Thing #1
This Memeorandum summary of a Fox News headline is a great example of why Americans are collectively unable to pass sensible gun safety regulations or even have a coherent debate on the issue:
Here’s a description of the proposal, which Fox News cribbed from a real news organization for propaganda purposes:
The Obama administration wants to keep people collecting Social Security benefits from owning guns if it is determined they are unable to manage their own affairs, the Los Angeles Times reported.
If Paw-Paw can’t be trusted not to blow his Social Security check on magic beans, he shouldn’t have a fucking gun. In a sane country, this would not be controversial.
Thing #2:
I’ve been on a road trip for the past several days, so I’ve only sporadically been able to follow the Netroots Nation kerfluffle. When I read about it, my first thought was, “How Netroots Nationish.” That’s not to minimize the importance of the issue – I’m just a bit surprised people reacted as if the BLM protests were an interruption of some sacred Democratic rite. Isn’t NN always kind of a shitshow?
Reading the subsequent clashes online over the issue, I’m struck by how quickly they devolved into screaming matches over how bystanders are reacting to the controversy. This has inspired the following honest, 100% snark-free question: Why should we give a flying fuck about the behavior / rhetoric of the various candidates’ supporters? Doesn’t it make more sense to focus on what the candidates themselves do or say?
IMO, there was entirely too much focus during the 2008 primaries on what Clinton’s and Obama’s respective supporters did or said. I certainly fell into that trap big time and spent way too much time bashing / being bashed by PUMAs. It had its amusing moments, but in retrospect, it was a gigantic waste of time and effort.
Does Bernie Sanders count sanctimonious fools among his supporters? Certainly! Are some Martin O’Malley partisans insufferable buffoons? Of course! Are a not-insignificant number of Hillary Clinton’s supporters hectoring blockheads? Absolument!
But so fucking what? If party apparatchiks, campaign functionaries or the candidates themselves act like assholes or ignore important issues, that’s fair game, and we should discuss it until the cows come home. But I don’t give a fuck if their supporters are assholes on Twitter. This Team Jacob vs Team Edward bullshit is dumb and pointless, and I am done with it. At least for today.
Thing #3:
This is the most Florida thing to happen in the history of Florida:
Florida Man Shot in Ass Protecting Turtle Nests From Drunk Guy
An elderly Florida man was shot in the buttock with his own gun this week after confronting an intoxicated man who was disrupting sea turtle nests…
Right in the buttocks. Open thread.
Scott S.
People who scream about Obama banning guns shouldn’t be allowed to own guns.
Roger Moore
On Thing 3: it looks as if having a gun did not help to make Florida Man one bit safer. Instead, his assailant took it away from him and used it to shoot him. I guess it counts as one more in the “don’t flash your piece unless you’re going to shoot it” column.
MattF
With his own gun! There’s a metaphor there.
The Other Chuck
Yet again showing the reason Fark has a “Florida” tag…
The Other Bob
I will take any one of the crazy outliers in the Democratic constituency over the bigoted, crazy 27% that the Rebubs call their base.
Belafon
With his own gun. I could have sworn having a gun and the other person not having one would keep you safe.
MattF
The solution (obviously) is to arm the turtles.
catclub
@Roger Moore: Florida also has a law apparently on assaulting someone over 65.
I wonder if they have one for assaulting someone under 10?
Another Holocene Human
@The Other Chuck: A prophetic decision.
Another Holocene Human
@Belafon: I liked the hipster d-bag who flashed his gun to look cool and had it stolen off of him.
gene108
I think two things are at work, why we cannot have a coherent debate on gun laws.
1. 35+ years of the “slippery slope” theory, wherein gun owners have been taught that giving an inch on any form of tighter gun regulations will result in a “slippery slope” towards outright gun confiscation and ban on all gun ownership; and
2. The gun-nuts keep moving the goal posts as to what counts as the start of going down the “slippery slope”, by ever expanding access to guns and being able to parade around in public with guns.
Take away conceal carry permits, which have only been around 20 or so years, and you’ve started down the “slippery slope”. Take away open carry laws, which seem to have only popped up in the last 5-6 years, and you’ve started down the “slippery slope”.
Another Holocene Human
@catclub: If they actually enforced their laws about abusing the elderly, you might have a point.
The dirty rest home industry, for one, is too strong in Tallahassee for that to ever happen.
Amir Khalid
People should only be allowed to have guns if they can show they know how to use one competently and handle it safely. They should be subject to safety inspections just like anyone else who handles dangerous equipment.
Some people get into politics because they like arguing, and it’s the only way to gain access to a proper Argument Clinic.
I can’t see the word “buttocks” in print without hearing in my head how Tom Hanks pronounces it as Forrest Gump: “butt tocks“.
TG Chicago
Let’s not forget that “Social Security” also includes disability payments, including those for people who have developed serious mental health issues.
Republicans often (after the latest mass shooting) like to pretend they’re on board for keeping guns out of the hands of people struggling with serious mental health issues, but when an actual proposal comes along it’s all “OBUMMER TRYNA TAKE YER GUNZZZZ!!!!!!”
Another Holocene Human
@gene108: They are radicals.
Diana
I think the focus on inane bystanders/camp followers is little more than the inevitable result of infinite bandwidth and the natural human taste for scandal. Neither Hilary nor any of her rivals are going to say or do anything too controversial, so everyone’s attention is diverted by those who do.
Another Holocene Human
@Amir Khalid: We found out last time having the same minimum standards required to buy, sell, own, or operate a car are UNKONSHTATOOSHONULL and OWTRAYJUS because reasons.
The Other Bob
@gene108:
3. People who carry guns around are flipping cowards. They are easily scared into believing the government is out to get them and might take their guns and they might have to go out in public unprotected from the hordes of criminals and dark people who lurk around every corner.
Frankensteinbeck
1: Fox is a symptom, not the disease. They do nicely headline the lunacy that makes gun control difficult.
2: Judging by the coverage here for the last few years, I’m guessing ‘yes’.
3: In South Carolina, he’d be having sex with the turtles. In Kentucky, their child would be elected senator.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Reposting this. Any of you who force yourself to watch Morning Joe know if it came up on their little Center Right Very Reasonable Coffee Klatsch*?
* on the network’s own commercials, they’ve replaced Oprah’s endorsement with Sarah Jessica Parker and Tom Hanks.
Josie
Thank you, Betty, for the chuckles. If it were not for you and Anne Laurie, things would get much too serious around here, and/or we would not be keeping up with the important news of the day.
Another Holocene Human
@Diana: Well, if the inane camp followers would stop trolling political websites’ comments sections and Facebook and jumping all over Black activists on twitter in a pathetic attempt to keep the attention rolling then we wouldn’t very well be talking about them, would we?
Patricia Kayden
“Florida Man Shot in Ass Protecting Turtle Nests From Drunk Guy”
I’m sure the turtles are thankful for his sacrifice.
FridayNext
@MattF:
They’ve already got a good supply of shells, so ammo’s no problem.
A guy
Great, now everybody using drugs or alcohol can be denied federal assistance. If Joe Welfare has an addiction certainly he shouldnt put the rest of us at risk by using tax dollars to feed it. In a sane country, this would not be controversial.
raven
@Amir Khalid: The dude that got shot and was carrying is a Nam vet. That doesn’t mean he knows how to handle a weapon but there is a little better chance I suppose. He probably thought the mere site of it was going to scare the drunk off but he was obviously wrong.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sparring with the die-hard PUMAs at MyDD was kind of fun. I’m even disappointed Armstrong seems to have traded politics for yoga cause it would have been a hoot to see the old band back together, instruments out of tune, lyrics half forgotten, voices strained and cracking as they try to hit those old notes….Thugs! Sexist! Macomb County! Ted Kennedy is a traitor! Bradley Effect!
