A tale of two parties: Democratic town hall taken over by Black Lives Matter protesters, Republican event was taken over by Donald Trump
— Jane C. Timm (@janestreet) July 18, 2015
People's Front of Judea really showed the Judean People's Front today
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) July 18, 2015
Surprised that Bernie Sanders’s call for “revolution” was interrupted by more radical activists? May I introduce you to Russia 1917
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) July 18, 2015
Even before Will Roger’s famous snark, there was Finley Peter Dunne, back in the original Gilded Age:
No, sir, th’ dimmycratic party ain’t on speakin’ terms with itsilf. Whin ye see two men with white neckties go into a sthreet car an’ set in opposite corners while wan mutthers Thraiter an’ th’ other hisses Miscreent ye can bet they’re two dimmycratic leaders thryin’ to reunite th’ gran’ ol’ party.
I was born into the Democratic Party, and the 1972 Democratic National Convention was the first to which I paid serious attention. (I was sixteen, and enamored with Shirley Chisholm.) So yesterday’s “shit show” at Netroots Nation wasn’t the shock to my sensibilities that it was to some other people. As described by local outlet AZ Central:
Civil-rights protesters gave Democratic presidential contenders Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley a raucous and tense reception Saturday in downtown Phoenix, disrupting and commandeering a forum that was billed as a conversation with the two progressive candidates…
Tia Oso, a Phoenix resident with the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, said she helped organize the protest because Black-rights issues were not represented at Netroots Nation this year. While events for Latino immigrants were integrated into the convention, black immigrants were ignored, she said…
“They said, ‘Oh we’re doing it in Arizona. We have to be all about immigration,'” said Angela Peoples, a co-director at LGBT inequality group Get Equal from Maryland. “But then they’re only centering the conversation on Latinos, which is important, but we also know that the experiences … are connected and we need people to be connected to Black lives as much as brown lives.”
In a written statement, Netroots Nation said it “stands in solidarity with all people seeking human rights.”
“Although we wish the candidates had more time to respond to the issues, what happened today is reflective of an urgent moment that America is facing today,” the statement said. “In 2016, we’re heading to St. Louis. We plan to work with activists there just as we did in Phoenix with local leaders, including the #BlackLivesMatter movement, to amplify issues like racial profiling and police brutality in a major way…
Of course, NN15 paid special attention to Latino issues because Markos Moulitsas “and his DailyKos community” were already boycotting the event in protest over its location. The Phoenix affiliate had done a lot of planning, and I’m sure they hoped for more coverage of events like the #ArpaioFreeAZ protest…
Huge Turnout for #ArpaioFreeAZ protest http://t.co/y26z3HOT6N @PuenteAZ @Netroots_Nation @phxnews
— Miriam Wasser (@MiriamWasser) July 18, 2015
… not to mention the general Progressive goal of “dragging HRC leftwards.”
Activists at #NN15TownHall are shouting the names of black women who have died in police custody. "Say her name!" pic.twitter.com/GC4g5iz2XB
— Darren Sands (@darrensands) July 18, 2015
But the #BlackLivesMatter protest organizers understandably have their own goals, sometimes orthogonal to those of the general Netroots Nation “train grassroots workers to better promote and elect more progressive (i.e., Democratic) officials at every level of government.” They feel their concerns are underrepresented, and they have to use the platforms available — which will be Democratic, not Republican, venues — to rectify that. It would seem, from the reports, that they succeeded in doing so yesterday:
“It’s not like we like shutting s— down, but we have to,” Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matters, told the crowd, saying the group’s issues were an emergency.
As a side benefit, the protest identified its organizers (Oso, Peoples, Cullors) to the general media as “leaders”, spokeswomen for the larger issue, and the MSM can be expected to go to them and their group in the future for quotes and stories. This is not nothing, since the very diffusion of social media that makes it possible for movements like #BlackLivesMatter to arise makes it harder for any group or individual to achieve “credibility” with the MSM.
Twitter users debate Bernie Sanders' civil rights credibility with #BernieSoBlack hashtag http://t.co/a5sAaMhFxm
— Raw Story (@RawStory) July 19, 2015
Financial oligarchs, Tea Party fascists gotta be watching all this, thinking "Man, they make it so EASY for us!" https://t.co/EBCU1GR7Eu
— Billmon (@billmon1) July 19, 2015
So, what’s done is done, and it is to be hoped that the aftereffects won’t be as toxic as the 1972 convention (which broke Rep. Chisholm’s heart, destroyed McGovern’s never strong chance of taking back the White House, and established a tradition of hippie-punching and anti-feminism that have yet to be exorcised). Never thought I’d be using the phrase “Thank God for Donald Trump’s big mouth” in earnest…
I wonder if Trump supporters and #NN15 activists realize just how good a day it's been for Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush.
— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) July 19, 2015
BethanyAnne
I know this isn’t about NN15, but rather feminism. But *damn* this is the best thread and article I’ve read all year.
https://www.metafilter.com/151267/Wheres-My-Cut-On-Unpaid-Emotional-Labor
Really. It’s long by now, but it’s just amazing. It gives me a new vocabulary and feels pretty important to me.
There’s an initial article that’s linked at the top of the discussion thread I posted. The MeFi thread expands on it so much, though.
Baud
We already solved all of this in Cole’s thread.
Anne Laurie
@Baud: I wanted to get the clip embedded, among other things.
Also, shocking as this may be, not every BJ reader reads the comments. INORITE!!!
David Koch
So Billmon likes #Occupy tactics until they’re applied to his Messiah.
#golf-clap
Baud
@Anne Laurie:
They’re missing out!
srv
I, for one, will vote Independent before I vote for Sanders.
Davis X. Machina
The Democratic Party’s been coming apart for all of my lifetime.
Today is the 43rd anniversary of the George Meany-led AFL-CIO’s declaration of neutrality, and refusal to endorse McGovern, in the 1972 race….
Sometimes the effects are more… decisive than others.
In Europe, you fight the election, form the coalition, and govern.
Here you form the coalition, fight the election and govern.
Baud
@Davis X. Machina:
I read that this morning. Fascinating.
David Koch
You go over DK and it’s filled to the brim with people saying they won’t vote in the general if it’s not Sanders. Never seen Billmon wring his hands and decry how that plays into the hands of the teaparty and oligarchs.
raven
@David Koch: Talk is cheap.
jeffreyw
Needz moar kitteh!
David Koch
#BlackLivesMatter are the real racists
/Bernie-Stans
The Pale Scot
The Ultimate Blogging Tool: Echochamber
Gimlet
@srv:
So what do you think of Hillary?
Jeffro
Easy to get caught up in the small stuff…next week we’ll be debating something equally meaningless.
Meanwhile Hillary…and apparently, Jeb and Ted…march on
David Koch
@jeffreyw: TrumpyCat
Joel
“I figured if I showed a handgun that would be enough to diffuse any situation”
Linnaeus
I think Billmon thinks that more people pay attention to Netroots Nation than they actually do.
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman: Because the best ones do!
askew
Your post missed the most important points. Post-protest – Martin O’Malley immediately did an interview with Goldie Taylor followed by one with This Week in Blackness. He spoke about criminal justice reform, apologized for adding “all lives matter” when addressing Black Lives Matter, etc. He then went on to be the first presidential candidate to sit down with undocumented Americans in Arizona. He held a townhall there. He then went on to a scheduled event with the Arizona Democratic Party.
He was spotted still talking with activists 1:1 at 11 pm that night about BlackLivesMatter.
Bernie Sanders cancelled his TWiB interview, refused an interview with Goldie Taylor, cancelled his event with the Arizona Dem Party and ran like a scared child.
O’Malley is getting a lot of credit on twitter and from activsts at NN15 for sticking around, listening and engaging. Sanders, on the other hand, is getting slammed all over twitter for running away and not engaging at all. His supporters aren’t helping when they are running around twitter attacking anyone who dares to criticize Sanders. There’s a reason #SandersSoBlack has been trending today and not anything on O’Malley.
Baud
@Linnaeus:
I didn’t even know it was going on until this issue made the news.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: Suck up. :P
Joel
@Linnaeus: Like I said in the other thread, “Sayre’s Law”.
raven
@Joel: Nam vet too, sheesh.
Gimlet
@askew:
Bernie Sanders cancelled his TWiB interview, refused an interview with Goldie Taylor, cancelled his event with the Arizona Dem Party and ran like a scared child.
Like a scared child? That sounds really, really bad. I don’t think he should even be a Senator if he did that.
ruemara
@Jeffro: This right here is where black people are furious. Black Lives Matter is not small stuff. You see, it’s our lives. They’re at risk in the US of A. Would you say that about LGBT discrimination law? It sure as shit isn’t small to them. Why is it that these civil & social things are always being described as small or wedge or not as important as wealth inequality? God if the people here can’t get it, we’re really just not going to get anyone to get it.
Kropadope
@David Koch: No, they’re self-defeating and impractical.
If she wants issues she supports better represented at NN, why didn’t she work with NN to help organize the event or petition them to discuss race-related issues. Failing that, another option would have been to try to develop o participate in some other high-profile event.
But, no, instead this group of protesters barges into an event that other people took the time and care to organize, demanded to be heard, then failed to listen to the response they got. Black lives do matter, but #BlackLivesMatter is doing everything it can to estrange potential allies, rather than bring in new people.
srv
@Gimlet: Would she be the second or third black President?
The Pale Scot
@The Pale Scot:
#14 was meant to refer to Anne Laurie’s
@ #3
FYWP
Anne Laurie
@David Koch: Who’s paying you this time around? Jeb’s people, or do you answer directly to Frank Luntz?
Mnemosyne (tablet)
@Joel:
I know copyeditors are extinct, but it’s DEfuse, for fuck’s sake. Not diffuse.
And I know it’s the writer’s fault because he replicated the error in the body of the story.
Baud
@Anne Laurie:
Jesus. And this is the result.
David Koch
“What I’m calling is for a political revolution!” ~ Bernie Sanders
(unless Sanders is talking then everyone has to bow on bended knee while he ignores them)
Josie
OT but I absolutely despise the new Colonel Sanders – his look, his voice, his fakey accent, his lines, everything about him. I will never eat Kentucky fried chicken again. Okay, rant over.
Linnaeus
@Joel:
Well, the issues are important. What I’m saying is that I think Billmon is exaggerating the effect of NN as an event on the election – I don’t think “gee, don’t protest because the Republicans are watching” is very convincing.
Baud
@Josie:
He is dreadful.
Anne Laurie
@askew: I do intend to write more about O’Malley, but he deserves a separate post, at a time when more people will be reading it.
Jordan Rules
@Kropadope:
Do we know if she didn’t do this?
I could be mis-remembering but hasn’t this lack of representation been an issue with NN before? If so, damn, I’m really surprised, it hadn’t been addressed more meaningfully by now and especially this year considering everything that’s happened.
Roger Moore
@Joel:
Yep, having a gun sure made him safer!
Josie
@Baud: Thanks.
Major Major Major Major
Maybe it’s because I was up all night taking drugs but I really can’t bring myself to care about this. Clueless white people are clueless? Gotcha. Clueless activists are clueless? Gotcha. “Bad news” for democrats? K.
In other breaking news, the sun is setting to the west today.
Joel
@Linnaeus: Not disputing the issues — concurring on the relative unimportance of NN.
Jeffro
@ruemara: I dunno, maybe take a breath, get a little oxygen? It’s not the issues I’m knocking, it’s the endless attention seeking behavior that’s so trivial, that’s so easy to dismiss.
Want people to take issue X seriously? Then maybe take a lesson from No Drama and engage thoughtfully. Sounds like most all parties involved in this dust-up didn’t, whether we are talking about people crashing a stage, people running from said stage, or (lol) people burnin’ up that there Twitter machine. Jesus. I’ve got a GOP to defeat at all levels next November, I don’t have time for intraparty stunts, unprepared candidates, or Twit-ter.
