For those precious few of you who have any tolerance for further discussion of the events at Netroots Nation, Matt Bruenig has a couple of interesting posts. His first concerns Bernie Saunders’ actual positions, and his second covers the general phenomenon of what he terms “communicative performance leftism”:
But, you see, there is a pretty obvious problem with this brand of gesture-focused leftism that clever people can easily exploit. The problem is that talk is cheap and anyone who cares enough can just mirror the gestures you want them to make (thus flattering these strange politics) while doing whatever the hell they want when it comes to actual substance. It’s trivially easy to say what people want to hear while doing the exact opposite.
He has a great example of the genre by the moderator at Netroots.
Maybe I’m showing my brown privilege, but this protest reminds me of transgender advocates glittering Dan Savage a few years ago. Savage had some issues with the transgender community (read that piece to get his explanation of his evolution on the subject), but he’s generally had a good record on transgender rights. Bernie has a generally good record on the issues that the protesters at NRN care about. The question is whether it advances a cause to disrupt a talk by someone who’s basically on your side.
the Conster
Yes, it apparently does.
Gimlet
Not sure it negatively impacts on the cause but at least with me it just makes them appear childish, also stalling traffic by stopping cars on bridges.
BGinCHI
The day African-American people drown out the right wing in the national media will be a very good day. I care a lot less about Bernie Sanders than I do a country that takes Tea Party idiots seriously but doesn’t pay attention to black people being literally killed and literally locked up by the thousands.
ruemara
A guy who thinks black people are celebrating the end of racism and thinks they voted for Obama because he’s black is not really on my side of the issues. A guy who thinks the issues of BLM are just another aspect of the need for economic populism, isn’t even aware of my side. Now that he’s discovered we may not be white hipsters with just a dash of melanin, Bernie’s making an effort.
Now, why is it so hard to accept that the criteria for “on their side” you seem to have does not meet the standards the community has? At this point, this post is very polite moment of concern trolling.
Jeff
I realize this is off-topic, but does anyone have a guess as to how the Talibangelicals will respond to Donald Trump? I haven’t heard a single thought on this one way or the other… but then I do not watch cable news and get my news online.
Thoughts anyone? I mean, of course, if by some weird accident Trump becomes THE nominee, every conservative will vote GOP no matter what. I’m wondering what will happen in the meantime. I really don’t know.
Jeff
My comment disappeared… testing.
Belafon
Go read this first: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3du1qm/eli5_why_is_it_so_controversial_when_someone_says/
Gimlet
Although virtually no one among liberals thinks it is not a problem, are there any numbers on single issue voters with this as the issue?
Jeff
Any thoughts on how Trump will be received by the Teabangelicals?
Belafon
This is not a left-only phenomenon. The GOP is very good at this. They constantly talk about taking care of families and the military, which all oddly seem to mean cutting taxes for the wealthy.
Jeffro
Sorry, but had to go OT for a second: pro surfer Fanning’s meanie shark has its own Twitter account (b/c of course it does)
https://twitter.com/JbayShark
SatanicPanic
@Gimlet: I don’t think pointedly ignoring the views of the party’s most reliable voters is wise, single issue or not
Gimlet
@SatanicPanic:
I don’t think I said that.
SatanicPanic
@Gimlet: I’m not sure what your point is
Brachiator
@Belafon:
Interesting post. And one which elicited a response that is, sadly, very rare on the Internets:
kindness
I was told I wasn’t pure enough on a couple threads (not here). I was told I wasn’t an ally.
Remember how the Democratic Party went off the rails into oblivion after the 70’s for a spell? If the purity folk insist on purity that will happen again to the Democrats. Think Republicans & the Tea Party. That is what they are dealing with right now. Do we really want to join them? There are real issues to be dealt with but electing Democratic members & really better Democratic members has to be the start.
@SatanicPanic: No one is ignoring them. Why slander your own party? Isn’t Fox doing that 24/7 enough?
jl
@Belafon: The GOP are experts at placating their dupes with gestures and performance art on many issues and doing nothing, or the very opposite. I suspect they very carefully study the science of gaming performative politics.
On one level I agree with Bruenig’s second link. People who want a gesture or a specific response to their protests to show understanding and commitment and responsiveness to their concerns need to be aware about how easily such things can be gamed. And the danger is not only that protest leaders themselves will be duped. The danger is that the the voters, people who decide to turn out to vote, the people who decide to contribute can be gamed too, and that may spin out of the protesters’ control.
But the bottom line is that, in a healthy democratic process, leaders have to be responsive to important constituencies’ concerns. If they are very upset about an issue, and especially if there is good evidence that they are right to be very upset about an issue (which I think is the case with BLM), they have to show some good faith response to those concerns. The people are the ones who decide if they will vote, how they will vote and what they will contribute, and that power has to be respected. The process may be awkward at times, and make people uncomfortable. So what? Democracy is a messy process.
We have plenty of time to see how HRC, Sanders and O’Malley develop on the issue of racism and police violence. It’s a real issue that riles people, and I think rightly so. It isn’t going away soon, that is the reality. The issue is going to be there and blacks and in some regions other racial and ethnic groups, are going to have strong feelings about it. I don’t see the point in telling them to hush up. Why? How you going to force them to support your candidacy when you need them?
Cacti
@ruemara:
The raft of threads lamenting the tone of BLM’s activities are almost always paternalistic in their own tone.
They assume that the BLM activists lack understanding, and that it’s up to them to accommodate the candidates that they feel are giving short shrift to their concerns.
It’s strange indeed that black voters seem to be the only group who needs to worry about how their public statements might alienate a candidate, rather than vice versa. You’d almost think it was BLM running for POTUS and that they needed to persuade Bernie Sanders to vote for them.
Gimlet
@SatanicPanic:
I’m not sure if this articulates it or not.
The protesters want attention for their cause, are reluctant to enter a dialogue with the people they are protesting, formulate no intermediate steps only the result, and may be unhappy with whatever is offered or done short of that.
If they are lost as a voting block how big a number is that. Remember most liberals share their goal but won’t stay at home if it isn’t met.
Zandar
“Bernie has a generally good record on the issues that the protesters at NRN care about. The question is whether it advances a cause to disrupt a talk by someone who’s basically on your side.”
The problem is not Bernie’s good record on civil rights issues. The problem is Bernie using language that people who do not have good records on civil rights issues use, most often used to dismiss people who bring up the fact that the people who have bad records on civil rights have those bad records.
If interrupting him gets people to understand the inherent problem with this, then yes, it advances the cause.
Kropadope
@ruemara: That’s an extremely unfair reading of what Bernie said.
And of course cacti continues with his/her persistent, deliberate misinterpretations and lies
mtiffany
So. Much. Temptation.
Oh look! Pie!
Belafon
@jl:
Completely agree.
Phoebe
@ruemara:
Except that when you dig down, you find that Sanders at least is well aware of the fact that structural racism is real and that economic populism isn’t 100% of the answer to it. What he hasn’t been aware of, as best I can tell, is the highly coded language that the anti-racism community is currently using to signal recognition of and affiliation with the movement. And our discourse norms at this moment require that someone put on the spot in this way react with the right code words, or else nothing they say later that isn’t a performative admission of total ignorance and a desire to Do Better is ever taken as anything better than ass-covering. He didn’t know that the correct response to the BLM people was to #SayHerName, and so it’s too late forever.
Which is an illustration of why the gotcha aspects of the protest are so troubling to some of us. I don’t care if people were inconvenienced or people felt the protesters were “rude;” that’s bullshit. The crisis outweighs convenience.
But if you give any of these candidates a day’s warning that you want to have an hour with them focused on BLM, you’ll get a thoughtful forum where the protesters can put their questions to a candidate and get something better than a moment of missed emotional connection. You can pin the candidate down, and still give him or her the chance to explain why they start with economic populism when you want to talk about violence against black bodies. If they can’t tie it to a real policy improvement, or explain why they’re going to bring this back to structural racism, you can nail them on it and make them think better, or expose the real weaknesses in their position for all to see. Go for the surprise, and you’re likely to get exactly what we saw here: a missed chance for connection and encouragement to all the campaigns to learn to parrot standard phrases that may or may not reflect any deeper understanding.
Nobody thinks that’s a good result, as best I can tell. We know that because the same people who were angry on Saturday because the candidates didn’t know instantly that they were being asked to lead with their rage and grief over the death of Sandra Bland are now angry because sure, the candidates are saying the words now, but what if it’s just because they got caught once and they don’t really mean it? If this is where the protest gets us, isn’t it worth thinking about what might have gotten us a better result?
SatanicPanic
@Gimlet: How many black voters are there? I can’t give a total number, but it something like one in five Democrats
I’m not suggesting that all black voters will stay home if Bernie Sanders doesn’t listen to some BLM protesters, but I wouldn’t want to find out the hard way that I was wrong
kc
Someone on Twitter, forget who, said something about the politics of aesthetics trumping politics of substance.
Any politician can learn to recite the correct slogans. The question is, what is he (or she) going to DO?
sparrow
@ruemara: I understand that you don’t like Bernie personally because of his previous statements. But what of his proposed policies? Serious question: do you think Hillary would do more for ending police brutality and mass incarceration?
karen marie
@SatanicPanic: Really? You think Sanders has been deliberately ignoring social justice issues?
As far as I can see, the hissyfit did nothing to advance the addressing of important issues because everyone is too busy arguing about tactics normally employed by two-year-olds.
Mandalay
Heh – Vargas fully deserved to be called on his bullshit tweet in your second link. What a phony.
I’d trust Vargas as far as I could throw him.
Diana
@Belafon: @Belafon: I read that, and it didn’t change my opinion, because my problem with “black lives matter” vs. “all lives matter” is that they’re dog whistles. Nothing in either phrase makes it clear what the issue is. I think that once you’ve earned people’s distrust, by not saying what you mean, you have extra work to do to convincing people you mean only what you say.
Dog whistle politics, combined with annoying disruptive tactics, is only going to turn off potential voters.
And the whole “the fact that you don’t like the protests proves they are necessary” is just like the Republicans saying Sarah Palin was a good choice because she pissed off the liberals. People can be annoyed with you because you’ve hit a nerve. However, people can also be annoyed with you because you are so far from the nerve you are just wasting everyone’s time and making a fool of yourself in public.
Cacti
@Kropadope:
Bernie cannot fail, he can only be failed.
If you don’t like a statement from Bernie, the problem is you, never Bernie.
Small wonder the twitters have taken to calling his most ardent fans “Standers” (Stans + Sanders).
kc
@Mandalay:
But he performed correctly on Twitter, and that’s all many people will know or care about.
SatanicPanic
@karen marie: I think he did at NN.
jayjaybear
It seriously just amazes me the sheer number of white liberals who can’t seem to recognize the problem with their tone when speaking about the NN BLM protest. It does remind me of the tone straight liberals take when we LGBT (and especially the “T”) have issues with the things the Democratic party does. “Sit down, wait politely, we’ll get to your urgent issue soon enough.”
As good liberals, we’re probably all familiar with Letter From A Birmingham Jail. And yet, so few see themselves in those white moderates that Dr. King wrote about. That’s a problem. Because you can’t make improvements if you don’t recognize that you need to.
Gimlet
@sparrow:
As I’ve said before, Obama is a Democrat and IS president. He must be aware of the problem and has a JD, FBI to deal effectively with it.