Another Holocene Human
Here’s what I really, really don’t get.
Saint Bernie is supposed to be some activist leading light, the uber activist from the pure land who will lead the lost peoples into a land of milk and honey.
But when he gets interrupted by hecklers–by the way, I feel like he handled them okay, what was lame was the way he canceled all of his meetings afterwards–these same bards who sing his praises all day long start lecturing about how ‘yer doin it rong’ and it was the wrong forum, and it was rude, and how dare you, and you must want Republicans to win, blah blah blah.
If you’re supposedly such a great activist that you could only support a great activist like Saint Bernie, Bernie or Bust, then wouldn’t you at least respect what the activists did, even if you–I know, I know, you’ll never admit to it–disagreed?
These were bog standard protest tactics. Any lefty activist should be extremely familiar. Bernie should be familiar. Why are you defending him? Can’t he figure out how to handle that himself?
But these people let the masks slip when they argue about the message. No, they don’t agree with what Tia Oso was saying, and they don’t practice what they preach because they are authoritarians at heart. They just want their authority in charge.
JosephP
I love what the Florida guy that got shot said afterwards:
“I figured if I showed a handgun that would be enough to diffuse any situation,” Stanley Pannaman, 72, told the Daily News. “People may be nuts but they aren’t crazy. I didn’t realize I would be dealing with a crazy guy.”
Chris
Guns are that one American pathology that I don’t even try to explain to my West European relatives and friends. Racism, religious looniness, class prejudice, even American Exceptionalism, that’s relatable (if only because Europe, too, has them in spades). The brand of madness that insists on complete deregulation of deadly weapons as a hill to die on, beyond even freedom of speech or assembly… nope, doesn’t compute.
I suppose every country has one inexplicable eccentricity like that.
raven
Stan Pannaman was a Marine, they all walked point so you know what you have here.
Another Holocene Human
@Chris: You have better European friends than me **headdesk**
maybe acquaintances is a better term, because when people say horrible racist shit to me and then refuse to listen when I tell them what they heard on the news is reheated bullshit my I-can’t-even level goes way up and then we don’t talk for a year and a half which is pretty much where I am right now
I used to have a friend who wasn’t nuts but she withdrew from social media and I only had her number and email several moves and email addresses ago. sigh. :(
Felonius Monk
Ah, 20+ comments in and it seems like peace and tranquility has returned to Balloon-Juice. After last night’s double Comment-a-thon, I’m kinda wore out.
Thanks for the humor, Betty.
pacem appellant
He was protecting turtles, guys! If you’re gonna get shot–with your own piece or otherwise–it might as well be guarding the baby turtles. That’s the way I want to go anyway.
Steve in the ATL
Had a family dinner Friday night. Afterwards, while chatting and enjoying our fifth round of drinks, my brother in law pulled his Beretta out of a concealed holster to show off to me. I asked him what he thought was going to go down at dinner with his in laws. He said “You never know!”
Black helicopters, FEMA camps, chem trails. I don’t even know how to respond to these people and I fear for what they’re doing to their children.
RSA
Hypothetically I could imagine someone who couldn’t handle his or her own SS checks but would be okay owning a gun, which suggests a solution that would involve the person jumping through a few extra hoops to demonstrate—oh, wait, you said, “in a sane country.” Never mind.
MattF
And, as for thing #2… the activists are just hoping that the media’s desire to write articles that go “somesomethingsomething DISARRAY DISARRAY somethingsomethingsomething” will get them some publicity. Otherwise I see zero political significance in it.
Chris
@Another Holocene Human:
Oh, I know plenty of European assholes. Like I said, most of America’s sins exist over there too. The gun nut thing is just one particular pathology that I don’t think has an equivalent over there.
srv
#1. States provide practically no input on ‘Mental Defectives’ to NICS, which represented something like 1% of the database in 2008. Throwing the SS data is hugenormous expansion. This is going to hit vets big-time and they aren’t going to go quietly.
#2. This is BJ, who are you and what have you done to Betty?
#3. I guess it’s better to let drunks assault turtles
catclub
@Felonius Monk: Not to mention the 500+ comments on the LGM thread about the south/not just the south.
That is all I know. When I saw that thread it was at 245 or so. I never even opened it up.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid: They should be subject to safety inspections just like anyone else who handles dangerous equipment.
In the US, someone has to pass a (usually perfunctory) road test to get a driver’s license. If they pass one at, say, 16, in most cases, in most states, they are never again tested. That certainly ranks high on the “dangerous equipment” list.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Chris: Do you see the same level of religious looniness in Western Europe? I’m sure they’re there, but do they have the same kind of influence on politics? I can’t imagine a national-level European politician being afraid to answer a question about evolution as Scott Walker was. Do you think an atheist/agnostic would be dead in the water in Germany or England or France?
I recommended the Robert Duval movie Apostle to a few friends who asked me to explain George Bush’s religiosity, though I admit I don’t remember the movie well enough now to remember exactly why.
Felonius Monk
Recent report from the Jade Helm insurrection.
SatanicPanic
#2 – this is why Betty is the best. totally agree
MattF
@Felonius Monk: Not surprised to learn that one of the Jade Helm idiots has anger management problems.
catclub
@Gin & Tonic:
Not quite. Mom is 85 and worried about a re-test. I think they start to kick in again around that age.
Another Holocene Human
So I checked last night, so glad I was on a different blog last night, and lots of regulars showing out. I quit at about 50 comments in for the sake of my blood pressure. Ugh. Ruemara, you are a saint. Lololololol at Anne Laurie’s suggestion that David Koch was a GOP plant. DK, I know we would get along like a house on fire if we met in person.
NorthLeft12
Sorry, I am as anti-gun as anyone, but withdrawing social security benefits from people who are “unable to manage their affairs” [define please] and own guns makes very little sense to me.
As others have pointed out, if someone is not responsible they should not own a gun whether they are living from social security cheque to cheque, or is a trillionaire.
The last item sort of says it all. I hate to stereotype, but Mr. Panamann’s [the victim] comment regarding pulling out his gun to diffuse the situation is the definition of US foreign policy for the last fifty years or so. Freaking hilarious.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ask a Juropein about Roma people, aka “Gypsies” or Greeks. Go ahead.
Prepare for vile, smelly derpflood.
Mack
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I loved the Apostle, one of my favorite movies, but I probably wouldn’t have had the same appreciation for it had I not moved to the south, AND married a preacher’s daughter.
Belafon
The problem is that people – and I’m not going to claim I’m not one of them (OK, I’m barely a people) – have trouble dealing with criticism, either towards themselves, or toward a favorite person. Sanders bungled the response, mostly by not doing the interview afterwards. I think he recovered a little the next day (I was at the Dallas rally), but supporters became defensive. So, it’s not completely possible to separate the candidate from the followers if you’re going to talk about it at all. Offering a “this is how I think Sanders should respond” can get you some intense feedback.
Gin & Tonic
@catclub: That’s why I included the qualifiers. Absent some obvious medical condition, the only state I’m aware of that requires a road test for renewal from older drivers is Illinois. Maryland and DC require a doctor’s note. About half of states require more frequent vision testing, but no road test.
Bobby Thomson
Thing 1 is surprising and looks like a clumsy commerce clause hook, assuming it’s a ban on ownership and not just purchases. I’m sure the administration would like laws prohibiting gun ownership by people who are mentally incompetent but face political opposition and potential constitutional issues.
