. beyond that point -what trump will snap his fingers to do in the future- I have advanced no opinion one way or the other. that is an entirely different subject. i’ll leave such speculations to you and others for now.
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“…about the bad woman, who actually is not a piece on the chessboard anymore, people should concentrate themselves with the actual pieces which remain on it.”
.
re: your flawed chess analogy
Are you not aware that as long as at least one pawn upon the chessboard persists in reaching a certain rank, any major piece can be reinstated back on to the board and returned to the existing game?? (It’s called pawn promotion.)
There is no permanent loss of a piece unless all pawns are captured, or rendered immovable, or the game has ended. So unless the game is over, or all the pawns are captured, or rendered immovable there’s a chance that HC might again find herself back in the game… Heaven forbid!!
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“I made a point -Clinton threatened war with Russia, trump wanted to work with Russia- which you contradicted with a point that did not address the assertion.”
I didn’t contradict your claim that Trump wants to work with Russia. I did point out that what he wants and what’s likely to happen doesn’t solely depend on his will. He can come up with a plan to make the USA and Russia friends for the next hundred years, doesn’t mean that the Senate and House will go along. Go back to thinking aloud.
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A post on retired General Michael Flynn who Trump appointed N!ional Security Advisor would be good.
“Fear of Muslims is rational” Michael Flynn
A national registry for Muslims just got a little close to becoming reality.
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This argument about who would be more war like, Trump or Clinton, misses the obvious.
“War is the health of the State.” Randolph Bourne
http://fair-use.org/randolph-bourne/the-state/
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@ micheljonbarker
Yes. I will do posts on Flynn and Sessions and whoever Trump picks to head Treasury and State, and maybe the EPA, FCC and Education too. When I am done I will have posts on at least five of his top men. I already have a post on Steve Bannon.
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@ Fan @ gro jo
I HOPE I am being hysterical about Trump. The early signs are not good, but only time will tell.
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@gro jo
” I didn’t contradict your claim that Trump wants to work with Russia.”
Sure you did. You said
” I don’t buy Nomad’s claim that Trump is different.”
That’s the only claim of difference I ever made. Otherwise you’re putting words , or rather assumptions, in my mouth. Which I don’t allow.
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@Origin
What planet have you been living on? Trump does not even talk to BLM protesters. Instead, when his supporters beat one of them up, he said:
More:
How is that any different from Trump, who used to be a Democrat and pro-choice?
The Black Friend argument? Seriously?
Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are racists. So are most White people. But Trump is easily the most openly racist person to run for president in nearly 50 years, since George Wallace in 1968 (not counting little-known third-party candidates). His victory gives him a mandate to carry all that stuff out: the Wall, deporting 11+ million people, the Muslim registry, banning Muslims, stop-and-frisk nationwide, etc. And, if you look at his early appointments, he was not just saying that stuff to get elected either. He means it. Hillary Clinton was nowhere near that level of racism, not in 2016.
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@ Origin
I agree that most of the media was in the tank for Hillary, but they were not making up the stuff that came right out of his mouth. Watching his stump speech shows that they did not get it twisted. He is arguably the most covered, most unfiltered person ever to run for president.
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I don’t see how my claiming that Trump isn’t different contradicts your claim that he wants to work with Russia. Remember HRC’s “reset button”? She wanted to work with Russia on her on term, is Trump different? I don’t buy it. Your habit of thinking aloud is preventing you from understanding what others are saying. Nobody put words in your mouth. I disagreed with your assessment of Trump. I don’t really care if you allow that or not.
“abagond
@ Fan @ gro jo
I HOPE I am being hysterical about Trump. The early signs are not good, but only time will tell.”
You underestimate what a threat Trump is to Civil Rights. The era of peaceful race relations in the USA is at an end. You write as if you don’t really believe your claim that Trump is a racist who won by appealing to racist sentiments. The only thing I disagree with you on is your claim that these racist whites had it so good that they have no legitimate complaints. A lot of the states Trump won have very low black populations.
Montana’s black population is 0.4%, North Dakota 2.4%, etc. Blacks can hardly be a serious threat to people living in places like that, except as symbols of all that’s wrong with life as they experience it.
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“His victory gives him a mandate to carry all that stuff out: the Wall, deporting 11+ million people, the Muslim registry, banning Muslims, stop-and-frisk nationwide, etc. And, if you look at his early appointments, he was not just saying that stuff to get elected either. He means it. Hillary Clinton was nowhere near that level of racism, not in 2016.”
That’s bull. His victory doesn’t give him a mandate to do anything. Where does it say that resistance is futile? Trump should be given a very hard time on the national front and a pass on international matters as long as he doesn’t try to start a new war somewhere. You pretend that Obama didn’t deport some 3 million, why?
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Abagond wrote:
“I HOPE I am being hysterical about Trump. The early signs are not good, but only time will tell.”
@ Abagond,
I didn’t find Black Agenda Report in any way hysterical, in the past or present. You, on the other hand, ventured into PANIC mode as if Trump’s ascension to the oval office would invariably net all 13-14 million Black people in Amerika living/working without wages on southern plantations picking cotton… or something.
And by the way, you’d be doing cyberspace a tremendous public service if you were half as hysterical about HC as you are Trump.
dailyinfo.co/clinton-body-bags-woman-investigating-clinton-foundation-child-trafficking-found-dead
Of course all you Hillarites will dismiss this peculiar death as another mere coincidence – in a very long line of unfathomable coincidences. After all, she’s no longer a viable working piece on someone’s imaginary chessboard!
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I actually think that Trump got in because his voters treated the election like buying a Cable TV package.
Say you really want to watch a particular show, but in order to get it, you can only get a package of other channels you never intended to watch and in fact, some that you may not like.
But you really want that show. So you buy the package and live with the other stuff.
The voters who carried Trump to victory did so only on a chance for the Economy to improve for themselves. The extra baggage they could put up with.
Now, Trump is putting the extra baggage in charge of shit.
When former KKK imperial Wizard David Duke embraces a president elect, that says something significant.
It’s significant that white supremacists are excited about the president elect. It is significant that they are excited about his top adviser. It is significant that they are excited about his national security adviser.
It is significant because Trump is doing something to win all this approval.
When white supremacists in general are like “whoa, this Trump guy is our dream come true and doing things we never thought we’d see from a president,” that signifies something about Donald Trump.
They’re not just trolling here.
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@abagond
I was not making the “black friend” argument to prove he wasn’t racist. Read carefully. I was saying his racism was of that kind.
@abagond
“What planet have you been living on? Trump does not even talk to BLM protesters. Instead, when his supporters beat one of them up, he said: ”
Yes, Hillary meets with them for show and Trump doesn’t bother.
IIRC, there was a leak related to this. Whether one believes the leaks or not, I think it is consistent with what we have observed.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/dnc-black-lives-matter-memo_us_57c6f80de4b078581f1072ca
There’s your “choice”. As someone, possibly nomad, said, “stab in the back racism”, vs a more direct variety. Many people are more comfortable with the former, but that might be a problem in itself because of the sedative effect it has. However, enough people grew intolerant of both so that minorities failed to support the Democratic Party at the same level as before (though the effect of voter suppression is hard to gauge). Perhaps, the dog and pony show is no longer as effective as it once was esp. after two terms of president Obama.
@abagond
“I agree that most of the media was in the tank for Hillary, but they were not making up the stuff that came right out of his mouth. ”
Hillary Clinton said she “will only talk to white people”. Imagine that soundbite taken out of context and played over and over again. Even if stupid, racist, sexist words are genuinely yours, it is quite possible for them to be used for propaganda purposes. That was media’s role over this election cycle.
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@gro jo
“The era of peaceful race relations in the USA is at an end.”
LOL!!! And when exactly did it begin?
A majority of Americans were admittedly anti-black long before Trump was elected, which doesn’t include all those who wouldn’t admit it. And hate crimes against blacks and unequal treatment by the phony justice system also have been prevalent long before Trump was elected.
Looks like your naivete is turning into complete delusion.
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@gro jo
“I don’t see ”
Yes. I agree
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“nomad
@gro jo
“I don’t see ”
Yes. I agree”
Being ‘cute’ now eh?
“LOL!!! And when exactly did it begin? ”
The Civil Rights Era circa 1956 to the present.
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chuckle>
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The individuals Trump is surrounding himself with are Authortarian in character, hold Islamophobic and racialist views, support expanding police powers and will bring the hammer down if America is “threatened”.
They may not move right away in that direction but will make sure the infrastructure is in place to “make America safe again”. So the next “terrorist” attack that happens under Trump’s watch will trigger a crack down bringing about many of the things we worry about. Due process be dammed and civil liberties curtailed to those who are not white and were not born here.
Trump has sown fear and he can’t wait to wield power to fix it. The people around him are paranoid and drink their own Kool aid.
It’s surreal because we are watching this in real time as he puts together his administration. Its like a perfect storm of facisim is building and people are saying “well maybe the storm will veer off another direction and miss us and others are still stuck on Clinton thinking “thank God Hillary wasn’t elected” were safe ect. Meanwhile all appoinments show the players who will bring about the great society of white centric nationalism.
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@michaeljonbarker
“…a perfect storm of facisim is building and people are saying “well maybe the storm will veer off another direction and miss us and others are still stuck on Clinton thinking “thank God Hillary wasn’t elected” were safe…”
I agree. It is time to leave the election, conspiracy theories and hatred of die frau behind. It is time to come up with a plan of action that defends and protects the Black community, Mexican Americans, Muslim Americans, Native Americans and women and men who want to live in a true democracy.
The toxic, muddy waters of racism and theocracy are rising fast. There is precious little time for self-indulgent “discussions” about HRClinton. The time to prepare for resistance is now.
What can all of us do for two hours every week that preserves and protects our lives and our liberties?
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@”The Civil Rights Era circa 1956 to the present.”
Don’t make me laugh!! Bull Connor didn’t even get into office until 1957, so please tell the Freedom Riders that the “era of peaceful race relations” began in 1956.
Just in the last 15 years alone, the number of hate groups has doubled. And in the last 20 years alone, nearly 90,000 hate crimes have been committed, the majority against blacks.
If you’re black, you need your wake-up call. If not, it’s no wonder you’re so delusional.
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“resw
@”The Civil Rights Era circa 1956 to the present.”
Don’t make me laugh!! Bull Connor didn’t even get into office until 1957, so please tell the Freedom Riders that the “era of peaceful race relations” began in 1956. ”
You ignorant little minx you, is it surprising that I love you so? When you compare our era with past ones, it is, indeed, peaceful. Why, Blacks actually won some major victories during that time! To you, such things are mere details.
“If you’re black, you need your wake-up call. If not, it’s no wonder you’re so delusional.”
Says the woman who thinks Trump is a great guy! Did you find Donald’s favorite slipper? Did he reward you by scratching your ear?
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@gro jo
“Says the woman who thinks Trump is a great guy!”
Quote it.
“Did you find Donald’s favorite slipper? ”
Not sure how that explains your delusion about such “peaceful race relations” that started in 1956, but you might want to find a new comeback. This is at least the 4th time you’ve used that one, and we both know you can do better than that.
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Sweetie, it seems that you are innumerate, I only used that gag twice. To please you, this is the last time I’ll do so.
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@Cooper
You made a great post. Here you have to spend so much more money, especially housing. I still live with my parents just to get by. Bundled living is very popular among the ethnic colored community…
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@ TBD
Hey Son!!
{{ wink, wink }} ;-D
“Bundled living is very popular among the ethnic colored community…”
Since you seem to think so, tell your ma and (step) pa that your real Pops might be moving in …
See ya soon, hopefully! lol
Tell your little boyfriend, Ragag (aka Sinbad the pirate), I’ll SEE him later!
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Gee, I missed the part where somebody said “thank God Hillary wasn’t elected” were safe. Whoever said that is crazy.
