Shaming of the Poor

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I am poor.
I am working class.
I receive government benefits.
I dropped out of my first attempt at college in Atlanta, and returned home shamefaced.
I used a Pell grant to go to community college and then a 4-year college.
I took a Stafford loan to pay off my final year of college.
I live with my mother.
I only look for jobs at which I am adept, in which I have a strong interest and for which I do my best.
I’m paying my college debts.
I live on military housing as a civilian visitor.
I have a lot of privilege that many other people do not.
I help Mom pay bills, and vice versa.

Do I feel bad? Yes. Often.
Do I feel like this will make me a political target? Yes. I fear that.

It was not long ago, just when I was coming out of college, that I was asked by some of my own family members why I was still living with Mom in my late 20s without a job. I felt targeted over this due to other family passions in which I was not involved.

Am I financially illiterate? I frequently feel like that, even as I try to save money. I still feel guilt over past spending from 3, 5 or 6 years ago. I still feel like an idiot over past spending habits, feeling regret over things I’ve bought.

I wrestle with the “temporarily embarrassed billionaire” feelings a lot. Knowing that I don’t make a living income is sometimes a frightful knowledge.

But I feel like I need to own this, and to not let this status get control of my emotions.

So I will never tell you to pull yourself up by your own economic bootstraps. Not only is that a dick move, but I refuse to propagate the “wealth as a blessing/mark of character” fraud which turns so many people against each other in Middle America.

I own up to being poor. I own up to depending on others. And I’m committed to paying it back by working to make life easier for others.

Progressives Arming Themselves More Like Conservatives

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Communists are not liberals.
Socialists are not liberals.
Anarchists are not liberals.
Antifa are not liberals.

All four groups heavily espouse arming themselves with self-defense and weapons, even firearms if need be. They are also feared by fascists, conservatives and libertarians alike, and may be circumstantial allies to liberals when it comes to resistance against classist, authoritarian violence (even though liberals are not trusted by socialists).

Liberals have a conflicted history with armed self-defense, and are more respecting of nonviolent protest and the democratic process. They’re also laughed at by fascists, conservatives and libertarians alike for this (as many of us are being laughed at by Trumpists right now), but are useful for conservatives when it comes to preserving the political status quo.

At this moment, I don’t know if I want to identify as a progressive liberal or a socialist. I would rather that we had UK-style gun control in which both police and the public are not armed, and that might make me a bad socialist, but I also see that socialists and the far-left speak in the respective language of violence and self-defense which conservatives and the far-right also speak, which might make me a bad liberal.

Meanwhile, since Election Day, racial and gender minorities have been buying up guns and ammo, and taking gun classes, and getting gun licenses, to protect themselves over the next four years.

It’s depressing, but understandable, to see this happen. We’re now huddling into bunkers to prepare for an armed winter in America.

Just some thoughts coming to mind while perusing the Socialist Rifle Association‘s page.

White Racist Persecution Complex

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White Supremacists/Nationalists/Alt-Right folks LOVE to compare themselves and their plight to that of African-Americans in their demand for “ethno-states”. They devalue actual, living, breathing Euro-descended people in the process.

The thing is, if the slave trade hadn’t happened, if our African ancestors’ families were not forcibly broken up, would we even be describing ourselves as “Black” or even “African-American” in the first place?

We would have been Yoruba, or Asante, or Dahomean, or Kongo, or whatever other ethnicities we would have brought with us to the Americas. We would not have been put through such a genealogical ringer in which only the words “nigger”, “Negro” or “colored” matter in their description of one of a similar skin color.

Instead, our post-slavery ancestry is all we really have. Even the angriest Black Nationalist is doing a lot of (slipshod but well-meaning) compensation for what was taken from us in over 246 years of slavery on the North American continent.

What similar trauma troubles those who yearn for “White Pride Worldwide” or “A White Homeland for Ourselves and Our Children”?

What great historical, enduring cataclysm happened to Europeans or to people of European descent that would see a minority clamor for a militarized “safe space” in the 21st century?

Was it 9/11? Was it the refugee crisis ensuing, eventually, from Euro-American adventures in Iraq + the chaotic proxy war in Syria?

Or was it the Ashkenazi minority and their sufferings of Christian European hypocrisy over millennia? Even now, the genocidal resentment against Ashkenazi Jews among White Supremacists is just as rabid as it is senseless and unfounded in logic. “Show us where the big bad Jew hurt you.”

Nothing has been lost from White rule. It’s still a White Man’s world. It’s still a White Man’s country.

These White Supremacists – the National Policy Institute, for one – are acting like they’ve been losing so much ground for so long, and that Trump will gain back what they’ve imagined as losing.

But their imagined traumas simply don’t compare. And the pain they wish to inflict upon not only people of color but also other White people for flouting their ideals is unjustified and unjust.

Local Politics of Scale

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We want to talk about how there are not enough young people participating in politics.