He can start now rather than wait until January 2017 to see if another Democrat is elected. This is where the protests can most effectively be directed.
Jeffro
@kc: Right – the GOP candidates are getting pretty good at appearing to acknowledge stagnant wages, economic inequality, and what not. The problem is, they have exactly ZERO ideas for beginning to turn the tide (other than more of the same – trickle-down and trickle-on)
sparrow
@Phoebe: I agree with you.
Exactly.
Kropadope
@Cacti: You don’t seem to understand. No one is telling black people to sit down and be quiet, you keep asserting that to be the case. A slight disagreement on tactics and you go so far as to call several people here who seem to sincerely want to help racists. To support that claim against me, you took a quote that wasn’t even mine.
Perhaps we should call you, Cacti, a slanderer. I know libel is more applicable in print, but I like that it rhymes.
Betty Cracker
@Phoebe: Excellent point about politicians’ unfamiliarity with the Twitter-flavored language of the protesters. I think every Democrat, excluding possibly Webb (because no one gives a shit about his candidacy) has fallen into that trap. It has definitely created misunderstandings, and that’s too bad.
constitutional mistermix
@ruemara:
Do you have a link to the specific quote?
@Zandar:
Let’s just say for the sake of argument that Martin O’Malley used the right language at NRN, and Bernie didn’t. Would that make Martin a better choice? Because his record on civil rights is not as good as Bernie’s.
Roger Moore
The question is not about his positions, it’s about his priorities. As one senator among 100, and never one who was high enough up in leadership to do much about deciding what did and didn’t get legislative priority, his main job was to vote on things that others brought up. I have no doubt that his votes would get a good score from just about every liberal pressure group.
But as president, Sanders would have a substantially different job. He wouldn’t just be voting and proposing amendments to legislation, he would be deciding priorities for action. He would be deciding how much effort DOJ should apply to prosecuting white collar criminals on Wall Street vs. enforcing civil rights laws and consent decrees with local police departments. When Black Lives Matters protestors are interrupting his speech, they’re asking for a commitment to their priorities. When Sanders uses every discussion of race to pivot toward economic issues, they (probably correctly) interpret this as a sign that economic issues will be the highest priority in every department of the Sanders White House, and racial issues will be down toward the bottom.
Cacti
To his credit, O’Malley met and spoke with the BLM activists after the fact.
Sanders sent a spokesman to his meeting with them.
sparrow
@Gimlet: I also agree with this. I was VERY disappointed that Obama’s election-day promise about long voting lines (something like “We’re going to do something about that”) went NOWHERE. I’m in Europe presently, and the idea that voting is (a) not on a weekend and (b) basically designed to be hard for poors/minorities is considered very antidemocratic and appalling (which it is). I’m not saying Obama has not made some steps on the other issues (and it looks like he is gearing up for more in the near future), but this is where big, big organized protests could make an impact.
jl
Effective political leadership is more than having good policies. It is being able to communicate with people and build constituencies who will show up to contribute, work and vote.
That is just a fact. FDR, Truman, Clinton, Obama knew how to do that to build movements, get elected and get policies implemented. I see no reason to give Sanders, (or HRC or O’Malley) a pass on that aspect of being good candidates and good political leaders.
If you met Sanders on the campaign trail would you say “Oh “Bernie, aint it awful those BLM protesters so mean to you?” Or would you say “I didn’t particularly like the way they did the protests, but this is a very important issue to an important constituency. You have to find a more effective way to deal with it and communicate your commitment to solving the problem.” I would say the latter.
Mandalay
@jl:
This. NN has been and gone, and feathers got ruffled. Let’s move on.
What really matters now is how Clinton, Sanders and O’Malley react. They have all been given a wake up call. If they dare to keep pushing the “all lives matter” bullshit (as both Clinton and O’Malley have in the past month) then they will be in for a very rude awakening – the BLM movement is not going to fade away.
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore: As a socialist, Sanders likely believes that addressing economic inequality is the most effective way to address every other kind of inequality, including racial issues. You might not agree with him (most people don’t), but it’s not accurate to say it’s his last priority.
mtiffany
@jayjaybear:
Oh yeah. “I know because of the politics of the country as a whole that our issues can’t ever come first, but I am so damned sick of always coming in last.” I remember banging out that sentiment in a fit of self-righteous anger in a comment here during the early years of Obama, during the repeal of DADT.
Cacti
@Kropadope:
Because Bernie cannot fail, he can only be failed.
Brachiator
@Zandar:
Actually, it doesn’t. It appears as though people want some sign from Bernie that they are not getting. What other people understand, or whatever level of understanding they reach has nothing to do with what anyone wants, or thinks that they want, from Sanders.
Sanders may have an empathy or public perception problem that might have nothing at all to do with what he might do as president. His reserve and caution may not change at all, no matter how often groups get in his face.
His problem is political. He needs to solve it.
cokane
@ruemara: yeah… this is disingenuous twisting of Sanders’ rather innocuous quote. Which just goes to show, if you have to lie, do you have an actual argument to make? Unlikely
Kropadope
@jl:
I think they did him a favor, perhaps, putting a little urgency behind communicating how he was going going to help the black community. However, he was there trying to communicate how he was going to help the immigrant community, which is also marginalized. BLM took away their opportunity to be heard, bad sport.
Kropadope
@Cacti: Justifying the twisting of words to suit a political end. I keep trying to figure out how you aren’t a Republican.
White Trash Liberal
@Diana:
Black lives matter is a dogwhistle?
The fuck? Please explain this to me like I’m 5 years old.
As to the rest of your post, it reads like you are alienated by uppity black people expressing their need to be heard over class war bromides. If my reading is uncharitable, please correct me.
Oh… And did you all hear that Bernie marched with MLK? And that McCain was a POW? it’s true. Which is why Bernie is infallible in matters of social justice and McCain speaks ex cathedra on foreign policy.
What have the rest of you done? That’s right. So shutup.
mtiffany
@constitutional mistermix:
It’s going to be the quote from the NPR interview where Sanders says that black people are proud because America overcame racism to elect Obama. And depending on how you READ the quote, Sanders is either saying “racism is over, proof in the black occupant of the white house, hooray!” or he’s saying that the country elected Obama in spite of its racism (implying there’s still more work to be done).
This:
from here:
http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2014/11/19/365024592/sen-bernie-sanders-on-how-democrats-lost-white-voters
Cacti
@Kropadope:
Bernie’s most ardent fans remind me of the trope, “Jesus, please protect me from your followers.”
Brachiator
@Diana:
To some dogs, there is nothing but whistles, apparently.
wasabi gasp
Bernie could learn a thing or two from Donald.
Belafon
@Diana:
That one got shot down pretty quickly here, by me among others. At the same time, if your reasoning for not liking the protest is “it made my candidate look bad” or “we’ll get to it eventually”, then (royal) you might need to reconsider your reaction.
kc
@Zandar:
In other words, the problem is that Bernie has not mastered communicative performance leftism.
Kropadope
@jayjaybear:
As a gay man, I fully believe that the approach some gay rights groups took toward Obama; being impatient with the legal process he set in motion, dismissing first signs of progress as insufficient, insisting he didn’t care, etc. were very counter-productive. Fortunately, it didn’t wind up costing us anything, but it’s frustrating to deal with.
White Trash Liberal
@Betty Cracker:
It’s an accurate assessment if you believe economic equality has no bearing on social equality and that racism/sexism is structural and should be addressed as such.
if that is the case, you can freely feel that Bernie places your issues as low or no priority. In the same manner that treating the body for snake bites doesn’t help when the snake is still in the room, fangs bared.
Cacti
@mtiffany:
Here’s the quote:
From NPR back in November.
cokane
@mtiffany: Views still differ on shape of planet
Plantsmantx
@ruemara:
This is definitely one of the best comments I’ve seen on this subject.
Mandalay
@Cacti:
Your concern is noted, but that wasn’t to his credit at all. He damn well needed to after twice telling the BLM audience that “white lives matter”.
The guest throws shit at the audience and you want to give him credit for sticking around afterwards to mop up the mess he created!
Belafon
@Brachiator: If I dismiss the second one, then it’s OK to dismiss the first one.
//
kc
@White Trash Liberal:
Do you believe that? And if so, how would you suggest the federal government address social equality alone? No snark, I really want to know.
kc
@Mandalay:
Sort of makes Breunig’s point, don’t you think?
Cacti
@White Trash Liberal:
Bernie has mentioned his participation in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, but more as a point of information with respect to his history of concern for social justice issues. Good for Bernie.
Bernie’s fans on the other hand, seem to like to wave it in the face of black people as if they owe him a debt that demands repayment in votes. Boo!
Uncle Ebeneezer
@constitutional mistermix:
No. But it would (and does since O’Malley apologized and fixed his terminology afterwards) signal that he cares about the issue right now and is willing to listen. Or at the very least that he cares about the votes of the people who care about it.
If the game is Who Is Likely To Do The Most on Issue X, then Hillary beats both of them by actually having the potential to be President. Sanders may have many good votes on his record for Civil Rights but he’s currently showing that he’s still reluctant to accept any approach that emphasizes the Black (or Female/Gay etc.) part of the equation. And most importantly he doesn’t seem eager to have a conversation with the Black Community and hear them out. Which, I don’t care how many marches with King he can tout or how many good bills he voted on in the past, is clearly something he needs to get him on the same page with Black voters. As is pretty obvious based on the cluelessness he displayed at NN with regards to BLM.
Candidate who is paying attention/engaging AND has the better record > just having the better record.
mtiffany
@cokane: I pick purple. Purple is a shape, right?
Cacti
@Mandalay:
Yes.
When compared the alleged best friend of BLM sending an underling to meet them in a fit of pique.
kc
Snarking aside, part of being a politician is telling people what they want to hear, and Bernie’s clearly not very good at that. He needs to work on his communicative performance, for sure. He’s no Bill Clinton, who was awesome at communicative performance even as he signed off on some pretty bad laws.
In the meantime, I’d love to hear what specific policy proposals the protesters, or Cacti, or anyone else has to address the problems we all agree exist.
ruemara
@Kropadope: No, it’s not. It was paternalistic and very shocking to see him echoing such a ridiculous statement. This isn’t something i need your agreeing on, I read his interview. Even in context it’s tone fucking deaf.
dedc79
I’m pretty torn on this whole dispute. On the one hand, it’s honestly amazed me that african americans didn’t abandon the Democratic party a long time ago to start a new political party. It wouldn’t be much of an exaggeration to say that all the democrats have done over the past 40 or so years as play some decent defense on prior accomplishments (and yes, that is in its own way a big deal, given the opposition). The ONLY conceivable reason I can think of for why they’ve stuck around is b/c of the practical realization that they’d go from having a marginalized political voice to none at all. And I completely understand why we’ve reached a boiling over point. If anything, they’ve maybe been a bit too naïve/patient. And if the aim was to get some attention, well mission accomplished.
On the other hand, the aim should be to do more than get some attention. Most of the criticism directed at Sanders strikes me as unfair or entirely misplaced. People are jumping to conclusions about his views and policies without even giving him a chance to get going. I had thought the point of inviting candidates to these types of conventions was to foster dialogue, not to shout people down.
ETA: With respect to the policing issues that are finally getting some much-needed issues – these are largely problems that will get solved (if ever) at the state level and in the courts. Does anyone doubt for a moment that a President Sanders would do his best to appoint a progressive and diverse group of judges?
ruemara
@sparrow: This is not about Sanders versus Hillary. Bernie was my intended candidate in the primary. This isn’t about Hillary, this is about candidates that take black voters as a given.