Thank God Hillary wasn’t elected, we avoided WW III. But We’re far from safe.
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@Afrofem
“I agree. It is time to leave the election, conspiracy theories and hatred of die frau behind. It is time to come up with a plan of action that defends and protects the Black community, Mexican Americans, Muslim Americans, Native Americans and women and men who want to live in a true democracy.
The toxic, muddy waters of racism and theocracy are rising fast. There is precious little time for self-indulgent “discussions” about HRClinton. The time to prepare for resistance is now. ”
I think it’s important to recall the point of this thread. Everyone talking about the election and why Hillary Clinton lost it are entirely on topic. That’s literally what it’s about. Abagond made a claim and it is being refuted or supported in the comments. Nobody highjacked a thread to talk about how HRC and the Democratic Party contributed to her defeat and it wasn’t just about racism. So while I agree that the other conversation is necessary, this thread is entirely appropriate for talking about the outcome of the election.
Anyway, were all the people who’re freaking out now as worried when Obama’s adminstration was prosecuting more whistle-blowers than any previous administration? Were they as worried when he kept pulling the wool over our eyes with regard to another form of theocracy, radical Islam with its stated goal of destroying democracy and willlngness to employ terrorism even against other Muslims (see Ataturk airport bombing and Boko Haram)? Were they freaking out when Clinton’s foundation was accepting a 10-25 million dollar donation from the Saudi government, as documented on its own website, while admitting in private that they were supporting terrorism? If they’re concerned about draconian immigration policies, were they freaking out when Obama’s administration deported more people than any previous president’s?
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-deportation-policy-numbers/story?id=41715661
It is through betrayal of the demographics with whom they feigned identification that the Democrats’ coalition weakened and they opened the door for Trump. And they continue, because they gave sheepdog Bernie Sanders a PR position while giving Wall Street representative, Chuck Schumer, the real position of power as Senate minority leader. Meanwhile they want a Muslim, who praised the disastrous Libyan regime change and supported the Syrian no-fly-zone which will “kill many Syrians”, to be DNC chair. It’s literally the party of manipulative identity politics.
So I am happy that people are freaking out now that the wolves in sheep’s clothing are out of power and they just see a wolf. I am happy that people are fearful instead of breathing sighs of relief. It means that we’re finally waking up because we have a “wicked white man”, HITLER, in power again instead of a black man or a white woman.
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” It means that we’re finally waking up because we have a “wicked white man”, HITLER, in power again instead of a” wicked black man or a wicked white woman.
We like our wicked leaders to be politically correct.
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@gro jo
You said it twice yesterday, and you’ve used it prior to then, as you know. But I can’t blame you for trying to distract from your idiotic comment that there’s been “peaceful race relations” since 1956 and your even dumber attempt to explain it.
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“You, on the other hand, ventured into PANIC mode as if Trump’s ascension to the oval office would invariably net all 13-14 million Black people in Amerika living/working without wages on southern plantations picking cotton… or something.”
Fan, what did you do with the other 23,685,848 Blacks?
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/11/18/1601381/-Morning-Joe-Full-blown-meltdown-if-Trump-appoints-loyalists-that-have-said-some-crack-pot-things?detail=email&link_id=3&can_id=3e7373161ddecdadb8a7aeba6309bab7&source=email-cartoon-not-helping&email_referrer=cartoon-not-helping&email_subject=cartoon-not-helping
Has the sleeping giant awaken yet or are we still celebrating the good riddance of that lying terrible Hillary!
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@ Origin
What I noticed in Abagond’s original post of eight paragraphs was a focus on the propaganda effort by many White people (left and right) to repress the fear, shock and apprehension of Black, Latino, LGBT, Native and Muslim Americans with patently false analyses that center class as a reason for Trump’s victory over race. I see “class” propaganda as attempts to confuse and soothe groups who have legitimate reasons to worry about the full implications of a Trump-Pence administration.
Whether race was top of mind for the millions of White Americans who voted for Trump or not, I think race was still a part of their calculations when they decided that Trump would “make America great again”. That slogan was the biggest racist dogwhistle of all from a candidate who supposedly “told it like it is”. Left unsaid is “great for whom”?
I have read article after article in the past week about how White people who are hurting economically. News Flash——many people of all ethnicities below the top ten percent are facing economic fear, uncertainty or devastation. From my perspective a lot of those Trump supporters shot themselves in one foot and want to kick everyone else with the other. Over the past generation, they had the numbers and the electoral power to make things better for themselves and everyone else in this country. Instead they let their own wealthy cousins impoverish and demean them. Now they want to take their frustrations out on people who are suffering more.
While I agree that the comment section of this post was an appropriate place to voice reactions to the past election, I think a pivot to the future is critical right now. How do Black people and others forestall and defend themselves against the possible horrors of a Trump administration? Especially after Obama and his predecessors codified dictatorial powers in the executive branch? I discussed Obama’s contribution to this debacle in this comment in the Maya Angelou thread:
☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎☔︎
”So I am happy that people are freaking out now that the wolves in sheep’s clothing are out of power and they just see a wolf. I am happy that people are fearful instead of breathing sighs of relief. It means that we’re finally waking up…”
Yes. There is nothing like a backside-to-the-wall moment to jolt people into reality. A lot of Americans have been slipping, sliding and sleepwalking toward fascism for the past thirty-five years. Now we are close to the bottom. Sometimes people have to hit bottom to realize they have to make fundamental changes in their lives…and you don’t hit bottom without experiencing pain.
We will have plenty of pain in the coming years… and opportunity.
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@ Afrofem
When we are in the internment camps, Nomad will still be telling us how lucky we are that Hillary lost. 😉
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@ Afrofem
As Shaun King put it, we are expected to sympathize with the White working class after they threw us under the bus.
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Update: In the first week after the election, the Southern Poverty Law Center reported 315 hate incidents, more than 20 times the ordinary rate. Blacks were the number one target.
Trump has named Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, a further sign that he means to carry out his racist rhetoric.
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Explain why somebody living in Montana and North Dakota, where Blacks make up 0.4% and 2.4% of the population, voted for Trump only out of anxiety over their diminishing “privilege” over Blacks? I hate sounding like a broken record, but Blacks only make up 12.2% of the total US population. Confiscating everything Blacks own will not solve the USA’s problems.
You should have opposed dictatorial powers when they were being enacted. These laws were prepared since the 1960s to quell ghetto uprisings. I recall that HRC’s husband and Obama played their part in building the infrastructure for anybody willing to use repressive methods in the USA. I’m curious why people like Abagond persist in claiming that HRC was the bulwark that would protect democratic rights.
Afrofem, your Maya Angelou comment summarized what Obama and others with power did, yet you and Abagond blame ” the White working class after they threw us under the bus.” Please explain?
Abagond, if you have no sympathy for the “White working class after they threw us under the bus”, Who has your sympathy, and why?
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If Trump follows the Hitler playbook, then early in 2017 there will be a terrible incident, probably a terrorist attack, that Trump will use to “temporarily” suspend civil liberties, particularly the right of free speech and peaceful assembly.
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“It seems so much more frightening now that Trump has won. So much more real. Something like that could be happening in an American city a year from now.”
Something like that happened in Philadelphia. http://mashable.com/2016/01/10/1985-move-bombing/#uPz6Zlum8kqd
The joke here is that a black Democrat was mayor at that time.
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@ gro jo
I am not saying I have no sympathy for the White working class. I am saying that it is hypocritical to centre-stage their pain.
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@ gro jo
How many times do I have to say that she was the lesser to two evils? The lesser of two evils is still evil.
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What does lesser of two evils mean? Be concrete. In light of her husband’s signing the1996 law in response to the Oklahoma bombing by Tim Mcveigh. Your lesser evil argument is ridiculous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiterrorism_and_Effective_Death_Penalty_Act_of_1996.
The only sane statement one can make about what some politician will do is wait and see.
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“@ gro jo
I am not saying I nave no sympathy for the White working class. I am saying that it is hypocritical to centre-stage their pain.”
Ok, whose pain should be center stage? Black politicians who will be shut out of appointments to high posts in the incoming administration, women, gays, etc?
Why do you feel that Blacks would be uppermost in the list of grievances of somebody in Montana?
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@Abagond
“…we are expected to sympathize with the White working class after they threw us under the bus.”
That is the sickening tenor of many of those “poor hurting Whites” articles, post election.
They have been so self absorbed for so many years. Trump and company will ramp up the looting to such a degree that the poor hurting Whites will remember the years of the “Kenyan” president with nostalgia.
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@abagond
‘When we are in the internment camps, Nomad will still be telling us how lucky we are that Hillary lost.’
Luckily we’ll never know. But should your hyperbolic apprehension materialize, as miserable as that state is, it is somewhat better than being vaporized in nuclear war. I would not call that state of existence “lucky”. Just “existence”. Just like the lesser evil you imagine Hillary to have been, what you would have in such a case is not “luck” but lesser “unluck”, which is our respite from impending nuclear. And that may not be a long interlude, lasting only as long as it takes for the deep state to turn Trump back to the trajectory of confrontation with Russia pursued by Obama,
Looks like its time for another episode of Clinton was leading us to WW III. Not one of your favorite sites, I know, but nevertheless…
“If it was Hillary Clinton it was going to be World War III. Many US generals said that. Many people inside of Russia said that [ they were actually holding nuclear defense drills] that were very close to Putin…”
The Russians knew the election of Hitlery meant war. The Russians knew what America’s leaders were planning even if Americans didn’t. Willful ignorance’, thy name is America. Exhibit A is failure to understand that Hillary was the greater evil.
(https://youtu.be/EoOvmy50090?t=3m18s)
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@gro jo
“Blacks only make up 12.2% of the total US population. Confiscating everything Blacks own will not solve the USA’s problems.”
gro jo, you tell me why “poor hurting Whites” persist in their irrational attitudes and behaviors when it comes to their fellow Americans of African descent?
What are your thoughts?
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respite from impending nuclear conflagration.
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@ Abagond
“If Trump follows the Hitler playbook, then early in 2017 there will be a terrible incident, probably a terrorist attack, that Trump will use to “temporarily” suspend civil liberties…”
Hollande of France and Erdogon of Turkey are way ahead of the President-elect in using attacks as a pretense for corralling his adversaries.
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Actually almost half of American voters did seem to understand that Hitlery meant war. It was the Hillarions who were willfully ignorant.
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@gro jo
“What does lesser of two evils mean? Be concrete.”
Your use of the Socratic Method is devolving into an “everything but the kitchen sink” argument. The lesser of two evils concept has been defined repeatedly for the past six months in various comment threads.
Are you still truly baffled?
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@nomad
With both candidates we were facing war abroad and repression at home. It was just a matter of which came first…and how.
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Afrofem
not at all. one candidate was running headlong towards war with Russia. the other was saying ‘lets work with russia’. diametrical opposition.
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“With both candidates we were facing war abroad and repression at home. It was just a matter of which came first…and how.”
The wars we are involved in now would look like playground kid squabbles compared to war with Russia.
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Oh the irony of lamenting Trump’s racism.
“…the eight year drought of direct action by Democrats abruptly ended in November of 2016 when someone from the “other” party just barely managed to score a presidential nomination. Facing a loss of power, suddenly, Democrats reappointed themselves as the sole defenders of minorities everywhere and quickly attempted to seize the moral high ground. Faces familiar during the Bush years clawed their way out from under enormous piles of steaming hypocrisy to lecture the world on human rights, faces like Michael Moore, who for the past two elections (2008, 2012) encouraged everyone to go out and vote for the guy blowing the legs off Muslim teenagers in faraway lands with aerial death machines. Protests filled major cities across the US with demonstrators wielding signs about human rights, equality, and social justice, the irony lost on them that the candidate they wanted so badly to win would have been just as dangerous to the very minorities they attempted to champion.”
in other words, Hillary’s, in terms of policy, would be just as racist as Trump
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@nomad
“Actually almost half of American voters did seem to understand that Hitlery meant war. It was the Hillarions who were willfully ignorant.”
