Buttload of Faith: the 2016 Presidential Primary Thread (Pt 2)

Re-read these three sentences and see if you can guess:

If you happen to live under a system that treats people equitably, awesome; I'm all for that. I hope to move to a place like that someday. In the meantime, I try to be nice to everyone I encounter in my own daily life.

what about the sentence before that (Nobody's entitled to anything they can't grab and hold)? also what does trying to be nice to people you encounter in daily life have to do with thinking there's no such thing as justice?

deal from strength or get crushed every time

anyway TNC's thing is that these points have to be raised and hammered home and that the idea has to be inflicted on white people at every opportunity to force them to deal with it. And Bernie brushing it off is the opposite of dealing with it, and he's running from the left so he should be exactly the white person who ought to come to grips with it and address it seriously, so everything is injustice and life sucks and nothing will change. But the struggle is all there is, so on we row, Sisyphus etc etc

I liked it better when Coates' kids were younger and he would dip into comic books and the Civil War and just be geeky about stuff - in a way the discovery of his life's purpose while doing the research on the epic Case For Reparations piece is also what kind of ruined him. He hates fun now and it makes me sad.

no way, he's still fun, at least judging by his twitter stuff

on twitter TNC basically just posts about comic books and video games like 80 percent of the time

I liked it better when Coates' kids were younger and he would dip into comic books

I've got good news for you, then

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/TheSewer/news/?a=130152

should be noted that hilary gave a non-answer to the same question -- bernie's answer was disappointing, but it was honest i guess

Oh shit I totally forgot he was scripting the black panther! thanks

I don't think it needs to be noted that Hillary is bad too. Hillary is not the proposed leftwing anti-inequality candidate, everyone knows she will speak to the middle. But Sanders running as the radical, and falling down on this, is massively disappointing. Especially since he KNOWS he is vulnerable with minorities in the primaries. What is his plan? His campaign manager has begun talking about that perhaps they don't really need that many black voters after all...

Another issue is that TNC is making the assertion that Bernie believes "the myth that socialism and racism are incompatible" and then he says that Bernie is "not only against reparations" but that he doesn't understand the argument. I think the latter point is a bit strange, like accuse the guy of not understanding the argument or of being opposed to the concept, but generally saying both is borderline ad hominem - "he's wrong because he's ignorant" is a better tack than "he's wrong AND ignorant" unless you really are going for "vote nobody" nihilism. As to the former point, I don't see that Bernie's camp has made any arguments that socialism means the end of racism; that would be brogressive absurd nonsense. TNC is extrapolating from Bernie's lack of political will on this issue that the following things are true:

1. The radical left doesn't actually care about racism
2. Nothing will change about this fact in this generation or the next one

I don't think either of those things are really supportable any longer. TNC's confirmation bias is working overtime, basically, and using Bernie's flatfootedness on the issue amounts to cherry-picking.

This is really a post for another thread. Oh well.

http://cdn.yougov.com/cumulus_uploads/inlineimage/2014-06-02/reparations7.jpg

'we should legalize heroin' would be a less suicidal position to take for a presidential candidate

meanwhile:

“I can tell you, as somebody who ran the Democratic Governors Association, that candidates in purple states would face serious problems with him on top of the ticket,” said Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, referring to the most politically competitive states.

“Having somebody who is identified more as a socialist in many decades of public service than as a Democrat makes it impossible for Democrats in a state like Missouri,” Ms. McCaskill said of her state, which could have competitive races for governor and senator this fall. “And it makes it very difficult for Democrats in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida,” she added, referring to states where some of the hardest-fought Senate races will take place.

Some Democrats are even talking openly about a kind of cautionary Democratic attack on Mr. Sanders, to show how much the party could be harmed if he were the nominee and Republicans got to sink their teeth into him.

“Some third party will say, ‘This is what the first ad of the general election is going to look like,’” said James Carville, the longtime Clinton adviser, envisioning a commercial savaging Mr. Sanders for supporting tax increases and single-payer health care. “Once you get the nomination, they are not going to play nice.”

Is this not the totally predictable conundrum of every Democratic primary candidate who runs from the left? They catch shit from both sides no matter what.

iirc TNC said that in the past he disagreed w/ the idea of reparations, and that his essay was designed to get ppl thinking about the issue instead of just dismissing it out of hand. i wish bernie had responded less dismissively to the question, maybe something like "this is a complex issue, this is something we all need to think about more." but even hinting that he actually supports reparations would be a suicidal position for any candidate who's actually trying to win a national election. TNC characterizes bernie as a "radical" and while bernie does say that about his campaign i don't think he's a john brown/william lloyd garrison radical. he's a progressive politician who's trying to win an election, and it doesn't make sense for him to take positions that an overwhelming majority of americans don't support.