Lowercase steve
@Roger Moore:
That is an excellent comment and it really gets past the whole “Bernie is a racist” “no he is not!” Thing that I think is a distraction.
White Trash Liberal
@kc:
I do believe that, because during better and brighter days, when the economy is booming and taxes are more pprogressive, etc. history shows that women and minorities were not invited to the buffet.
The arc of social justice does not depend on economics. Nations with incredible health care systems can still treat their immigrant and refugee populations like garbage.
I am all for the reform of the capitalist orthodoxy. But this will not save black lives from killer cops. Or prevent a migrant from being worked to death and left in an open grave.
Social justice has to be treated separately and handled through llegislation, oversight and participation.
Kropadope
@mtiffany:
Well, I am focusing on the fact that whether you’re white or black or Hispanic or Asian, if you are in the working class, you are struggling to keep your heads above water. You’re worried about your kids.
I keep coming back to this part of the quote. Bernie clearly understands that many, many people are hurting across all races and no one denies that black people are hurting more than others. It extends to subgroups, too. Black working-class people are hurting more than other working class people
If your main concern is race-relations, consider that some people deem race conflict as a problem of familiarity. Black people do better where the general population is more completely integrated. The barriers to integrating the population are financial, so they don’t lend themselves to an easy legislative fix.
A policy agenda that improves the lives of all working people will benefit black people the most. Will that solve all race problems? No, but these issues are inextricable and need to be solved together. It’s hard to get black people good jobs when many are being jailed unfairly. It’s hard to fix problems in the criminal justice system when people are struggling and fearful for their own well-being. These things need to be worked on in tandem and I think improving general prosperity is a good place to start, as that would be a friendlier environment to discuss these issues.
It’s not an either/or proposition. I’m pretty sure Bernie recognizes that.
Betty Cracker
@White Trash Liberal: A socialist would say that the evils of the system are entwined and originate from the same source, the unbridled pursuit of capital, so the most effective way to address social inequality is to address economic inequality.
I’m not a socialist myself, so it’s not an argument I would make. I’m just pointing out that saying a socialist doesn’t care about racial injustice because he pivots to economics when asked about isn’t accurate because it’s not a sign that he doesn’t care — he sees a different cure than you do.
kc
@Jeffro:
Well, if we all just worked more hours . . .
mtiffany
@Mandalay:
Absolutely, because if the right-wing media establishment has demostrated anything in the last few days, it’s their zealous commitment to not distorting people’s statements, or taking things out of context, or deliberately editing audio or video to make people look really really monstrous.
As such, we can expect come election season, there won’t be a 30-second attack ad where we see a picture of the Dem nominee, with the voice of Martin O’Malley saying “White lives matter,” cutting to a video of the BLM protestors booing loudly. And the ominous voice of Uptighty McWhitey intones seriously “Who’s lives matter to Hillary?” Good thing Fox ‘News’ isn’t the wide end of the puke funnel, or shit could get real.
The protesting to make us stop ignoring the issue of BLM and giving us a much-needed kick in the ass to start listening and acting? Couldn’t agree with it more.
The booing and demands that the candidates start spouting slogans like they were holding a copy of Mao’s Little Red Book? Sweet Zombie Jesus Tappingdancing Christ was that stupid.
JPL
@Jeff: OT… If the don’t like him, he’ll just insult them.
Time mag link
Cacti
@ruemara:
This.
The problematic part of when Bernie says:
Isn’t that he’s being malicious. It’s that he’s being sincere.
dedc79
>@Roger Moore:
Candidate Obama gave us the occasional boilerplate language on protecting the environment, climate change, etc… but you'd be hard-pressed to say it was a priority on the campaign. He's no doubt an environmentalist, but it wasn't his big issue. He has, however, pretty clearly delivered over the past 8 years. And that's because an administration can do many different things all at once. The Civil Rights division at Justice keeps on churning – it will under Hillary Clinton and it will under Bernie Sanders. It will be dismantled under President GOP.
kc
@White Trash Liberal:
Those are great points; thank you. I just don’t think you can have one without the other.
ETA to correct typo
Kropadope
@Cacti:
he only people I see waving that in anyone’s faces are people like you who are looking for an easy way out of engaging what people are saying.
Lying troll lies.
Kay
I think the problem you run into with that at NN is that this happens a lot there. I saw it twice- an Obama Admin official (2011, I think) and Biden (2014). Now, those aren’t candidates but NN is about pushing allies. If your general position is pushing allies is productive (or worthwhile even it’s not productive) wouldn’t you support that across the board?
sparrow
@ruemara: Fair enough. I very much like Bernie’s economic message… and I would like to hear him speak more about (and announce concrete policies towards) the #BLM concerns, which are equally important in my book. I was withholding judgement at first on the protest, but I am coming around to the idea that it was a good thing to do, especially if it is followed up with constructive dialog.
Cacti
@Kropadope:
Bernie, please protect me from your followers.
Belafon
I think all three candidates will be fine. I think they’re all capable of learning from this (Clinton made her mistake earlier this year), and I think the Democrats will be better for it.
One of the things that happened with Obama’s election was that the Democrats are more dependents on minorities. They should have had a bigger voice and can now demand one. This straight white guy is fine with it.
It’s easy to figure out that race issues are different than economic ones, and while an economy that helps everyone – and not just the rich – will be better, it won’t fix all the issues. The early 1900s saw rising influence and incomes for blacks, until people like Woodrow Wilson ended those. Even today, if someone proposed a law that favorited whites over blacks in job placement (not that we need that law to make it happen), a significant segment of the population would be OK with it, even if they would howl if the law favored the rich over the poor.
Eric U.
“all lives matter” is pretty clearly a racist dogwhistle, and thus Democrats should stop saying it. Yes, it’s true, but it’s still a racist dogwhistle. “Black lives matter” really is shorthand, but gets to the point.
scav
@Betty Cracker: Still, I wouldn’t think much of a doctor he he rufused to treat a parient’s headache because he was convinced the root cause was a brain tumor. Even if one has a spanking pretty theory about root causes, a refusal to deal with actual, immediate situations and problems impacting real living people is a bit of a problem. No damn reason one can’t attempt both, or at least acknowege the reality that the headache is real and give a concrete reason why you’re not offering any analgesic.
Gimlet
@Kropadope:
Lying troll lies.
Going to be a long campaign. Pointing out possible partisan operatives will just result in a new nym-identity and a return to business. Best not to engage if you think this is happening.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
If I think Sanders is wrong on that point, I can also disagree with his interpretation of priorities. Saying that he’s going to deal with racism by taking on economic issues isn’t good enough, and it shows a dismissive attitude toward the people who experience the effects of racism.
Kropadope
@Cacti: The only mentions of MLK on this thread prior to me confronting you about it are by White Trash Liberal and then you re-posting his quote. Those mentions were only made for the sake of dismissing an argument that wasn’t being made. Need any more straw?
ksmiami
@White Trash Liberal: Ding Ding Ding. Without toothy legislative and legal protection and advocacy, no amount of wealth – or good jobs can protect you. See Tulsa.
The current fetid/rotten structure of law enforcement needs to be reworked from top to bottom. I believe that as an American, if the rights of my fellow citizens are being abridged, then my rights are sure to follow.
White Trash Liberal
@Betty Cracker:
And I am saying, given the history of socialism, to push back on that. A libertarian believes that equality flows from minimal government because reasons. They can hide behind their beliefs but they should beheld accountable for the actual consequences of those beliefs.
Mandalay
@dedc79:
Shush! Don’t go giving them ideas.
Just as Donald Trump has the power to deliver the presidency to Hillary Clinton by going independent, the African American community could possibly deliver a Republican presidency by forming their own political party.
But just talking about it would get the immediate attention of the Democratic presidential candidates. No need to ruffle feathers or prick egos or humiliate the powerful. Just deliver a stone cold threat and mean it: address our concerns or we go our own way alone!
I like the idea.
Kay
@dedc79:
And, to be fair, Matt Bruenig might not know that about NN because in my view (I read him) he’s more a policy Lefty than a political Party Lefty. I don’t think he even identifies as a “Democrat” which is fine but might lead to him using a broad context.
Belafon
@Belafon: ETA: Not that minorities need this straight white guys opinion. The Democratic party does, though.
Kropadope
@dedc79:
A thousand times this.
sparrow
@Belafon: Slight historical note: rising wealth of blacks was also violently ripped away from them (e.g., my hometown of Tulsa had race riots in which everything was burned by the whites). You could argue that those riots, being unprosecuted and uncondemmed, where “institutionalized” in a way, but it was in addition to anything in the law.
kc
@Kay:
Good point.
Cervantes
@Phoebe:
@Diana:
Thank you both.
Chris
@dedc79:
Same basic principle as black people’s relationship with the Republican Party during the Gilded Age onwards; the GOP was doing less and less for black people as time went by and turning more and more into the Democrats-lite when it came to racial issues, but what were they going to do, turn around and support the party of screaming, out-and-out Klansmen instead? On the other hand, the GOP’s gradual slide into worse and worse certainly didn’t go unnoticed, which is why the first time a Democratic president started doing things that substantially benefited black communities (FDR in the New Deal), a ton of people switched sides practically on the spot.
It’s lucky for the Democrats that Republicans show absolutely no sign of doing anything like that. On the other hand, the Dems would be foolish to ignore that precedent and take black votes for granted. We’ll see how it unfolds in this campaign.
White Trash Liberal
@Kropadope:
I was trolling the statement by mistermix that Bernie is an ally and good on the issues BLM cares about. If the candidates were good, this would not have happened.
sparrow
@Eric U.: My favorite response to “white lives matter” by people who should know better (let’s call them unconscious dog-whistlers) is the following:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/michaelblackmon/matt-mcgorry-has-a-few-words-for-people-who-respond-to-black#.tfRM3R9vQ
Betty Cracker
@Roger Moore & @White Trash Liberal: Fair enough. I am 100% in favor of holding people accountable for the results of their belief systems. My point was about imputing motives.
dedc79
@Kay: That’s fair. As is probably clear by now, I don’t know much about how it works either. Is the event not doing a good enough job of providing forums for these issues to be raised so that the pushing can happen through Q&A rather than a disruptive protest?
Betty Cracker
@sparrow: Haha! That’s perfect.
Kropadope
@White Trash Liberal: My mistake, I could’ve analyzed that a little better. What you did and what Cacti is doing are not equivalent.
Chris
@dedc79:
I didn’t pay close attention to this at the time, but I recall reading from Paul Krugman that under Bush, it was actually worse than that – the CRD was reoriented from protecting the rights of minority Americans to protecting the evangelizing rights of religious groups (essentially putting it in league with the very people it’s supposed to be protecting minorities from). Don’t know if or to what extent that happened, but I can absolutely see the next Republican president doing something like that.
/sidenote
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
If this is a fair statement of his views, his candidacy is dead on arrival, and deserves to be. It’s not a matter of disagreeing with him, it is that this notion about the value of socialism is objectively false. It would be similar if he were a libertarian. If this vision of socialism is his first priority, he’s got nothing coherent to offer anyone.
On the other hand, if he has more to offer, he should make his case.