When Tulsi Gabbard left her position as DNC vice chairwoman to endorse Bernie Sanders she cited foreign policy, specifically Hillary Clinton’s potential recklessness, as her main concern.
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/02/tulsi-gabbard-backs-sanders-219928
Anyone who was paying attention had to be concerned about her hawkishness. Combine that with her record of supporting segregationists, mass incarceration and trade deals many see as job destroying, and also being under FBI investigation for breaching national security while her foundation is under IRS investigation for “pay to play” all while running for president but holding half as many events in important states than Trump and the best theory for why she lost is racism? Racism needs to join the line as one of the reasons she lost.
This idea that Clinton, someone who a reasonable person could suspect of criminal activity, should have been rewarded with the presidency because Trump said things that offended people is political correctness turned pathological. While I have concerns about Trump’s presidency, I cannot say unequivocally that America made the worse choice. I also reject the notion that this election was a referendum on racism as there was no “anti-racist” option. The vote was not the battleground in that war. What people are saying needs to be done with Trump as president would have been necessary anyway, whether they realized it or not.
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“gro jo, you tell me why “poor hurting Whites” persist in their irrational attitudes and behaviors when it comes to their fellow Americans of African descent?
What are your thoughts?”
History. Why did poor blacks continue to vote for Obama despite all the things you claim he did in your Maya Angelou comment?
“Montana’s black population is 0.4%, North Dakota’s 2.4%, etc. Blacks can hardly be a serious threat to people living in places like that, except as symbols of all that’s wrong with life as they experience it.”
That’s my view on white racism, it’s an irrational fear. Blacks attributing everything whites do mostly to hatred of blacks, as you and Abagond do, is the mirror image of such irrationality, with one serious difference, whites do affect black lives, for good or ill, a hell of a lot more than the other way around. White racism, like anti-semitism, is the “socialism of fools” as German socialists used to say. Unfortunately, people tend to stay foolish longer than necessary.
“@gro jo
“What does lesser of two evils mean? Be concrete.”
Your use of the Socratic Method is devolving into an “everything but the kitchen sink” argument. The lesser of two evils concept has been defined repeatedly for the past six months in various comment threads.
Are you still truly baffled?”
I’m not in the least baffled. The less evil argument is a cowardly dodge people use to make a fetish out of how things stand. Your comment on Angelou documents the bogus nature of such arguments. Turning HRC into an honorary “strong black woman” who would protect us from all the evils of racism is risible. Example after example show that the people in charge don’t give a damn about the lesser beings. Our resident less evilists counter such facts with the ‘brilliant’ reply: “oh, so and so would be much worst.” In other words, I’m doing just fine, don’t rock the boat. Trump happens, indicating that things weren’t as fine as our lesser evilists thought. Panic ensues, everybody is revealed to be a monster. How about blaming the NYT for a change?
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Well yesterday i thought abagond was being a bit snarky vis a vis the concept of trump’s “beer hall putsch” but it WOULD have to outdo 9/11. Im not onboard with this fema camp alarmist vibe at all.
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The SNL skit last night about the news and the racism of trump’s team etc was like so closely aligned with the topic list here as of late, that it was eerie or perhaps some more appropriate adjective
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@Origin
“…this idea that Clinton, someone who a reasonable person could suspect of criminal activity, should have been rewarded with the presidency because Trump said things that offended people is political correctness turned pathological.”
Carl Dix of the Stop Incarceration Network calls it the choice between “slow genocide or fast genocide”. Liberals specialized in the former and Conservatives in the latter.
Many of us are running over the same ground with circular arguments of which is more or less: six in one hand or half dozen in the other. I propose we jump off this merry-go-round of blame and speculation. As you so aptly put it, “What people are saying needs to be done with Trump as president would have been necessary anyway”.
The questions going forward become:
➤how did we get here?
➤what are Trump’s intentions as demonstrated by his actions?
➤what are our options (proactive and reactive)?
➤what resources (mental, physical, emotional, cultural, moral and financial) do we possess?
➤how can we prepare ourselves for the long haul?
➤what will happen if we do nothing?
➤what strategies and tactics can we utilize?
➤can we win?
The “we” I am referring to includes all Americans who want to live in a democratic republic, at peace with the rest of the world and is willing to work to that end.
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@nomad
You have a probing intellect. Those questions apply to you too.
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” Our resident less evilists counter such facts with the ‘brilliant’ reply: “oh, so and so would be much worst.” ”
Hey! That gives me an idea for a horror movie about Hillary’s attempt to steal the presidency. Resident Less Evil.
Or maybe a horror movie about the abominable black president. President Evil..
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@gro jo
“Example after example show that the people in charge don’t give a damn about the lesser beings.”
Sad but true.
Do any of the questions I posed to Origin resonate with you?
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“Do any of the questions I posed to Origin resonate with you?”
Yes they do. Let’s start by getting rid of the notion that Trump won a mandate. HE DID NOT. Trump’s reaction to Pence’s reception at the end of the Hamilton play indicates he’s a thin skinned a***hole. Start by tweeting him to remind him he won on a technicality and he’s not a king, so Lèse-majesté doesn’t apply to him.
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@Afrofem
Demand that the people who represent us make demands. Starting with police reform. We have lost a lot in this election. Thanks to the feckless Obama the Republicans now control Congress and the Presidency. So we don’t have a lot of clout. Essentially we are left to demand of Republicans what we should have been demanding when we had a black prez and a black AG. But no! We could make no demands of them. It would make them look bad. But that’s what we’re left with. A weakened hand. But we still have a black caucus. We have black advocacy orgs like the NAACP. Demand that they get active on our behalf. And be issue driven. Police reform is something all black people can get behind, even affluent neo-blacks. Because police make no class distinction when they approach. Agreed they are not as likely to approach affluent blacks but we have seen examples of them abusing affluent blacks (Gates for example). And white folks too have got to be alarmed at the ingrained brutality of our police force which is often unleashed on them as well. Virtually everybody who is not a part of the criminal injustice system can get behind police reform. That’s the first demand. The second is related. Demand an end to the ‘new jim crow’ incarceration state. Demand that our representatives demand it.
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Abagond wrote,
“If Trump follows the Hitler playbook, then early in 2017 there will be a terrible incident, probably a terrorist attack, that Trump will use to “temporarily” suspend civil liberties, particularly the right of free speech and peaceful assembly.”
If Trump attempted any such thing during the next 12 months there would be rioting on a scale we have never witnessed before. He doesn’t have a mandate and he doesn’t have the majority of Americans behind him.
He needs to gain the American people’s trust first and that may take a few years. Hitler made Germans feel good about themselves and that’s what Trump would have to do to gain trust within the populace.
So how does he do that ? Part of it might be the deregulation the American economy to incentive corperations to hire and expand. He has talked about massive infrastructure spending on an FDR scale. He follows through with paid family leave. He “defeats” ISIS. He doesn’t do away with Obama care but “fixes” it. He deports “criminals” not legally in the U.S. But he creates a path of citizenship for the “dreamers”. He gets China to agree not to manipulate their currency and he calls that a victory. He kills the TPP.
It’s possible Trump could create a mini economic boom that benifits everybody short term. But he will massively increase deficits to do that.
Areas where he could move towards would be a Muslim registry if a home grown terrorist attacks. Americans would mostly support that. He would expand “religious conscious” laws that would allow business to discriminate against gays. That would open up future discrimination against Muslims. Those are the sort of Jim Crow style laws he will persue.
I think class distinctions will protect some POC from out right discrimination as nationalism will allow a large tent tent to those who “assimulate” as productive members of society. Working poor people who are not white won’t be protected and immigrants will be viewed with suspicion.
Major red flags woukd be federalizing all police departments and federal conceal and carry permits to mostly white people.
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So to follow up with what I’m getting at is its possible that during the third or fourth year if Trump’s presidency, if he gains the trust of the American people, that if a 911 event occurred he could maybe get away with a major curtailment of civil rights.
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@Afrofem
Those are very deep questions. The first one alone could sustain an entire book. It provoked many thoughts (9/11, geopolitics of a unipolar world, corporate takeover of government etc.) but couldn’t do it justice at this moment. I’ll keep them in mind though, and return when I have time for a coherent post.
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@Gro jo
“Fan, what did you do with the other 23,685,848 Blacks?”
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…. there’s a secret escape portal in my hidden wall closet that leads to an underground railroad network designed to thwart the white-supremacists bent on subjugating the entire Black race. It’s not easy funneling 24 million souls to freedom on just two side by side 40 acre plots of land in rural Wyoming! … of all places. Surely some nosy person is bound to notice …
Well… there goes that secret! My bad.
THANKS gro jo!
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Correction: Carl Dix of the Stop Mass Incarceration Network
Dix co-founded this organization with Dr. Cornel West
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@gro jo
“Let’s start by getting rid of the notion that Trump won a mandate. HE DID NOT.”
Agreed. That is a weakness for Trump and represents an opportunity for his adversaries.
jefe shared a link on the 2016 Election By County thread that explored the attitudes of some US non-voters. They were majority against Trump.
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@nomad
“Essentially we are left to demand of Republicans what we should have been demanding when we had a black prez and a black AG. But no! We could make no demands of them. It would make them look bad. But that’s what we’re left with. A weakened hand.”
The past eight years have been a sickening spectacle of African American blindness and worship of a false idol. Now we have to face the harsh consequences of letting the “First Black” prez, et. al. off way to easy.
I’m looking for a group to join or support. This will be a group marathon, not an individual sprint.
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@michaeljonbarker
Do you really think the president-elect has the vision or the discipline to work for several years to gain the trust of the American people?
He had a hard time staying on script during the campaign season.
We shall see….
“Major red flags woukd be federalizing all police departments and federal conceal and carry permits to mostly white people.”
Those tasks have already been accomplished through fusion centers and harrassment of registered Black gun owners——-remember Orlando Castile?
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@Origin
Those are questions we all have to consider as we move forward. I will devote some time pondering them myself.
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@Afrofem
Indeed
BTW, I stumbled on this little youtube video of Bill Clinton sounding very Trumpesque a couple decades ago:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZXbG5gvoC0)
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http://images.dailykos.com/images/330193/large/TrumpSupporters.gif?1479675092
This man is going to melt down before he ever reaches his own inaugural.
He’s completely unprepared for not just the duties of the office, not just the pressure of the office, but with being criticised on television.
The Orange Dictator spends his life tweeting against people who don’t like him at 3 a.m in the early hours.
Normally I would be laughing my butt off but Trump, in his dark ways, does not allow for me to indulge in such liberties as he is one “unstable isotope”, capable of anything, anytime.
He would not think anything of going after his detractors with his power as President, and that should have everybody thinking.
He is a sociopath, combined with the guilt free ability to habitually lie about facts and figures. He maintains delusions of grandeur, and believes himself to be a legend in his own mind.
Nobody admires him — not even a lot of the people who voted for him.
Trump voters voiced their anger by having a temper tantrum. They elected a man with no military experience, not governing experience, and no interest in public service, who declared bankruptcy six times according to snopes and politifact. Trump cheats his customers, suppliers, and called for the deaths of five innocent men in the case of the Central Park Five.
There is no way this man makes it through a four-year term in the most pressure-laden office in the nation. He’s found himself in a place where he can’t simply fire his critics.
If the human race lasts long enough, biographers are going to have a field day cataloging his f*ckedupedness.
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Let us consider the facts.
The majority of Blacks live together in areas throughout the United States. Either in major metropolitan areas where the basically live, isolated from Whites, or they live in the Southeast portion of the southern states where they are outnumbered by the Whites in any one state.