Another Holocene Human
@Gin & Tonic: That varies big time state to state and there’s a weight limit to what you can drive with that punter’s license, also, too.
Much like gun licensing state to state except for the whole once-I’m-clear-I-can-operate-any-gun crap.
And to be clear, I believe licensing should be tighter. In Germany where M5’s were designed a 16 year old is not allowed to drive one. Actually, I think you might have to be 25 or 26. There are car grades, and they go by HP.
Another Holocene Human
@Bobby Thomson: How many people would that cover anyway. If you’re on SS disability you probably pawned the gunzzz years ago just to get by.
Belafon
@NorthLeft12:
You have it backwards. SS wouldn’t be taken away; their guns would be and the ability to buy new ones would end.
Another Holocene Human
@Gin & Tonic: You’re right. The state should insist on it, at least at 70, when stats tell us that risk curve shoots way up. It shouldn’t be on families to have “the talk” (especially as dementia can make some oldsters less inclined to listen).
MattF
@Gin & Tonic: Maryland requires a vision test for license renewal.
Kropadope
@gene108:
The slippery slope argument is just a means of advancing their own brand of political correctness where gun control can’t be debated in polite society.
A slippery slope unto itself, one they support and that others should be very concerned about.
Don’t you see where this is going? First corporate personhood, then gay personhood, next comes…Firearm personhood. 100 years from now, people will be arguing about traditional marriage as a relationship between one human and his/her pistol.
Sly
It’s all well and good to castigate people for allowing unofficial, unpaid “surrogates” (a.k.a. “random assholes on the internet”) define the supportability of their preferred candidate, but I don’t think anyone’s doing that here. I haven’t seen anyone associated with or supportive of BLM saying that they’re refusing to vote for Bernie Sanders because some idiot on Twitter with a Bernie avatar was condescending toward them.
I like Bernie Sanders, and I’ll vote for him if he gets the nomination. If the primary season is long enough so that New York is competitive, I may even vote to give him the nomination. That many of his most ardent fanboys are obnoxious, patronizing dickholes will have no bearing on that decision, because the most ardent fanboys of any given candidate are obnoxious, patronizing dickholes.
Another Holocene Human
@Belafon: IMHO, birds of a feather flock together, and when Sanders’ most vocal proponents online act like clowns I would have nothing to do with IRL, I walk the other way.
So far his stupid followers haven’t really affected my decision-making process for the primary but the campaign is young.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Holocene Human: Oh god, I’d never argue that there are no racists in Europe, I just don’t see religious fundamentalism as the same kind of political force in Western Europe (I gather Rick Santorum would feel quite comfortable in Poland).
Though having said that, about a year ago there was some strong opposition to same sex marriage in France, and one article I read said that Parisian elites had underestimated the strength of cultural catholicism in a country where regular church attendance is in (IIRC) the low double digits. Gay rights, civil unions, that was okay, but marriage was a bridge too far for a lot of people.
Another Holocene Human
@Chris: They have NATO’s strategic supply of conspiracy theorists, however, and we’re not talking about Alex Jones’ aliens-did-9/11 pikerville kind of conspiracy theorizing, either.
This is CT with Big Words and University Educations.
Not really the same thing as gunnuttery though, because less people have died. So far.
NCSteve
I can only express unabashed admiration for the self-honesty it took to come to that conclusion. Alas, I lack that honesty and continue to believe that my long service in the Comment Wars of 2007-08 were not a complete waste of time and energy. I’m still just not there yet.
Another Holocene Human
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I don’t think they have anything like American style fundy-ism. Even other Evangelicals in the English speaking world outside of America are like WTFITS?
However, you know who did?
The Boers in South Africa.
There’s always a market for tribalistic racist apocalyptic religion when you’re a racial minority in power maintained through terrorism.
Kropadope
@Another Holocene Human:
You don’t think that every candidate has supporters that fit this description?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yowza, has Donald Trump been allowing Mark Kirk to fly under the radar? I knew he was a neocon, but this surprises me, both because of what Kirk’s been spewing, and because this comes from a newspaper in southern Illinois (I’m sure the Tribune still stands by its endorsement):
Kropadope
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
As provided by a noted U.S. ally.
I don’t understand why they think a plan designed explicitly to prevent Iran from getting a bomb will allow them to do so. I just think these Rs want to punish Iranians for overthrowing the Shah by crushing their economy and not allowing them to engage in perfectly legal nuclear power production and research.
Belafon
@Kropadope: They all do. Sanders’ supporters just had the spotlight this weekend.
Another hard thing to do is separate pointing out the flaws in a supporters reasoning and just revealing your own bias (the term “Obot” for instance).
Ruckus
@catclub:
In CA it’s around 70 when they start regular retesting. Don’t know how many yrs between testing but it’s a great idea. My license needs renewing on my 71 birthday. Bet I get tested.
Another Holocene Human
@Kropadope: Ready for Hilary annoyed me too, but Sanders supporters* have been earning the gold stars this week for obnoxiousness everywhere that I hang out. But this, too, shall pass.
*-some of them may be RW trolls
Kropadope
@Belafon: or, conversely, a detractor using such terms to paper over flaws in their own logic.
srv
@Chris:
It cracks me up that Euros think that sending all their nutjobs to the Americas was going to turn out well.
They really have no sense of history.
Betty Cracker
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: But did you know that government officials in Iran openly discuss wiping Israel off the map? That’s what makes that government so evil we should not negotiate with them, I’m told.
MazeDancer
Gawker top editors are resigning because they were not allowed to freely invade the life of a private citizen while supporting blackmail. That’s right, they’re resigning because the post was removed, not because it was immoral, wrong, and misguided in the first place.
Here’s link to Gawker where they do their GCW: http://gawker.com/tommy-craggs-and-max-read-are-resigning-from-gawker-1719002144
And if you prefer not to click to Gawker, here’s TPM brief post: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/gawker-editors-resignation?utm_content=bufferf2cf7&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Belafon
@Kropadope:
See Cuba.
Matt McIrvin
I think we’re still scarred by 1968 and maybe also 2000, and seeing echoes of them everywhere. There’s this idea that poorly behaved supporters are going to sabotage the general election or turn into third-party spoilers.
Of course, 1968 was a civilization-wide disaster, and Nader’s marginal Floridian support only arguably made a difference in 2000 because of an improbable confluence of effects (including both malicious and incompetent behavior by others) that had the election balanced on a knife-edge.
Clinton-supporting PUMAs made no significant difference in 2008, and yet Democrats worried about them and the media wasted ink and pixels on them. Everyone loves a good story.
Gin & Tonic
@Ruckus: I’m sorry, but that is false. CA does not require road (re)testing unless the driver [has]:
You have to renew the license in person (not by mail) if you’re over 70 just so they can do a vision test.
Amir Khalid
@Kropadope:
Their professed belief is that negotiating at all is weakness; the right thing to do is to make plans to bomb Iran. They also believe that the Obama Administration and its international allies, all of them hopelessly inept at negotiating anyway, have been played for chumps by Iran, which will now have a free hand to build all the nukes it wants.
kc
I just think it’s funny that some of the same people (literally, the SAME PEOPLE) who cheered Obama’s shutting down a trans woman who heckled him are cheering hecklers who shut down Bernie Sanders.
JPL
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: In order to keep his seat, he has to appeal to the crazies. That’s what I think.
Applejinx
You have to remember Bernie is a socialist. He SERIOUSLY believes that the bottom line driving the death count for blacks is class warfare driven by economics.