But the problem is that the pathway to participation is incredibly narrow for a growing population, even at the local level. Our political system is not keeping up with the growth or complexity of our public, even at the local level.

Think of Columbus-Muscogee. 10 people sitting on a city council representing a population of 200,000+ people. That is 1 person per 20,000 people.

8 of the members represent districts, and 2 are elected at-large. That’s too few for too many. That’s a disparity of representation.

Where are the elected neighborhood councils for the districts? Where are the opportunities for the less-monied but just-as-able-minded residents of our city to advise and decide policy at a smaller level than the entire city itself?

The White Working Class of the Rust Belt

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I should clarify an earlier post:

Why should I help try to bring back to the progressive movement the same “White Working Class” demographic who voted to fuck over their own “lazy” unions?

  • Wisconsin and Michigan voted for Trump, right after many of the same bothered to vote for Bernie in the primary.
  • Wisconsin voted for Scott Walker, Michigan voted for Rick “toxic water” Snyder, right after they both voted for Obama twice.
  • Wisconsin and Michigan voted for GOP rabidly anti-union majorities in both houses of their legislatures.
  • Wisconsin and Michigan both voted to gut collective bargaining rights, union security agreements, the right to strike, and many other union-secured benefits.

Wisconsin and Michigan are both majority White Working Class. Black people are leaving Detroit because of the many ills which have befallen that metropolis, so Michigan is becoming even more White Working Class than it has been since before the Great Migration of the early 20th century.

Both states’ GOP leaderships have made it a goal to get more on a parity with Texas and other Southern “miracles” which have ditched state income tax and are further ahead at being “at-will” in their employment security.

And yet you want to bring this demographic back in from the conservative cold.

Do they even want to be saved?

This is irrational voting behavior. This is an ungrateful, suicidal demographic which is inflicting pain upon itself. The White Working Class of today would make the likes of Wellstone and La Follette spin in their graves.

This is also a fool’s errand to try to win back with class consciousness.

I just hope that you’re only asking White people to do this work. Don’t ask Black and Brown people to do this. We are already toxic to the White Working Class in the Midwest. Milwaukee’s own Black sheriff is a bloviating, trigger-happy Uncle Tom with an armed force at his disposal, so he’ll be the last to leave.

Maybe the White Working Class will come back to the Progressive Movement and the labor unions after all the Black people leave Milwaukee and Detroit. Maybe they’ll come back when Wisconsin and Michigan are both 99.9% Euro-American and the “swart gevaar” is ancient history.

Don’t ask me to do this. I am Black, and I will not be listened to.

#WhiteWorkingClass #WhiteFolkWork #ClassConsciousness #racism #ClassWarfare #1u #p2 #FeelTheBern

We can either:

  1. (under current liberal thought aka “race consciousness”) wait until ethnic demographics change across the depopulated bastions of Middle America which provide the bulk of the Electoral College’s power, or
  2. (under Sanders-Warren’s progressive thought aka “class consciousness”) we can try to woo back the White Working Class who voted for both Trump and the gutting of their own unions in the name of prosperity.

Either way, for logistics or optics, it seems like Democrats will have to throw someone under the bus for the midterms.

Bernie folks, while you’re out here trying to make allyships with Trump voters in the Midwest, remember that these same people voted to gut their own unions’ collective bargaining rights.

You know, just to screw over their “lazy” “wealthy” teachers and government workers and welfare recipients, most of whom happen to be White.

Is this the sort of voter you want to bring back into the progressive fold, that Bernie wants to bring back? The type who feels they are too good for unions or that unions are evil?

Sub-par Campaign Websites for Sub-par Candidates

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If you’re going to run for a legislative office here in GA as a Democrat, you better get your communications straight. In fact, DON’T DO YOUR OWN CAMPAIGN WEBSITE, as you’ll probably screw it up anyway. Call/txt me if you need a comms person.

Angela Pendley ran this year as a Democrat for Lynn Westmoreland’s old seat GA-3, which includes northwestern Muscogee.

Her website, http://apendley4house.com is a damn joke, likely self-created on Wix. Her “About” page proudly proclaims thus:

“Angela Pendley does not use social media such as Facebook, twitter, or instagram.
​
Angela Pendley communicate with people in person, on the phone, through email, through United States Postal service, and through text messaging.
​
Supporters of the campaign are encouraged to share Angela Pendley’s message with friends, even if they are republicans who will vote as independents in November.”

Like, what the hell is this? If you’re not where the people and their eyeballs are, you’re ruling yourself out. You’re also doing damage to other progressives and liberals who want to run for that seat after you fail so needlessly.

No wonder she was beat by Drew Ferguson 68%-32%. She had it coming. Her communications looked like absolute “trash can juice”, to quote Nick Decker.

Same with Ben Anderson. Lost 64-35 to Josh McKoon. No website, just a Facebook page Anderson for Georgia.

Democrats out here in the country areas don’t know what they’re doing. Ugh.

Don’t be Angela Pendley 2016. Don’t screw up 2018. Call/txt me. #gapol