In other states the number of Blacks is so minor that if you removed the Blacks who are on the military bases and there families they would not be measurably.
The Black Caucus is too small to make any real difference in the congress and must join forces with some other group to have sufficient power to affect the vote.
The only hope for Blacks is a change in the message that President Elect Trump brings forward as he takes office. Hopefully his desire to be a winner will force him to change his message, because he will not want to have failed Presidency.
The conversation that takes place on this site, while apparently prepared by highly educated individuals, shows a complete lack of understanding about POWER and how it is used to obtain results.
Southern leaders using local politicians have had almost 400 years of manipulating Blacks and poor Whites to gain the upper advantage. They take advantage of loud month individuals who perceive that they have control and when they are finished with them they swat them like flies.
The attempt by the current Democratic Party to gain control of the government has been blocked by the successful destruction of Mrs. Clinton’s reputation using the normal whisper of her being a liar, cheat, and other derogatory means.
This site is full of unsubstantiated statements about the Clinton’s. The far right Republicans have won!
Now going forward every effort needs to be made to remain calm and find ways of modifying the far right agenda by seeking support from those moderate Republicans who find themselves just as unhappy as the Democrats.
As Bernie might say “enough of anti Hillary conversation – let us look forward to the new task”.
Foolishly inciting young Blacks to arm themselves against the threat is not the way to go.
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Well Hip Hop it is nice to just dismiss President Elect as the loser; however his past victories prove you to be misguided.
He is a shrew business person and knows how to use others to accomplish his task. There will be many who will cozy up to him and his only job is to eliminate those of his enemies and use his friends.
Look forward to being surprised by his capabilities. A good manager has little else to do but manage others. The Donald knows how to manage others.
Hopefully he will change his rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other negative aspects of his run for the office.
Since he tweets all night, perhaps he sleeps in the day. Many successful individuals need very little sleep.
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“This site is full of unsubstantiated statements about the Clinton’s.”
Yeah. And you certainly can’t trust WikiLeaks. That’s no substantiation. It’s only substantiated when approved by MSM, They have proved their trustworthiness.
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Correction:
@MJB
“…remember Philando Castile?”
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“Let us consider the facts.
….
The conversation that takes place on this site, while apparently prepared by highly educated individuals, shows a complete lack of understanding about POWER and how it is used to obtain results.
….
The attempt by the current Democratic Party to gain control of the government has been blocked by the successful destruction of Mrs. Clinton’s reputation using the normal whisper of her being a liar, cheat, and other derogatory means.”
.
Right! There sure are a lot of (at least 3 or 4) mean and nasty people here with too much time on their hands deliberately conspiring against HC by spreading all manner of vicious rumors, evil lies and innuendo about this wonderfully innocent and upstanding feminine role model, paragon of all things amazing and without a doubt beyond reproach; the glorious and highly esteemed (by blue pill lovers – everywhere) Mrs Hillary Rodham Clinton
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Fan …You missed the point of the comment. You are so stuck on Mrs Clinton you could not see that the comment concerned the new President Elect and the future.
Give it up Fan, Mrs. Clinton is no longer part of the conversation. We are talking about the future. No one really cares anymore about the past election.
How did you pass up the entire comment and find the one small line concerning Mrs. Clinton?
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when you make a debatable or false statement in a long post you’ve got to expect a response to that part of the post, even if it wasn’t your primary point
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The hatred of Hillary Clinton in some is profoundly irrational. It grasps at anything to feed it. Any wild allegation, any conspiracy theory, any bit of fake news or Russian propaganda will do. No number of Congressional hearings can disprove it. Even her political destruction in an election witnessed by the whole of mankind, even that is not enough to satisfy it. Nearly two weeks later the Hillaryphobes are still baying outside my window.
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hey. he brought it up. and said, falsely, that it was unsubstantiated. I reserve the right to refute that. (excuse me for interjecting, fan. i’m sure you have your own take..)
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@ Allen Shaw
I was hoping it was just rhetoric, but given the appointments of Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions, he seems to be serious.
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Hillary’s was such a spectacular implosion, people are going to be talking about and analyzing it for years to come, Hillarion’s objections notwithstanding.
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Perhaps, if Shaw wanted us to look forward and not backwards, he should have left off this spurious assertion.
“The attempt by the current Democratic Party to gain control of the government has been blocked by the successful destruction of Mrs. Clinton’s reputation using the normal whisper of her being a liar, cheat, and other derogatory means.
This site is full of unsubstantiated statements about the Clinton’s.”
The fact that she stole the primary from Bernie proves that she is a liar and a cheat. There is nothing unsubstantiated about it. And I, for one, have not been whispering, and don’t intend to start now.
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“hey. he brought it up. and said, falsely, that it was unsubstantiated. ”
@ nomad
Like his other false gem: having to do with “the normal whisper of her …”
On a scale of 0-10, I give that statement a -2 for Shaw’s incredulous originality and an 150 for just plain ole stupidity!
(“..the successful destruction of Mrs. Clinton’s reputation using the normal whisper of her being a liar, cheat, and other derogatory means.”)
Should an abnormal whisper been utilized instead???
That’s like saying the people of the US (the normal whisper of …) caused the president of the US to drop bombs and killer drones on some Muslim women and children in the Middle East.
You, Shaw, have stuck your own head so far up your hinder parts, it will take months for a Jaws of Life emergency super-tool to surgically extract it. It’s no wonder why you’re so stuck on stupid.
@ Abagond
“Any wild allegation, any conspiracy theory, any bit of fake news or Russian propaganda will do.”
Honestly, I had thought you were way smarter than that. Oh well ..
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WikiLeaks. imagine if stuff like this was coming out on Trump? Hillarions would be reporting it as fact, rather than “unsubstantiated”. And they may get that chance. The investigation of Hillary is not over and it may eventually implicate many of the elite. Including Trump, who as you know, is known to have run in the same circles as the Clintons.
“imagine how many people would never stop digging if they forced her into the Oval Office, when the stuff we’ve already found is damning to the highest levels of the globe’s evil power structure…
Was Clinton’s defeat a triumph of democracy or simply a last-minute switch by the ones running the voting software?
Some of the Wikileaks material, such as the bizarre Podesta “Spirit Cooking” dinners, imply at best some very strange tastes, and at worst a level of weird in these people most of us had never guessed at. Did some of Hillary’s well-placed supporters decide in the final days she and her chums were just too much of a liability? Is that why she ended losing an election she seemed to be certain of winning?”
(https://youtu.be/nDB8XiFMNvs)
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^^^ That last YouTube video linked to by Nomad comes from TruthStreamMedia. According to RationalWiki:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/TruthStreamMedia
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Lecture everyone to move on (from Hillary Clinton) then come back in the thread to re-introduce the issue by chastising people for having good the good sense question her trustworthiness. Then when they respond to these attacks on their rationality by substantiating their reasons, rinse and repeat with the claim that they should move on because they election is over. The Hillary Protection Force is anything but subtle.
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@abagond
Why I’m still talking about Hillary. Your premise for this post is that Hillary lost due to racism. My contention is that that is true only to a degree. She also lost because of Hillary. What she did and didn’t do is at least as responsible for her loss as racism. Also you keep dismissing this critique of Hillary as irrational, thus inviting further discussion of her. I submit that it is not my critique of Hillary that is irrational but your minimalization of her malfeasance and your continued defense of someone you said that you hated, even after the election is over. That’s irrational.
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^^^ That last YouTube video linked to by Nomad comes from TruthStreamMedia.
you have to go to sites like that for news our MSM hides from us.
I note that OffGuardian, which is a leftist site, didn’t find it too objectionable.
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actually I didn’t go to Truthstream, come to think of it. I went to OffGuardian.
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“news” in quotes. I guess truthstream is going to be one of the “fake news” site the elite’s latest psy-op aims to shut down. heck, they may even decide that “Abagond” is fake news.
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@Origin and Nomad
This argument sounds much more irrational: yes Hillary’s bad and racist but she uses more “dog whistles” than Trump. She’s committed crimes but since no one in her buddy’s administration wants to charge her, you should move on.
She’s done worst things to black and brown people but Trump will do worse if given power, not because of any evidence but because of perception.
And don’t forget he’ll send people to “internment camps.”
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It’s the food dummies!
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@ resw
Perception? Trump did not just use racist dog whistles, he used racist foghorns. And it was not just rhetoric either, given his appointment of Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions.
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@abagond
“Trump did not just use racist dog whistles, he used racist foghorns. ”
So Hillary is less racist because she uses more racist dog whistles. Got it.
“And it was not just rhetoric either, given his appointment of Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions.”
I guess that somehow constitutes as evidence Trump will WORSE than what Clinton has already done or would have done. Got it.
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@ nomad
SOME Trump voters were voting for him as the lesser of two evils, but MOST (73%) were not, as I noted above:
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@resw
They’re justifiably worried about Trump’s “internment camps” when America has such a high incarceration rate thanks, in part, to the Clintons, that they’re almost already here in all but name. Of course, Hillary Clinton wanted to make amends by ending private prisons while continuing to accept their donations because they’re stupid and support politicians who’ll threaten their business. It’s all making sense now.
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@ resw
Someone who puts racists rhetoric and threats at the heart of his campaign is probably going to be more racist once in office than someone who did not.
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@ resw
If Clinton dog whistles gave us mass incarceration, then I shudder to think what Trump’s foghorns will give us. But that is just me.
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@abagond
“SOME Trump voters were voting for him as the lesser of two evils, but MOST (73%) were not, as I noted above:”
that doesn’t mean it was all racism that caused people to vote for Trump. TTP was a big issue. wanting to work with Russia and not start WWIII was another big issue that made him attractive to whites, to some Hispanics and a few blacks, some of them rather prominent. not every one who voted specifically for Trump did so because of race. aside from the racial thing, in aggregation he had a better platform.
now tell me you’re not glad for the death of the TTP.
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@abagond
“If Clinton dog whistles gave us mass incarceration, then I shudder to think what Trump’s foghorns will give us.”
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’ve said that before. But somehow you did not “shudder to think” of “internment camps”.
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@ resw
The internment camp thing, if you notice, was a joke, at least at my end, gallows humour.
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@ resw
But the Muslim registry is a prelude to internment camps, which in turn is a prelude to genocide:
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No, I didn’t notice it was a joke. You’re the same one who’s compared Trump to Hitler, complained for months how he’d be so much worse than Hillary, but are now unwilling to say what it is you’re so afraid of that is not already happening now.
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@abagond
“But the Muslim registry is a prelude to internment camps”
I’m glad you’re concerned with a hypothetical Muslim registry, although I’m pretty sure Trump denied that claim.
What about reality? Are you equally concerned that the US government keeps a registry of black people, and according to all reliable studies, executes the law unfairly towards them, incarcerates and kills them at much higher rates? There’s much more evidence to suggest genocide against black (and red) people than against any other group.
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Herneith,
it’s not the food…. it’s the tap shoes, they’re too tight
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@Lord of Mirkwood
Whenever we talk about the plight of blacks in America, here you are again to derail things. We know this doesn’t interest you, as you’ve proved over and over again what an anti-black racist your klan parents raised you to be.
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“abagond
@ Allen Shaw
“Hopefully he will change his rhetoric about immigrants, Muslims and other negative aspects of his run for the office.”
I was hoping it was just rhetoric, but given the appointments of Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions, he seems to be serious.”
Yes, no matter how much hand wringing everyone does now the die is cast. President Elect Trump is going to be President and the children in the school yard are going to learn a political lesson.
Celebrate that “hateful hillary” is not going to be the president. A new more dynamic honest, capable person and a new party are taking over. I believe that is what most of the individuals were asking for on this site.
Even if they did not know it!
Be happy!