Omnes Omnibus
Way, way OT: https://linkbeef.com/3-farmers-arrested-in-wales-for-running-sheep-brothel/
Kropadope
@Jordan Rules: Well, if that’s the case, BLM still could’ve tried to participate in or form another event. Even if NN is ignoring race issues, I strongly doubt that they are opposed to police reform and other racial justice issues.
Perhaps the reason BLM couldn’t get represented at NN is that they’re prone to this sort of self-destructive protest. I remember one time a BLM protest in Boston closed down a major street and backed up traffic for miles in every direction. Wasting hours of millions of people’s time is not the right way to get people to pay attention. Mind you, while this was a BLM protest, most of the protesters were white college students.
rikyrah
I only missed 3. Pretty happy about that.
Could you pass a US citizenship test?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0104/Could-you-pass-a-US-citizenship-test/Who-signs-bills
Major Major Major Major
@The Pale Scot: damn it, I wrote that last year. It’s called Note’d and I’d link to the github but I’m on my phone and +3
ruemara
@Jeffro: They have. Thanks for your input on how to protest. Seriously condescending.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Is that a parody site? Is it a coincidence that there was a Ron Paul ad with the story?
Mike in NC
@Josie: Apparently Dubya wasn’t available. “Heh heh heh” …
Davis X. Machina
@Kropadope:
@Jordan Rules:
2015 Netroots Nation panel proposal submission page
Information on submitting a session for the TWiB Media Stage, produced by This Week in Blackness
Gender and ethnicity information for 2014 Netroots Nation panel submissions. (Couldn’t find data for 2015)
Josie
@Mike in NC: Hmmm. Maybe that is part of what is pissing me off so badly………..
Major Major Major Major
@Josie: I know, and even worse it’s like he just saw Ho Chi Minh and decided to steal his look
David Koch
@Anne Laurie: keep plagiarizing that chicken. can’t you steal something that’s interesting. guess not.
nice try. move along.
RaflW
Um, I just went to the home pages of my two local papers, they both had Trump stories, neither had NN15 ones. I know the Village all thinks a dustup in AZ is a big deal, but it is not at all equivalent to the Trumpnado.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I cannot answer either of those questions.
Kropadope
@Davis X. Machina: I’m no demographer, but the breakdown of participants by race seems to comport pretty well with the general population. This still doesn’t tell me whether the protest organizers made any attempt to have their issues aired without stealing other people’s time.
ETA: I’m apparently replying to a post that is no longer here.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Can’t…or won’t?
Josie
@Major Major Major Major: Exactly.
Linnaeus
@Joel:
Sure – I was making sure to clarify my comment more than anything.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jeffro: Maybe the problem is that PoC have been being polite, quiet, and patient for years now. And kids are still getting killed.
Jeffro
@ruemara: Just turn it around and picture some other single-issue Ds crashing a more general D event, commandeering the mic, all in the name of getting attention for their issue, all while giving the media fuel for their always-waiting “Dems in Disarray!” headline…and meanwhile, the party that aligns w/ exactly NONE of #BLM’s interests is laughing as the spotlight comes off of their own civil war…
I dunno, I just think there’s a better way to be heard, especially within the party that’s already generally supportive of these goals. I don’t think that’s condescending at all.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Can’t, so won’t
Davis X. Machina
@Kropadope: Spiked because I went over the link limit with an edit. I’ll reconstruct…
2015 Netroots Nation panel proposal submission page
Gender and ethnicity information for 2014 Netroots Nation panel submissions. (Couldn’t find data for 2015
Information on submitting a session for the TWiB Media Stage, produced by This Week in Blackness
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: getting murdered worked for gay people, sorta, I guess.
This bartender I’ve never met at the bar I go to every day loathes me. I was trying to pay him and he was like “dude, you need to chill the fuck out!” Now maybe that’s true, but I was just trying to hand him the bill directly so none of the other miscreants picked it up. Hint: wasn’t exactly a ten or twenty.
askew
@Gimlet:
He isn’t the first Senator nor the last to run away from protestors or tough questions (see video of Rand Paul running away with food in his mouth from a DREAMer) but Sanders really didn’t handle it well. What made it even more puzzling is that O’Malley was ambushed. He had no idea it was coming. Sanders sat backstage and saw what happened to O’Malley and still came out and went into his standard stump speech. That’s just tone deaf.
What is even more irritating is that O’Malley was willing to stay onstage and engage but because of the stupid new DNC debate rules no two candidates are allowed to be onstage at the same time outside a DNC sanctioned debate. Thanks Debbie W-S.
cmorenc
@David Koch:
These include plenty of people who didn’t learn a damn thing from those in Florida who voted for Nader in 2000 (or sat on their hands and didn’t vote) – because there supposedly wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the parties, both parties were controlled by un-progressive oligarchs, etc. etc. etc. In fact, a not insignificant portion of them DID vote for Nader in 2000.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: How does crashing an event organized by people who are likely agree with them and who had a process in place whereby the protesters could’ve legitimately utilized the venue to voice their issues help fix the problem?
Gimlet
OT – Pretty good record, but just let one through the the net and everyone is angry with you.
Let’s go with Charles Pierce and see the trials unfold of the sixty cases they foiled.
Three days after four marines and a sailor were killed by a gunman with Middle Eastern roots and a father who was once on the terrorism watch list, the chairman of the House homeland security committee heralded US successes against “over 60” would-be terrorist attacks by “Isis followers” in the last year.
Kropadope
@askew:
Wow, that is stupid.
Napoleon
What moronic scum the BLM crew is. They are the Naderits of 16. Good job assholes.
Patrick
@askew:
I asked at the previous thread but got no answer. I’ll ask again. Did the organizers want Sanders to speak on the topic of economics?
Napoleon
@Kropadope:
It does not. They are assholes, the successors to the assholes who destroyed the party for 40 years. They are separated from reality and will destroy the party for the next 40 years.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: Well, doing the same polite thing again and again doesn’t seem to be helping. What’s that definition of insanity again? I am a work within the system person by nature, but I sure as hell can understand that people have a point at which their patience with the system is exhausted.
Jordan Rules
@Kropadope: OMalley seemed to respond with more attention.
askew
@Anne Laurie:
Thanks. Both his TWiB and interview with Goldie Taylor are worth discussing. He had real substantive answers to their questions about criminal justice reform that went far beyond the standard body cameras talk.
He also has been the leading voice on immigration reform so it makes it a bit frustrating that the event that was taken over by protests was an immigration townhall. He put out the most progressive policy platform on immigration that has been getting raves from Latino activists, Latino media, even Jorge Ramos. He was also the first to talk about the bankruptcy crisis in Puerto Rico and the forced ejection of citizens from the Dominican Republic. That along with his stellar record on Latino and immigration issues makes the townhall being a bust annoying.
Baud
Unlike most people here, I think, I generally tend not to be a fan of disruptive protests. But it’s happened before and it’ll happen again, so I’m not seeing why there is so much hand-wringing about this one.
(Full disclosure: I haven’t viewed the video of the event.)
Jeffro
@Omnes Omnibus: Noted, agreed, not asking anyone to be silent – none of us should. But I still don’t see how disrupting a D event furthers #BLM goals. Let’s go rattle the GOP tree on these issues, point out the vast differences between the parties here, and make sure everyone who supports #BLM knows which party to turn to next November.
KG
@Kropadope: this approach got more press, and if we’ve learned anything in the last 100 years, it’s that there’s no such thing as bad press
RSA
@BethanyAnne: Interesting reading (the article and the first few dozen comments). Women do seem overburdened on the emotional labor front. The idea of monetizing it in general is kind of ridiculous, though. It was a worthwhile read overall, still.
Felonius Monk
@Josie:
All the more for the rest of us who don’t give a f*ck what the phoney “Kernel” Sanders looks like. He doesn’t cook the chicken anyway.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: The system that would’ve allowed them a place at the conference was so easy that being an organizer was cheaper than attending (if I understood correctly). NN and Bernie Sanders aren’t oppressing black people. Calibrate your approach to your target. Make potential allies see the virtue in working with you, save the disruptions for opponents.
Gimlet
@askew:
He had no idea it was coming. Sanders sat backstage and saw what happened to O’Malley and still came out and went into his standard stump speech. That’s just tone deaf.
I posted a brief transcript on the event up-thread from CNN but it seems to have disappeared. Maybe this will too.
After talking over one another, Sanders eventually ditched pre-planned remarks and tried to address questions from demonstrators.
“Black people are dying in this country because we have a criminal justice system which is out of control, a system in which over 50% of young African-American kids are unemployed,” Sanders said. “It is estimated that a black baby born today has a one in four chance of ending up in the criminal justice system.”
When Sanders cited the Affordable Care Act as a law he supported that helped people of color by making health insurance more accessible, one man shouted, “we can’t afford that!”
Before Sanders finished speaking, many of the protesters walked out on him toward exit doors in the back.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud:
I generally agree with you, but then I am straight, white, hetero guy. I have a lot less to be pissed off about. My discomfort with a tactic doesn’t necessarily matter.
Baud
@Napoleon:
But for them, we wouldn’t have had all of those problems, amirite?
Woodrow/asim
@Omnes Omnibus:
There’s a great bit from one of the Doctors on DOCTOR WHO that is basically about how, when he was younger, he used to have so much more mercy.
I used to be one of The Polite Ones. You know, the kind of Black person who got told I wasn’t like Other (i.e. Angry) Black People. I spent so much time in my teens, and 20s, and 30s debating these issues — oftentimes being, in hindsight…well, let’s say there was an emphasis on the hind part.
There’s a time for politics, for speaking and debating and managing tone. But there’s also a time for expressing anger — especially repressed, righteous anger. There is 100% a time — and this was one — for people embedded deep in Social Justice movements to make strategic, smart actions that bring critical issues to a head.
No one’s ability to go head-to-head with whomever the GOP nominates was harmed in this action. No-one threaten to not vote for any of these guys, or to take it “to the convention”. This was targeted at a time/place conducive to the issues, and to an audience that should be willing to listen.
So all the complainers can sit for a bit. Even better, listen. Remember how we like to crap on mainstream media here? Well, as John Cole shows via his ridiculous post, we who speak on PoC matters get even less — even from people who should be “on our side”. So sometimes, yeah, we have to speak really loud to get a piece of the mic, and have our issues heard.
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman: SiteMeter tells me ‘visits’ drop consistently every weekend, sometimes by 20% or more.
You guys are our best readers, but not our only readers.
askew
@Patrick:
As far as I know, it was supposed to be a townhall on immigration. That’s what it was billed as and the moderator is a famous undocumented American who has been working for immigration reform.
Why Sanders went into his standard stump speech I don’t know.
Kropadope
@KG: Why? Every time BLM gets press it’s for a disruption. Whether it’s this or causng traffic jams, they’re literally stealing people’s time and wasting their own. When people around Boston had to sit in traffic for two hours due to a BLM protest (where most of the participants weren’t even black), no one said “that makes me want to support police reform.”
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
My opinion doesn’t matter either, but I’m not going to avoid evaluating things that I’m not personally invested in.
Regardless, I still am not sure why this particular dust-up has generated so much heat.
David Koch
@Napoleon: how do you feel about Sanders’s supporters who say they won’t vote for Hillary in the general? Are they “scum” too? Or are only black protesters “scum”?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/05/28/1388426/-Why-I-Just-Can-t-Vote-for-Hillary
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/07/1400030/-Sanders-or-no-one
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: And I was inconvenienced when Obama came to Madison to speak. It interfered with my commute. Some things are worth a bit of inconvenience.