Diana
@White Trash Liberal: It’s a dog whistle because people need to read an explanation on Reddit to know why “all lives matter” isn’t an acceptable response. Presumably all lives do matter, or else you must be advocating genocide or eugenics.
I’m not upset by the protests; in fact, I’m delighted, because (like a lot of other middle-aged women) I’m a Hilary supporter, and whether the BLM people are ever going to admit it or not they were basically trolling for Hilary by shutting Bernie up.
I didn’t march with MLK because he was dead before I was born. Since I’m probably best characterized as a white moderate, I guess that means I’ve been the greatest threat to freedom since before I was born. But I’m not going to become an extremist, because I do happen to believe that extremism in the defense of liberty can be a vice.
Anyhow I think you can guess I don’t believe that the slogans of the 60’s are really the best way to do politics.
And I feel the same way about dog whistles.
dedc79
@Chris: Yeah, that is what happened. And maybe the most painful part is that you had lawyers who’d played foundational roles in some of the most critical civil rights work that happened in the 60s and 70s – people who helped draft the various laws, write up the regulations, bring the cases, etc.. – and they got pushed right out the door. They couldn’t stand to hang around to see the department’s mission perverted in this way. I don’t blame them for leaving either.
Kropadope
@White Trash Liberal:
Although, I don’t think this is fair either. Consider you’re on the longest, most complex job interview ever. You’re sitting there answering a question you knew to prepare for because you knew what the interviewer planned to ask about. Then, while you’re in the middle of that, someone barges in demanding your answers on any given question with a somewhat complex answer(Why is the sky blue?).
Then, instead of letting you answer, they keep chanting the question and leave before you fully answer.
Cacti
@Kropadope:
My comment mentioned Sanders fans. Narrowing it down only to the ones on this thread was your own addition.
Refuting an argument I didn’t actually make. What’s that called? Something to do with scarecrows?
Bernie, protect me from your followers.
Cluttered Mind
I’ve thought a fair bit about this and I think that while Bernie Sanders probably shouldn’t have cancelled his meeting with the BLM activists, I can see why he’d be annoyed at them personally for disrupting his speech when he already had a meeting with them scheduled. This whole thing seems to have been a learning experience for him, though. As much as many of us can profess to hate the theatricality of politics, it’s important to remember that that stuff does matter. Bernie is right on all the issues but if he can’t figure out the messaging and theatricality then he’s going to suffer for it. Jimmy Carter had that problem as President. His policies weren’t bad, he was a really smart guy, but he sucked at the theatrics and ended up getting trounced by a guy who quite literally had nothing of any substance to run on EXCEPT theatrics.
I think that it’s good that Sanders is making these mistakes as early as he is. Hillary Clinton has had decades to learn how to effectively communicate with the national base. Sanders’s record is solid, and he probably thought he didn’t have anything to prove to the BLM activists because of that record. However, if he feels like they didn’t give him any credit for his record and just disrespected him for no reason…maybe he could learn a few things about how black people in this country feel when they’re constantly disrespected by law enforcement despite having done literally nothing wrong.
A mess all around, but there’s plenty of time to recover from it and hopefully everyone involved learned something useful from it.
Kropadope
@Diana:
Arab lives matter.
Kay
@dedc79:
I figured you didn’t know. Actually, the complaint at NN in Detroit was immigration wasn’t being addressed which led to the protest at the Biden event. That’s my take on what happened anyway just walking around listening to chatter.
Kropadope
@Cluttered Mind:
I suppose it depends on his rationale. Was he pouting or did he just want to make sure he took some time to develop the right response?
Thoughtful Today
We saw Tia Oso and her troupe’s activism differently:
I saw a Jew who had family slaughtered by Nazi’s get screamed down for failing to follow the orders of those screaming at him.
I read commenters who claimed that the color of that man’s skin made him incapable of understanding the pain of having family slaughtered by authorities.
Cenk’s worth listening to on this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElcJy5yZfvk
Chris
@dedc79:
Sounds like they treated the DOJ basically the same way they treated the military, CIA and State.
Push out the professionals or put them on an insanely tight leash, then turn the political appointees pushing right wing agendas loose.
Kropadope
@Cacti: Can you show me where that was happening on any of the other threads?
@Thoughtful Today: Wow, I hadn’t even considered this.
srv
The rate of being shot while black hasn’t changed one iota in years, it’s just that it’s on youtube now. That may perk the interest of some white Democrats for awhile but they aren’t going to enjoy 18 months of being “beat up” about it. Shit, these people got tired of #OWS, you think they’re going to go to the mat over #BLM?
Democrats didn’t vote for Obama because he was black, they voted because he had superstar marketing/campaigning and media coverage compared to Hillary. If Obama had been campaigning on desgregating schools, cop violence, pulling down the Battle Flag of NV and civil rights he wouldn’t be in the WH, he’d be running Citicorp.
ruemara
@Kropadope: you don’t have to like it but it’s not lies. I said it two days ago, marching with MLK is now a lefty version of I have a black friend.
And to those asking what’s Hillary’s solution or BLM’s solution; I have to laugh. What’s your solution to policies that make white people comfortable? Broken Windows tactics are inherently about preventing crime by identifying criminals early, but it’s not applied to mostly white neighborhoods. It is for urban centers. What’s your solution to the terror armed cops feel at a black person being there? Don’t ask black people about a solution to structural racism and inculcated loathing of minorities. That’s your friends, families, co-workers and local gov. There’s a reason why Tim Wise has a job speaking to white people about white privilege. It can’t be on us to provide solutions. Just check downstairs to see how the rudeness of Sandra Bland contributed to her situation. Good liberals can believe that.
As far as Sanders and the presidential candidates, they don’t have to have the best solutions; they need to accept that we exist. It’s called erasure, when minorities cannot speak on their needs and must accept being subsumed by a majority. I’ve been erased from existence all my life and I have no qualms spending whatever time I have left supporting a younger generation who will not acquiesce to the erasure that respectability politics causes. That’s it from me, because some of you get it and some of you will fight to not get it and I need all my strength to not meltdown and do my damned job.
Cacti
@Thoughtful Today:
So BLM are now nazis in emo prog land?
Classy.
White Trash Liberal
@Diana:
Funny, I did not have that comprehension problem. I have always seen is an affirmation of what is supposed to be obvious, but often is not.
And no, you are not the greatest threat to freedom. It’s that through ignorance, complacency and racist attitudes, us white folk are complicit in a structure that destroys black lives and communities.
Cacti
@Kropadope:
Were the comments about Sanders fans, or Sanders fans at BJ in particular?
schrodinger's cat
Economic issues are important but not all discrimination is based on economics alone. That is a simplistic Marxist point of view. All animals may be equal but some are more equal than the others.
Thoughtful Today
@ruemara,
are you saying that Bernie Sanders, who had family members slaughtered by the Nazi’s, doesn’t understand “erasure”?
Another Holocene Human
No. I disagree with you about Dan Savage. He sucks for every reason imaginable and has only (ever) cleaned up his act due to public outcry. (Much like Nick Denton.)
Disagree about NN15 as well.
Why did we dance and cheer when DREAM Act activists were stalking politicians and disrupting shit but when #BLM does it they need to be told to sit down? Is it because it was Saint Bernie? I mean, I don’t see a lot of people defending O’Malley, who definitely (deservedly, really) got the brunt of it. Or is it because indeed a great deal of white lefties do NOT take Black issues seriously?
eta: and fuck Dan Savage some more. douchebag.
Another Holocene Human
@Thoughtful Today: Yeah, that was a real thoughtful comment today.
/
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Kay:
I still can’t figure out if the problem is that the people complaining are not familiar with how NN goes and didn’t realize how freewheeling it is, or if they’re just upset that it’s their sacred cow getting skewered this time.
Diana
@Chris: Amen to this. Also, doesn’t anyone how Chris Christie got his start in politics? After raising $$$ for Bush he got appointed U.S. attorney for New Jersey; when he turned out to be one of the few U.S. attorneys who would prosecute fake voting fraud cases (most wouldn’t because there was no evidence), thereby helping Bush’s DOJ in its fake voting fraud claims, the Republicans picked him over tea party candidates to run against Corzine. When he won they thought they had their next President, a right-wing blowhard who could win in blue states.
Corrupting the civil rights division of the DOJ to turn them against voting rights gave Christie his start in politics, and right now Jersey is paying the price. If it weren’t for Bridgegate, he’d be in the Donald Trump slot, except that everyone would be taking him seriously.
The Raven on the Hill
So, think we should run blog comments without moderation? Really? That fails and we all know it. Yes, “civility” can be an excuse to silence people. But without some order, the trolls take over—that is ultimately why Occupy failed. Part of the job of a moderator is to shush people who are disrupting meetings. Slamming Vargas for trying to do his job seems to me unreasonable.
O’Malley, as mayor of Baltimore, seems to have an appalling record on policing, which has probably led to multiple deaths of black people, including Freddie Gray. Because of this I oppose him. It astonishes me that he is being given a pass on this. Do black lives matter? Really? Apparently less than getting the candidate to say the right words.
Sanders, on the other hand, marched on Washington. His history on racial issues is far better than that of Clinton and O’Malley. Yes, you can twist his words out of shape. But he is not saying anything different than the radical black socialist Glen Ford (Black Agenda Report) has said—in fact, he is far more moderate. None other than Ta-Nehisi Coates, writing about Obama, answered the charges that have been laid against Sanders, quoting Michael Eric Dyson: “The left won’t take responsibility for the fact that, with the extraordinary intelligence of a Glen Ford and many other leftists notwithstanding, the reality is that [Obama is] the most progressive president, as Gary Dorrien, an American leftist who teaches at Union Theological Seminary argues, since FDR. Those are the stakes on the ground..”
And it all doesn’t matter. Sanders has now lost support from a fraction of the black community and is unlikely to regain it. All hail Hilary Clinton, the banksters candidate!
Cacti
@ruemara:
Janessa Robinson’s Salon article mentioned the phenomenon of Sanders fans wielding the “Bernie marched with MLK” as a rhetorical bludgeon against black people who doubt his commitment to their issues in the here and now.
Much as our resident Standers wish I had just made it up, I’m not the only one who’s noticed.
Cervantes
@Cacti:
All Americans alive today, and our descendants, will always owe a debt to Dr. King and all those who marched with him, or otherwise fought for civil rights, in the ’50s and ’60s.
No one is asking for repayment, but the debt is there, and will always be there.
schrodinger's cat
@Another Holocene Human: I too don’t understand the love that Savage gets. I have never liked him much.
Kropadope
@Cacti: So, this is about Sanders’s fans who aren’t even posting here?!?!?!? WTF is wrong with you?
@ruemara:
Well, I’m having trouble seeing how they can meet that standard, given that they clearly know you exist and have been actively working on issues important to BLM.
I’ll tell you what I want. I don’t need you to tell me that I’m not a racist or that I care about black people, but I would really like it if certain people here would stop pretending that the people who disagree with them are racist or don’t care.
Another Holocene Human
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I think it’s all of the above with that toxic mixture of white on black racism to ensure that the condescension, insensitivity, cluelessness, and trolling is dialed to 11.
But more proof a Black woman interrupting a white man is perceived quite differently than a white person interrupting a Black person.
I don’t remember the Great Lefty War over CODE PINK disrupting a donor dinner with Obama to sing about freeing Chelsea Manning.
(ETA: there was some serious side eye, but no war about it. Obama supporters didn’t accuse random white liberals of planning the protest, or lecture emo-progs that they’re doin i rong.)