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@nomad
Re: the “spirit cookiing” and Podesta craziness.
I’ve basically been ignoring that **** because I couldn’t even bother with their wacky extra-curricular activities. Then I saw the term “pizzagate” somewhere and it was such a peculiar term that I looked up what it was about. Turns out some people believe there was child sex exploitation going on and some of the terms in the Wikileaks emails are code for child abse. Perhaps sex crimes investigators could recognize such terms immediately but they meant nothing to me.
However, just before I left the page I saw a name, Madeleine McCann, and since I’d already closed the window I decided to google it to see how it could possibly related to what they were talking about. I hit the Wikipedia page and my memory was refreshed that she was a little girl that had gone missing. “Not sure what this has to do with Washington politics”, I thought, as I scrolled down the Wikipedia page while getting ready to close it.
Then I saw something that made me go “F***” out loud. Back in 2013, during the investigation a couple eyewitnesses had reported seeing men with a young girl. The investigators had created images based on their descriptions.
Those computer generated images are DEAD ringers for John and Tony Podesta.
Now I understood why the “conspiracy theorists” mentioned Madeleine McCann.
Evidence? No. But damn uncanny. Combine that with alleged pedo codewords in John Podesta’s Wikileaks emails and I understand why some folks are up-in-arms and wanting an investigation. Were the Podestas in Praia da Luz, where Madeleine McCann disappeared, when she went missing? That’s obviously an important question and one that should be possible to answer. I kind of wish I’d ignored the Podesta craziness because I’m deeply disturbed if there is any thread of truth to this.
[Sorry for the off topic guys, but yes, they seem to be a seedy bunch]
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Strike that last sentence, I’m glad I didn’t ignore it. There should be an investigation. They “fit the description” far more than many others, especially black others, who’ve died for it. Ugh.
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That’s why I say the Clinton investigation will implicate some other elites, which maybe why, as truthstream hypothesizes, they threw Clinton under the bus and made a last-minute switch with control of voting software and installed Trump.
“Strike that last sentence, I’m glad I didn’t ignore it. There should be an investigation.”
In that same vein, sorry for going off topic, Abagond, but this, the following of Biden caught on hot mike, shocked me. What kind of people do we have representing us? And this is probably why the elite want to stifle citizen journalism by classifying it as fake news. Whereas MSM won’t report this pedophilia, alternative media will. And this implicates some very high elites. That is why they have reacted with this new psy-op called anti-fake news. They want thier unbelievable depravity to remain hidden.
I was just watching this video with mild interest but my jaw dropped when I saw the part about Joe Biden. WTF? I posted it on the Joe Biden thread and I’m sure it was overlooked. I hope Abagond doesn’t mind my reposting it here. It’s really really creepy.
(https://youtu.be/tyh1dzNTTEI?t=26m)
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@ Afrofem
One thing we need to do is restore voters’ rights.
Over the weekend I heard a disturbing story from one of my in-laws. About a month before the election, she decided that due to the tenor of the campaign rhetoric and in light of her Hispanic name, it would be a good idea to verify her voter’s registration just in case, even though she’d never had trouble in the past. When she did, she was informed that her registration wasn’t valid because her name on her voter’s card didn’t match the one on her driver’s license. The difference turned out to be an “i” mistaken for an “l” — but it had always been correctly spelled in the past. In the state where she lives, there would have been no attempt to inform her ahead of time, so if she hadn’t taken a proactive step, she would have only discovered this on election day and most likely been denied her right to vote.
This is where it gets really scary: she mentioned her experience to a number of her coworkers, some of whom decided they should also check ahead of time. Five of those individuals were also informed that the names didn’t match, and all turned out to be the same type of simple clerical error. What did these five cowrkers have in common? They had either Hispanic or Arabic (i.e., “Muslim”) names.
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@lord of mirkwood
The “high road” would have been for you not to personally attack me in the first place. It’s no coincidence you popped up as soon as I spoke of the US government’s unfair treatment of blacks, as you love doing.
It’s the same old trick you evil racist white trolls use. Too bad you can’t play these little games on your own blog since no one else reads it.
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@abagond
That’s very funny you deleted your comment. I see you.
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@Solitaire
Crosscheck
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@Solitaire
I wish I could say I was surprised. I think there was massive voter suppression this past election. Likely in the millions.
The corporate media ignored it because they are subservient to power.
Your in-law was wise to check her status prior to the election.
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@Solitaire
Thank you for your anecdotal story. Do you know if this has been covered online? I would like to share this.
It seems to be a very easy way to disenfranchise voters. First they can target those with Latino or Arab sounding surnames. Then maybe go to other kinds of Asians or foreign sounding “African” names. All told, we could have 50-70 million people affected by this kind of voter disenfranchisement.
Maybe it would be better if we had national ID cards with a number-based or number/letter based ID no. which does not change even if someone gets married or legally changes his name.
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Do you know if this has been covered online?”
Crosscheck
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@ Jefe
No, her personal account hasn’t been covered, and she didn’t really seem to like the suggestion of going to the press about it. There may have been media coverage of similar experiences but I’d have to search.
“Maybe it would be better if we had national ID cards with a number-based or number/letter based ID no. which does not change even if someone gets married or legally changes his name.”
Isn’t that pretty much what a social security number is? But even those cards include the individual’s name as well as the number.
I think I see what you’re getting at, though: an identification card that would not give any indication of racial or ethnic origin, and only that number to be used on the rolls of registered voters?
However, the clerks would still need names and addresses to mail out new voter cards, sample ballots, notification of changes to polling places, etc.
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@ Nomad
Oh! I didn’t realize what you meant the first time. I just googled “crosscheck voter purge” and now have some reading to do, thanks!
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Solitaire
sorry. lol. im a minimalist.
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@ resw
Because Lord of Mirkwood is right: I am feeding a troll. At this point you are trolling, saying idiotic, disingenuous stuff like this, as if you have no idea of my opinions:
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@nomad
Many claims seem outlandish or like a stretch but sometimes you see something that gives you pause. For me, that was seeing the sketches of suspects on Wikipedia looking exactly like the presidential campaign chairman and his brother. Then you have to admit that you don’t know the truth but *some* elements of what is being alleged aren’t impossible.
I found this weird too:
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/emailid/14333
OK, so this person wants good luck, but is the last part a reference that most Americans would make in a work email, or even know?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch
So apart from the collusion with media revealed by Wikileaks a peculiar “insider culture” is also suggested.
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can you spirit cook a sacrificed chicken? it might taste a bit off, i bet
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it’s like that whole wackadoo bohemian grove gathering, woodstock for creepy drunken ‘world leaders’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/blogpost/post/bohemian-grove-where-the-rich-and-powerful-go-to-misbehave/2011/06/15/AGPV1sVH_blog.html
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that’s why I cant be too hard on infowars. if it wasn’t for alex jones we wouldn’t know this stuff.
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It seems like I need to do a post on conspiracy theories.
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@ Origin
I don’t find that odd at all. Anyone who’s read the bible is going to get the reference to Moloch.
I’ve seen occasional references to Cthulhu on this blog and have made at least one myself about building a temple to Cthulhu. I don’t think that indicates “a peculiar ‘insider culture’” with insidious overtones, just people familiar with Lovecraft’s work or at least familiar with the use of Lovecraftian memes for humor within SF.
Someone was trying to be witty, no different than if they’d said Cthulhu or FSM instead of Moloch.
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abagond
“It seems like I need to do a post on conspiracy theories.”
good idea!
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abagond
“It seems like I need to do a post on conspiracy theories.”
With your usual background exploration you could talk about its origin as a CIA psy-op.
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@Solitaire
I knew about it too, but I wouldn’t have said that in a work email (NOT forum post) knowing that Moloch is best known for child sacrifice and it is believed to have actually occurred. If I coworker sent me an email than ended with “sacrificing a goat to Satan” I would have considered it strange and I certainly would have thought twice about saying it unless it fit the office culture.
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abagond
“It seems like I need to do a post on conspiracy theories.”
You should do it today on the anniversary of the JFK assassination. That was its genesis.
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Alex jones: prison planet *whee* free juice packs to make your own kool aid with every meal!
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Anyway when I spoke about “weird culture” I was speaking in aggregate not just about that specific email. There were always rumors of strange proclivities among the ruling classes and the leaks certainly do nothing to dispel that.
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@Solitaire,
No, a social security number is a unique number assigned to each person, but it is not used for ID. You cannot use your social security to register to vote and it does not have your photo, your fingerprints, or any other defining mark about you that remains constant no matter how you spell your name.
And no, I do not mean an ID card without any identifying mark. Actually, quite the opposite – a foolproof way for people to verify that they are who they say they are, that even a mistyping of someone’s name could not invalidate.
To vote in HK, we have an ID card with our birthdate, photo, gender and a smart chip that includes all this information on a memory chip that includes our fingerprints. Even if we were to register to vote and misspell our name, the registration would not be invalidated as we have an ID that identifies us.
Racial and ethnic information, or whatever could be gleaned from the card (the name, the photo, etc.) is irrelevant as it would be made foolproof so that racial and ethnic markers could not be used in the first place. A US citizen is a US citizen.
I know that some jurisdictions (including Singapore, Malaysia, China, etc.) have codes for race or ethnicity on the ID card. I don’t think that should be necessary. It definitely contributes to discrimination.
The main objection to a national ID card system is that one must give up some freedom of privacy. But I think it is more white people who object to that system. They want one where only targeted persons are subject to discrimination to carry govt photo ID cards.
Regarding addresses, etc. yes, this can still lead to voter fraud and disenfranchisement. It even happens in HK. Many people had their addresses changed without their knowledge in advance of the election, so they had no idea their polling station had been changed or where it had been changed to. One must check their voter’s registration 1-2 months before the election in any case.
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I’ve long recognized “conspiracy theory” as a label applied to anything that people don’t want you to consider. Obviously, some theories are false but the application of a label can be used to signal that an idea should be dismissed without consideration. Other loaded words with a similar purpose include “heresy”, in a religious context.
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Our elites are flashing satanic signals right before our eyes. They hold up the Baphomet sign. Michelle Obama wears a Baphomet dress.
I had a post on my blog about Bush II turning the stars on the GOP elephant upside down, thus turning them into Pentagrams. Unfortunately I can’t find it.
Pizzagate is lifting the veil on elite Satanism and pedophilia.
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Ever read ,The Book of Enoch?
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@ Jefe
Oh, I see now. It’s always good to learn how other places do things. So it is a requirement that voters must check their registration ahead of time?
One thing that some nations do and we should do here is have elections over two or three days, including at least one day during the weekend. Right now if someone doesn’t get off work until an hour before the poll closes and when they get there, they discover a problem with their voter’s registration, there’s not enough time left to get it fixed or drive to a provisional voting site.
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@ Origin
I’m sure a lot of people would find my intellectual and spiritual cultures weird. It’s not unusual for fundamentalist and evangelical Christians to think pantheist = satanist or that speculative fiction and role-playing games are the devil’s work.
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@ Origin
There’s a supervisor in one of the university departments here who wouldn’t let her employees go to a free lunchtime yoga class (part of the university’s employee wellness initiative) because “yoga is of the devil and will suck people into pagan worship.”
One person’s weird satanic culture is another person’s gentle exercise and relaxing meditation.
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@Solitaire
Child sacrifice is not equal to gentle exercise and relaxing meditation. While that supervisor’s objection to Yoga may be based on religious doctrine objection to child sacrifice does not necessarily spring only from a Judeo-Christian theological framework. It would actually be against current secular law, unlike Yoga. So yes, I consider it weird to end a work email by alluding to child sacrifice.
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@ Linda
Thanks.
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@Solitaire
I thought that many jurisdictions in the USA allow voting over a period of a few weeks. I know that I could mail in my absentee ballot to my registered state as much as a month early.