Patrick
@askew:
Thanks. Very helpful.
Kind of strange that he would talk about economics when the subject was immigration. Then again, I’m not very familiar with the proceedings at the NN.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: Obama didn’t intentionally disrupt your commute.
Jeffro
@Kropadope: Well said.
Baud
@Kropadope:
So you’re not only opposed to disruptive protests, but any large march as well, because it inconveniences the locality? I don’t go that far.
KG
@efgoldman: i was being slightly facetious on that point.
mike in dc
Wait, they interrupted a panel on immigration reform? WTF? WTFF?
I agree it’s bad that Sanders cancelled his appearances on TWiB etc., and I would hope he will reschedule, and I do think he desperately needs to expand his appeal/pitch outside the white progressive echo chamber, but to be charitable, perhaps he found himself legitimately unprepared for the hostile reception and felt a need to regroup and get on point. If he continues to be a little bit tone deaf on this, then it becomes clearer that he is a pure protest candidate and doesn’t really want to win. If you want to win, you do what it takes to unite people behind you.
askew
@Gimlet:
He lost them by immediately going into his stump speech. His attitude wasn’t helping either. While O’Malley listened, Sanders just shouted over them. He wasn’t even trying to engage at the beginning. Then, when he did ditch his prepared remarks, he was still talking economics. That isn’t what they wanted to hear.
Anne Laurie
@Kropadope: Yeah, allies being all “helpful”.
I’m really grateful nobody died, because even as it stood the backlash was ugly.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: Sure he did. His people had to know that ending a event at that time in the isthmus in Madison would fuck up the commutes of many people. He did it anyway. I am not bitching about my commute being interrupted btw.
Tree With Water
@askew: My dad was an administrator for the Public Health Service, and by chance bumped into Ted Kennedy while waiting for a flight out of Dulles. At the time, the Nixon administration was making noise about abolishing the PHS. My dad took the opportunity to ask the senator about that likelihood, Kennedy launched into a spiel about the benefits of shutting it down. That is, until a moment in which my father betrayed his feelings on the matter, and which point he said Kennedy instantaneously shifted gears and assured him that Nixon was in for a fight. The Watergate scandal rendered my father’s worries moot, as Nixon soon thereafter had bigger fish to fry.
mai naem mobile
If you can’t get at least the Senate and POTUS, #BLM isn’t going to get crap done. You want shot done, get your fellow blacks and Latinos to the polls. Put your fucking energy into that, not harrassing Sanders and OMalley. I work with a bunch of younger Hispanics and blacks. Next to none vote. They give a shit about the Kardashians though.
Gimlet
@askew:
Then, when he did ditch his prepared remarks, he was still talking economics.
That’s not what the transcript says.
“Black people are dying in this country because we have a criminal justice system which is out of control, a system in which over 50% of young African-American kids are unemployed,” Sanders said. “It is estimated that a black baby born today has a one in four chance of ending up in the criminal justice system.”
Mike G
Th’ Irish vernacular writin’ t’was a wee amusin’ fer ’bout half-o-sentence, den I’d rather jam a shillelagh in m’ earhole than read whole paragraph o’ it. Charles Pierce overuses it a’well, and I git a-mighty tired o’ it all.
Kylroy
@efgoldman: *And* you know none of the GOP people will actually feel bad as a result of your actions, so there’s really no satisfaction to be had there.
askew
@Patrick:
The event was so chaotic that I am not sure what the plan was. The moderator started off by attacking O’Malley on criminal justice. The whole thing was a clusterfuck which is pretty standard for Netroots unfortunately.
Jeffro
@efgoldman: Ya gotta be kidding me…that’s why we should encourage intra-party protests and not take the GOP bullies head-on?
The Pale Scot
@Major Major Major Major: You mean this?
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/noted/id507362852?mt=8
That’s not Echochamber, EC fools people into thinking they’ve posted a comment.
Jeffro
@mai naem mobile: Seconded.
Baud
@askew:
Perhaps that something we can all agree on.
mtiffany
AS much as I disagree with the BLM protesters’ tactics right now, as a 44 year old gay man, their movement and tactics remind me of ACT UP in the 80’s where, the idea — if not the actual slogan — SILENCE = DEATH is the same. #BlackLivesMatter is the same thing as SILENCE = DEATH. There’s no disputing that fact. And I remember ACT UP members were told by other gay people to tone it down, and by well-meaing outsiders “you’re not helping your own cause.” But the whole point was to scream and yell until the people in power paid attention. First you get heard by any means necesssary, then eventually you get results. I just had that realization now, and feel a little stupid for things I said earlier.
David Koch
@Patrick:
They invited him to speak on any subject and then take questions from the audience. But in light of the protest, the moderator specifically asked him to begin by addressing their questions. He said, “woh, woah, woah, woah – let me talk about, what I want to talk about”. and then told the crown to sit down and proceeded to blindly repeat his usual economic stump speech.
Baud
@mtiffany:
I’ve seen ACT UP used as the poster child for this type of protest. There is a documentary about them which I haven’t seen. I don’t know much of the details about their efforts.
Jeffro
@efgoldman: Come on, that doesn’t negate Kropadope’s point…a govt VIP or candidate out on a trip or giving a speech is one thing; a single-issue group intentionally blocking a particular artery (especially if it’s one I use to get to work, lol) just hardens the resolve of the “anti” side and frustrates those otherwise aligned with the group.
Anne Laurie
@Mike G: I ever win the lottery, I’m commissioning a de-‘vernacularized’ complete edition of Finley Peter Dunne.
He’d never have been permitted to publish half what he did if he hadn’t worn the stage-Irish mask, but it’s kept too many modern progressives from reading him & understanding how much history does and doesn’t change.
ETA: It’s like the people who want to ban Huckleberry Finn because it includes “the n-word”. Twain may not have used that word if he were writing today, but there’s good reasons why he used it when he did.
(And speaking of Ralph Wiley, as someone did upthread, he included an amazing essay about Twain & HF in Why Black People Tend to Shout.)
Jordan Rules
@mtiffany: Yesss!!! Plenty of other movements have had the same struggle too. Another commenter in the previous thread had to remind us that Martin had to go to jail and inconvenience traffic patterns and shit before it got real.
opiejeanne
@Baud: I needed a nap!
Davis X. Machina
@efgoldman: Pierce used to do a daily reading from Mr. Dooley… always looked forward to it.
Baud
@opiejeanne:
You’re here now!
askew
@Gimlet:
That’s exactly the problem. He shifted right away to economic/unemployment in the black community. The woman who BLM was talking about had a brand new job she was driving to when she got pulled over by the police and ended up dead in a jail cell 2 days later. It wasn’t economics or unemployment that caused the problem. His speech was incredibly tone deaf for not getting that.
askew
@David Koch:
Ah, then I was wrong. I thought it was supposed to be on immigration. The moderator was a weird choice then because that is his area of expertise.
Gimlet
@askew:
“Sanders said”
He acknowledged the problem and agreed with the protesters’ point.
Tree With Water
@efgoldman: I still hold a grudge against the GHW Bush motorcade that badly disrupted my day back in 1980. But at least the old fellow had the spirit to set foot in the city, something his dimwitted and craven son never did during his presidency.
Woodrow/asim
@mtiffany:
This. So totally this. Or, as another “ineffectual rabble-rouser” once put it:
—-Letter from a Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr.
These people got their asses up and, however imperfectly, participated in MLK-style Direct Action. They showed up and, in doing so, showed that the process for having their voices heard was imperfect.
It’s nice to think that Progressive spaces are willing, nay eager, to talk about and push these issues. You’d think this topic would be up front in Democratic circles, this election season; it’s a no-brainer about justice, and Obama is paving the way to having the discussion in the mainstream.
As this incident showed too well, it’s not. And those of you more concerned about politeness than justice must ask yourselves; would Yet Another Panel have made this into an issue? Or would we have just filed it away, like we do too many other things?
I remember griping about ACT UP in my misspent youth. I was wrong, too. Death like these, deaths that are about our sense of social justice, demand this level of attention when inattention has been the norm.
Jeffro
@efgoldman: I hear you, I hear you…it’s tough. Hey, we can have protestors, we can have op-ed writers, we can have GOTV drives, we can have fiery speeches and media events, we can do whatever and then some as long as we all stick together and remember the big goal & long game. I think No Drama has shown that gets results.
msdc
@Omnes Omnibus:
Maybe it’s about the worth of the tactic, and not your discomfort? Successful protest movements work to deprive their opponents of support and bring that support into their column. #BLM has a knack for doing it the other way around.
mtiffany
@efgoldman:
No, it wasn’t. The whole point of the protest is to shout where you’ll be heard and keep shouting until you shame the people around you into acting. (SILENCE = DEATH) == #BlackLivesMatter
dogwood
@mai naem mobile:
Getting those young people to vote is hard work. Protesting and shutting down political forums is pretty easy to do.
Fair Economist
@Woodrow/asim:
Direct action, yes, but better targeted. The civil rights activists went against the (segregated) Montgomery bus system, not the ACLU.
Toschek
It’s nice to see Imani still has her lead touch, posting one of the rudest tweets to #berniesoblack. I’m really glad she doesn’t FP here any more, while I completely understand and appreciate where she’s coming from that woman is a grade A asshole.
Kylroy
@mtiffany: Ah. So clearly NN’s mistake was looking like a place where they’d be heard.
Davis X. Machina
@askew: This tight focus is the weakness complementary to Sanders’ strength.
The mode of production of the necessities for everyday life conditions social, political, and intellectual life in general. Race relations, justice and law, gender issues — all colored by our present mode of production.
Alter the mode of production from its present capitalist form to one of the socialist modes of production and you change everything else pari passu.
mike in dc
I don’t disagree with the tactic, but was it really a panel on immigration they interrupted? Isn’t that kind of a mixed bag, optics wise? Black Lives Matter…more than the Brown Lives under discussion?
Woodrow/asim
@askew:
Jay Z wrote an entire song about Being Pulled While Black (and Rich).
Economics is part of the problem. But it’s not the whole, and the fact that Sanders seems to fall back to it for the solution to racial issues really grates my nerves. Hell, Obama used to pull that, and it made me grumpy too; he’s gotten a lot better, mostly I fear because he knows exactly how racist America is, today.
As the above quote from MLK notes, even when Sanders would have been marching there were white folks who only supported MLK so far; part of the marches, vocal supports, but always worried about “tone”. I mean, Mitt’s dad was apparently a MLK supporter, and Mitt’s tried to leveraged it, but that doesn’t mean I trust Mitt on Civil Rights today…
Joel
@mai naem mobile: A better target would be state and municipal governments. Reform the police agencies and the courts. It’s a long slog and far from glamorous but that’s where the real battle is fought.
msdc
@Woodrow/asim: Also, love the idea that seizing a microphone and hijacking a panel in front of literally the safest, most timid and cowed audience imaginable (excepting certain sectors of the BJ commentariat) is now an “MLK-style direct action.” No, those were about confronting the instruments of racism and exposing them in such a way as to deprive them of public support – often provoking a violent, even fatal reaction along the way. They carried a real risk for the activists, and they sought more than self-promotion and street theater. They earned the name of direct action; grabbing a mic at Netroots Nation, not so much.
Jordan Rules
@dogwood: Good thing BLM hasn’t stopped Moral Mondays or the Dreamers from existing.
Linnaeus
@efgoldman:
I think you need to recalibrate.
Mary G
I was also 16 in 1972, AL, and I went to a McGovern rally for my first political experience. All I remember is that I sat next to a foot fetishist who kept offering to do things to my “gorgeous” toes, which are short and fat. Put me off politics until Watergate broke.
Davis X. Machina
@efgoldman: Just taking Sanders’ word that he’s a socialist at face value, in which case all social problems do resolve themselves as problems rooted in the present relationship between labor and capital.