Jeffro
I don’t think “communicative performance leftism” is accurate – “attention-seeking performance leftism” is. Communication implies two-way sending/receiving…a demonstration like this one is what happens, sometimes what has to happen, in order to get communication going.
dedc79
@Diana: He also prosecuted one of the most egregious of a series of post 9/11 terrorism cases that was really just entrapment. But hey those haven’t even stopped, so maybe he still thinks that’s a net positive on his resume.
Kropadope
@Cacti: @Cacti:
I just followed your link. This is bout what’s happening on Twitter. TWITTER?!?!?!?!?
I scrupulously avoid twitter, given that nothing worth saying can be said in 140 characters. You’re beating me over the head not with what I’m saying, nor with what anyone else on BJ is saying, but because you’re butthurt about some idiots on Twitter?
Can you just take one second and try to appreciate how effen ridiculous that is?
Another Holocene Human
@Kropadope: You’re making a damn cognitive leap that is just not there. Stop it.
A politician acknowledging a community’s concerns is the opposite of a politician failing to acknowledge said concerns, right?
A politician failing to acknowledge said concerns does not logically mean they’re a bigot. A politician acknowledging said concerns doesn’t mean that he isn’t a bigot. The categories aren’t exclusive, they’re overlapping.
Ruemara, and Elon, and Goldie Taylor haven’t said one word about trying to test a politician to see if she’s a racist. How would you even know? And who cares. People say Lincoln and LBJ were racists and look what they accomplished. All they want is for politicians to acknowledge, listen to, and respond to the MASSIVE VOTING BLOCK they are part of.
And Bernie-bots who keep throwing “Jew” around, first of all, STFU, secondly, Jews, like many other ethnic groups, fought very hard to get acknowledged by politicians and their concerns addressed. Just as Black people are trying to do now. Not fucking hard to understand.
Cacti
@Kropadope:
Yes. I was speaking broadly about supporters of a candidate who says he’s running for President of the United States. Unless I misunderstood him and he’s actually running for President of the BJ comment section.
Is it time for your meds?
Another Holocene Human
@Kropadope: So why are you posting in this thread.
Cacti
@Kropadope:
Is the African-American woman who wrote the article “butt hurt” too?
White Trash Liberal
@Cervantes:
No debt. For white marchers, that is called doing your job.
And owing a debt does not translate in being immune from protest and the opportunity to speak with your potential constituents.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Thoughtful Today:
Wow. You’re an asshole.
Diana
@Another Holocene Human: I believe that was because nobody rallies to support Code Pink. I was under the impression everyone thought that was stupid.
Kropadope
@Another Holocene Human:
Those sort of complaints regarding the approach of protesters have certainly happened about many, many protests. Only a couple times has it devolved into a “war.” I can’t speak to all the other times, but this time I’m just here trying to defend my honor. I agree with the goals of BLM. I agree that issues of racial justice don’t get enough attention. However, because I don’t agree with the tactic used at this one protest; I’ve been told I don’t care, that I want black people to shut up, that I don’t mind waiting patiently while black people die, I’m pretty sure I’ve been flat-out called a racist.
Alienating people who agree with you on everything except a particular tactic used at a particular event is not effective activism. I’m no Cesar Chavez, but that seems pretty clear-cut. I’m not even saying the tactic should never be used. I’m just saying that the situation should be gauged and the targets chosen more carefully, evidently the same as at certain police departments.
kc
@Kropadope:
Dude, you gotta learn to ignore Cacti on these threads. He’s just trying to derail.
The Raven on the Hill
I doubt very much that the black lives matter protesters intended to throw support to the banksters candidate, with the horrific racism that that implies, or to a man to whom black lives clearly matter not a whit. Yet so far that is so far the result of their actions.
It is better, I think, to disrupt the meetings of known enemies than potential allies.
(And there ought to be more to say here, but I don’t know what it is yet. Continued on next rock.)
Kropadope
@Cacti:
The point
1 mile
Cacti’s head
Freemark
It seems to me the only successful argument against Bernie is that he is ‘tone deaf’. In both his speeches and legislative action he has sided with the positions of the BLM movement more than any other presidential candidate including Hillary Clinton. It seems to me because he has been so good for so long that perhaps he himself is taking for granted that people should know how he stands on the issues. He has been one of the strongest proponents of ending mass incarceration, ending the drug war, especially against minorities, of holding police accountable for their actions, of demilitarizing the police, etc. And he has been doing so long before most white people even realized the problem.
I’m curious as to what actions he should take that would make the people who don’t see it happier. Are there any positions he should actually change? Should he give a separate ‘race’ speech? What are the things you would like to see him do?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Kropadope:
Again, were you not aware that disruptive protests happen EVERY year at Netroots Nation? Complaining that a politician got shouted down at NN is like complaining that water is wet. It’s. What. They. Do. There.
If you’re upset that it was Bernie in particular who got shouted down because he’s a special snowflake, then that’s a whole other argument.
Thoughtful Today
@Cacti @ruemara @Mnemosyne
I didn’t hear Tia or her troupe offer constructive solutions nor were they willing to _LISTEN_ after demanding solutions to deeply complex answers that haven’t been solved by either Clinton or Obama’s Presidencies.
And yes, Tia’s failure to listen after demanding obedience was a disturbing spectacle of authoritarianism.
Personally, when someone screams at me and demands answers of me and then interrupts me and doesn’t let me finish my statement, it’s very difficult to provide complex solutions to complex problems. And, yeah, Mnemosyne, that’s how I’d define what you’d call an “asshole”.
gvg
I think something worth pointing out, is that a lot of the racist laws and economic policies that have been enacted in the last 60 years have impacted whites too, especially of the so called worker class and both poor and middle class. In other words poor and middle class racist whites have been manipulated by politicians and corporate greedheads into allowing policies to be enacted that hurt themselves. The manipulators use these code words to say things in a hidden way like don’t let the lazy blacks/browns/women lie around getting free money from your tax dollars while you work so hard. Racist dupes react emotionally by allowing laws that erode all our civil liberties, steal our wages and erode worker protections. Things like unpaid overtime, not being paid for standby, no benefits for delibertly just under 40 hrs, breaking union, jail for drugs (or looking poor) corrupt cops (who are certainly hassling and sometimes killing whites too), wage stagnation while CEO’s make hundreds of times more than before…and so on. So it frustrates those who see that when the fools actually think they can afford permitting racism. IF a larger fraction of the white people being hurt by the mean GOP parties policy, realized it and voted WITH the black Americans, most of the nasty policies enacted in recent decades would not hurting most everyone here. So strategically it looks like that is worth saying clearly.
Its not the whole problem, but it just seems illogical that it is hard to get thru to those numbskulls.
The offical stealing from black citizens has to be stopped before it will do any good to address their economics. Tickets, confiscation of property without trial because it is alleged to be touching the drug trade somehow, excessive jail, predatory limited finance choices in certain neighborhoods…sterotyping in ways that cause harm, police organized harassment…..I know I haven’t covered it all but those things remove any economic gains that should come to them if Sanders policies were implemented and worked the way he thinks. I certainly want the economics to be changed. It would benefit me. But without some structural changes enforced with teeth, blacks would be left behind AGAIN, and they can see that, so they are interrupting now.
We talked about why didn’t someone do something about these economic issues…push Hillary to the left. In theory it seemed like an obvious need. Now its actually starting to happen and Black protestors interrupt. This is why. Justice reform should happen first or the already somewhat advantaged will get ANOTHER head start.
Also this time there has been a video everywhere lucky timing technology that is opening alot of peoples eyes. I suspect even black citizens didn’t know how bad it was.
I would still like the economic law reforms too. But the killing has to stop and justice has to be done more often. Maybe Bernie and O’mally ought to know that white democratic voters are also being shocked by the getting away with murder videos we have been seeing and we also are judging the politicians on this issue.
The Raven on the Hill
@Freemark: There is politics as performance and politics as policy-making, and it’s clear that Bernie is not a performer. As far as I can see, since JFK and televised debates performance and appearance have dominated presidential elections.
We are in deep trouble.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Sounds like a reason to avoid NN. No, I don’t particularly care that it was Bernie. I’m not even really upset about the protest itself, although I think it was a bad approach, but rather the idea that “you support this protest and this mode of protest or else you don’t care if black people die.” That last bit, that’s what offends me.
Even still, it doesn’t offend me as much of the callous murder of predominantly-minority U.S. citizens, but it’s a little more personal in my case.
Cacti
@Thoughtful Today:
Sorry, you lost me with the whole ‘black women who spoke loudly to Bernie Sanders are like nazis’ bit.
The only member of a power structure in that exchange was the guy who is a sitting member of the United States Senate.
Jimgod
@Thoughtful Today: And this is the crux of the issue. But instead the debate goes off into conjecture about people’s motives, what candidate’s supporters said what, and Dan Savage (how the hell did that happen?) If there be concrete proposals from this Black Immigration group (I’ve never heard of them before this) then present them and listen to the candidate’s response. But this isn’t what happened. The tactics and optics were not good here.
White Trash Liberal
@Thoughtful Today:
To come through all of the discussions being held here and elsewhere and come away with this opinion is of such magnificent privilege as to blot out the very sun.
I can’t even unpack all of it. Bernie is going to flame out because douche canoes like you insist on opening their mouths.
Jimgod
@Cacti: He did no such thing and you know it. He was comparing the situation of Sanders’ family being killed to black lives being killed, both by state-backed entities. If you can’t understand that was what was being shown in that post, then you’re just lost.
Cacti
@Jimgod:
He did such a thing, and then doubled down on it.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Freemark:
Personally, I would love to see Sanders give a “race” speech and talk about what’s going on RIGHT NOW in 2015 and not what he did in 50 years ago. It would also be good for him to sit down for an interview with at least one black press outlet and discuss the issue of black voters being concerned that he is not interested in fighting for them.
Why was Obama the only candidate who had to openly discuss race to be a serious candidate? Why aren’t the white candidates doing it when it’s a major topic for Democratic voters?
Even leaving the racial issue aside, I don’t like politicians who refuse to talk to their constituents and find out what those constituents are concerned about. I don’t like top-down politicians who rigidly follow their ideology rather than listening to people. I am not getting a good vibe from Sanders on that basis. He does not seem flexible enough to be a good president.
Thoughtful Today
The contempt many of you have for a person who had family members slaughtered by Government Authorities is surreal.
The Raven on the Hill
And here we have:
He’s saying the right things, and at some risk to his candidacy. He’s putting something on the line, possibly even his life, in saying this.
White Trash Liberal
Telling a presidential candidate to say her name and articulate a more clear vision for saving black lives is not the same as telling a holocaust victim to shut up.
I mean, WTF? Are we really going there? Because that way lies Freeperville.
the Conster
Protests create a space for dialogs and change to happen. That’s what Occupy did and basically made Bernie’s campaign possible. That’s what #BLM is doing now. Occupy and #BLM have identified the problems, but their job is not really to provide policy prescriptions – it’s to get people to see something in a new way BY INSISTING IT BE LOOKED AT, and which then cannot be unseen. The intersectionality of racism and classism needs to be explored, but racism is clearly an immediate, existential threat for a significant number of our citizens, and needs to be stopped – good jobs and middle class lives aren’t protecting them from being targeted and/or killed, which is what the BLM activists are furiously explaining to Sanders supporters on twitter.