The USA is already far more flexible than many jurisdictions. For example, you must be physically present in HK to vote and it is all done in one single day. Some polling stations had to stay open an extra 2-3 hours after closing due to the long lines.
I can’t see it being a requirement anywhere, but given that all sorts of voter disenfranchisement can occur, it does not hurt to check. Any avenue for voter disenfranchisement must be reported, including the kind of the sort you described.
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@ Origin
Except the e-mail specifically says a chicken, not a child.
Moloch shows up periodically in speculative fiction (Kage Baker even did a revisioning in one of her time travel Company novels where the child sacrifice was slander misinterpereting a burial rite). So does Legba, for that matter.
Ok, sure, the person who wrote that e-mail may be involved in satanic worship. But it’s at least equally likely they’re simply into SF geek culture.
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@ Jefe
There are a number of states that don’t allow early voting, and absentee ballot regulations are more difficult in some states than others.
What I was talking about is actually extending the national election day across the board. Either that or at least leave the polls open for 24 hours to accomodate people who work 12-hour shifts, etc.
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“nomad
Our elites are flashing satanic signals right before our eyes. They hold up the Baphomet sign. Michelle Obama wears a Baphomet dress.
I had a post on my blog about Bush II turning the stars on the GOP elephant upside down, thus turning them into Pentagrams. Unfortunately I can’t find it.
Pizzagate is lifting the veil on elite Satanism and pedophilia.”
Let me know when your scenario is turned into a movie. I love lurid, absurdist horror movies.
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nomad, are you going to demand that Trump pardon Snowden and Manning?
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@
“Except the e-mail specifically says a chicken, not a child.”
That’s why its an allusion.
Substituting chicken for child does not weaken it since there’s nothing Moloch is more famous for. The context is a work email about diplomacy in Honduras not a meeting among “geeks”. So while I don’t know the person is a Satanist, that’s your claim, I consider it weird that it was felt appropriate in a work email. However, the writer knew the culture of his office I don’t. I’m just inferring it from what the writer was comfortable saying.
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@gro jo
Me and Trump had a falling out. We’re no longer speaking.
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@abagond
“Because Lord of Mirkwood is right”
No, it’s because you’re deceitful. But carry on siding with your resident white supremacist troll who have a long record on your blog of distracting from any issue that has to do with blacks. Because that’s what you’ve done time and time again: give platforms to your white racist trolls.
” saying idiotic, disingenuous stuff like this, as if you have no idea of my opinions”
What a shame you think the unjust treatment and genocide of blacks is “idiotic”, and maybe if your opinions weren’t so contradictory, I wouldn’t have to “say stuff like this”.
You’re the one irrationally fear mongering as if it’s not already as bad as you claim it will be under Trump, in part due to the lasting effects of Clintons’ ’94 crime bill. You’re only bent out of shape because I called you out on your bull as I always do.
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“nomad
@gro jo
Me and Trump had a falling out. We’re no longer speaking.”
Do tell?
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@nomad
“that’s why I cant be too hard on infowars. if it wasn’t for alex jones we wouldn’t know this stuff.”
That’s how I first became aware of infowars. Before Alex Jones, attendees wouldn’t even admit it, now many attendees are on record admitting it exists and that they have attended. Whatever else can be said of infowars, they have done plenty of investigative journalism.
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@ gro jo
Now you are being idiotic and disingenuous too. You and Resw know full well that I do not think like that.
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RationalWiki on Alex Jones:
More:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Alex_Jones
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Ladies and Gentlemen, Abagond has finally lost his mind, or jumped the shark! He confuses me for resw. Sad.
“abagond
@ gro jo
“What a shame you think the unjust treatment and genocide of blacks is “idiotic”, and maybe if your opinions weren’t so contradictory, I wouldn’t have to “say stuff like this”.”
Now you are being idiotic and disingenuous too. You and Resw know full well that I do not think like that.
disingenuous /dɪsɪnˈdʒɛnjʊəs/ adjective not sincere, especially in pretending that one knows less about something than one really does.”
Abagond, take a break, you need it.
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I find it strange that the same people who don’t “listen to a word he says” know so much about what he says…
But I guess since Alex Jones is white, this is a topic suitable for the racist white supremacist, lord of mirkwood, rather than the racism against black people, which is more relevant.
@abagond
You owe gro jo an apology for misattributing my comments to him. And again, I don’t know what you really think since your opinions on the subject are contradictory. But I guess you have to contradict yourself in order to justify your support for Hillary.
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The pressure of shilling for HRC, and her ignominious defeat is making you paranoid. I’d appreciate an apology for your false attribution of resw’s words to me. It’s the decent thing to do.
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Alex Jones is not very trustworthy. He’s about on a par with MSM. Though, after the Hillary fiasco, I’m going to say he is somewhat more trustworthy than them.
Hey, I’ve told yall where to go for the most accurate reporting. Russia TV. It’s the antidote to American propaganda. They report what mainstream news is hiding from you. Crosstalk! That’s the show.
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Looks like DNC liberals still won’t own up to the fact that they tried to force a terrible candidate on the American people, and worse: they worked as covertly as possible to make Donald Trump the Republican nominee…because…well…how could Donald Trump possibly win? Rather than set up a campaign around drawing as large a majority as possible, the new Dems went with their usual strategy: getting the most money, the most billionaires, the most weapons merchants onside and then applying targeted identity politics appeals to draw in those who are directly targeted by the Trump Campaign(but offering them no economic advantages!)…and it didn’t work!
Let’s cut through the clutter of self-serving bullshit in this post: those exit polls cited as evidence, don’t reflect the fact that HALF OF THE VOTING AGE POPULATION didn’t vote for either a Dem nor a Repub! There has been a long-standing trend that those on the economic margins and falling deeper in debt(which can include many of those earning over $50,000 these days) do not see either side of the Duopoly addressing their needs!
The Democratic Party….which used to represent the working class in America under FDR, started pulling away from unions and blue collar workers since at least the 1960’s, and clearly abandoned their base under President Jimmy. Bill Clinton gets identified as the creator of the New Dems, but he just finished the job of dropping the working class for Wall Street and the university-educated professionals.
So, how does the Liberal Class in America expect to win elections when they can only appeal to lower classes through using race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, while keeping almost identical economic and foreign policy objectives as the Republicans? This is after all, why Chuck Schumer stated during the campaign that for every vote they would lose in West Virginia, they would gain two Republican votes. Schumer just said out loud what Democratic strategists have been planning for more than 40 years. And the half of adult Americans who don’t want to waste time on can’t win third parties, just don’t bother…and all that’s left is the chattering classes within the Duopoly arguing among themselves!
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Not sure where to put this but Trump met with Tulsi Gabbard.
She’s who I mentioned earlier (she’d resigned as DNC vice-chair to endorse Bernie Sanders over concerns about Clinton’s foreign policy)
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/why-democratic-rep-tulsi-gabbard-met-donald-trump-n686976
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@lord of mirkwood
Too bad, you need to eat.
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@nomad
I’ll have to check out Crosstalk. I used to watch the Keiser Report and found the he covered the Fed and Wall Street much more thoroughly than the US MSM.
But we have to assume RT is all rubbish because of abagond’s conspiracy theories about Trump’s ties to Russia.
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Yes. RT is like our CNN. Not directly controlled by the Kremlin as people seem to think. I think our media is much more controlled by the government than RT. Our media just regurgitates whatever our government officials tell them. The pundits on RT are much more independent in their views. Max Keiser! He’s a riot. He is de facto cursing out crooked neoliberalism. I think he’s British. But even more independent… well let me rephrase that… also independent are the American news people, though perhaps a bit more conventional. Larry King. Tom Hartman. But Jesse Ventura and Chris Hedges can be said to be fiercely independent. Even radical. You don’t see radicals on MSM. I like Crosstalk because he tries to invite opposing sides of an issue and lets them duke it out.
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Abagond,
Glad you got it… I thought it was too subtle
at this time, I’m not trying to cause too much trouble
but the tap dancing is way too loud
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also Abagond,
FYI… I don’t know if you read this
Even thought they have been doing this for years now on many blogs, the Alt Right declared they will impersonate black people on twitter
as revenge for Twitter wanting to “clean up” the garbage:
“Alt-right’ site plans a ‘fake black person’ Twitter campaign”
https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/17/alt-right-twitter-fake-black-account-harassment/
The site then asks its readers — who are ostensibly white men — to “create a fake black person account.” It claims to already have nearly 1,000 of these accounts with established post histories, and its instructions for creating a believably “black” profile are littered with stereotypes and racist speech.
“Just go on black Twitter and see what they look like, copy that model,” the post reads. “Start filling it with rap videos and booty-shaking or whatever else these blacks post. Read through their posts to get an idea of how they post. You need to be able to post in a manner which is indistinguishable from normal black tweeters. …Twitter is about to learn what happens when you mess with Republicans.”
All these Neo-Nazi’s are taking off the sheets and crawling out their holes,
feeling empowered because Trump got elected and he’s surrounding himself with anti-Black politicians and advisors.
If Trump’s election wasn’t about race, then why are white people running around talking about “WE won, white people won” right after the election.
Calling Asian-American’s “ch’nk” and telling them to go back to China.
Harassing black and Asian women, harassing women wearing head scarves
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Well, after Obama’s election some white people were running around saying “We lost, we lost, time to buy guns, harass non-whites and join a hate group”. That wasn’t Obama’s fault and neither am I going to attribute all of the craziness to Trump.
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It must be remembered that Trump has never held down a job. He’s never worked for someone else. Until now he’s had free rein to work the hours he wants..
When he takes up office he begins the 12-16 hour days of bright young things one after another, every one of them smarter than him and steeped in competencies he never heard of.
I doubt he understands yet what the biggest ball and chain in the world is really going to be like
And the office of the Presidency ages these guys so bad. Bush and Obama came out of office with grey hair. Maybe Trump’s will fall out.
Corporations are run as dictatorships and being a dictator is all that he knows. He has no experience listening to other people. His only experience of leadership is ruling as a dictator and being a dictator.
If he’s upset about American twitters – How will he react to a foreign insult/threat ?
Come January 21 he’s going to be able to declare nuclear war.
.
I don’t think Trump has any friends. They say this is common among people with money. Hence his Tweeting as a cry for attention.
Yet this fat orange Cheeto sees himself as the new emperor of the world
Once “The Donald” is Coronated I believe he will try and subvert the Constitution and create a Totalitarian system of government.
They obviously need proof that there is such a thing as global warming and they won’t acknowledge it until it’s too late for the planet.
There used to be BC and AD……..now we also have to wait and see what destruction AT (after trump) brings to the human race.
This earth is going to be the seventh circle of hell, Satan has been unleashed
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http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obama-hatecrimes-idUSTRE4AN81U20081124
Hate crimes rise after Obama’s election
The return of a white man to the White House is obviously symbolic to some racist white people just as Obama’s victory was. The argument is not that “it was not about race to ANYBODY”. Clearly race was the #1 issue to SOME people including some posters here. However, race was not what made the difference between Obama’s win in 2012 and Clinton’s loss in 2016 and the exit poll numbers back that up.
If not falling in line with the groupthink makes me a tapdancer I’ll continue to dance.
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It must be remembered that Trump has never held down a job. He’s never worked for someone else. Until now he’s had free rein to work the hours he wants..
When he takes up office he begins the 12-16 hour days of bright young things one after another, every one of them smarter than him and steeped in competencies he never heard of.
I doubt he understands yet what the biggest ball and chain in the world is really going to be like
And the office of the Presidency ages these guys so bad. Bush and Obama came out of office with grey hair. Maybe Trump’s will fall out.
Corporations are run as dictatorships and being a dictator is all that he knows. He has no experience listening to other people. His only experience of leadership is ruling as a dictator and being a dictator.