That’s his particular hammer, so a lot of not-nails look like nails.
Sometimes you do need a hammer.
Woodrow/asim
@msdc:
You place a glamor on the term “Direct Action” that isn’t there from the writings of MLK, or other people involved. Feel free to rummage around for a definition of Direct Action, here’s one to get you started.
Yes, the work they did was risky on levels we can barely imagine in America, today. It’s part of why I loved Rep. Lewis cosplaying as himself at ComicCon; a near-perfect connection between two of my loves. But Direct Action as a tactic isn’t defined as “risking life and limb”. Sometimes that is what it is — but as I noted in that same damned comment, what ACT UP did was Direct Action too, and with far less risk than what people of my Dad’s generation did to see his son more free. But that lack of risk didn’t make their work to get AIDS into the national debate any less important, just because no one brought out dogs and beat ’em.
As so, that action at NN was about seeing people who could be my son (if I had one) more free. That it was a “friendly audience” is a bullshit premise that denies the importance of the situation.
Linnaeus
@efgoldman:
In practice, Sanders is a social democrat, but you can’t say that in this country, either.
lol
@efgoldman:
Those “natural allies” are telling them to sit down and shut up because their issue is “meaningless”.
lol
@Davis X. Machina:
Sanders and a lot of self-styled “color-blind” white progressives think racial inequality is a side effect of economic inequality when it’s really the other way around.
Woodrow/asim
Here’s another bit: Sanders and O’Malley might be allies. But as we saw with Clinton in the ’08 run, that does not mean they’ll work in the best interests of African-Americans. And that’s important.
That ’08 run is a perfect example of the kinds of debates — even acrimonious, hostile debates — that is the hallmark of a healthy political party. As painful as it was to live and work through it (I worked the Obama campaign for part of that season), I know that, in the end, it made for a stronger candidate, and a stronger general run.
This is the time to have this kind of debate. If they were doing this in the general, I’d be more sympathetic, more involved in the “gotta beat the GOP” concept. No one in black Livs Matter that I’m aware of is playing the “both sides are the same” card, nor any of the other truly elf-sabotaging concepts we on the Left have sometimes infected ourselves with.
Since that’s not what’s happening here, I cannot help but feel there’s another key reason people are upset around all this. The only issue I think I do find of value is the over-riding of the scheduled debate around immigration — but that seems to barely come up int he discussions I’ve read declaiming this action.
Omnes Omnibus
@Woodrow/asim: Yes, this. Thank you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Woodrow/asim:
Isn’t it just the second verse of “99 Problems?” Or is there something else?
slag
Bernie hasn’t helped himself with the manner in which he has criticized Obama. If we wanna be deeply concerned about circular firing squads, we should probably start there.
Bern shot first.
Suzanne
I don’t have a strong opinion on whether or not the Black Lives Matter protest yesterday was especially effective or strategically wise, not that my opinion matters anyway. I just hope that the media coverage of this event does not detract from the coverage of the racial issues that we here in AZ are dealing with and that Netroots Nation was focusing on this year. This is the land of Joe Arpaio and Russell Pearce, and we have our own specific shame about race that needs to be dealt with. Joe Arpaio’s current legal issues make it especially timely. NN could have been a great time to focus on the police brutality and immigration issues important to the Latino community, and I don’t get the impression that those issues are going to get the attention they deserve.
Of course, this is our fuckin’ media, and they can only focus on one shiny thing at a time.
SQUIRREL!!!
Goddamnit.
jayjaybear
Funny how supportive we white Democrats are until black people actually get angry at the fact that we don’t really pay much attention to the things that matter to them. Then the tone policing starts. And the disappointed, condescending faces that are just so puzzled that black Democrats would do such a thing as impolitely protest against people who are supposed to be their allies.
Yinz have a bunch of privilege issues to work through here.
Belafon
I was at the Sanders rally in Dallas today. Know what, he mentioned Sandra Bland and the issues with race and that we have a long way to go.
I think #blacklivesmatter is starting to have the effect they wanted, though, as Sanders said, there’s a long way to go.
All Democrats will have to deal with the issues blacks have. Good (says the white man).
Haydnseek
@Omnes Omnibus: You would be right if the sole purpose of his visit was to fuck up your commute.
Kropadope
@jayjaybear: I’m supportive of BLM issues regardless of what they do. That’s why I care so much about these off-putting tactics. If I were pro-police-militarization, I would be so happy with the typical approach of BLM.
msdc
@Woodrow/asim: I didn’t say friendly audience. I said safe, timid, cowed – as in filled with progressives who, confronted with a pointless and counterproductive protest, will immediately start searching their consciences to see how they can take the blame for it. No danger of any pushback there.
But no, not friendly. Black Lives Matter has taken every opportunity to make it clear that they don’t especially value the support of progressives, liberals, Democrats, random people driving to work or eating brunch, or anybody else – including John Lewis, by the way. (I actually watched a Ferguson protester tell him that he didn’t understand what it was like to be the victim of police brutality. Um, really?) I’m not sure exactly where the support for their agenda is supposed to come from at this point, given how hard they have worked to alienate everybody who might start out from a position of sympathy for the cause.
Also, while you try to hem me into an overly restrictive definition of direct action, you offer one that’s not much help in sorting out productive actions from merely performative ones. Disrupting a candidate forum is a great way to get people to stop taking you and the forum seriously (just ask Code Pink) and it might even hurt the candidates in question, but those protesters weren’t depriving the police, the prisons, or the state of their support; they were sawing away at their own. It’s not activism, it’s not direct action, it’s actionism at its worst. But that seems to have become the norm for #BLM.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
If you are black how is the dem party helping you realistically stay alive any better than the gop? Yes our current president is/has been doing a bit and lately talking about it a lot more, but it is still on going, when is it going to at least slow down? Will any dem be better than any gop? No doubt in my mind. But we are only months away from primaries and people whose brothers/dads/fathers are getting killed have run out of time, patience and lives. They have a right to know who might support their right to not be killed for the color of their skin. And that’s a more important right than a job or getting married or buying a house or not having a bank screw you over. Hard to have liberty or pursue happiness if you are dead or fearing any day that you might be for the crime of having been born.
jl
@Suzanne:
” I just hope that the media coverage of this event ”
What media coverage of Netroots Nation? It’s the Trump Affair all the time, from what I heard today.
I’d rather have the Democratic debates we see than what is going on the GOP any day.
My only concern is that none of the Democratic candidates show the political skill to react quickly to protests and events, to the extent that Bill Clinton or Obama can. They seem to be plodders. But, maybe that is what is needed now to convince voters that they will plod and push to preserve and extend Obama’s accomplishments. At least they, IMO, show far better political skills than anything I see on the GOP side
? Martin
And so it begins…
Let’s just bottom line this: 5 white candidates are going to fuck up the race topic, no matter how well intentioned. 5 straight candidates will fuck up the orientation topic and 5 men will fuck up the gender topic. Of course they’re tone deaf. But are they deliberately dismissive of the issue? I would only question Webb on that one. I think the other 4 are well intentioned, with varying degrees of cluelessness.
Degrees of tone deafness is a pretty fine line to draw over supporting a candidate.
Good on BLM. The only way the Democratic party actually cares about this stuff is by reminding them. This is not a failure of the process, but a feature of it. Better that we move ahead due to protesters rather than 9 dead bodies. Bring on more.
Omnes Omnibus
I wonder how many people who object to BLM’s tactics have a “Well behaved women seldom make history” bumpersticker?
jl
@efgoldman: Sanders gives pretty much the same damn stump speech every time he speaks. Which is fine at this stage, I suppose. I think at some point, if he wants to stay in the race for long, he is going to have to start explaining why he pushes his economic policies to front so relentlessly, and how his focus on those will interact with other important issues.
msdc
@Woodrow/asim: I agree with all of this comment, by the way. But seizing a candidate forum, and then shouting over the candidate when they try to respond (as the protesters did with O’Malley and Sanders) is not “having the debate.” It’s not a debate at all.
I shed no tears for O’Malley; of all the candidates on the Democratic side, I think he’s the one who most needs to face these questions given his actions as mayor of Baltimore. I shed no tears for Sanders, either; I think his response (since he was permitted to give one) highlighted his most glaring weakness as a candidate. But if it’s time to have the debate, then it’s time to have a real debate, and that means shedding the presumption that only one party has standing to speak and be heard. Nobody likes to take part in a “conversation” if they’re told the terms rule out their participation.
hamletta
Oh, piss off, you self-righteous twit. Nobody had anything nice to say about Code Pink, either. Like the BLM kids, they were a bunch of hecklers, AKA assholes.
I’m Team No One, because the Sanders stans (Standers?) are assholes, too.
Mandalay
@askew:
If you want tone deaf then nobody comes close to O’Malley, who scolded his BLM audience that “white lives matter”, and then repeated it!
And of course white lives do matter. All lives matter. But there is a time and a place to be making that point, and O’Malley picked the worst possible time and place. Just tone deaf.
Omnes Omnibus
OT, sort of: As a music geek, I am really looking forward to the movie “Straight Outta Compton.”
Belafon
@efgoldman: Not entirely sure what you’re trying to imply, but I’ll add a bit to my comment. I don’t know if Sanders would have said much about it without the protest, but he did. And most of his speech here was economic populist, except when he brought up the topic of racism and mentioned her name explicitly. He didn’t mention any specific proposals to deal with it in the same way he talked about wanting to spend $1T on infrastructure or making public college tuition free, but it was a start. I’m led to believe that this was a recent modification to his speech, though I haven’t been to a previous one so I don’t know for sure.
I’m also trying to address the tone of the response to the protest. It just seems that a lot of people don’t like the protest because they spoke to Sanders and O’Malley rather than Clinton or the Republicans. According to stuff I’ve read (having trouble finding links) they did protest Clinton, and would you protest Republicans if you expected to get anything done. You would talk to Democrats, and from what I saw today, their protest has nudged the conversation a bit.
Plantsmantx
How are they “more radical”?
Belafon
@Mandalay: And in his interview afterwards, he apologized for it. Which at least he did. My parents tried a similar phrase “When are whites going to have rights?” when we were arguing about the McKinney pool incident.
Omnes Omnibus
@hamletta: Link to your quote?
jl
@Plantsmantx: I think Wiegel tried to make a funny, or threw out some tired snark to keep his heritage Slate cred going.
Jordan Rules
@Mandalay: And then he apologized for it on TWiB and met with hella people after to discuss the issues.
different-church-lady
@Josie: Yeah, Hipster Sanders ain’t working for me either.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: @jayjaybear:
Jordan Rules
@Omnes Omnibus: Me too. I wonder what the box office numbers will look like, not that I care, just wonder.
different-church-lady
@Major Major Major Major:
A) Rotating tag line
B) My new lead-in for every comment.
Jordan Rules
@hamletta: Who isn’t an asshole to you?
Just a bunch of hecklers wanting to keep black folks alive. The nerve!
Joel
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s just going to be hagiography, like the Notorious BIG movie.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jordan Rules: I mean, Dre.
Joel
@Jordan Rules: You could use that exact same description, expanded somewhat, to apply to Code Pink.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Josie: That’s Darrell Hammond (formerly of SNL). I think he’s doing a decent job with the part, but the writing could certainly be better.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@efgoldman: Heh. O O had asked for a link to the same quote I had just scrolled up to look for
different-church-lady
@KG:
Yeah, I mean, obviously this is all good news for John McCain.
different-church-lady
@Anne Laurie:
Gosh that’s sad.
Jordan Rules
@Omnes Omnibus: Ugggh!!! That’s a good ugggh, by the way. The kind that gives you the screw face when you’re really feeling it. First thing I heard off Chronic 2001 and I was all in. That damn piano!