White Trash Liberal
@Thoughtful Today:
Fuck you.
White Trash Liberal
@The Raven on the Hill:
Our Bernie is learning. Fantastic!
Cacti
@White Trash Liberal:
If you disagree with Bernie, you are unfair, a liar, a slanderer, a Republican, butt hurt, and a nazi or nazi sympathizer.
I’m going to have one of my infrequent moments of agreement with John Cole. Sanders fans are the Ron Paul fans of the left.
Sanders 2016!
The Raven on the Hill
@the Conster: Once you get out in the street, you have to decide where to go, or you go nowhere. Getting attention for your issues is only the first step.
Thoughtful Today
I get that emotions on the issue are explosive.
If only we had a President that saw these issues as emergencies.
Oh, wait….
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Thoughtful Today:
Oh, those authoritarian Black women who hold all of the power in America. Look at them running around beating and jailing motorists for not putting out their cigarettes when they’re ordered to.
If your vision of “authoritarianism” is Black women shouting down poor, cowering, white elected officials at a public political event, then you need some serious mental health assistance.
Cluttered Mind
@White Trash Liberal: Bernie’s record has earned him the benefit of the doubt, even if people today seem to think it’s earned him nothing else. If he fouls up in public then those of us who care about the issues he has an excellent record on owe it to him to give him a chance to do it right next time. So far it seems that the message sunk in, which is good.
Thoughtful Today
Could someone direct me to Tia and her troupe making their activist plea’s to our President?
All I can find is Obama mocking that beautiful brown transgender activist for drinking his beer.
the Conster
@The Raven on the Hill:
You have to take the first step. Occupy never supported or advocated for any specific policies, but the idea of the 99% has changed a lot of thinking about wealth inequality, opening up space for Bernie’s message to resonate. Same with #BLM. Every single unarmed black person killed by a cop drives home how little black lives actually do matter. What happens next – well, we’re seeing it unfolding now.
Cervantes
@ruemara:
Saying it makes it neither meaningful nor true.
Cluttered Mind
@Cacti: Actually many Sanders fans are former Ron Paul fans, which I believe accounts for what you’ve been experiencing. There’s a lot of overlap between libertarianism and socialism in terms of what people actually want their lives to be like. The difference is that socialism can actually produce the desired results and libertarianism cannot. So the smarter Ron Paul fans end up drifting towards Sanders.
That said, you shouldn’t smear Sanders with what his supporters do. I really loathed the PUMAs but I never felt that Hillary Clinton deserved any of that loathing even by proxy.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Thoughtful Today:
Dude, you’re projecting hard enough to show us a double feature. Really, you think the problem here is that Black people who are upset that their family members were murdered by authority figures are not sufficiently deferential to a white guy whose family members were also murdered by authority figures? Why do the murders of Bernie’s family members trump the murders of these women’s family members? Why is his pain more important than theirs, and why is their publicly speaking about that pain the same as Nazi stormtroopers killing Jews?
Cluttered Mind
@Cervantes: No kidding. “I marched with MLK” is a statement that can be verified and has great historical context and meaning. Especially for white politicians of Bernie’s age. “I have a black friend” could just mean that you’re not openly rude to your black acquaintances, and tells one absolutely nothing about how racist the person is or isn’t.
White Trash Liberal
@Cluttered Mind:
His record on guns and prison reform have, in fact, earned him some doubt. The other dem candidates stink too. But he needs to earn these votes, not just get a free pass… Because during the primaries, it can have the best and biggest impact.
This is when you want them to pander :)
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@The Raven on the Hill:
That’s a great start, and I’m glad he’s doing it. Do you honestly think he would have made the same statement without the BLM protest getting so much publicity?
Freemark
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Thanks for the reply.
Could you clarify this for me
It seems to me one reason he resonates with so many Democrats is that he has listened. Vermont is a very white state and perhaps he needs to have sitdown and listening session with more diverse groups. I don’t know if he has or not. As far as his rigid ‘ideology’ and inflexibility can you give some examples where he refused to listen or change where it was warranted.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Well, he said something very similar a few weeks back. But it was in response to criticism that he hadn’t addressed black issues enough (but before the BLM protest). My take is his heart has been in the right place all along, but he needed prodding to express it in the terms the activists want to hear.
How do you think this plays out through the primaries with all of the candidates? It’s no big whoop to interrupt NN — it’s practically a tradition. But will campaign appearances, debates, etc., get shut down, and if so, will the Democrats look like idiots? Or will they tightly control events and come off as authoritarian?
Thoughtful Today
I’m starting to think that #BLM has been taken over by #BankstersLivesMatter whose only mission is to savage a candidate that think is a threat.
Thoughtful Today
*corrected:
I’m starting to think that #BLM has been taken over by #BankstersLivesMatter whose only mission is to savage a candidate that they think is a threat.
the Conster
@Thoughtful Today:
you should follow the BLM activists Deray McKesson, Ferrari Sheppard and Rod TBGWT on twitter – they’ve been doing unbelievable advocacy. Sanders supporters came after them. You really need to get a clue.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Freemark:
Sanders believes that social ills can be cured with economic fixes. See the many links above. He really seems to think that racism will go away if we just fix our economic system. To me, that’s the sign of an ideologue.
The Raven on the Hill
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): The article says he revised his speech, so, obviously not. He always was the candidate most likely to adopt the issue, though.
Thoughtful Today
Bernie Sanders last month: “From Ferguson to Baltimore and across this nation, too many African-Americans and other minorities find themselves subjected to a system that treats citizens who have not committed crimes as if they were criminals and that is unacceptable.”
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Betty Cracker:
I have absolutely no idea, because I’m not in #BLM or any of the other activist groups, so I have no idea what their strategy going forward will be. I kind of doubt it’s going to turn into a series of rolling protests, but I have no way of knowing.
I do think that politicians who can’t handle hecklers and cancel interviews because of being heckled are in the wrong business.
Thoughtful Today
Bernie back in June: “If current trends continue, 1 in 3 black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. This is an unspeakable tragedy.”
The Raven on the Hill
@the Conster: mmmm, perhaps. I think we’d be farther along if Occupy had founded a lasting movement, but it couldn’t—Occupy’s atomistic anarchism, with its rejection of organization, wouldn’t allow that. It’s exactly the same problem I see with Oso’s protest. Have goals, damnit, have goals.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Thoughtful Today:
So that means Sanders is now a kapo, right? He’s bowed down to the evil Nazis who oppressed him and is doing their dirty work for them.
Cenk had better cut Bernie loose now that Cenk knows Bernie is just a dirty collaborator with authoritarians.
Kropadope
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): I don’t think that’s really what he believes. See my post:
I don’t know if that accurately characterizes Bernie’s thinking either, but asserting that he thinks social ills can be fixed economically doesn’t seem right.
The Raven on the Hill
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Correction, @Thoughtful Today points out that it was part of his platform all along and he said so publicly.
Does damaging the electoral chances of a person who was already on your side make any sense?
the Conster
@The Raven on the Hill:
It’s not the lack of understanding of what the goals are that’s the problem – it’s the job of all the candidates to articulate policies and structural reforms that could achieve them. They want the candidates to convince them that the goals are important to them too, that they’re prioritizing them. They’re tired of living as targets.
Thoughtful Today
Can any other commenters tell me if Mnemosyne is usually this hostile, insulting, and oblivious?
The Raven on the Hill
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): “He really seems to think that racism will go away if we just fix our economic system.”
Racists would be a lot less powerful if the majority of the public wasn’t fearful for its homes and livelihoods. I’d take that. It may be, though, he underestimates the power of identity politics.
Betty Cracker
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): At least one of the co-founders of BLM said the group will be at every debate.
the Conster
@The Raven on the Hill:
“Identity politics”. That’s exactly the sneering dismissiveness that the BLM folks are talking about.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Thoughtful Today:
Only when assholes like you try to claim that people protesting police violence are not only the real authoritarians, but are just like Nazis.
Funny how you’re happy to dish out horrendous insults but get your feefees all bruised when people respond in kind.
Thoughtful Today
Economics matters. It’s not the only factor, but in poor economic times economic fears become inflamed.
One of the factors* of racism is fear that ‘those people’ are going to take your job.
If there were enough good jobs for everyone that fear diminishes.
And Bernie has been trying to address those economic roots of problems for … more than 50 years.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@The Raven on the Hill:
Black people don’t seem to believe that Sanders is on their side, and they’re not willing to take it on faith that he is.
Sanders is going to have to demonstrate, through words and actions, that he is ready and willing to take action on racial issues. That’s part of his job as a candidate. If he doesn’t like having to convince people to vote for him, he shouldn’t be running for president.
the Conster
@Thoughtful Today:
Sandra Bland wasn’t asked if she had a job. Walter Scott wasn’t asked if he had a job. The pool girl was a young teen, at a pool. It’s the justice system and law enforcement system, and the structural reasons for it’s failure to protect black lives that’s at issue. There’s intersectionality, but Bernie saying everything will be better for everyone if wages are higher and taxes on the rich are higher doesn’t do anything to mitigate racist justice.
Thoughtful Today
Erm, so I’m sure you and many other #BLM activists don’t mean it this way, but what I’m reading and hearing are #BLM activists that don’t believe Bernie could really be on their side because he’s not black.
There’s a word for that ….
the Conster
@Thoughtful Today:
What they’re saying is if Bernie or Hillary or Martin O’Malley or any of the other candidates wants their vote they need to work for it, and they need to start by listening to their legit complaints. Why is that so fucking hard to understand?
Freemark
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): That isn’t my take from anything he has said. Economics are very important part of his and just about everybody’s politics. It is where ‘the economy stupid’ comes from. But he articulated that police need to be arrested and prosecuted for their crimes, that mass incarceration is bad, the drug war is a disgrace etc. As far as I can tell from your statements he has done everything you want him to do. Perhaps you just want him to do more of it, but it seems to me you are ignoring what he has actually said and done on this issue, why I don’t know.
Your statement
. Seriously? That complaint makes all your other complaints less credible. If he continually fails it will affect his numbers. But to say such an obviously successful and, much more rare, honest politician shouldn’t be one because of such a minor incident shows a bias on your part. Seems like a seriously weird thing to so severely judge someone on.
Thoughtful Today
You are of course welcome to be hostile, insulting, and oblivious, Mnemosyne.
If you believe that’s an effective way of demanding immediate solutions to centuries long problems … OK.
But it does seem like you might just be a closet Bankster working to divide people and keep them fighting.
Diana
@the Conster: But there never is any second step, is there? MLK was disturbing the white moderate 50 years ago, and that’s all these disruptive tactics are doing today. I see no particular reason this can’t go on another 50 years. Meanwhile we get stop & frisk, and broken windows policing, and public schools becoming more segregated over time.
“Such an attitude stems …from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will….”
White Trash Liberal
@Thoughtful Today:
Kropadope, this is the Bernie fanboy in his native habitat. Luckily, there is no breeding program.
But can you see why some of us are getting a bit hostile? Bernie gets it, but dickwhistles like this guy do him no favors.
