Category Archives: Uncategorized

When Republicans Stopped Wanting Our Vote

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From a comment I posted to John Jackson’s thread last October 15, copypasted and edited here from my other profile because it bears repeating in public:

“If the GOP were the more effective alternative for African-American voters to the racist Southern Democrats in the post-WWII South, why did people like Fannie Lou Hamer attempt to integrate the Mississippi Democrats (who were atop an effective one-party state since Reconstruction) and not the recently-reestablished Mississippi GOP (re-born 1956)? Why did her MFDP become the focus of attention in the 1964 Democratic Convention when they sought a seat at the Mississippi delegation table, when the free-market GOP championing Barry Goldwater was available that year?

In relation to what [some guy] said earlier, where were all this “free stuff” that Democrats were handing out for the 90+ years that Democrats had one-party rule throughout the South, and were Southern White people being given this free stuff that Black people were clearly prohibited from accessing? Southern White people, with high rates of regional illiteracy and racial privilege, “pulled the lever” for Democratic governors for over 4 generations, and never pulled that lever for a GOP governor, so what changed?

That’s what I’m curious about. What changed in the South that Democrats went from being “my (racist) grandpapy’s party” to being the party of “free stuff”, from a racist kleptocratic party in the South to the “socialist party” in opposition for the next century? Was it FDR’s New Deal? Truman’s integration of the military? Johnson’s ban on bigoted poll taxes, or his promotion of the Great Society? I don’t think that it is the viability or non-viability of the GOP’s free-market policy or its anathema to “free stuff” that is the issue. Otherwise, many would have been more attracted to the GOP as a party on a Booker T. Washington/Marcus Garvey/Malcolm X “do for self” black-nationalist pro-business basis.

But that didn’t happen, and so you didn’t have traditional Black Republicans get into federal office after Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, who was the last gasp of the type of Black GOPer who was promoted aggressively by the Radical Republicans to Southern statewide office in Reconstruction. Now it’s all “bootstrap”, “anti-big-gov” and militarist types like J.C. Watts, Mia Love, Allen West and Tim Scott since the civil-rights movement era. What happened, and why can’t the GOP relate to the Black Nationalist “do for self” trend in the same way that the Democrats have been able to relate (somewhat) to the Black social-democratic tendency?”

With the partisan-tinged anti-union sentiment in Wisconsin, I wonder if a lot of the opposition to unions has to do, ultimately, with anti-black racism.

Sure, the primary victims of this tend to be white union members in both public and private sectors, but the rage against unions from people who previously benefited from unions has a visceral, irrational tone to it. The “union thug” caricature gained greater currency during Obama’s presidency and the Tea Party reaction against both him and his initial Democratic congressional majority.

The right-to-work and other anti-union laws being drafted over the last 8 years, however, have an extremely-racist history, and a lot of it took place in the South.

I reject the premise for that video of the rainbow person hugging the confederate person.

If I were that rainbow person (and I am), I’d have to tell the confederate person that the “Lost Cause” is a damn lie of rich white Southerners to the poor white Southerners.

I would ask them why they would brandish the legacy of that lie.

I would ask them why their ancestors allowed themselves to be played like a damn fiddle.

Then we’d probably fight in the street.

In state government, there is an inherent bigotry against cities, even the biggest ones.

States, which are rurally-biased, can take away the incorporation of a city at any time unless prevented by a state constitution. States are the middle-men between the city and the federal government.

The biggest cities in our country should have the opportunity to secede from state governments and govern themselves separately under federal law.

You know what’s funny? When Democrats, liberals and big gubmint are accused by Christian conservative-libertarian folks of “using poverty to stay in business,” of “keeping poor people poor.”

Doesn’t Matthew 26:11 (KJV) say the following?:

“For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.”

How does the government “keep poor people poor” when the poor are declared by your “Lord and Savior” to “always” be with us, despite whatever the government does to alleviate the general condition of poverty?

The first thing that came to mind when reading about Clinton’s public vs. private position?

Abortion and reproductive rights. Also, marriage equality and civil unions.

We praise male politicians for putting their private, religious positions (especially Catholics, Mormons and Muslims) on the shelf when making public policy positions on the “sins” of abortion and marriage equality.

We’ve been doing that for much of the history of this “culture war”, even when their fellow parishioners demonize these politicians as “liars” and “frauds” for not being “true Catholics/Mormons/Muslims/Jews/etc. (TM).”

It’s More than Identity for Us

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You know what I felt to be racist about 2008? It wasn’t that so many chose to vote for Obama or McCain based on their skin color.

It’s that so many in the GOP went out of their way to denounce Obama’s presence in the race overall, and dismissed his eligibility based on his ethnicity and insinuations about his ethnicity in ways that McCain did not face.

You know what I feel to be misogynist about 2012? It isn’t that so many choose to vote for Clinton or Trump based on their gender.

It’s that so many in the GOP have gone out of their way to denounce Clinton’s presence in the race overall, and dismiss her eligibility based on her gender and insinuations about her gender in ways that Trump has not faced.

So I don’t mind that African-Americans turned out much more for Obama, and I don’t mind that women will turn out much more for Clinton. Not one bit.

I do mind that anyone would be institutionally denounced in their candidacy based on their ethnic or gender background, especially by those whose ancestors have been privileged with citizenship and social credibility for the entirety of this country’s history.

Ultimately, over 50% of the population voted for Obama based on his background and his credibility. The same will happen for Clinton.

If GOP voters are concerned that so many would vote for a Democratic candidate based often on their background while their similarly-originated candidates don’t do anywhere near so well, they are not doing anywhere near enough to bring in candidates with both a relatable background and a believable credibility for office. Try harder.

One more time, with feeling:

I didn’t know that Ken Thompson just died. He was only 50.

Ken was involved in many key cases, such as the sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the police sexual battery case on behalf of Abner Louima, and the movement to reopen the DOJ investigation on Emmett Till’s 1955 murder in Mississippi. He was an active participant in the felony exoneration movement, clearing over 20 prisoners’ names as District Attorney.

He was only two years into his first term as the first African-American District Attorney for Brooklyn/Kings County when he died of cancer on Sunday.

I don’t believe that political calculation is wrong.

If you change your position in your campaign for political office, you better hope that it’s the better one. Because it will be the job of the activist to either hold you to it or bring you down on it.

I don’t think Trump is wrong to change his opinion from last year on Canada’s single-payer healthcare. I think he’s grievously wrong for having the wrong position on it, and for flat-out lying about Canada in the process.

I don’t think Clinton is wrong to change her position on fracking. I think it’s good that she has changed it to a nuanced opposition, but she may have been misinformed about its supposed benefits in the first place.