If he’s upset about American twitters – How will he react to a foreign insult/threat ?
Come January 21 he’s going to be able to declare nuclear war.
.
I don’t think Trump has any friends. They say this is common among people with money. Hence his Tweeting as a cry for attention.
Yet this fat orange Cheeto sees himself as the new emperor of the world
Once “The Donald” is Coronated I believe he will try and subvert the Constitution and create a Totalitarian system of government.
They obviously need proof that there is such a thing as global warming and they won’t acknowledge it until it’s too late for the planet.
There used to be BC and AD……..now we also have to wait and see what destruction AT (after trump) brings to the human race.
This earth is going to be the seventh circle of hell, Satan has been unleashed
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@ Solitaire,
I understood what you meant and I don’t disagree with you. There should be as much attempt to discourage voter disenfranchisement as possible.
My point: As much as the USA engages in voter disenfranchisement as it does, it might not be reasonable to suggest that the USA is more guilty than external or foreign jurisdictions (or use them as some kind of standard). The fact that the USA allows absentee voting at all implies that it does not practice the same kinds of voter disenfranchisement that is common overseas. Even the UK disallows absentee voting if the voter has been a non-resident for a certain number of years or election cycles. I have lived outside the USA for over 20 years and I can still vote, and will be able to for the rest of my life wherever I am as long as I do not renounce the citizenship.
In fact, the USA even allows US citizens who were born overseas to at least one US parent and who have never voted in the USA to vote in US elections on an absentee basis. They are assigned to the state where the US citizen parent last voted. How many countries permit that?
And I agree that states vary to the extent that this is convenient to administer or take part in.
I agree that the best way would be to allow extended hours to vote, eg, 6am to 12 midnight across the country.
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re: Solitaire
This what Fa Lun Gong was supposed to be, but apparently some national governments view it as an evil cult seeking to topple the government leadership.
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@ Jefe
“As much as the USA engages in voter disenfranchisement as it does, it might not be reasonable to suggest that the USA is more guilty than external or foreign jurisdictions (or use them as some kind of standard).”
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that degree of criticism or dissatisfaction with the U.S. I was thinking more in the sense of comparing “best practices” on an international scale and ruminating over whether certain ones would be beneficial for the U.S. to adopt in order to improve our election system. We do some things well with elections, some other countries do some other things that we might consider adopting, and of course in yet other countries it’s much, much worse across the board.
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@ Linda
LMAO. Yes indeed.
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@ Linda
Yes, I heard about those Black sock puppet wannabes. I will have to be wary of anyone with booty-shaking videos.
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@ gro jo
My apologies. I got the comments mixed up. I probably do need a break. My brain is kind of fried right now.
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Origin @ Clearly race was the #1 issue to SOME people including some posters here. However, race was not what made the difference between Obama’s win in 2012 and Clinton’s loss in 2016 and the exit poll numbers back that up.
If not falling in line with the groupthink makes me a tapdancer I’ll continue to dance.
Linda says,
I agree with you that “racism” was not the reason Obama won and Clinton lost…
but race, did indeed, play a major part in Obama and Trumps win.
The majority “race” in the USA– white Americans, decided that they did not want Clinton, they wanted Trump… same people who voted for Obama, voted for Trump
and these white Americans are the electors in the “Electoral College”, who are chosen based on the States ruling political party
http://heavy.com/news/2016/11/electoral-college-names-list-of-electors-voting-for-president-who-are-contact-information-texas-florida-georgia-illinois-pennsylvania-michigan-how-to-can-change-republicans-vote-clinton-trump-faithles/
The Electors are supposed to make their votes based on the States popular votes but they don’t have to
as displayed in this election, since Clinton won the popular vote and the electors voted based on their political party affiliation
most States are under Republican control in 2016, the same way most States were under Democratic control in pre-election 2008 and 2012
I know there are non-white people in the Electoral college but they are not the majority or the eventual decision makers.
that’s why I keep saying that black people had Nothing to do with Obama being elected… the majority voters in America are white and they vote at the local and State levels and ultimately decide who wins at a federal level
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Origin @ Well, after Obama’s election some white people were running around saying “We lost, we lost, time to buy guns, harass non-whites and join a hate group”. That wasn’t Obama’s fault and neither am I going to attribute all of the craziness to Trump.
Linda says,
Origin… it’s not about “fault” … it is all about attributing the behavior to it’s correlating factor (cause and effect)
1 + 1 actually equals 2…. there is no speculation… they are facts
the rise in white Nationalism directly correlates with the election of Obama
A black man holding the highest office in the land made them extremely angry (hate groups were on the decline in 2000.)
http://www.racismreview.com/blog/2009/02/26/surprise-hate-on-the-rise-with-obama%E2%80%99s-historic-win/
the same way that the rise in the average white person feeling like they now have a green light to “ say and act on” on their prejudiced thoughts
this “privilege” can be directly correlated to Trump being elected…he was not politically correct, so therefore, they no longer had to be either… they can express how they really feel
The resentment among whites feels both old and distinctly of this moment. It is shaped by the reality of demographic change, by a decade and a half of war in the Middle East, and by unease with the newly confident and confrontational activism of young blacks furious over police violence.
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@Linda
“the rise in white Nationalism directly correlates with the election of Obama
A black man holding the highest office in the land made them extremely angry (hate groups were on the decline in 2000.)”
So does that mean Obama should not have become president, because hate crimes went up when he was elected and that put POC at risk? That seems to be the argument people are making when talking about Trump’s win.
Yet the unhinged crazies come out every election. That is the fact.
“The resentment among whites feels both old and distinctly of this moment. It is shaped by the reality of demographic change, by a decade and a half of war in the Middle East, and by unease with the newly confident and confrontational activism of young blacks furious over police violence.”
Dont buy this because a sgnificantly greater proportion of white people did not vote for Trump than voted for Romney. This is simply another fact.
Of course those concerns mentioned exist among white people but there wasn’t some huge turning of the tide triggered by Trump. IIRC around 38% of them voted for Clinton and about 58% for Trump. Apparently that was slighly DOWN from Romney’s share. The real story is that the ONLY demographic that was basically as strong for Clinton as it was for Obama in 2012 was black women. Angry white people were not the difference-maker and I won’t swallow that narrative in the face of facts to the contrary. If everyone else had voted for Clinton as they had done for Obama Trump would not have been elected president, regardless of the white vote.
Did voter suppression play a role? Probably. Disillusionment and lack of enthusiasm for the Democratic Party and its candidate was likely a major factor as well. There is another awakening that took place; one that indicts the “good cop, bad-cop” two-party system.
Anyway, the election was November 8 so I’ll give this discussion a break since it tends to be impervious to facts, anyway.
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@LoM
I wonder if all of this intense Russophobia is just a giant propaganda scam cooked up by the Establishment to distract and deceive Americans?
There were a lot of homegrown shenanigans (both old and new) deployed by both the Repubs and the Dems to obstruct a truly democratic election process.
These allegations seem to be so much sound and fury——-with very little substance to back them up.
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@ LOM
I agree with Afrofem. It’s just a little to convenient that “we know the Russians did it”.
What is true is that the hacking code was Russian.
Look at a hacking code as a tool. If there was a mass shooting and the weapon was a Russian made AK 47 we wouldn’t presume the shooter was Russian. The NSA had a hacking code that got hacked and you can buy it on the dark Web. The Russians have that code too. Why not use the “Americans” own hacking code to break into the DNC’s data base and leave that finger print ? That sounds more like a Putin move. Remember he was head of the KGB so when it comes to espionage he would be an expert.
The other conflict is the amount of Russian money that got funneled through the Clinton foundation. Why donate to the Clinton’s and then work against them ?
Nomad thinks that if the Russians didn’t do it then it’s an inside job in the DNC by default. And there are dead people out there that CT theorist claim to be connected to the leak. That’s possible. But it’s also possible that another country did.
So the question becomes which country benifts the most with a Trump presidency, doesn’t like the Russians and would gain if the relations between the U.S. and Russia deteriated ? That would be the country that did the hacking and left the Russian fingerprint.
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“Nomad thinks that if the Russians didn’t do it then it’s an inside job in the DNC by default. And there are dead people out there that CT theorist claim to be connected to the leak. That’s possible. But it’s also possible that another country did. ”
That’s a bit of a distortion. not by default. by testimony of Assange. and others.
“The former intelligence analyst, British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, and chancellor of the University of Dundee (Craig Murray) revealed earlier this week that the Podesta leak and the DNC leak were leaked by two different insiders, that both of the leakers were Americans with no ties to Russia, and that one was from the American intelligence services.”
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2016/12/source-providing-democratic-emails-wikileaks-revealed.html
I did say that the fact that a DNC insider was mysteriously murdered after the leaks emerged suggests that he might have been the source.
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“So the question becomes which country benifts the most with a Trump presidency, doesn’t like the Russians and would gain if the relations between the U.S. and Russia deteriated ? That would be the country that did the hacking and left the Russian fingerprint.”
not at all. the question becomes whether bit was a state actor at all, like trump said. also could be a false flag by someone in secret services.
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competing testimonies. The question is who you gon believe. The guy who specializes in whistleblowing? Or the agency that specializes in lying? Or a discredited MSM, which of course just parrots what the CIA says?
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“to make the US electoral system look shady and untrustworthy.”
Bwwwwaaaahahahahaha…
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it is hot air. unfortunately its very dangerous hot air
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Michael Jon Barker, which other countries are you thinking of?
The Isrealis for one. The have the expertise to hack and run an operation like this. It was the FBI that had the Isralis crack the Apple phone back door when Apple refused.
Isreal gains if Assad is defeated and the Russians loose their influence in the region. They also gain under Trump with expanding theor settlements.
Some of Trump’s family members are Jewish and I belive that’s the first time a U.S. presidential family has had Jewish family members. Both Trump and Netanyahu are Authortarians.
Curious how Obama choose to have his U.N. ambassador abstain from condemning Isreal.
A Trump presidency will not be condemning Isreal.
It’s possible Obama knows who is behind the hack but it’s politically more expedient to blame Russia then an “allie”.
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Folks, I bet dollars to donuts these two powers have been hacking each other for years.
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“I belive that’s the first time a U.S. presidential family has had Jewish family members.”
cept for Obama
@Herneith
“Folks, I bet dollars to donuts these two powers have been hacking each other for years.”
exactically. Obama and his intel cronies and disgraced msm are making a mountain out of a mole hill. don’t put any past them. they are desperate. don’t put anything past them. even this Obama/DHS Preparing to Overturn Trump Election
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Obama/DHS Preparing to Overturn Trump Election
(https://youtu.be/orwKEhTPPx8)
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I think the Russian hacker stuff is either more or less true or far worse than what we know. Not because of what the CIA says but because of the strange way Trump is reacting to it.
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It comes down to who and what you trust.
LOM mostly trusts the government and MSM.
Nomad doesn’t trust the government nor the main stream media. Instead trusts sum crazy youtubers on the Internet.
Like Nomad I don’t trust the government or MSM. But I can’t sign on to CT theory. That’s a deflection too and makes a lot of people money for their click bait sensationalism.
The Russianphobia is a deflection from the reality that America is indeed racist and xenophobic ect. Let’s talk about the Russians and not look at the bigotry behind the elections.
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So what is it Abagond ? Racism or the Russians ? Or are you saying it is both ?
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“Nomad doesn’t trust the government nor the main stream media. Instead trusts sum crazy youtubers on the Internet. ”
don’t trust nobody crazy. but trust liars like Obama, msm and us intel even less.
Obama’s crazy, msm is untrustworthy, us intel are liars. except for the whistleblowers.
I’m tellin you guys, RT is the remedy for your delusions.
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There are four possible senerio’s.