This is not a man who thinks that leaving the whole system in place and making some injustice noises is going to do the trick. To him this ‘act up’ style activism is tragically misguided. It’s gonna get you guys killed repeatedly while you work it out. The woman killed for a busted taillight was an activist and very likely made activist noises and look where that got her.
It’s almost like believing your ideas have to compete for market share in a free market where just trying harder will get you success and mainstream acceptance. It’s like accepting the whole system but thinking you’re gonna be the billionaire so the system’s okay. Clearly the only thing wrong is black activists aren’t yelling as loud as the Koch Brothers, and people are refusing to help them yell.
Bernie’s like wait wait wait wait. Stop. You’re trying to express power within a capitalist system where there are probably more severe consequences for improperly killing MEAT animals or dogs, than for killing you, and you expect to activist out of this by having more publicity and awareness? You need first of all not to be starving and desperate and incarcerated for the capitalist benefit of white rich people, and that’s just for starters. Your whole position here can be seen in class terms. We have to dismantle oligarchy first or you are nothing but unpaid extras for Koch ads. You are propagandizing the wingnut masses FOR the Kochs at your own expense. Stop, sit down, listen.
Black activists hear ‘stop’ and seemingly don’t have the context to interpret the rest.
Bernie is telling you that in this system as it’s constructed you are SUBHUMAN. Same as most poor people, but worse if you look at the numbers and the lack of mobility. Bernie has NO answer for you other than ‘hang in there as we try and get help’ because he honestly believes, as a socialist, that you have NO power base inside an oligarch capitalist system that’s in the final stages of selling out, not just you but then all the poor whites. Who can be told it’s all your fault… by rich whites.
Since Bernie won’t lie to you and knows what answer he’s gonna give, I completely understand why he canceled important meetings with black activists. He was going to say the same thing! He was not going to have a different answer for you. It was going to be doubling down on the shitshow that was activists demanding one kind of solution for a situation, and Bernie falling back on the underlying structural stuff he knows is creating the situation.
I hope he finds ways to incorporate black activism into his message, He does have to win, though. I am worried we’re not going to be able to represent #blacklivesmatter in America today, and that is absolutely disgusting if we’re not. If the reality of this causes most of America to go all David Brooks whitesplaining, that is disgusting. ‘they just need to be good and work harder’ feh.
I can’t count Bernie as this type of whitesplaining, because he doesn’t believe it’s a good system apart from black folk fucking it up. He believes it is an utterly failing, abhorrent, toxic system, in which black folk happen to be paying a higher price, but a price that’s not significantly different from what any non-rich person faces except in degree. To him the black experience is the canary in the coalmine and a sign of what’s to come, and I agree.
I’ve been reading Balloon Juice long enough to remember posts about police violence directed at whites. It’s right to focus attention on police violence toward blacks, because that’s the largest target and easy to spot, but Bernie is right that this is powered by deeper factors. Fail to deal with the real causes and justice will remain unattainable.
kc
@Steve in the ATL:
Showing off your gun after a bunch of cocktails . . . what could go wrong?
kc
@Applejinx:
http://mattbruenig.com/2015/07/18/haha-what/
Linnaeus
@kc:
Reminds me of that scene in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil when a couple of the guests at Jim Williams’s Christmas party pull out their guns – after they’ve had a few, of course.
raven
@Applejinx: Is this all before or after he withdraws because he has ZERO motherfucking chance?
Germy Shoemangler
News from Texas:
Roger Moore
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s a bit misleading. People aren’t generally retested randomly, but if you ever manage to screw up badly enough to lose your license, you’ll have to pass the test again to get it back. Also, too, in some sane states, people whose driving competence is challenged for other reason, e.g. age, medical problems, may be forced to retake the test or even stripped of their license.
MattF
@Germy Shoemangler: I don’t believe they had the intelligence to grow onions.
mai naem mobile
My behavior has changed with the number of guns around. I try not to have even minor disagreements with strangers(driving,parking,snarky comments) because you never which moron has a gun. Keep in mind I am not some aggresive person so it’s pretty egregious if I would have said anything in the first place. Also, Betty, I’m glad to have Fla around because Arizona could never outcrazy Fla.
Germy Shoemangler
@MattF:
Maybe they were speaking metaphorically. “Onions” meaning shit for brains or something.
Amir Khalid
@Germy Shoemangler:
My head is spinning.
Germy Shoemangler
@Amir Khalid: Of course not… No hate there. Nothing says love more than pig’s blood and a pig’s head on a spike.
It’s how we greet new neighbors. Howdy neighbor!
Kropadope
@Amir Khalid:
The assurances of arms-control specialists notwithstanding.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Pffft. The same sissies who told us Saddam didn’t have nukes?
Fair Economist
@raven:
This is politics. Odds certainly favor Hillary, but stranger things can happen. If nothing else, at this point a serious accident or medical condition for Hillary would probably given Sanders the nom. Besides that, Sanders can accomplish a number of political goals without winning the nomination so I doubt he’ll drop out until Hillary has 50%+1 pledged delegates.
celticdragonchick
@The Other Bob:
That seems like a wildly unreasonable blanket statement.
I take it you have never been a woman with an unwanted stalker? Some people do have valid reasons for carrying a weapon.
dogwood
Most of the comments on political blogs like this are about right fighting rather than policy. The two threads yesterday went on forever because they were more about what the white guys did than anything else. Elon posts here regularly and he’s lucky if his comment section hits double digits. Kay used to post lots of interesting things, but since they weren’t designed to start a flame war, she’d be lucky to get 30 comments.
pamelabrown53
@NorthLeft12:
Here’s why it makes sense: since not even the most basic common sense laws can be passed regulating guns and gun safety, the executive branch has to resort to issuing rules that they can effect unilaterally. It’s literally the best they can do do keep guns out of the hands of some mentally impaired. Let’s be honest, it’s a high threshold to meet before someone can be legally declared incompetent. Which is a good thing, IMO.
Still, it’s an imperfect means to address an urgent issue but it’s the one of the few avenues available when only 1 branch of government is willing to act.
celticdragonchick
@Applejinx:
Excellent post. I may not agree with the Senator here, but I do understand his reasoning.
Another Holocene Human
@Applejinx: First of all, where did Bernie Sanders say all this?
Secondly, you must know how condescending it comes off. Do we really have to do a rewind back to 1970 and have these same conversations all over again?
No, you know what, why bother, it’s 2015 and we know better. Racism and sexism weren’t eliminated after the Socialist revolution in the ‘Stans, just papered over for a while. And racism and sexism weren’t eliminated in the Democratic Socialist paradises just because they passed social welfare legislation and have legally mandated labor-management meetings. While you’re cheering about Pride 2015 keep in mind that socialist orthodoxy in the 20th century was that GLBT was an aberration brought about by the disease of capitalism and in the socialist paradise, queerness would fade away.
You guys suck on our issues, you guys. You always have and some of you are trying to prove the point that you always will.
srv
Who said democrats aren’t fascists?
Shantanu Saha
@TG Chicago: considering that much of the GOP base is clinically insane, restricting the mentally ill from accessing guns would withhold this right from too much of their voters.
Joel
Betty, you buried the lede on the Florida story:
jl
@Germy Shoemangler: That’s cute the bigots. The local Muslim community may have the same reaction as the one in Tennessee when some scared and bigoted locals got some land next to Muslim community center and ran pigs on it. The Muslims said ‘We don’t care at all. We don’t have anything against pigs, we just don’t eat them.”
celticdragonchick
@Belafon:
Also legally very problematic since arms ownership has been recogized as an indivdual right by the SCOTUS. Would those same persons be denied the right to vote? That logic suggests that they could, since they are no longer able to make decisions.