Thoughtful Today
Bernie Sanders @BernieSanders 18 hours ago
https://twitter.com/BernieSanders
Bernie Sanders retweeted Stephanie Wash
This type of police abuse has become an all too common occurrence for people of color and it must stop. -B
Bernie Sanders added,
Stephanie Wash @WashNews
Breaking: Dash cam video of #SandraBland traffic stop just released http://youtu.be/yf8GR3OO9mU
dogwood
@Thoughtful Today:
“If there were enough jobs for everyone that fear diminishes”
I think that’s wishful thinking. I’ve always lived in lilly white America in a community with very few black people. But since childhood, I have always lived among the poorest, sickest, least educated and most fragile demographic in the country. My community is adjacent to the Nez Perce reservation. A people Lewis and Clark called “the noblest of tribes.” The expedition wouldn’t have made it without the Nez Perce and Sacajawea. Cops here don’t kill people but they harass the Nez Perce incessantly, and white folks bitch about what lazy slackers thy are. There’s no economic solution for that shit.
dedc79
@the Conster: Well the President has a ton of say on economic policy, but very little control over state and local policing. Pressure should be targeted at the police departments, at mayors, at state representatives. Civil suits should be filed against offending police departments, towns and cities. In jurisdictions where judges are elected, we need to elect progressive and diverse candidates who are willing to treat the official police story with more skepticism.
Another Holocene Human
@Kropadope: I’m in total agreement about tactics, but people are literally accusing Elon James White of planning and participating in the action and calling for him to be fired (from his own show?), so I think we have bigger problems here than a discussion about timing/optics.
Another Holocene Human
@gvg: so much this
Another Holocene Human
@Cluttered Mind: Bernie’s record is that he voted to keep Gitmo open. All else is commentary.
Thoughtful Today
Please hold OUR ACTUAL PRESIDENT to the same standards that you expect from the _candidate_ you clearly are here only to savage.
PRESIDENT Obama’s militarization of the police forces the first six years has exacerbated the problem.
President Clinton was also part of the problem with his aggressive incarceration agenda. Where was Hillary during that time? … Hint: She was a supporter.
Incarceration rates under Obama are insanely high. And speaking of high where was Obama for the first six years as PRESIDENT addressing those non-violent drug offender incarceration rates?
Another Holocene Human
@Cervantes: And telling Black people what they should think and feel doesn’t mean they’re going to think and feel that way.
White Trash Liberal
@Thoughtful Today: please keep telling us what to think. Where have you been all my life, Tarzan?
Betty Cracker
@White Trash Liberal: Good point. I’m sure it’s even worse on Twitter, which seems to bring out the worst in people who don’t really need any help being assholes.
Another Holocene Human
@Thoughtful Today: He reduced the crack cocaine/powder cocaine sentencing disparity HIS FIRST YEAR IN OFFICE.
Sit down.
dedc79
@Another Holocene Human: See, this I think is the problem with these threads. People can disagree as you two clearly do. You seem to think Cervantes is telling black people what to think or do. But if you look at the statement, that’s not what he/she is saying at all.
And throughout these threads, everyone seems pretty eager to assume the worst motives for the people they disagree with.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Thoughtful Today:
Huh. You seem to have forgotten a president in your little litany above. I suppose you were in a coma and just happen to have no memory of 2000 to 2008? Went unconscious when Clinton was president and woke up in January of 2009 to discover Obama and Clinton had broken all the things while you were asleep?
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Freemark:
I don’t think Sanders has been under this kind of spotlight before in his career. He did not handle his first negative experience well. If he learns from it, great. If all he and his supporters have in response is complaints about how Black Lives Matter protesters are just like Nazi brownshirts, then Sanders is dead in the water.
I will freely admit, Sanders leaves me cold. I’m pretty indifferent to him, and his weak response to these public protests isn’t doing much to win me over. His asshole supporters (not you) aren’t helping.
And for the record, I’m white, so it’s not like Sanders can just decide it’s a Black voters thing and ignore that he has a PR problem.
ETA: I like the idea of Sanders, but so far the reality is not impressing me very much.
Chyron HR
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Because obviously every racist who trolls this site is acting under direct orders from “Standers”. (Get it? It’s funny because he stands, or doesn’t stand, or possibly just liked The Stand and/or Stand By Me.)
Thoughtful Today
Between President Clinton and Obama there were a clean 15 years of massive incarceration rates.
Did we suddenly release all those non-violent drug offenders?
Is there any country on earth that has more people in jail than the US?
It’s great that 7 years in Obama discovered there were massive numbers of people in jail. And it’s great that Clinton discovered it after their Presidency.
Thoughtful Today
Mnemosyne, you display many characteristics of an authoritarian, yes.
I’m certain if we were in the same room you’d be screaming at me to comply with your demands.
Consider reading Bob Altemeyer’s “The Authoritarians”:
http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Chyron HR:
I’m not impressed by Sanders. Sorry.
Thoughtful Today
Which would explain why you are being racially divisive and attacking the record of someone who’s been on the right side of civil rights for over 50 years.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Thoughtful Today:
Yes, responding to you using the same language and metaphors that you yourself used is a sign that I’m an authoritarian who just wants to shut people down.
If you don’t like how your reflection looks, perhaps the mirror is not the source of the problem.
Thoughtful Today
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/07/21/1404175/-National-Review-claims-Bernie-Sanders-is-a-Nazi-Let-them-see-the-real-Nazis
^
^
Raven Onthehill
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): “Sanders is going to have to demonstrate, through words and actions, that he is ready and willing to take action on racial issues.”
He already has done that. The protesters paid no attention. Reportedly they plan a continuing harassment program.
Now what?
@the Conster: I was thinking of white identity politics, the thing of which LBJ said, “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” Conster, do you know why the Second International failed during World War I?
Raven Onthehill
@White Trash Liberal: “economic equality has no bearing on social equality”
But this is nonsense. I’m aware that doesn’t change beliefs but, really, come on. If there is one single thing that most exacerbates structural racism, it is economic inequity. Conversely, an attack on economic inequality requires an attack on social inequality.
Thoughtful Today
Some of the protesters literally walked out when Bernie tried to respond. The ones that stayed repeatedly shouted him (and O’Malley) down.
They weren’t there for a conversation.
They were screaming for obedience.
Raven Onthehill
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): “…economic fixes…”
Also, it’s worth remembering that when the economy goes sour, it’s usually the groups on the bottom that bear the brunt. Blacks were among the groups hit hardest by mass mortgage fraud, and also one of the groups hit hardest by unemployment in the subsequent depression. Some economic fixes would have helped a lot, then. They still would help.
Raven Onthehill
@Thoughtful Today: Not obedience, I think. They got obediance when Sanders and O’Malley tried to engage them and it wasn’t enough. A comparison with internet trolls and harassers I think is fairly accurate. With a popular social justice movement like Black Lives Matter, there are going to people who use it as an excuse to mess with people rather than to achieve justice, and I am coming round to the view that this is the case with this protest.
Thoughtful Today
@Raven Onthehill #242
Interesting point.
That may apply to more commenters here than I realized as well.
Betty Cracker
@Thoughtful Today: It applies to you too. I like Bernie Sanders, and I think he’s getting a bum rap from some folks on this issue. But being an obnoxious prick about it like you’re doing isn’t going to change anyone’s mind. If your goal is to increase support for Sanders, you’re doing it wrong.
gwangung
@Raven Onthehill:
No, that’s not necessarily the case. This was certainly not the case during the New Deal, when implementation of progressive policies was applied differentially to the detriment of blacks. Black people wealth can sure as tell you that their wealth does not protect them from social inequality.
Both economic and social remedies are necessary, but neither are suffiicent by themselves.
gwangung
@Betty Cracker: Yeah. A lot of Sanders supporters are guilty of the same sin as they’re accusing of Black Lives Matter supporters.
kc
Hmm, according to our own Elon James White, the protesters weren’t even protesting O’Malley or Sanders. They were protesting the “White Prog Space as a whole.”‘
White Trash Liberal
@Raven Onthehill:
Really? I think racism and sexism is independent from economic conditions. Economic equality will not reform prison conditions, parole, sentencing, probation, etc.
This whole economic hammer sees all inequities as a nail approach is tone deaf and ignorant. We have a structural injustice problem that is the original sin of this nation, and it must be faced.
Yes, the new gilded age required a democratic socialist approach. But socialist movements have a bad history of nativism. Look no further than Europe.
It’s high time we develop a more varied and inclusive approach where the leaders and experts of our big dem tent community have a say, while everyone else listens and takes notes. The biggest thing that has upset me in this kerfluffle is the chorus of white liberal voices telling people to Leave Bernie Alooooone as if the man needs to be insulated. Fuck that. The candidates need to be exposed.
Raven Onthehill
@gwangung: The New Deal was not primarily an attack on inequality but on depression. I was thinking, also, that to lift up all the poor—much more people of color than white, but not only people of color—one has to attack structural racism.
So I think we are much more in agreement than disagreement.
Betty Cracker
@kc: Where’d you see that?
kc
Here’s a quote from activist Kimberly Ellis from Dave Weigel’s article here:
???
kc
@Betty Cracker:
Elon’s Twitter feed.
ETA: Here: https://twitter.com/elonjames/status/623531809364553728
White Trash Liberal
If BLM does not see white prog space as an ally, and we as white progs desire to be their ally, it behooves us all to listen to them. Listen, learn and support. What’s the harm in turning off our white opinion generator for a day or two?
the Conster
@Betty Cracker:
The BLM activists on twitter have told all these Sanders sanctimonious jackholes the same thing, over and over and over and over. They’re like Greenwald’s fanboys.
Betty Cracker
@kc: Hmmm. If you listen to what Sanders has said on the subject, it’s clear he fully understands that “race and class in America are inextricably linked to the rise of capitalism.”
kc
@Betty Cracker:
I suppose that person could be a genuine Sanders supporter, but I tend to think someone who shows up with a brand new nic and immediately starts comparing activists to Nazis is probably just a troll.
Raven Onthehill
@White Trash Liberal: “I think racism and sexism is independent from economic conditions.”
So far as I can see they are tightly connected. Can you expand on that?
“But socialist movements have a bad history of nativism. Look no further than Europe.” Yes, definitely. I mentioned the Second International in a previous comment, in fact. But this is also true in the USA; the labor movement has a dark side.
“The biggest thing that has upset me in this kerfluffle is the chorus of white liberal voices telling people to Leave Bernie Alooooone as if the man needs to be insulated.”
I started agreeing with you, and I still do, but the more I learn about the situation, I think that this particular protest (not the whole “Black Lives Matter” movement) is more a matter of trolling than any serious effort to bring about positive change. What could possibly be the result of protesting the “White Prog Space as a whole” but to hand more power to conservative Democrats?
kc
@Betty Cracker:
I know. I really don’t understand what Ms. Ellis is saying there. She seems to contradict herself.
Thoughtful Today
So, to recap:
The PRESIDENT who has the power to use FEDERAL LAW to go after cops murdering citizens gets a free pass because?
The candidate that’s 50 points ahead in the polls and who’s spouse was President for EIGHT YEARS gets a free pass because?
But the democratic socialist, who is 50 points behind, who’s stated political belief at it’s core is about equality and dignity, is the one that gets savaged?
The guy who had family members literally massacred by Government Authorities, he’s the one that’s the problem?
And the ones that support the democratic socialist’s central message of equality and dignity, now their the problem?