I believe Jay-Z wrote Dre’s verses which as a west almost-coaster (Phx) is amazing to me because he captured that urban Cali vibe so perfectly as a Brooklynite.
Mandalay
@Belafon:
Thanks – I was unaware that he had apologized until you posted that. It seems that he is now getting flak for apologizing. The poor guy can’t win for losing.
Apparently Hillary Clinton also got in trouble for inappropriately saying “all lives matter” last month:
Nobody could have predicted that Hillary Clinton, who was dead broke when she left the White House, would be tone deaf.
PurpleGirl
@jeffreyw: How cute they are. How many momcats and kittens are in the picture… 2 moms and the rest are kittens?
different-church-lady
@David Koch: Well it’s rather obvious to me that everyone is scum.
Belafon
@efgoldman: I don’t live in South Carolina, but how many protests were there before the church shooting? And how effective were they?
Jordan Rules
@Joel: Right, agreed generally. I think the position that blacks still largely don’t occupy in the power sphere (you know, the whole structural racism part) make the dynamics different. And still you have whites that find a value in disruptive tactics – some of them got uncomfortable with this version, some didn’t.
Belafon
@Mandalay:
That sucks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mandalay: No one could have predicted that you would be a literalist idiot either, but there you have it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I found myself in the unwonted and uncomfortable position of agreeing with Keith G last night, when he said that if Hillary Clinton had been interrupted and derailed at NN, the evidence of her massive unpopularity with African Americans would have driven the Trump-McCain thing to that back pages.
Speaking of hateful pundits, and we kind of were, I skimmed Maureen Dowd’s column today (again, unwonted for me since about 2008), and it was ll about Obama’s re-discovered swagger, and she said that he has “always” been “smug” about being the smartest person in the room. I don’t know how you get from the wide-eyed, naive “Obambi” of 2007-08, to the hapless and helpless “Barry” of 2009 till (I guess) yesterday to “always been smug”. I’d write and ask her, but she never answers my helpful suggestions that her schtick is played out and she ought to find a full-time gig reviewing adolescent soap operas, even if it means leaving the NYT.
kc
So who are you gonna vote for, DK?
(Also, FYWP)
Plantsmantx
@David Koch:
Well, I don’t know…
Cacti
#BlackLivesMatter
#ExceptwhenBernie’sTalking
Omnes Omnibus
@kc: Your point? And, fwiw, I wouldn’t mind an answer to my question from Cole’s thread.
Tom Q
@Jordan Rules: Pre-release tracking suggests it might break out big — the number I saw was a $40 million opening weekend.
(Of course, tracking can be way off. They had Trainwreck at $15-18 million, and it did $30 million)
askew
@Mandalay:
He absolutely did not scold them. He did gaffe by saying all lives matter. He also apologized immediately after the event with no defensiveness. He then went on to engage on criminal justice reform issue in multiple interviews, 1:1 conversations with activists and also found time to hold multiple meetings on immigration.
He didn’t run away. He didn’t cancel or just not show up for interviews/meetings after the protest. O’Malley was there to listen, engage and discuss issues. Sanders ran away like a child. Sanders isn’t ready for primetime period.
Diana
@Ruckus: Then let’s see them do this at a Republican rally.
Mandalay
@Jeffro:
Going after the GOP is a soft, easy option. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not enough. But just saying “The Republicans are a lot worse than us!” isn’t going to get the job done for Sanders, O’Malley et al in the eyes of the BLM movement.
Regardless of one’s views on the tone and behavior at NN, the message that was delivered seems pretty clear: Democratic candidates must come up with concrete proposals to address the concerns of BLM as part of their campaigns, and just paying lip service won’t cut it.
Suzanne
@Belafon: As I mentioned in the last thread, I am in Phoenix, and I did not go to NN and I didn’t hear about what happened until late last night. However, I did go to the Sanders rally that was held in the Phoenix Convention Center yesterday evening, which was only a couple of hours after the BLM protest (and at the same venue, so there were undoubtedly a lot of NN people in attendance). He did not specifically name Sandra Bland, but he did directly and specifically address the issue of police brutality against the Black community and got the biggest cheers of the night from his mostly white audience. He also discussed the tragedy of mass incarceration and noted how this disproportionally affects Black men. This was all in addition to his comments about racial discrepancies in unemployment rates.
So I think he deserves a bit of credit for taking the point seriously and attempting to pivot. In short, he is hearing what people are saying and responding. Whether or not this is too little too late is a valid point to discuss, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say that he’s not listening.
askew
@Mandalay:
Outside of the wingnuts, O’Malley isn’t getting flack for his apology. He is getting kudos for sticking around and having the conversations at NN. Activists and media were really impressed with him.
There’s a reason Sanders is still getting dragged on twitter today while O’Malley isn’t. His campaign, his supporters and himself weren’t defensive or tried to excuse his gaffe. They owned it and worked to do better. You can’t ask for more than that IMO.
Omnes Omnibus
@Diana: Who would care?
Jordan Rules
@askew: Okay, thanks for addressing him getting flak for apologizing. I was confuzzled.
FlipYrWhig
As usual, askew provides the valuable service of omalleysplaining the incident. No, no, he handled it JUST RIGHT! The words were PERFECT and his tie was TOTALLY AMAZING! EVERYONE says so!
SatanicPanic
drinking by myself… when is the next San Diego BJ party? The last one was like 2 years ago
srv
Some White Things Considered
FlipYrWhig
@askew: Perhaps the reason is because nobody gives one runny shit about Martin O’Malley.
Omnes Omnibus
@FlipYrWhig: He is the bestest.
It is known.
SatanicPanic
@Cacti: OUCH. True story, I was just entering college and I said a similar thing in a ethnic studies lecture hall in front of like 200 people. I was 18. That’s my excuse and I hope my Latino brothers forgive me.
BethanyAnne
@RSA: In a relationship context, sure. One poster pointed out that the emotional support that workers are required to perform has been part of Canada’s equity legislation for a while now, and that’s how teachers have seen real increases in their wages.
Another pointed out that emotional labor is called “teamwork” when women do it, and “leadership” when men do it.
It’s been an eye-opening thread.
Mandalay
@askew:
You are being highly disingenuous; you are conveniently ignoring that he also said “white lives matter” to his BLM audience, and then doubled down and repeated it. It was not a gaffe, and he did not misspeak. He showed tone deafness.
Kudos to O’Malley for sticking around, facing the music, and apologizing, but his original comments were awful. He unwittingly demonstrated why BLM is so necessary.
Suzanne
@FlipYrWhig: I wish we had a better bench of Dems, man. O’Malley is not the candidate I long for.
SatanicPanic
@Mandalay: oh, that’s bad. “all lives matter” is just dumb, but “white lives matter”… that’s real dumb
+3
Carolinus
@jl:
There’s been some, but it’s definitely not deserving of all the tut-tutting and hand-wringing. NN never gets any substantive media coverage. Over the years the only MSM interest there’s ever been is in highlighting just these sorts of disruptions. There was nothing novel here beyond maybe the aftermath of Sanders-supporters counter-productively lashing out in response.
kc
@Omnes Omnibus:
I wasn’t talking to you, unless you’re sock-puppeting as David Koch.
BethanyAnne
@RSA: Here’s that quote I alluded to, about Canada.
Cacti
@SatanicPanic:
For a guy who was involved in civil rights activities in the 1960s, Bernie’s blind spot on racial issues in his first ever national campaign is perplexing to say the least.
And nothing sounds more tone deaf than an upper middle class socialist explaining “the real reason for inequality” to the people out in the trenches every day.
Omnes Omnibus
@kc: I was referring to this.: https://balloon-juice.com/2015/07/19/circular-firing-squad-engaged/#comment-5409704
Mandalay
@efgoldman:
I don’t think so. BLM is not going away, and I think that some of their concerns will eventually become policy proposals in Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
She will ignore them at her peril.
Tree With Water
@Suzanne: I’m with you in judging the tactics or strategy of BLM activists, but still think it’s all for the good. These times call for shit disturbers of all stripes to shit disturb. Police across the country are murdering black men and women, and sheriff Arapi-ding-a-ling figures in the equation. Of course, and as you note, the question whether corporate media shot-callers will acknowledge that connection and translate it into intelligible reporting remains to be seen. Who knows? Perhaps the eventual democratic nominee might even force them to connect the dots in spite of themselves.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
What evidence do you have that she is ignoring BLM concerns, or will do?
jl
@Carolinus: The corporate media finds the Trump Affair irresistible. After being exposed on the news to all the possible things Trump said over last couple of days that could even remotely be relevant, I have decided the whole thing is bogus BS, particularly the howls of outrage from the other candidates. But the corporate media can do mindless posturing about mindless posturing in its sleep, so I guess they gotta go with Trump.
Real and imprortant issues are involved in the BLM, no matter what side you are on about it, and they would have to think some thoughts to report it, so I don’t see how it’s going to get much coverage. As I said, I haven’t heard a peep about Netroots Nation at all.
Cacti
BLM will catch up with candidate Clinton sooner or later as well.
Curious to see what the response will be.
catclub
@Josie: I am amused by it, because it is the SNL guy who also did Bill Clinton, and the Colonel and Bill Clinton are both there to me.
SatanicPanic
@Cacti: yeah, someone who’s been around for a while ought to know better
Suzanne
@Tree With Water: I absolutely think that the BLM protestors are justified in raising their concerns, even, hell, ESPECIALLY if that’s confrontational. But I am far less sure of what the “right” strategic tactics are. My gut says that Progressives should spend less time fighting each other and spend more time focusing on our common enemies. But I also know that we haven’t given our Black compatriots the focus on their issues that they deserve. So I have no answer.
I do think, though, that Sanders has heard loud and clear the message, and is trying to respond to those concerns. And I say this as someone who likes Sanders a lot but will vote strategically, because I care about winning this election far more than I care about the relatively small differences between any of the Dem candidates.
dogwood
@Mandalay:
“Disingenuous” is putting it mildly. I don’t have a dog in the Sanders O’Malley fight, but let’s face it. Bernie’s a old crank from Vermont whose never campaigned for black votes. Doesn’t excuse his tone deafness but it does give some context for it. On the other hand O’Malley was the fucking mayor of Baltimore, and governor of Maryland and his answer is “white lives matter”?
SatanicPanic
@Suzanne:
Squeeky wheel gets the grease.
mclaren
Lots of affluent older white folks on this forum looking down their noses as those beastly blacks woh dared interrupt another affluent older white guy’s presidential primary speech.
God damn, if I were black, this is exactly what I’d be doing.
Get some attention. Piss people off. Get in everyone’s faces.
Martin Luther King did not get anywhere by being polite.
I wish Democrats in general would do a hell of a lot more of this. Take air horns into New York Philharmonic concerts and start blasting ’em and yelling about Bush’s warcrimes. You can be goddamn sure the mainstream press would start to wake the hell up and pay attention if someone did that during their precious Tchaikovsky’s Sixth.
Howzabout hundreds of people dousing senate committees with bottled blood when they hold their next hearings on the war in Afghanistan?
I betcha that would get these endless unwinnable wars back in the headlines toot sweet.
SatanicPanic
@mclaren:
whitesplainer
Suzanne
@SatanicPanic: Damn straight.
Kropadope
@mclaren:
Shooting yourself in the foot?
gwangung
The handwringing over the protest is ridiculous. It’s respectability politics again, and it’s even more inappropriate than when applied to “uppity” minorities.
NOW is the exact best time to bring this up. Candidates either learn to adapt and address these concerns…or they don’t. If they learn to adapt, then they show the flexibility and leadership the country needs. If they don’t, then they’re a terrible candidate we DON’T want as president.
mclaren
@dogwood:
O’Malley wasn’t just ‘the fucking mayor of Baltimore,” he was the original stat-juker. He faked the numbers. He lied. He lied big-time.