I agree that persons with dementia shoud not have dangerous items around, but unless you can prove need for a court appointed guardian, you will have a real tough time depriving that person of constitutional liberties as determined by the SCOTUS.
elmo
@Steve in the ATL:
And that’s part of the problem right there. IT’S NOT A FUCKING TOY. It’s not a new boat, or a new grill, or any of the other manly-man hobby-toys that guys show off to each other. It is a deadly fucking weapon, and should never, ever, ever be unholstered without both need and the greatest seriousness and care.
I am a gun owner. I am damned adamant about having a right to own an effective means of self-protection. But Goddammit, people like this are why I am wavering and just about ready to concede that there really just aren’t enough people who understand what guns are, and those of us who do understand are going to have to give up our rights for the common good. Because showing off a new gun as if it were the Red Ryder BB gun out of a Christmas Story is how people get fucking killed.
And I know this well, because a dear friend of the family lost his beloved daughter many years ago when her fiancé did exactly this at a family gathering, and the hammer caught on the underside of the coffee table, the bullet ricocheted up off the floor, and struck her right between the eyes. Her fiancé was a cop.
celticdragonchick
@srv:
Actually, German immigrants who supported Nazi Germany were locked up in camps (and a number of them deported after the war I believe) and it might pass legal muster today under certain cirsumstances. Who knows?
Kropadope
@celticdragonchick:
The potential consequences of a single vote pale in comparison to the potential consequences of a single gunshot.
low-tech cyclist
What gets me about the protest/disruption at NN was that the protesters were from the group “Black Alliance for Just Immigration.” And what were they protesting? Blacks dying while in police custody.
So: things are terrible for blacks here, but they aren’t letting enough blacks in to share the terribleness.
The food here is lousy, and the portions are too damn small.
Seriously, I can understand working to change one of these things, or the other. And sure, I can understand that there are many things wrong with the lives of persons of color in America, and protesting one of the wrongnesses hardly disqualifies you from objecting to others. But this is one situation where you’d think they’d want to pick just one of those two things, because this combination really is rather incoherent.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Did anyone point out to the good general that we have, per news reports, been arresting quite a few people for providing material support (I think is the terminology?) to terrorist organizations?
celticdragonchick
@elmo:
This. Absolutely fucking this.
I own guns for sport, self protection and even for Revolutionary War re-enacting.
However, we have a lot of damned idiots around who are making it real tough to defend ownership now, and I do not blame thse who want gun ownership tightly restricted. It should be.
different-church-lady
Of course it makes sense. But we here in Internetland we interact with the supporters much much much more frequently than we do with the candidates. They’re right here jawing with us, so we react to them. When they’re obnoxious they get under our skin. We experience them much more viscerally than we do the candidates themselves.
Kropadope
@elmo:
I’m not a gun owner, I do not want to hold that sort of power. However, I’m also adamant that people have a right to do so.
For me, it’s not a question of banning, instead it’s “under what regulatory framework can we allow this?”
Kropadope
@different-church-lady: Truth.
different-church-lady
@MattF:
Another Holocene Human
@celticdragonchick: I know Black people who keep guns and rifles for the same reason. Definitely not cowards because if they should ever have to use that weapon the law will not be kind.
I took it to mean the winchester wankers who always pollute any discussion about gun control, bored white guys with very elaborate fantasies of power, control, and glory.
kc
@Germy Shoemangler:
Oh, my God.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I gotta lotta problems with Claire McCaskill, with damn me if she’s not damn good sometimes
fromTPM
Jay C
@Another Holocene Human:
Fixt to reflect American Exceptionalism…
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
That’s what they say, at least, but I doubt that’s their real motivation. What they’re really worried about is Iran normalizing diplomatic relations and generally losing its status as a rogue nation. They are afraid of Iran as a regional power, and they see that as far more likely if they’re accepted as an ordinary nation state than if they’re an international pariah. I’m not convinced that’s true- I think it’s at least as likely that they’ll start having more normal relations with their neighbors once they’re accepted by the P5+1- but I can see it as a point of concern.
Kropadope
@srv:
Well, they pride themselves on being a big tent.
Jeffro
No guns, no Bernie, just some nice GOP infighting here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/scott-walker-iran-deal_55acfd69e4b0d2ded39f57c2?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000601
I love the constant tension between trying to at least give an appearance of thoughtfulness (Bush) vs. the need to be the biggest swingin’ you-know-what in the room (Walker). Because who knows?? We might need to go to war with Iran on President Walker’s first day in office…maybe the launch codes should be taped to the underside of his inaugural podium or something…
Jeffro
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Could that be any more spot-on? O.u.c.h.
KG
@Chris: part of it is just that guns are part of the American mythos – the Revolutionary War, the Alamo, cowboys, bootleggers. and part of it is that we were saved from the up close and personal experience of two major wars within our territory that destroyed almost everything within two generations the way that Europe experienced. I think, had there been an American front in one or both of the World Wars, our attitudes on guns might be different.
elmo
@Kropadope: Right. Insurance requirements strike me as a decent enough starting place, and I wouldn’t object to mandatory safety classes as long as they didn’t become a proxy for “only rich and well-connected people can have guns.” But even a semiannual training requirement is no cure for “Hold ma beer and looka this.”
celticdragonchick
@Kropadope:
@Kropadope:
You may want to reconsider that.
In a singular sense…yes. As an aggregate…it’s not even close. The ability to vote is the ONLY thing we still hold to make government accountable. Slippery slope tropes are annoying and IANAL…but laws do work on precedant. If one constitutional right can be taken away by fiat because of age and decrepitude, why not the others?
The only way that can be done right now is by a court determination that a guardian is required. Maybe that avenue needs to be applied more often. In fact, I am sure that it does.
However, we still get back to the fact that “No citizen shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law”. We cannot short circuit that.
Another Holocene Human
@Kropadope: What kills me is that the line in the sand is filing a simple postcard with the state government when you sell a gun. A simple act that could mean the world in a murder investigation and costs you almost nothing. The paranoia over something as simple as this is a sight to see.
One might cynically suppose it’s being whipped up by straw purchasers who are so far evading attempts to prosecute them but they aren’t all involved in illegal activity, no, somehow they’ve been persuaded this is an existential issue.
different-church-lady
@Another Holocene Human:
That’s kind of her all-purpose riposte. But at least now I know not to take it personally.
jl
@Applejinx: Saw your comment in the previous thread. I agree that is how Sanders thinks. But there is an important point that is unclear to me, which concerns the contentious issues of whether class is the root of it all, or there is a toxic synergy between class and racism, with racism being an independent issue that has to be addressed as a very important independent issue separate from class. And I think it is more than people on blogs bickering over what kind of ‘splaining is being done. The issue of voting rights, which I think is definitely under attack and extremely important needs to address the racial and ethnic bigotry involved directly, for example.
I’m not sure whether Sanders thinks it is the former or the latter. I believe it is the latter, that it cannot ALL be boiled down to class and economics. I think Sanders believes it is the latter also, but I am not sure. He really needs to start being more responsive to groups that are an important part of the Democratic coalition, and be clearer about how he thinks these issues fit together.
@raven: I think this will be important before he withdraws because I think HRC needs to have a real primary contest rather than a coronation. Would you rather Sanders wake up one morning and decides he has zero chance so why bother even trying and withdraws, so Webb can get more attention? I think this will be important after because Sanders is emphasizing that he wants to build a national grassroots organization (and I am getting the feeling that doing so is just as important to him as whether he can win the nomination or not), and what will happen with whatever he builds after (very probably) HRC wins the nomination?