1. The Russinas hacked the DNC.
2. The DNC leak was inside job.
3. Another country other then Russia hacked the DNC.
4. The hack was a lone wolf event. The hacker wasn’t politically motivated but hacked the DNC because that person could. For some hacking is like a hobby and targets are chosen for how easy they can be broken into. This hacker could reside anywhere on the planet.
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For all we know the pass word for getting into the DNC was “Hillary for president”. I’m preety sure the pass word for the RNC wasn’t ” Trump for president”. lol
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@Abagond
“Not because of what the CIA says but because of the strange way Trump is reacting to it.”
That is what I’m looking at. Trump is genuinely afraid of continuing coverage of this story. He has tried to tweet lots of bluster and bravado, but he can’t make this disappear.
This might also throw sand in the gears of the Repub congressional machine. That is especially true now that the clueless types that voted them in are now beginning to realize how their own lives will be degraded by the Repubs through a repeal of Obamacare and cuts to Social Security (disability, survivor benefits and retirement income).
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“Well, here we have it. A Russian conspiracy. Personally ordered by Vladimir Putin.”
Yep, the people making that claim never told a lie!
“I think the Russian hacker stuff is either more or less true or far worse than what we know. Not because of what the CIA says but because of the strange way Trump is reacting to it.”
Please provide the details that led you to this conclusion? Was it Trump’s beady, shifty eyes?
“According to the report, Putin’s aim was to impugn Hillary Clinton’s credibility and boost Donald Trump’s chances of winning the election, and more broadly to make the US electoral system look shady and untrustworthy (again).”
Lordy, I corrected your comment by adding “again” to it. I’m surprised that a “proud Irish-American” like you would ‘forget’ the venerable practice of your fellow Irishmen to vote from beyond the grave, ably conjured by Mayor Richard Daley.
“Daley also contributed to John F. Kennedy’s narrow, 8,000 vote victory in Illinois in 1960[12] A PBS documentary entitled “Daley” explained that Mayor Daley and JFK potentially stole the 1960 election by stuffing ballot boxes and rigging the vote in Chicago.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_J._Daley.
Lest you get it into your head that I’m picking on the Irish again, LBJ’s senate win used that same old black magic in the 1940’s. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/11/us/how-johnson-won-election-he-d-lost.html. The examples of crooked elections is a constant in the practice of US democracy from the beginning. I’m surprised that the Russians didn’t already know that! Could it be that they are really being accused of letting “Joe sixpack” in on the gag? That would really be criminal, a usurpation of the job of the mass media!
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This is standard propaganda. Repeat something often enough and it becomes “true”. Evidence is not presented. And evidence that disproves the claim is simply ignored. Even if there had been a Russian hack, it had no influence on the election.
1. Hillary was damaged by leaks.
2. the leaks came from inside the DNC and the intel community.
3. don’t need a three
Credible sources, including Assange testify to this.
So the Russian hacking meme is a diversion.
You are letting MSM paint a false reality. That’s its purpose. To keep the wool pulled over your eyes. Get out of the propaganda bubble and look at the facts.
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@nomad
“This is standard propaganda”
+1000
And I still recall President Bush being given a “classified report” that supposedly justified the invasion of Iraq.
Now they’re duping the same fools with the same “classified report” shtick yet again.
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That’s why they can never say ‘just trust us’ again. Show me the money first.
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The antidote to the illness
(https://youtu.be/9h02Zh75la0)
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@ michaeljonbarker
I think it is mainly racism. The effect of the Russian hacking was not huge, as far as I could tell. It did not seem to move the polls much.
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@ gro jo
You would think Trump would want to get to the bottom of the Russian hacking stuff, if only to clear his own name and not enter the White House under a cloud. You would expect him to be as horrified as, say, John McCain. Instead he deflects and minimizes like someone with something to hide.
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This Russian hack business is a tempest in a chamber pot. The proof? Lordy loves Charles Blow! Now, you can’t get stranger bedfellowing than that.
Very funny Abagond, when did you last look a gift horse in the mouth? Why would anybody expect Trump to react other than he has to his bit of ‘good luck’? I’m glad he’s no McCain, he might not be as quick to start a war as the senator is.
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@ gro jo
Comment deleted for moderated word.
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@ Open Minded Observer
Deleted comment for moderated word.
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LOL@Donald Trump being tainted because, according to the theory, Russia supposedly “hacked the elections” by revealing the skeletons in Hillary’s closet thereby scaring the electorate. The irony seems lost on those who are making those claims and yet also wanted Hillary Clinton to be President. If Trump is “tainted”, not because of anything illegal that he specifically did but, because Russia blew the whistle on Hillary then what was Hillary; in an advanced state of decomposition?
Also seemingly lost on them is the irony that if Russia got Clinton’s emails it could have been because she broke the law by maintaining an inadequately secured private email server while working as Secretary of State in order to hide her possible pay-for-play shenanigans from investigators and FOIA requests! If Clinton really did lose the elections as a result of damaging leaks – due to her placing a higher priority on hiding sensitive communications from her employer’s archives than from the wider internet – then her supporters are basically complaining that “what goes around comes around” while breaking my irony meter in the process. If hacking by foreign governments is a big deal then making the state department vulnerable to such hacking is ALSO a big deal. The conduct which prompted the FBI investigation, which Clinton’s supporters insisted was not a real risk to national security when they were running heavy damage control before the elections, now matters and taints … Donald Trump!
LMAO!
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Going back to the original topic. It’s about racism. Most certainly. No question. Racists voted for Trump. In this echo chamber that’s all that it was about. But it really wasn’t. Here’s an article that suggests that ordinary Americans, not just racists, supported Trump. I referenced the TTP, or as some call it, the TTP in an earlier comment somewhere, to the disbelief of abagond. I just happened to run across the source today.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald-trump-why-americans-support
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“Trump’s followers’ passions are nothing more than the ignorant blurtings of the white American id, driven to madness by the presence of a black man in the White House. The Trump movement is a one-note phenomenon, a vast surge of race-hate. Its partisans are not only incomprehensible, they are not really worth comprehending.
* * *
Or so we’re told. Last week, I decided to watch several hours of Trump speeches for myself. I saw the man ramble and boast and threaten and even seem to gloat when protesters were ejected from the arenas in which he spoke. I was disgusted by these things, as I have been disgusted by Trump for 20 years. But I also noticed something surprising. In each of the speeches I watched, Trump spent a good part of his time talking about an entirely legitimate issue, one that could even be called leftwing.
Yes, Donald Trump talked about trade. In fact, to judge by how much time he spent talking about it, trade may be his single biggest concern – not white supremacy. Not even his plan to build a wall along the Mexican border, the issue that first won him political fame. ”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/donald-trump-why-americans-support
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“Also seemingly lost on them is the irony that if Russia got Clinton’s emails it could have been because she broke the law by maintaining an inadequately secured private email server while working as Secretary of State in order to hide her possible pay-for-play shenanigans from investigators and FOIA requests! …. If hacking by foreign governments is a big deal then making the state department vulnerable to such hacking is ALSO a big deal.”
.
Logical reasoning and thinking aren’t very strong skills amongst rabid blue-pill consumers!
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Since when did chamber pot become a ‘moderated’ word? You don’t have to make up phony excuses to play the censor.
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Edit the offending word “p*sspot” to chamber pot and post the comment.
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All this talk of Russian hacking is redolent of the Zinoviev letter affair. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinoviev_letter
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To all the Obama worshipers on this bolg, read this indictment of his eight years in office and weep.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/09/barack-obama-legacy-presidency
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@ASG-M
I just read an article from writer, Dave Lindorff of the website,
This Can’t Be Happening! where he digs into the current hysteria about Putin influencing the 2016 elections. Lindorff thinks this is mostly a propaganda effort by elements of the Democratic party Establishment to focus attention and aggression to an outside enemy so that voters don’t look too closely at the failures of the Democratic party. It is also a great boost to the arms manufacturers that the Dems support heart and soul. The Democratic base, on the other hand, is mocked by the leadership as “the Red Army”.
http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/3418
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@abagond Looks like the thought police are out in force denying any substance of truth of Russia involvement.
Do not worry, there is no way for anyone to ever know the truth because of the “Source and Method” of intelligence gathering.
It is a waste of time pursuing this subject. Those that believe will believe and those who do not will not.
Nothing further is coming from the government.
Since some of the individuals who are commenting on this site are not citizens of this nation, there is no way to determine there motivation.
Keep up the good work.
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@ ASG-M
“All of these at once” creates maximum confusion and is therefore most effective.
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@Origin
I cant find proper place for this comment. But since you mentioned election post mortem, I place it here.
This is mostly OT but I’m going to stick it here because I think it’s kind of interesting.
“Besides Donald Trump beating Clinton, the other shocker of the 2016 election was the number of voters (it soared into the millions) who voted for Obama, some of them twice, and then flipped for Trump. Was it racism that drove Trump’s rise? No. Even Lefty Michael Moore said what undercuts that argument is the fact that these folks voted for a man named Barack Hussein Obama twice before flipping.”
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2017/05/02/failure-large-slice-of-obama-voters-who-flipped-for-trump-thought-clintons-agen-n2320834
so yes, some trump voters were racist, in the conventional sense of the word, but not all. the trump voters that decided the election were former Obama voters. hows that for irony? even if these flipped Obama voters were closet racists, they overcame their racism enough to vote for a black man twice. that man slapped them in the face. no wonder they voted for trump.
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Like most people who are elected to a high office all of the various reasons are a part. Was it racist? yes. Was it religion? yes was it anti Mrs.Clinton? yes. Did Bernie impact the election? yes. Did the FBI add to the vote count? yes Did Mrs Clinton fail to foresee the unhappiness of the “Trumpsters”? Yes
Thus it is the same in all elections, California gave Mrs. Clinton the vote. Many of the states voted very close to the way they always vote. The swing states rebelled against Mrs. Clinton and gave President Trump the electoral count.
Count this as a failure of the Democratic Party and its leaders. Also add to the confusion the “Progressive (Bernie) Wing” of the Democratic Party, which should have stopped supporting Bernie after he loss the primary.
Many voices on the site referred to Mrs. Clinton as being a crook. That certainly did not help encourage people to get out to vote, while President Trump, like Bernie, promised “pie-in-the-sky”.
Unless something comes out about Russia, when history records this election the only thing anyone will remember will be the first female to actually run for President failed.
Now we have to hope that the current President gets a hold of the game and “does not sink the ball in the water”. The thought of “President Pence” is to horrible to even think about.
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yeah, they should have kept their mouths shut about that and let HRC take her rightful ordained place as president. things would certainly be a lot better under that crook (being a crook is not so bad) instead of the usurper.
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My argument was that racism was a factor but would probably not have tipped the election in Trump’s favor if not for other factors as well (the result was still quite close all things considered). However, abagond, who leaned more in the direction of race being the decisive factor would probably like this article:
A new study reveals the real reason Obama voters switched to Trump
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/16/17980820/trump-obama-2016-race-racism-class-economy-2018-midterm
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The first thing to remember is their were no Obama voters. There were voters who voted for Obama for a different set of reasons. not every person voted for him because he was black. some voted against the other individual.
Next many people voted against Hillery, including many blacks who did not like her for some reason. (she was a female)
You had several individuals who worked over time to talk against Hillary.
Next Bernie did a good job destroying Hillary.
Hillary got more votes than Trump.
What happened is the “Red States’ voted Red (See Cook political Report)
The swing states were very close in vote count.and could very easy be the difference between those who did not vote and the “Berni or no one”.
Finally, race, religion and ethnics will always be a part of all thing human. The question will always be to what degree. Who goes into all of the voting booth and finds out how each person voted..
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I love free speech! People can say anything they wish, without my proof. They can quote facts presented by others which have not been verified.
I hope I never call a person a crook unless I can document the statement with completely verifiable facts.
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not “my proof” “any proof”
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