O’Malley inflated the murder rate of his predecessor and underreported the murder rate during his term as Mayor. He did this by “juking the stats” — sending the word down to the police to reclassify crimes. Murders became assaults, rapes became harassment, assaults became disturbing the peace or public intoxication or public nuisance. All to reduce the crime rate on paper, while the actual crime rate remained the same.
Read “Mr. O’Malley’s Bad Math” if you want the full ugly story of O’Malley’s cynical scam.
O’Malley doesn’t give a shit about black people or white people in Balitmore. All O’Malley cares about is getting elected and climbing the greasy pole to a higher office.
gwangung
@Kropadope: That’s not any different than what she’s doing now.
Ruckus
@Diana:
First of all this wasn’t a dem rally. It was NN. Not even close to the same thing. OK closer than a donald speech.
Second of all if you don’t get heard all the pleading and politeness in the world gets you doodly squat. They had two candidates that might be helpful if they were to get elected. That is probably down to one in their minds now and cost them nothing. They wouldn’t get within 5 miles of any gop candidate, they would learn nothing new and in any case they have a snowballs chance of getting even warm spit out of a gop candidate. They aren’t stupid, they are up against a wall of indifference, of lack of any meaningful action or outright hate. This is a chance to make a point, a stand that might get something done, at a time when nothing else works.
So don’t be an ass and suggest asinine crap.
Cacti
Emo progs disagreed with Mitt Romney about income inequality being a subject for quiet rooms.
But they find it an appropriate venue for the issue of black lives mattering.
different-church-lady
@mclaren:
It’s exactly what you already do.
Joel
@gwangung: I agree with this — NN is sandbox stuff. No one cares about it. There’s no Democratic base, there’s a coalition, and the NN crowd is a small fragment of that coalition. However, it lets candidates — lets be honest, Hillary — evaluate the issues that they will be confronted with on the trail.
mclaren
@gwangung:
Bingo. More to the point, now is one of the few times that black people can get their concerns addressed by a major party, because from now until November 2016, the Democratic party actually needs black people.
The rest of the 4 years, the Democratic party couldn’t care less whether blacks get shot or beaten or sodomized with toilet plungers or curb-stomped by berserk cops. But between now and November 2016, since the Democratic party really needs black people in a direct visceral way (“Oh, please show up at the polls! We need high turnout! Please, please, pretty please with a cherry on top!”), the black community knows it has some leverage.
And all the oh-so-white snooty commenters here are telling black folks, “Well, it’s bad manners to actually use your political leverage at this point!”
Fuck.
That.
Shit.
Kropadope
@gwangung:
People paid to attend and organize events. For $150 they could’ve had even more time to present their ideas to the candidates and they wouldn’t have been stealing from everyone else.
Kropadope
@mclaren:
Hmm…
There, I think that works better.
Matt McIrvin
You know, it’s so early. It’s not even the year of the presidential election yet, and Netroots Nation is in no way, shape or form the analogue of a party convention. I’m a big worrier, I worry about this election as much as anyone, but it’s ridiculous to worry about some disturbance at an intra-left political event a year and a half out as if it’s some kind of seismic shock to the presidential campaign. Most of the media noise over the weekend seems to have been about whether Donald Trump’s latest antics will sink him or not, and none of that probably matters either.
If this isn’t the appropriate time and place for a bunch of activists to get in candidates’ faces about black people getting murdered, then there is no appropriate time and place, which seems like the wrong conclusion to me.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
That’s my conclusion, too. It was disruptive and maybe it was ultimately a bad strategic move, but FFS, what else should they do?!?! Sitting around waiting for white people to take their issues seriously has not been a winning strategy thus far, either.
cokane
ppl making a big deal about this NN debate.
it’s not.
what was obama doing in july 2007, anyone remember off the top of their heads?
Kropadope
@Suzanne: They could’ve organized an event like everyone else who paid to be there and that probably would’ve given them not only more time with the candidates, but more productive time.
Tree With Water
@Suzanne: “Appropriate to the times” would have been a better phrasing on my part, rather than “right”. My feeling is simply that democratic party politicians should publicly acknowledge the accelerating executions of black Americans by police officers, and not pull their punches doing it. If the Netroots dust up annoys any of them, well that’s too damn bad.
Mike J
@Cacti: I hate the concept of upvotes, but you’d get one.
SatanicPanic
@Kropadope: oh come on, you know that would have gone nowhere.
mclaren
@Kropadope:
Oh, I see. In a fit of pique, Democrats will now decide that they don’t need black people to turn out and vote after all. So Democrats will pointedly ignore and rebuff and openly ridicule issues like “black lives matter,” right?
Okey doke. Go back to reading your copy of Dow 36,000, I think we all understand where you’re coming from now.
Kropadope
@SatanicPanic: If it would have gone nowhere, why do people pay to be there and why do the candidates show up? As far as I’m concerned, the BLM protesters stole from everyone else there.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin: @Suzanne:
I read it the same way, now is exactly the time to do this. It’s only disruptive to those who want a totally harmonious society, one whose stage play they have written, while in fact what we have gotten from politeness and knowing one’s place is exactly the opposite. MLK was right that violence gets violence in return, but politeness gets blacks dead.
mclaren
@Suzanne:
Black folks should sit quietly in the back of the bus and wait politely for their concerns to be addressed.
Because that worked so well until Malcolm X and the Black Panthers and MLK and Bobby Seal started raising hell…
Kropadope
@mclaren: Like I’ve said, I’m against their approach because I care about the same issues they do and I want them making friends, not enemies. This is precisely the sort of thing that makes people not take important issues seriously.
Suzanne
@Kropadope: I do not have a good answer. I am truly ambivalent on this issue, as I can truly see both viewpoints.
mclaren
@Kropadope:
Yes! Exactly! Those black people are stealing form everyone who attended that event!
Those terrible ghetto blacks are carrying psychic TV sets out of the looted department store window of Bernie Sanders’ campaign.
Fuck me, I couldn’t make this white-privilege shit up if I tried.
piratedan
@Patrick: well it’s not as if immigration and economics aren’t linked….but it’s also as if BLM doesn’t have a valid point and they’re doing their damndest to make sure it gets heard, whether or not anyone is listening is a concern considering that maybe not everyone is ready to sit down and listen to it. In our political process, you have to be paid attention to first before anyone will notice you and our current media model does not lend itself to much self examination. Anyone remember how well the media did covering the Occupy movement and its basic ideas and goals? Just how do you expect them to handle something like BLM when they’ve been feeding off of clickbait racial fears for the last decade?
The thing is, I’m not at all sure that you can separate this issue out from how interconnected BLM is with many other issues, crime and our current police militia status and the arming of the populations; coupled with, education, jobs, outsourcing and a prevalent media environment that engages in the racial stereotypes that perpetuates this fear,
Prescott Cactus
O’Malley:
Spoke with him within 20 minutes after the speech and as a white male I told him that “white lives matter” and “all lives matter” felt like a “thud”. He was blindsided by this protest, which was emotional, powerful and a few times, a bit off the rails.
Sanders:
Had time to, but did not throw it in neutral and shift gears upon getting his stage time. His attempt to basically give them us prepared speech, given the feeling of the whole crowd was unfortunate. Grumpy old white senators are not rare in Arizona. It was a moment he could have shined. If he would have totally dropped the economics and addressed the lives being lost in the black community it wouldn’t have lead the news cycle (Trump), but it would have lit up the twittersphere. Sanders has a deep history of working with the black community, but job creation and more infrastructure was a glass of water for a 5 alarm fire. Perhaps by addressing a disruptive faction of the crowd he may have felt it was akin to a hostage situation…
gwangung
@Ruckus:
It’s only disruptive to people who don’t know how to handle it.
If Sanders and O’Malley learn to channel it, then all the good. If they don’t, if this harms their candidacy, then they were poor choices we are better off not having.
mclaren
@Kropadope:
Hint: when people are on the absolute bottom rung of the social ladder, the first thing they have to do to get important issues taken seriously is to make people aware of important issues.
Kropadope
@mclaren: Also consider the recruitment of volunteers. Why would anyone volunteer to help promote the BLM campaign if it’s primarily associated with pointless stunts that don’t help further their message, just embarrass the participants?
dogwood
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
There is no evidence that she or the administration are ignoring it. It’s not that hard to go online and see the number of DOJ police investigations that have been undertaken by this administration. Just because the Ferguson report is the only one that got any media attention doesn’t mean it’s the only one. Hell, Tom Perez was in my neck of the woods investigating misconduct by the Missoula, MT police department in their refusal to prosecute campus rape. Krackauer wrote a book about it. Just last week Boehner said he’d bring the SAFE ACT to the floor adding that we have too many people in prison for shady reasons. BLM can chart their own course and choose their own tactics, I just hope they realize that they really do have advocates already on the ground doing the slow frustrating work of changing policy.
gwangung
@Kropadope: This is clueless.
Try again and think exactly WHO would be involved in “Black Lives Matter.”
Mike J
@Prescott Cactus: I live in Seattle (liberal central) and I heard that bullshit “all lives matter” six months ago. If a professional politician wasn’t prepared for it and didn’t think it sounded like bullshit, he doesn’t deserve to be elected dogcatcher.
different-church-lady
@mclaren: You’re telling me there’s someone at NN who isn’t aware of black deaths at the hands of the police?
Kropadope
@mclaren: They didn’t spread awareness. I’m pretty damn sure that everyone at NN was aware of the issues of mass incarceration, police militarization, and disparate impact of the justice system. Furthermore, everyone there agreed with them on the substance. Literally all they accomplished was putting off some fraction of potential supporters.
mclaren
@Kropadope:
I’m telling you there’s a big difference between intellectually being aware of something and hearing people shout out the names of black women who’ve died in police custody.
Politics isn’t about “being aware” of issues, it’s about feeling them at a gut level to the point where people get forced out of their comfort zone and motivated to act.
Kropadope
@gwangung: Anyone with a mind for social justice and a penchant for activism? I care about this issue, but if I were to participate in any coordinated action to help raise awareness, I would be staying far, far away from BLM.
Kropadope
@mclaren:
Have you considered, perhaps, that isn’t how all people operate?
Prescott Cactus
@Kropadope: It wasn’t a stunt. It was raw emotional outburst from a disenfranchised community. Organized, but not a stunt.
Prescott Cactus
@mclaren: Bingo !
Jordan Rules
@Prescott Cactus: Thank You!
Kropadope
@Prescott Cactus:
NN isn’t disenfranchising black people. BLM had a perfectly legitimate means of being heard at NN. BLM chose instead to disenfranchise the other people at NN.
SatanicPanic
@Kropadope: dude, stop digging
Jordan Rules
@Kropadope: I’m sorry the centuries of history are not enough to convince you. The game is not the same for us and as such we adapt, is it too much to ask you to even think about, just think about doing that also? Just think about it at least, damn. You are so certain in your framing that BLM getting a booth would’ve made Bernie say Sandra Bland’s name today on twitter. Or make Martin stay around and talk about this and apologize after he got confronted.
There have been others who have found and named historical value in the tactics in this thread, but you hold tight to not disrupting traffic. And even if they hadn’t, why won’t you open yourself up a little. I’m not accusing you of not being as salty about the other hecklers at NN over the years but you seem so married to the concept that we blacks are just ruining it with our allies.
With all due respect, we’ve had a sketchy ass history with this country period, allies included. And maybe we all can become stronger because of this. Moral Mondays continues, we continue to fight for voting rights and align with other fights that are what pushes our party forward but you want some unmessy path that absolutely devalues so much of what is life and death to us.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: You are clearly missing the the issues that bother the protesters.