Another Holocene Human
Of course we are talking about gun-totin’ rednecks, I mean who among us doesn’t have the odd cousin who might need killin’?
celticdragonchick
@Another Holocene Human:
I would agree there.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro: that’s not just gonna get under Mr First-Tier-Ivies-Only’s skin, it’s gonna get under his fingernails.
Another Holocene Human
Full disclosure as a white person of questionable (hills have eyes level here, people) stock: my mom’s first cousin Larry, as in Leisure Suit, was pretty universally disliked, none more so than by his wife who tried to arrange to have him killed but, funny story, hired a cop as the hitman.
Mandalay
@Applejinx:
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. It is better to chip away at the existing system than aiming for a sea change that is never going to happen.
The BLM movement wants a range of reforms enacted that will increase the accountability of the police. A reasonable and attainable goal, and there is general support among the public for some reform as well.
I think that they they wil have some success, but they need to sharpen their message and focus on changes that are feasible, such as citizen police review boards, statistics on police shootings, conduct of police unions, police cameras and the militarization of police forces. Unfortunately right now some of the demands on their web site are vague, or out of date, or unrealistic.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
I am going to have a hard time thinking about anything but the fact that my nieces are arriving from Florida tonight! (Though I don’t get to see them until tomorrow because they’re staying with my brother in Thousand Oaks.)
I was worried that the Devil Woman might change her mind at the last minute, but apparently she’s taking off for New York as soon as the girls are out of her hair, so it’s pretty likely they’ll make it onto the plane. Phew!
Another Holocene Human
@Jay C: Whites were a minority in the Deep South for a significant period, perhaps when they were planting the vineyards where the grapes of wrath matured and ripened.
Jeffro
“I’d be honored to share some of Mr. Trump’s support and will gladly keep company with those folks instead of calling them ‘leftovers’, which I think is vile and typical of the Democrat worldview towards anyone who doesn’t agree with them…but I agree with them and their support of me and Mr. Trump…those are good, honest, hardworking Americans who are tired of the Washington Cartel and its enablers in the liberal media…he and I are the only ones speaking the truth and pointing out the need for real, conservative solutions…”
I may have gotten a phrasing or two wrong, but tell me that won’t be his response.
Haydnseek
@celticdragonchick: Why not? We short circuited the shit out of the “well regulated militia” part.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think immigrant Persians (aka Iranians) may have been the last holdout immigrant group that was still voting Republican. I guess the Republicans just couldn’t resist alienating them, too.
(Actually, I think Vietnamese-Americans are still pretty Republican, but I’m sure the Republican Party has a secret plan in store to alienate them, too.)
Jeffro
@raven: Which is still a bigger chance than Jim Webb or Linc Chaffee has.
Another Holocene Human
@Mandalay: Yeah, so I was talking to some local activists here in Florida about citizen’s review boards. Apparently state law makes it basically impossible for one of those to be functional or effective. This is a tactic that was already tried 15 years ago and effectively failed.
The activists are right in that the profile needs to be raised, the pressure ramped up, and, frankly, heads need to roll. This is a big issue, it needs local solutions and big federal attention, too. It needs to be a litmus test for SCOTUS appointees. It needs to hit the zeitgeist.
eta: at least in Florida the Trayvon Martin protesters were also registering people to vote. Pressure activism isn’t an either/or.
Benny Ace
“Why should we give a flying fuck about the behavior / rhetoric of the various candidates’ supporters? Doesn’t it make more sense to focus on what the candidates themselves do or say?”
Depends. Are we prepared to ignore (for instance) the, um, caliber of people who show up at Trump rallies?
Rightly or wrongly, a candidate’s supporters will always be seen as a reflection of the candidate.
elmo
@Another Holocene Human:
My uncle was a professional jockey, and by universal repute suffered from all of the personality shortcomings stereotypically associated with little guys. He came home drunk one night and, so the story goes, tried to get in through the window. His wife, after years of abuse, “mistook him for a burglar.”
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Shit, where are these people hiding because no Persian I’ve ever known in my life supported the Republicans!!
Okay, unfair, I do know this one guy named Amir who was kind of a knee-jerk republican in part because all the democrats he knew were kind of prejudiced against a Muslim like himself but the GOP managed to clear that all up for him a few years ago during 2010’s Summer of Hate.
Actually IIRC he also didn’t care for the Kenyan Usurper Barack HUSSEIN Obama shtick either, as an immigrant himself.
different-church-lady
@jl: Bingo. We’ve got bingo here…
celticdragonchick
@Haydnseek:
That is a seperate problem to some degree in allowing a dubiously “professional” law enforcement class take over certain societal functions. See where that got us now.
The militia exists as the organized militia (see below) and the unorganized militia (everybody else from age 18 to 60 depending on where you like and of good character)
The unorganized militia used to have a real role, and we should never have let that die away because it severed that link between firearms ownership and social responsibility.
Gun owning Colonial adults had to muster once a month, drill etc and even engage in civic restoration and repair projects (like fix that bridge over Deep River that washed out last month)
Now, we have law enforcement who are dangerously disengaged from the public they supposedly protect and a military that is not at all representatiive of American polity.
Bring back the militia in some fashion(even if only helping answer phones at night and sealing off crime scenes), and require gun owning adults to report for social duties once a month…just like the Founding Fathers did.
Voting entails responsibility. Gun ownership should also. It used to….
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/311
Roger Moore
@Another Holocene Human:
No, it’s being whipped up by gun manufacturers who want to be able to continue selling to straw buyers. They want criminals to have continued access to guns because they want the profits from selling to both sides in an arms race.
Jeffro
@Roger Moore: Wonder how long it will be before testing isn’t even necessary, w/ self-driving cars and what not.
I was explaining to my 14-year-old daughter yesterday about how drivers just use their right foot for the gas and the break while the left foot sits there, useless. “Now, kids used to have to learn how to use their left foot to depress this thing called the ‘clutch’, which…” And I just stopped there, realizing my kids will likely never know the sheer terror…and then joy…of learning to drive a stick shift.
#old
different-church-lady
@Jeffro:
Holy god, it’s just sitting there when… WE COULD BE USING IT TO CHECK OUR FACEBOOK FEEDS WHILE WE DRIVE!
Sly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“For the Communists can now use all the power and prestige of the Presidency of the United States to implement their plans, just as fully and even openly as they dare. They have arrived at this point by three stages. In the first stage, Roosevelt thought he was using the Communists, to promote his personal ambitions and grandiose schemes. Of course, instead, the Communists were using him; but without his knowledge or understanding of his place in their game. In the second stage, Truman was passively used by the Communists, with his knowledge and acquiescence, as the price he consciously paid for their making him President. In the-third stage the Communists have installed in the Presidency a man who, for whatever reasons, appears intentionally to be carrying forward Communist aims. And who, in situations where his personal effort and participation are needed, brings to the support of those aims all of the political skill, deceptive cunning, and tremendous ability as an actor, which are his outstanding characteristics.
With regard to this third man, Eisenhower, it is difficult to avoid raising the question of deliberate treason. For his known actions and apparent purposes certainly suggest the possibility of treason to the United States, no matter how he may rationalize it to himself as loyalty to an international dream..”
– Robert W. Welch, founder of the John Birch Society, The Politician. Emphasis mine.