Oy, vey.
the Conster
@Raven Onthehill:
The white prog space is full of you and this Thoughtful Today clown’s attitude. BLM isn’t trolling us, they’re desperate because they’re under attack, and they want something to be done about it, and they want Bernie and all the other candidates to acknowledge that fact, today, and work for their vote by prioritizing their legitimate concerns. They disrupted. They got attention. Now Bernie and all the other candidates have been put on notice, and they’d better be responsive, or this disruption will continue. What the fuck is trolling about that? Who the fuck are you to determine what’s allowed? The white privilege in the prog space is breathtaking.
mtiffany
@kc:
caligula fashioned a sock puppet?
White Trash Liberal
@Raven Onthehill:
I’ll answer the second part by pointing to the conversations happening in white prog space and by the candidates addressing BLM concerns in the way any vocal constituency deserves. I don’t see that as empowering the teatards. While Trump and the open fascism displayed by the right hogs the bandwidth, we on the left have a real opportunity to heal the riftsfrom 68 and 72 and push these candidates into a wholistic governing philosophy. And BLM poked at this old wound by pointing out that discussing wealth equality is a bit like fiddling while Rome Burns when cops are killing black youth, black women, and gassing black communities while they hold their hands up and say “don’t shoot.”
And BLM is getting a decent amount of don’t rock the boat push back because Bernie is such an exemplar of the left. But I really feel this will be a teachable moment with the value of helping white liberals open their minds. And that will not empower conservadema. It will unite factions that are leery of each other into a potentially vital bloc.
And as far as economics and social justice being independent, I grew up with a gay father figure during the peak of the AIDS crisis. No amount of wealth saved his friends and loved ones from dying. Bigotry was enormous and costly. We will never get that back. And white liberals were not there for the gay community. Economics was not a factor in hospital visitation or stand up comics joking about drinking a shared soda with a homo and getting AIDS on your lips.
Jobs are good. Hella good. But driving without getting pulled over and murdered is better. Getting sick and knowing your husband has the legal right to comfort you is better. Having contraception and access to health care without being assaulted by a vaginal wand is better. And we can address all of this without disagreement. And fight for jobs too…
White Trash Liberal
And having to pee in a cup or subject yourself to a credit score to even get a job. Or voting. We should hump voting rights like ammosexuals hump their guns. I could go on and on.
The right is in disarray in an historically unique way and this a golden opportunity to kick their fucking asses without doing the blue dog shuffle. And the first step is saying Black Lives Matter.
Thoughtful Today
lol, the cognitive dissonance, it burns:o
“The white prog space is full of you and this Thoughtful Today clown’s attitude.” … “Who the fuck are you to determine what’s allowed?”
Betty Cracker
@White Trash Liberal:
From your lips to the Flying Spaghetti Monster’s orecchiette. But I’m seeing a lot of talking past each other, and not just from one side.
mtiffany
I think I have discovered a new law!
“The number of enthusiastic pie lovers in a thread is directly proportional to the length of that thread.”
Please please please please someone in authority tell me I’ve discovered something new!
Thoughtful Today
Economic class changes how people are treated by cops.
Trash rejects the fact that economics intertwines with racism and sexism.
That allows them to ignore the 51% black youth unemployment that far exceeds hispanic and white youth unemployment.
It also allows them to ignore the gender pay gap, because to them, economics isn’t related to sexism.
It’s a policy difference.
Bernie has offered clear (and paid for) specifics to address those economic inequities for blacks and women.
Hillary might name check those issues but she clearly doesn’t have as radical a plan to change that economic math as Bernie does. (Nor did her husband Bill nor does Barack).
Raven Onthehill
@the Conster: they already had Sanders attention. So what was this about, then?
@White Trash Liberal: “And white liberals were not there for the gay community.” I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for many years. White liberals were there.
“Jobs are good. Hella good. But driving without getting pulled over and murdered is better.”
Sure. Entirely no argument.
“And we can address all of this without disagreement.”
Um, this would be why two Presidential candidates were shouted down?
“But I really feel this will be a teachable moment with the value of helping white liberals open their minds. And that will not empower conservadema. It will unite factions that are leery of each other into a potentially vital bloc.”
I’m not seeing it. So far, it’s got the Republicans snickering, the racists saying “See, see,” and a lot of potential allies thinking “If they attack people already on their side, do we want them in our coalition?” The only candidate who so far has taken black lives matter seriously is the one who has been harmed the most. And, my god, O’Malley. The man who probably brutalized the Baltimore PD is getting a better deal from Black Lives Matter? Really?
The only result I can see so far is that the centrist Hilary Clinton gets to pick up the pieces and while economic policy may not heal racial rifts, it sure can widen them. I don’t think black employment has yet recovered from the crash of 2008 (I haven’t checked lately, but it was sure bad the last time I looked) and if we get more Clintonomics, it may take a very long time. And—here is one economic connection you may not have thought of—to maintain income disparities, brutality is necessary. Right? You have a class system, people winning unfairly, people being cheated, you have to have brutality and all kinds of systemic devices to keep the people on the bottom down.
I hope for the best, but I’m sure not expecting it at this point.
Thoughtful Today
Trash doesn’t believe economics had an impact on AIDS?
[facepalm]
It took extraordinary efforts to get the FUNDING required to do the research to understand the disease and find a way of keeping people alive with often unaffordable medications.
FUNDING continues to be a LIFE OR DEATH ISSUE for the 30 million Americans that are still uninsured.
Hillary wants to continue Obama’s corporate insurance approach which, while an improvement for millions has still left 30 million American uninsured.
Bernie supports Medicare for Everyone.
Economics is, again, literally a life or death equation.
White Trash Liberal
@Thoughtful Today:
Social justice needs to be treated as a separate and equal necessity alongside economic justice. The gender pay gap was near 100℅ when women were not allowed to be in the workforce at all. The 50s boom did not give women or minorities much of anything.
But you can continue beating the socialist dead horse in the hope it whinnies.
Thoughtful Today
Trash doesn’t know what they’re talking about and trash is pushing a hard right-wing fantasist position on economics.
Economics and social justice are inextricably intertwined.
The 50’s boom was directly responsible for the economic security that provided foundation for the social justice of the 60’s.
mtiffany
I’m loving this thread. It’s like watching a pair of siamese twins arguing over what brand of smoke detector to buy while their house burns down around them.
Raven Onthehill
@White Trash Liberal: “…socialist dead horse…”
So, then, what are your economics?
White Trash Liberal
@Thoughtful Today:
LOL. Once, again I am called a winger on this blog. I love the kids that get ahold of Marxist critiques and see human interaction entirely through a class lens. The fresh bold discovery of a new orthodoxy. The same orthodoxy that in quiet rooms developed policies that killed tens of millions in order to make great leaps forward into economic equality.
Keep fucking that chicken. History does not back your assertions like you wish it did. No civil rights leader would back you. A society has to structurally accommodate social justice or all economic justice will be thwarted/perverted/corrupted. If that makes me a right wing fantasist, then I am jumping on that wingnut gravy train for a high paying JOB.
Thoughtful Today
Right wing economics is what your selling, yes.
Economics and social justice are inextricable.
And since you’ve declared that economics and social justice are the equivalent of Marxism I’m calling you out.
You’re pimping slavery.
Wage slavery. Debt slavery. Actual forced labor (as is found all over the world where there’s inadequate balance between economic and social justice regulations.
White Trash Liberal
@Thoughtful Today:
Last post to you. Marxist critique is not the same as calling economic justice Marxism. I get that you are playing gotcha. That’s fine.
And pimping slavery. That’s the winning line. You have me beat, sir. By denying your assertion that economic and social justice are a single entity, I am a slave pimp.
I applaud you. My career counselor said I’d make a good teacher, but it took you peering into my belief system to find my true calling.
A guy who purports to know the answer to global suffering uses a loaded racial/sexist term by which to define his opponent.
Irony. This is just too good. I taste pennies.
Thoughtful Today
!
America was BUILT on the economic injustice of slavery.
Those insidious historical roots infect our nation to this day.
Right-wingers have managed to so completely bury their historic economic injustices that trash still fly their slaver flags.
sparrow
@mtiffany: LOL! Ah for a comment system with upvotes… (Seriously though, I’ve learned/thought the most from your posts, so thanks, and please keep commenting).
Thoughtful Today
https://berniesanders.com/sandra-bland-arrest-painful-dreadful/?source=twitter
Sandra Bland Arrest was ‘Painful and Dreadful,’ Sanders Says
July 22, 2015
A police dashboard-camera video of the Texas traffic-stop arrest of Sandra Bland was “painful and dreadful,” Sen. Bernie Sanders said on Wednesday. Then it got worse. Days after the July 10 arrest, the 28-year-old suburban Chicago woman was found dead in a Waller County jail cell.
“What you saw is an aggressive, overactive police officer who dragged this woman out of her car, assaulted her, sent her to jail for what crime? A minor traffic violation,” Sanders told Ed Schultz on MSNBC. “That happens all over this country, and it especially happens to people of color. Lives are being destroyed, right and left,” he said to Schultz. “And we’ve got to change that.”
“Our criminal justice system is out of control,” Sanders added. “The number of African-Americans and Hispanics who are in jails is disproportionately high.”
Schultz asked Sanders for specific proposals.
“We have more people in jail than any other country on earth. Millions of lives have been destroyed because people are in jail for non-violent crimes, so we have to take a look at mandatory minimums and the drug policy and the militarization of police forces all over the country. We have to take a look at use-of-force policy. That is what you saw in that dreadful and painful video of Sandra Bland.
“We need a real hard look at the way police departments function in America,” Sanders added. He said that means an honest examination of how police treat African-Americans. It means enacting reforms “so that young people can walk down the street without having to worry about whether they are going to be harassed or shot in the back.
“We’ve got a lot of work in front of us,” Sanders said.
Cervantes
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
Statements 1 and 3 aren’t precisely true. Statement 4 is puzzling, to put it mildly.
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I agree.
Cervantes
@Another Holocene Human:
Completely true and yet a masterpiece of irrelevance.
Cervantes
@White Trash Liberal:
You aren’t the first person on the planet to be unaware of the debts you owe to those who came before you.
Who said it did?
White Trash Liberal
http://www.chicagodsa.org/CornelWest.html
Dropping this in a dead thread for any still around to read it.
@Cervantes:
Your condescension is noted.
And if a debt is not an inoculation from criticism via the “benefit of the doubt,” how does it apply to this discussion cconsidering you made the claim?
Cervantes
@White Trash Liberal:
Were you following the discussion before you responded, or were you not? Was it just easier to jump to a conclusion?
White Trash Liberal
@Cervantes:
I sure was. And have been. If you were, you’d recognize that the white prog community has been using Bernie’s legacy as a marcher to quiet dissent. “He has been doing this longer than you’ve been alive.” It’s plainly an appeal to authority. You jumping in with debt of gratitude is going to lump you in to that sphere of the Venn diagram unless you take the time to clarify.
Which you did not. Instead, in your usual obtuse fashion, you tried to have it both ways.
Allow me, for the hundredth time, to restate myself:
Bernie’s critique of capitalism and his policy proposals are cut from an old and discredited cloth. You can read the link I provided about Marxist critiques. Racism and sexism predate capitalism andshould be addressed as an equal primary concern. Otherwise, given that socialism is inherently dependent on a bureaucratic class, the production will favor race and sex structures.
Bernie is warming up the Debs way back machine, which is fitting given the new gilded age. But thinking has evolved, even if white progs are not aware of it.
Cervantes
@White Trash Liberal:
See #139 for the entirety of what I said, and intended to say.
Anything you want to infer from that is entirely your prerogative. Carry on.