Prescott Cactus
@Mike J: “white lives matter” was followed by “all lives matter”. . . Attempted damage control.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I don’t. All lives matter but it’s the black ones that are getting dead/imprisoned at the hands of the police at an alarming rate. I don’t trust the police much either, but I’d bet I do far more than any person of color does. My grandmother lived in south central LA, I owned a business very near to there, I’ve employed people who lived there and I’ve seen black lives don’t matter up close for most of my life and it’s way past time to change that. I can see now that it won’t change until enough people understand this and get pissed enough about it. Showing that Bernie Sanders is a good friend is not enough any more. Action is what’s necessary. Bernie has been involved for decades, what bills has he authored on the race issue, even if they are going nowhere? Jobs and the economy are vital but you have to be alive to hold one or have a place in the economy other than the bottom. The country elected a black president and what progress has been made on this issue? (I very much like the President and he has gotten huge things done, maybe all that’s possible, we’ll just have to wait another yr and a half to find that out)
I don’t think much of O’Malley, not after his mayoral days but people can and do change. Maybe he is one of them. Maybe not. But he picked up a lot of street cred at NN and that’s important this early.
Kropadope
@Jordan Rules:
Check Anne Laurie’s links above. A sad irony of the BLM Boston traffic protests (carried out by white college students) is that it endangered the life of a black accident victim who was being transported by ambulance.
guachi
I enjoy all the blacksplaining telling white people how to act. Attacking white politicians for daring to speak about issues that appeal more to white people.
Don’t politicians know that no democrat anywhere can win without black voters?
Just ignore the fact that there are states where the black population is low enough that they are almost irrelevant electorally, because black voters are the base of the party.
You’d think people might be happy a democrat can give a message that can appeal to white voters. But, nope.
Ruckus
@gwangung:
Exactly.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: And?
ruemara
@efgoldman: Christ. You’re not a natural ally if you refuse to deal with the issues we’re telling you we have. For fuck’s sake, why do you think Sanders was the key target? He’s been more than tone deaf, he’s been dismissiv.e
Omnes Omnibus
@guachi: Did you really go that far into asholeville? Wow.
SatanicPanic
@guachi: holy shit
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: and destructive behavior is destructive regardless of who is doing it. BLM needs to learn the same lessons as the police they are protesting; think before you pull the trigger, pick appropriate targets.
Kropadope
@ruemara:
Example?
Ruckus
@efgoldman:
Not denying this. But we do have more than one candidate and the last time HRC ran she was a shoe in, up against someone with very early little recognition. And she didn’t make the podium. Some her fault, some his campaign, some who he is…… I think Bernie has no chance, his age, his, relative to many, far left stance, his not being a dem, even on BJ and now this?(Yes this seems like small potatoes but look at the level it’s raising here, people have lost for far less) As I stated above O’Malley has issues on this subject from his political life, are they surmountable? But if that does leave HRC in the drivers seat, and I think it does, will she crash and burn? So far I’m not seeing that.
ruemara
@Kropadope: You have been doing yeoman’s work in establishing that the BLM protestors stole time from other people, did not pick an appropriate time to protest, protested ineffectively and general did protest wrong. You and I have nothing to discuss.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: Protests should never make people be uncomfortable? FFS the point of what they were doing was making allies feel uncomfortable. Telling us that we haven’t been doing enough. Are they wrong?
SatanicPanic
@efgoldman: NN is kind of a big deal though. Sure, a year from now it won’t be, but it might affect what we’re talking about a year from now.
Kropadope
@ruemara: So, no example?
@Omnes Omnibus: I didn’t say protests shouldn’t make people feel uncomfortable. How does it help to make people who already agree with them re: mass incarceration and shoot-first mentalities uncomfortable? Why not go to Republican events and make them uncomfortable, make them defend their pro-incarceration, pro-militarization stances.
ETA:
@efgoldman:
Better still
Ruckus
@Jordan Rules:
How do you do it?
How do you make such a coherent, well written comment? I can only assume that you are a much better human than me, me being an unwilling witness, whereas you are an unwilling participant.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: If you have not read and absorbed the other comments on this and other threads, I will just quit wasting effort.
guachi
If black voters were the base of the party as I’ve seen mentioned over and over, it would be impossible to win at the state level without them. Otherwise you aren’t the base. But we know that there are multiple states where that isn’t true. The black population in Montana, for example, is so low it’s at .5%.
But we’ve seen Sanders get attacked for being able to appeal to white voters like it’s a bad thing. I find it as insulting as attacking Jesse Jackson for largely appealing to black voters. If I could have voted in 84 of have voted for him.
I really wonder if people realize the head patting condescension they give off trying to tell white people what their priorities should be.
Sanders apparently brought up the ACA as something that helps and someone shouted at him he couldn’t afford it. Anyone here should know from reading a mayhew post how many life-years insurance can add. But, nope, shout him down because he isn’t taking about your issue the way you want.
Jordan Rules
@Kropadope: Moral Mondays.
We can’t complain about the media and then act like it wouldn’t be even worse for dem issues that are mostly black dem folk issues.
Omnes Omnibus
@guachi: Are you really that stupid? Out loud? Wow.
Jordan Rules
@guachi: You have to know the demographic argument isn’t really on your side right? I mean, come on.
Kropadope
@Jordan Rules:
BLM activists is not equal to all black people. Believe it or not, not all BLM activists are even black.
Maybe, maybe not. But if he can’t address the needs of major parts of the electorate without someone pulling an asshole move to get his attention, that’s his fault and his problem.
I’m gay and I didn’t like the way gay groups went after Obama for going too small by, for example, refusing to defend DOMA in court. Even though this small, unglamorous issue was Obama’s first play and his approach was slow and focused on the legal process, his administration and appointees were ultimately very important to the sea change in legal equality for homosexuals.
Major Major Major Major
Stop feeding guaichi or whatever it’s called. DougJ could troll better while pooping and drinking a cocktail.
Jordan Rules
@Major Major Major Major: That’s low key impressive.
Ruckus
@Major Major Major Major:
To be a decent troll you have to have some level of understanding that what you say can not be taken seriously. To be a bad troll you write about the same issues but don’t have that understanding. To be this bad, you can’t have any understanding of anything at all.
jl
@Kropadope:
” I didn’t say protests shouldn’t make people feel uncomfortable. How does it help to make people who already agree with them re: mass incarceration and shoot-first mentalities uncomfortable? Why not go to Republican events and make them uncomfortable, make them defend their pro-incarceration, pro-militarization stances. ”
I don’t think the BLM protests were all so horribly uncomfortable. The let the candidates speak, they engaged in dialogue with the candidates. Compare the BLM protests to what we saw on youtube at teabagger town halls.
I would like to see some of the GOP candidates confronted with the issue, though. Edit: in particular: Jeb! ‘NewDub’ Bush and Walker. Some others not worth the effort, like Cruz, and Rand would have some degraded and ultra-cynicalized Kempism to spout.
Kropadope
@jl: I only said “uncomfortable” for the sake of accepting Omnes’s framing. Those tea-party protests were a whole other level of obscenity.
Kropadope
@jl:
Libertarians on race and environment: I agree with you that things are awful, but it would be fascism if we were to try to do anything about it.
Ruckus
@jl:
Do you think that any conservative would take this anyway but 100% negative, a complete attack? O’Malley apparently didn’t, and at least Sanders may have heard something, according to those attending a later event. Any conservative would have to denounce this or lose ground in the primaries to the one who says out loud, all the crap in their heads, the donald.
Kropadope
@Ruckus: As far as challenging the Republicans, getting them to utter their obscene pro-oppression views, even if they won’t consider changing them, at least helps by showing where the Rs stand on the conversation.
jl
@Kropadope: Sorry, I may have misunderstood your comment then. I watched the clips of the netrrots speeches again, and I think they were pretty polite, for outraged protests over an outrageous situation in the country. The protesters clearly wanted to hear the candidates address their issues and not just shout them down.
@Ruckus: Well, so what if they take it negatively? I want to see their reactions, they are running too. I’ve been disappointed by Sanders approach to issues that are not part of his standard economic pitch. He needs to start expanding his platform, or start explaining why his approach is the best to focus on in order to make progress in other areas, and I don’t see that he has done either.
I watched his speech in Pheonix afterwards on the internet, and actually he did not change his pitch that much. He has spent a few minutes on the problem of institutionalized violence against blacks in his standard stump speech, and he just added the names. As a full BJ commenter disclosure, I think Sanders’ campaign is a good thing, and I threw him some dollars a few times.
Kropadope
@jl: Nothing to be sorry for. That’s why it’s a conversation, to continue to gain understanding of each other’s outlook.
Ruckus
@Kropadope:
This an issue they can’t talk about. It might energize their base for the primary but it would be deadly in the election. And that’s because BLM is making a big deal about it as it very well should be. Yes it would lock up the base for the election, but they already have that. It would or it should even more energize the dems against them, give many the reason not to stay home. They can’t afford to draw such a stark line between them and the dem. That happened in the last two elections, very sharp lines and they lost badly. This now will be a big issue, regardless if it should have been before and wasn’t. That is the goal of BLM, make it a big issue. If they do anything to keep this up it will be. It already has become one. Even if only right here, right now this has hit home with a lot of people. Given any chance to grow, it will.
Ruckus
@jl:
See my comment at 338.
I think they will talk about it even if I were a political operative and screamed at them not to. I don’t expect any of them to be at all positive. And I’m not voting for any conservative so I give a shit what they have to say. Because it is always negative for the country and it’s citizens. Show me different, give me links and then I might take them out of the monkeys throwing shit category and let them sit at the kids table.
Kropadope
@Ruckus: That’s exactly why I think it’s more important to get Rs on the record than get any given D candidate to reiterate a view that we already know they’re on the right side of.
Incidentally, one thing we need to get Bernie and HRC on the record for are their current outlooks on war and extralegal detention facilities. Muslim lives also matter.
Jordan Rules
@Ruckus:
Ha! Thanks for being judicious in your trajectory and not immediately elevating them to the adults table by virtue of having a toddler’s grasp on this…and being white.
Major Major Major Major
341. Not bad.
No, I’m not a cokehead, I just don’t sleep.
Ruckus
@Kropadope:
It should be dems who start the conversation. They should own it. It’s looking at first glance that Sanders is going to have to own his response or lack of and that’s how it would work best for dems. Be out front, not sounding like pandering. I’m not worried about the primaries, Sanders, O’Malley, Clinton would all be so much better than any conservative klown that I’m willing to support which ever one it is. As I stated right now I think it’s HRC and given what I know now I don’t see that changing. So I’m thinking election, what works, what probably will not. If Sanders tries to gloss this over with economics it shows that he is a one trick pol, and that won’t wash in current dem politics, not that I think he has a snowballs chance in any event, and as I stated I like his economic views and think they are important.
Major Major Major Major
343. Not bad.
No, I’m not a cokehead, I just don’t sleep.
Much.
Ruckus
@Jordan Rules:
And there was a might in there. And it’s a Mt Everest of a might. And my kids table is out in the back yard in the snow with paper plates and plastic spoons and not in the dining room with the heat and food.
Mandalay
@Jordan Rules: A fine post. Cole should make you an OP.
Kropadope
@Ruckus: Sanders clearly needs to address the issue better, but he’s clearly on the right side and economics are important. I’m surprised this isn’t more of a challenge for HRC, given that she’s the only candidate on the D side who has made an explicitly racist appeal for voter support.