Roger Moore
@jl:
I don’t think it’s possible to separate race and class in the US. A major point of racism is to define class based on race rather than economics so that even poor whites will be able to feel superior to blacks, i.e. to create false consciousness. I see it as a critical reason that racism has to be a major target of anyone trying to improve the lot of poor people. As long as racism persists, poor racist whites will continue to fight measures that help all poor people because they don’t want to see poor blacks benefit.
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
They didn’t used to have any. If you didn’t have points, good on ya. My friends over 70 tell me that they do get tested and my mom would beg to differ but then she can’t any more. And I haven’t had a vision test since my first license at 16 and have always been automatically renewed. That’s 50 yrs without a vision test. OK I did have to retake the written when I moved back to CA but after that nothing but get my license in the mail with the original ID number. They keep track.
boatboy_srq
@catclub: They do. But they leave enforcement to DCF. Don’t ask how that works out.
Steve in the ATL
@Ruckus: Here in over-regulated leftwing paradise Georgia, we perform a vision test at every renewal.
Cacti
@Applejinx:
And when one is an upper middle class white male in this country, they can afford to be doctrinaire about “the real reason for inequality”.
The problem for Bernie isn’t that non-whites need a paternalistic explanation of ‘what he really means’. It’s that they disagree with his premise.
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
They’re getting less so every year, as the dead-enders die off and the younger generation takes over. It’s the same as with the Cubans.
Mandalay
@raven:
If Clinton withdraws for any reason (scandal, plane crash, heart attack,…whatever), and Biden is not interested, then Sanders is almost certainly our candidate for president.
You may not like that idea, and the scenario is unlikely, but he has way more than ZERO chance (just as Trump has way more than ZERO chance).
Belafon
@Jeffro: They can probably avoid it, but you can still buy plenty of cars with manual transmissions. Around here, near the end of the year, you’ll see ads for $149/month Kia Souls. Those have a stick shift.
pamelabrown53
@Amir Khalid:
Exactly. The whole world with President Obama “leading from behind” are all Neville Chamberlains.
boatboy_srq
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: @Betty Cracker: Anything short of strategic nuclear bombardment, turning the enemy’s land to a lifeless glassy plain, is appeasement. Real men don’t negotiate.
/snark
Ruckus
@Applejinx:
You and Bernie are correct of course on the larger context, but people have been waiting for decades or longer and it continues that black people die and are incarcerated at an alarming percentage and by government agencies. And this feeds the racist white perception, endorses it for them.
Maybe, just maybe we can figure out a way to right 2 injustices at at time and not continue to tell people that they have to die for a while longer while we answer a problem that is meaningless if they are dead.
Jeffro
@Mandalay: Biden would totally step up in that event, so don’t stress about it. If you want, you can try and list his possible Veep choices, that’d be interesting.
Roger Moore
@Jeffro:
I’ve heard serious people advocate shifting to using one foot per pedal driving. It slightly increases the chance that somebody will step on both pedals simultaneously- though that was always a possibility when they were close enough together to move one’s foot from one to the other easily- but decreases the risk of stepping on the wrong pedal by accident, which is allegedly the primary cause of “accidental acceleration” accidents.
Germy Shoemangler
@boatboy_srq:
Quote from John Bolton, president Jeb Bush’s ambassador to [insert middle-eastern country here].
Jeffro
@Belafon: Noted w/ thanks. Except now I’m wondering if I still remember how to drive one…it has been a while…
Mandalay
@Another Holocene Human:
Heh…I think you are right. I’ve just been looking at the efforts of the citizen police review boards in Key West, Naples and Fort Lauderdale. They seem to be working for their police departments.
J R in WV
@Germy Shoemangler:
Actually, the chemicals used as embalming agents by funeral directors are extremely toxic, and once the “impervious” vaults break down, and the “forever” casket inside the broken vault is penetrated by ground water, the poisons in the corpse become mobile in the groundwater.
Conversely, a dead body decomposing releases no poisons into groundwater. If you stop to think about it at all, embalming chemicals created purposely to kill all micro-organisms whatsoever have to be more dangerous than a rotting corpse 6 feet underground. We’ve been burying corpses for thousands of years now, all over the world wherever people live, and no one has died recently from that practice.
Once we learned not to dig drinking water wells in the cemeteries… did anyone ever do that?
boatboy_srq
@Jeffro: Not THAT old, TYVM [cough cough]. Although I admit I did learn to drive a manual in the UK (on the right side of the car, on the left side of the road, but with the same feet doing the same things and the gear pattern identical). To this day, every time I drive a manual anywhere else I have to stop myself from opening the driver’s door instead of moving the gearshift.
Belafon
@Cacti: Sanders did mention yesterday the problems with racism in this country, bringing up Sandra Bland and others who have died. It was an aside to his overall economic message, and we’ll have to see how he talks about it over the next few months.
ruemara
@Another Holocene Human: pretty much all of this. It’s not a team Edward vs Jacob thing. It’s the “how dare you ask a candidate to discuss your issues! You aren’t smart enough to know this guy is perfect for you in every way because we think so!” Just hypocritical and tone deaf.
Germy Shoemangler
@J R in WV: Excellent point. But our friends in Texas are using their faulty science as an excuse to keep those furriners out.
I remember hearing about a young woman who died of cancer at the age of 37, as did her sister.
Their father was a mortician; they lived above his business.
I’ve made my wishes known. When I shuffle off this coil, I want cremation. They can throw my ashes in the sea, in Mitch McConnell’s face, I don’t care. But I do NOT want to be embalmed and displayed like a porcelain doll.
Mandalay
@Jeffro:
Probably so. I don’t presume to know what is going on in his head and his heart, but he certainly hasn’t taken Warren’s approach of explicitly eliminating the possibility.
Gin & Tonic
@Jeffro: I taught all my children to drive a standard transmission, just like I taught them to learn how to swim. It’s a basic survival skill.
I found out at one point that one of the reasons my now-son-in-law fell for one of my daughters is that she knew how to drive a manual.
J R in WV
@dogwood:
Elon doesn’t really post here, he posts links to audio files that many of us find difficult or impossible to use. If he posted transcripts of those audio files, which would be a lot of work, I would read them, and comment.
Since I don’t intend to listen to the (admittedly very interesting sounding) audio segments, I can’t comment intelligently. Since I hate to sound dumb (or republican, but I repeat myself!) I just don’t go there on Elon’s posts, other than to occasionally ask for a transcript as loud things have blessed me with different hearing.
Applejinx
@jl: That’s a very good point, and I don’t know the answer.
I think Bernie would like to believe it’s literally all about economics and class, and racism will take care of itself.
I also know as somebody who has to deal with marketing to run a small business, that Bernie needs to ACT like he believes it’s all about economics so he can have that as a primary message. He’s not in a position to speak for Black America as a guy from incredibly white Vermont, far from it. If it’s all about racism, Bernie’s not the guy (nor is anybody else that I can see). If it’s all about economics, Bernie is SO the guy, and he’s authoritative and very hard to cope with.
So, just as a candidate running for office in a tough primary as an underdog, it does not help him to let the terms be ‘racism’, even when it’s never been more relevant (and it’s never not been relevant, even when covered up by the media and society!)
The economic thing also happens to be relevant, is a total desperate crisis ready to blow, and is at least PART of the racism problem in myriad ways. It may not be the true handle on racism we need, but it is Bernie’s big advantage. Back in 2007 black voters strongly supported Hillary Clinton and there’s no special reason they should support Bernie other than the economic thing, a topic where he’s riding a true groundswell for the best of reasons (namely, most other politicians are bullshit and literally selling us out at the behest of rich capitalists)
So if you ditch the socialism, Bernie’s fucked. But if you correctly spot that the whole world is in a crazed powerdive to destruction all to cram more money into the Cayman Islands, Bernie is both totally relevant and has actually done his homework and knows what to do.
I really hope dealing with economics will help Black America. It seems like it couldn’t hurt because they’re definitively the class getting shat on the hardest by the status quo. It’s said that if you want a business canary in the coalmine, look to black-owned businesses. If the economic climate turns bad, they’ll die first, long before you see the damage elsewhere. It’s possible that the reverse is also true: regain a working society/economy, and black people get a fighting chance even though it’s still tilted against them by racism.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I saw some anecdotes that the “real American”/birther talk pissed off a lot of Asian-Americans, but I never saw data.
Jeffro
@Mandalay: Indeed. Why just yesterday…
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/report-joe-biden-may-still-enter-2016-presidential-race
pamelabrown53
@Applejinx:
Let me tell you “STOP”.
First of all, NO economic system can address equal and human rights. Regardless of your proclivities racism, ethnocentrism is baked in the cookie.
For you to blithely throw out the (embedded) sentence “Black activists hear stop and “seemingly” don’t have the context to interpret the rest” makes me want to vomit .Here’s why: dogmatism in government is no way to solve problems.
There is no pure economic system that’s a silver bullet. Precisely because the ideal is subverted to human frailty.
J R in WV
@Germy Shoemangler:
OT, but when my Dad died in Houston TX, my brother and I had already sat down with the yellowpages (this was in 2004) and went down the list of funeral homes. Dad was on hospice care following a long fight with leukemia and COPD from the chemo.
We asked if they did cremation services, with no other services. If they did, we asked how much. We got price quotes from $750 to $12,000. Just for cremation. Guess where we went?
It was a very nice facility in the oriental section of SW Houston, and they did a good job. We were very pleased. I’m sure the $12,000 price quote included a gold-plated urn, while the facility we hired provided a plastic box inside a cardboard box, which was all we needed.
We sprinkled Dad’s ashes with Mom’s ashes, which he had kept on the nightstand by his bed since 1997. At one of their favorite places, too.
ETA: to clean up a little.
boatboy_srq
@Germy Shoemangler: As I noted earlier here,it’s often difficult to tell where our snark ends and their serious statements begin. And Boldon would be pResident JEB!’s ambassador to the UN – for the whole six months the US remained a member.
Chris
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
The last holdout immigrant group is Cubans, but even that’s starting to change.
The thing about Persians – and Arabs, and other Middle Eastern demographics – is that while many of them *used* to ne Republicans, the post 9/11 world has made that untenable. Republicas going full metal Islamophobe – and pro racial profiling, so even the non Muslims are affected – is one reason for that. The other reason is the two wars. Before them, Persians in America could safely indulge in WW2 wingnut fantasies – “oh, if only those chickenshits in Washington would nut up and go liberate Iran!” Not anymor. Even the most dedicated opponents of the islamist regime have no interest in seeing Iranian society totally destroyed and turned into another Yugoslavia.
Chris
@Germy Shoemangler:
Honestly, the fact that a guy like that is even in a diplomatic position to begin with is a testament to how thoroughly politicized and militarized our foreign policy’s become under right wing stewardship.
I mean, imagine a general saying “real men don’t fight wars.” That’s the level of absurdity we’re talking about.
Applejinx
@pamelabrown53: I feel that cultivating a freemarket capitalist system in which raw competition is made to be the highest social value, disproportionately punishes black people.
It forces the stratification of society, which is behind ghettoization. It worsens inequality where it already exists (the ethocentrism thing, and well spotted, exactly right). It encourages the privatization of everything which puts most societal functions in the hands of people who stand to gain preferred demographics by being racist, and strips away the capacity for government regulation which is one possible check on this happening.
And BECAUSE of all this, going deeper into the freemarket capitalist system gives you shantytowns and gated communities as models for human civilization, which is HOW ethnocentrism festers and grows: rather than people’s daily experience being of many races and classes interacting in many ways, it produces little enclaves where white people do not see black people on an equal footing, and ghettos where white people see black people acting just as they would if they were stripped of power and starving and with nothing much to lose and nothing real to gain.
I defy your assumption that ethnocentrism is baked in the cookie and give you the Race IAT as a counter. In this, you recognize things like black or white faces in parallel with words like ‘good’ or ‘bad’, and in American racist culture, both white and black test subjects routinely associate black faces with ‘bad’ more easily than they do with ‘good’. The effect of cognitive dissonance on the speed of recognizing stuff like ‘black face OR good’ could be measured with a hand-held stopwatch, it’s not even subtle and it makes your point.
Unless you hang out with black friends you love, or spend a couple hours watching the Olympics and celebrating great black athletes, or listen to the music of a great jazz musician while looking at the cover. Then, no matter who you are, your racism switches off and you are not being ethnocentric because your associations are different.
ANYTHING that produces healthy safe black Americans living normal lives among white ones, going to work or buying stuff or hanging out in the same places, will get rid of racism in those places where it’s happening. Entire generations (such as Gen X) have measured as less racist thanks to assimilationist trends. Cultural diversity is lost, but that’s how it’s done. Ethnocentrism is not baked in the cookie, ethnocentrism is how you live and the extent to which you ghettoize or self-ghettoize (and of course blacks WERE ghettoized, repeatedly, as much or more as they’ve ever self-ghettoized).
low-tech cyclist
@different-church-lady:
Now that I’m done cracking up over here, the scary part is, if it could be done, there’d be people who’d do it.
Chris
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Religious fundamentalism like in America – no, not to thst extent. I think it varies by country, though: the Catholic Church continues to be a BFD in some places, or was until recently, with all that that implies in re abortion and Teh Gheyz.
Matt McIrvin
@Applejinx:
Not really; there’s an effect but it’s pretty small. I thought we went through this recently.
The big change was between the Silents (who are still around as the Fox News core audience) and the Boomers (currently aging into retirement), and the stimulus there was probably that, in the childhood and youth of the Boomers, there had been a civil-rights movement and there was suddenly some degree of civil-rights enforcement where previously there had been none. GenX is only slightly less racist than the Boomers, for all we like to complain about them; GenY/Millennials are only slightly less racist than GenX.
Kropadope
@Matt McIrvin:
Too slow, maybe, but undeniably progress. The dam will have to break soon, whites aren’t going to be a majority for long.
boatboy_srq
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Same Story Different Century. When the first French revolutionaries tried to break the grip the Catholic Church had on the masses, one of the things they did was redesign the calendar on a decimal model. three ten-day weeks per month, for example. Trouble was that they still only allowed a two-day weekend. Not just the Catholics who thought that was a bad idea. Still, points for originality – and for figuring out how organized religion can be used to control a population.
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady: Didn’t intend to imply we shouldn’t interact with people who are here talking to us. I’m mostly weary of the breathless dispatches from the Twitter wars. I’m glad that platform exists so people can create mocking hashtags and tweet mean shit at each other, but I’m sick of hearing about it. It seems even dumber than inter-blog slap fights.
boatboy_srq
@different-church-lady: Unpossible. Got to drop the coffee first, and you know what a mess java can make in automobile carpeting and upholstery.
There used to be a joke about how you could tell a driver’s home by how s/he drove: I recall Seattle was “both knees on wheel, one hand on latte, one hand on cellphone.”
raven
@Betty Cracker: 46 days till. . . .
Betty Cracker
@raven: Yep! Not a moment too soon! ;-)