@Major Major Major Major * 2: Methinks thou dost protest too much.
jl
@Ruckus:
” Show me different, give me links and then I might take them out of the monkeys throwing shit category and let them sit at the kids table. ”
I don’t see how the BLM protests were that different from others that have occurred without wrecking everything, on immigration reform, health care, gay rights. I like what they did at netroots better than some of the protests they have done. Seems to me that a good candidate should be able to handle a protest like this. It was done in good faith and, as I said, I think it was clear they were willing to let the candidates respond, not there to just shout people down. Later on the candidates will have to handle bad faith BS from whatever Joe the Plumber some operative is going to send out during the general to confront them.
dogwood
@Kropadope:
I’m not gay, but I agree with your frustration about gay disenchantment and frustration that Obama didn’t move fast enough on gay rights. I remember reading somewhere a piece about the group of people tasked in the early days of the Obama administration to get DADT repealed. I reserve my highest respect for those people who simply did their jobs knowing they’d never be recognized or appreciated. You can chain yourself to the White House fence because Obama has betrayed you and convince yourself you’re making a difference, but nothing really changes without the people willing to do the grunt work.
Kropadope
@jl:
I can’t corroborate personally, but word on the street is that they heckled the candidates as they spoke and some walked out before they had finished answering.
Ruckus
@Kropadope:
I think he’s on the right side as well. Probably well on it. But, and this is a huge but, he didn’t handle NN at all well. He acted like a spoiled white guy. That may in fact be what he is, or it may not be. I think not, but as I said I’d vote for him if he ends up the candidate so I’m not in the group that has to be sold on him as a reasonable person for the job. But for me it doesn’t bode well that he doesn’t seem to be able to think on his feet. To me that is an important trait. Another one is to listen to people giving you shit. Because if you surround yourself with yes men you are an idiot. Differing ideas are important in a democracy. Actually they are vital to one. Being able to listen to them and articulate your position is absolutely vital. If you have to go sit in a closet and collect your thoughts every time there is any kind of confrontation…….
Major Major Major Major
ETA: My cat wrote this.
Kropadope
@ Major:
Your cat is an accomplished copy/paster.
Major Major Major Major
@Kropadope: You should see me, I’ve even ghostwritten. He learned from the best.
Kropadope
@Ruckus:
This doesn’t seem to be a strong suit of any of the candidates.
Jordan Rules
@Ruckus:
And I think this is one of the critical and I mean critical differences in the 2 major parties. And I hope it remains so.
This is not conflating it with the quick sound bite culture. This is being a thoughtful democrat who has already absorbed enough of this to freestyle and find that space to not alienate a group of us.
Ruckus
@dogwood:
It is sometime unfortunate that democracies take time to make good things happen and how much work it takes to end up in a good place. But the president was right about DADT. He could have changed it with the stroke of a pen but it might have been just symbolic and short lived. It is far better to make things right the first time. Your comeback should be how long it was in place before he got it changed. And that would be true if that hadn’t be a necessary step that didn’t really change much but set the ground work for a positive change. Discrimination and racism are bad and need to be over come. But killing and incarceration that re-enforces that, builds on it, is far worse. Once you are dead you stay that way, so among all the wrongs, economic, SSM, whatever, this tops my list. A nation that has an out of control police force and broken justice system, even if it is only a percentage, that’s not a democracy.
AxelFoley
@David Koch:
Funny how that works for them. When it’s the President getting trolled by hecklers, they love that shit. When the shoe’s on the other foot, they lose their damn minds.
I’ve been loving the shit out the Left’s meltdown from #BernieSoBlack
Ruckus
@Jordan Rules:
Exactly.
Our current president has this in truck loads. That’s one thing that makes him good and also makes the other side hate him. OK that and the color of his skin. OK that and all the bullshit they make up about him. OK that and that he is a nice human being and they can’t understand that…….
AxelFoley
@ruemara:
Sadly true.
Ruckus
@AxelFoley:
Up thread someone posted a few Billmon tweets. Sounds to me like the one was taken out of context. It sure doesn’t sound like he normally does.
dogwood
@Ruckus:
I was just responding to Krop’s comment on DADT.
AxelFoley
@Woodrow/asim:
This.
Ruckus
@dogwood:
Sorry for the speech then.
I’m a bit worked up about this thread and John’s below because this is such an important issue. The whole range of discrimination that people outside of the “normal” range (whatever the hell normal is) drives me crazy but the racial terrorism, especially by government agencies is so very, very wrong. It needs to change and it needs change a lot faster than it probably will. Baby steps are not enough.
sparrow
@dogwood: O’Malley won’t win the nomination, full stop. I say this as a citizen of Baltimore, where he is about as popular as dog poop on your shoe and is remembered less than fondly by people on both the right and the left.
I find it absurd that because of “style”, essentially, people are claiming “stop and frisk” O’Malley is a better candidate for AA than Sanders, with his known civil rights record.
mtiffany
Thank His Starchiness for Cleek.
BillinGlendaleCA
@mtiffany: LMAO.
Zinsky
To address the original gist of this thread – Tip O’Neill once said that if the Democratic Party were in Europe, it would be seven separate political parties. It is a very big and diverse tent and covers a lot of viewpoints. That is both its great appeal and its most unruly and annoying drawback.
Sly
@Kropadope:
If someone gets resentful over having some of their $150 “stolen” by a demonstrator calling attention to the deaths of people and demanding the political system take action, they’re an asshole.
Not as big an asshole as someone who gets resentful over being stuck in traffic, or having their feelings hurt when their state as a “natural ally” is questioned, but still an asshole.
Cervantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Off topic, you say?
different-church-lady
@guachi:
What goes around comes around, eh?
Keith G
Read the whole thread over breakfast (shout out to Jim F.L.). Like some others above (and Cole), not a big fan of commandeering planned policy discussions and the like. Just like A.L., I remember well earlier elections, ie. ’68 & ’72 where discord and infighting in the party helped set the stage to many troubling outcomes.
That said, this is but one bit of an ongoing flow – one selection of data in a growing array. #BLM has a role to play as do other groups pushing for the same goals. I wonder if #BLM is a one trick pony or can they grow into something more persistent and more productive in term of electoral and policy outcomes. The Democratic Party needs such positive energy.
Applejinx
@jl: thread too big, argh
The thing is, Sanders does truly believe ALL this crap stems from the intensity of economic issues. He’s more or less of the opinon that if the economic thing isn’t fixed, it does not MATTER what you do politically to protect black lives because wealthy racists will just buy deadly legislation and systems back again, they’ll continue to impoverish black communities and produce desperation which produces bad consequences and fills more private prisons with black bodies which make more white people wealthy and so on, ad infinitum.
Without breaking the back of the economic equation you cannot stop black lives not mattering. Black death is more profitable in a myriad of ways and is the most visible consequence of oligarchy where the justice system is perverted into personal armies of the rich, kitted out like guerilla soldiers. It’s all driven by intense class warfare and black people are not primarily the targets because they’re black, but because they’re on the absolute bottom of the class-warfare ladder.
I think he’s absolutely right, but try and explain that to an angry crowd. And of course by all accounts he did try to explain it to an angry crowd because that’s his WHOLE MESSAGE, pretty much.
What the hell do you expect to happen (rhetorical ‘you’ there) if you leave the full weight of this class warfare in place but try to establish a societal norm for black people to act ‘uppity’, without actually giving them any economic power to defend their interests? I sympathise with the ‘act up’ analogy completely and I support that, but it’s a recipe for cultural suicide without the specific agenda Bernie loudly and persistently has.
We HAVE to address that and I’m fine with counting it first or first among equally important issues, because otherwise we will have a significant movement of white Master Of The Universe types funded by both glibertarian rich whites and poor whites, bending every political and vigilante muscle towards exterminating the uppity blacks. I know which side I’d die on but the whole battle will be class warfare writ large and driven by staggering economic injustice, which black people bear the brunt of.
Barbara O'Brien
The Netroots hijack reminded me of the 1968 Dem convention more than the 1972 Dem convention, but I see the resemblance to the latter also.
Their cause is just and their anger is righteous, but by limiting their protests to heckling the politicians who have made themselves accessible and who are most educable on their issues, #BlackLivesMatter is making the same old mistakes and shooting itself in the foot.
Keith G
@Applejinx: This seems to be a well stated argument. It should be the basis for greater discussions on ways forward and how the status quo is best changed.
Unfortunately, with so many axes to grind and resentments to vent, that discussion does not seem to be in the works.
lol
@Applejinx:
tldr: “it’s about class, not race.”
So you don’t get it either.
lol
@Barbara O’Brien:
But Sanders HASN’T made himself accessible! Y’all are acting like this happened out of nowhere. People have been complaining about this for *months*. It’s a sign his campaign is dropping the ball on outreach.
And that you don’t see this swirling around Clinton is a sign her campaign team is very good at reaching out and listening to them.
mtiffany
@Barbara O’Brien:
I made this point way, way, way far upthread that the #BlackLivesMatter protest is for black people essentially the same thing as ACT UP was for gay people back in the 80s/90s. If you’re old enough to remember SILENCE = DEATH, then whenever you see #BlackLivesMatter, thats what that means, silence about the systemic violence of our society towards black people is death for black people. Daily.
The point of the protests (for ACT UP at least) was: disrupt, enrage, engage.
If the current order and polite way of doing things isn’t getting results: disrupt it.
If the people who are your ‘natural allies’ can’t or won’t see your problem because they’re too comfortable: enrage them.
Once people are enraged: engage them — “What are you mad about? We’re the ones dying and you’re not doing a thing about it, so why are you mad? Because we’re making you confront your own inaction? We’re disrupting Sunday brunch?”
The problem with the enrage – engage part is that it’s a loop that takes some people longer than others, and in the process you alienate some people who were persuadable — they fall away and don’t come back.
But that’s an acceptable loss when your people are dying. No time for bruised fee-fees, as it were.
So in a way, this protest was as much about getting Sanders and O’Malley to address the issue as about getting the rest of us to acknowledge it and understand it.
White Trash Liberal
I think the disruption was fantastic and will bubble up into the democratic national platform come the nomination.
Black lives matter. Prison reform matters. Police reform matters. Voting rights matter.
Kropadope
@Sly:
I’m not saying people should be resentful over the loss of their investment, but that sounds like a really low bar to participate in an event where you get to present your ideas to presidential candidates. That they chose the other way doesn’t change how I feel about these issues, which are vital and imperative, but anything I do about it will be away from the BLM banner.
As far as the traffic thing, they literally endangered people. White protesters under the BLM banner delayed access to urgent medical care to a black accident victim. They’re lucky they aren’t dealing with some form of murder charges.
Prescott Cactus
@efgoldman:
About 1800 people. . . and Sen. Elizabeth Warren. The last two years.
So it is important
Kropadope
@mtiffany:
News flash!! Democrats are already engaged on this issue.
This was a year ago, the transfer of such weapons to police departments was since banned by Obama.
Couldn’t provide links for all, limits, you know? But you get the gist, I’m sure.
opiejeanne
@Major Major Major Major: I had to stop reading at midnight. too exhausted from the heat. that was at #338.
Prescott Cactus
@:
Uncle Ebeneezer
@? Martin:
Exactly. The BLM action is far less distressing to me than the fact that these issues were not already FRONT AND CENTER for every D candidate. I mean, tha fuck? Did they sleep through the past 18 months of the war being waged on their most loyal and dependable voters? If all these deaths of Black people at the hands of the Police have not been enough to make this THE issue on which to distinguish themselves from the GOP (in addition to, ya know , just being the right thing to do: prioritizing the lives of Americans) then for the first time I may actually agree that Both Sides are (almost) equally bad.
Sanders role, imo, has always been to push the Party to the left and make the discussion include important issues that aren’t currently getting enough attention. Not including BLM/police reform as a key part of his priorities is extremely disappointing given that he is supposedly the Great Liberal Hope who will get the Dems back to the things that matter. I’m glad BLM confronted him with the importance of their concerns and are forcing the issue to be a prominent part of the Presidential discussion. It wasn’t a week ago (among the candidates.) This is how politics works.