TNC is extrapolating from Bernie's lack of political will on this issue that the following things are true:

1. The radical left doesn't actually care about racism
2. Nothing will change about this fact in this generation or the next one

I don't think either of those things are really supportable any longer. TNC's confirmation bias is working overtime, basically, and using Bernie's flatfootedness on the issue amounts to cherry-picking.

---

i think this appropriate for this thread since it is a pres candidate's stance on an issue.

i don't think you can quickly dismiss those 2 statements. i guess it succeeds or fails based on how you define "radical left". but the younger generation of white ppl is not getting less racist than their parents, they're just making up a smaller share of their generation than previous generations of whites did/do. the number of white ppl who "care" (performative allyship and colorblind wishful thinking) far outnumber the ones who "care" (actively work to dismantle white supremacy). i think it's worth noting that when progressive politics has played well in america, its done so at the expense of black folks in america (think social security being denied to certain classes of workers who were disproportionately black).

i didn't expect bernie to endorse reparations. he thinks he has a shot at winning, and as iatee pointed out it's a political non-starter. which is kind of the point. if there was a political will among enough white americans to embrace reparations as a necessary step for achieving racial justice -- say like the same number of people supporting single-payer health care, still a minority, but a sizable one -- he'd have reason to embrace it.

The principle of making reparations seems just to me and I would be in favor of pursuing it. But making any very large transfer of wealth is innately difficult. Making such a transfer in ways that strengthen society takes a lot of thought and careful crafting.

A cash transfer has the attraction of simplicity, but it's rather like dropping dollars out of a hopper and letting them bounce about crazily like pachinko balls on their inevitable way back into the pockets of the wealthy. The chances that any particular dollar would leave behind lasting positive effects would be quite small.

Off the top of my head, it might be much more positive to use the reparation money to create independent lending institutions run by African-American communities, with reparations provided in the form of shares distributed throughout the community. These locally-owned banks would allow African-Americans easy, low-interest access to capital over a period of decades. We could charter them specifically to finance new small businesses, educational opportunities, child care, affordable housing, and other social goods for their shareholders. Perhaps the shares could be made non-transferable, but with guaranteed dividends, backed by the US treasury.

Again, that's just off the top of my head and took about 15 minutes, but that general sort of idea is what proponents of reparations ought to be proposing, if they want to build better political support outside of African-American communities. It's a democratic socialist type of approach, but of course, the label should be avoided.

In lighter news:
http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2016/01/ted-cruz-princeton-college-roommate-twitter-controversy

Ted Cruz doesn't like "New York values." His wife works for Goldman Sachs. This is how dumb he thinks you all are.

^ should be retweeted x100000000

can we have a rolling dismantling white supremacy thread

you got it dude

rolling thread for the dismantling of white supremacy

Buzzfeed just said eff it and posted Palin's endorsement bit, transcribed in its glorious entirety, with video.

They titled the post, naturally:
So, Uh, Here’s The Full Text Of Sarah Palin’s Bizarre Trump Speech

Count the number of strange leftover catchphrases from 2008/12 and beyond

A sampling:

“Well, and then, funny, ha ha, not funny, but now, what they’re doing is wailing, “well, Trump and his, uh, uh, uh, Trumpeters, they’re not conservative enough.” Oh my goodness gracious. What the heck would the establishment know about conservatism? Tell me, is this conservative? GOP majorities handing over a blank check to fund Obamacare and Planned Parenthood and illegal immigration that competes for your jobs, and turning safety nets into hammocks, and all these new Democrat voters that are going to be coming on over border as we keep the borders open, and bequeathing our children millions in new debt, and refusing to fight back for our solvency, and our sovereignty, even though that’s why we elected them and sent them as a majority to DC. No! If they’re not willing to do that, then how are they to tell us that we’re not conservative enough in order to be able to make these changes in America that we know need to be…Now they’re concerned about this ideological purity? Give me a break! Who are they to say that? Oh tell somebody like, Phyllis Schlafly, she is the Republican, conservative movement icon and hero and a Trump supporter. Tell her she’s not conservative. How ‘bout the rest of us? Right wingin’, bitter clingin’, proud clingers of our guns, our god, and our religions, and our Constitution. Tell us that we’re not red enough? Yeah, coming from the establishment. Right.

"...and turning safety nets into hammocks..." and big sombreros. Don't forget the big sombreros.

Making such a transfer in ways that strengthen society takes a lot of thought and careful crafting.

I think John Conyers' bill intends to proceed on the issue in exactly this way. I don't think it would be political suicide at all for Sanders to endorse that bill (from what I understand about it, anyway).

Entertaining for a whole bunch of reasons, including (I think--it's hard to tell) the semi-horrified look on Trump's face the whole way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyfUu_fNQfM

He's REALLY not comfortable being on stage and neither talking nor scoffing.

wait did sanders claim to be part of a 'radical' left, where did that come from?

calling the sanders campaign an exercise in 'radicalism' seems like a republican talking point tbh

What is it that you're trying to say? Why on earth would that word-choice be important?

Welcome to america

Has Trump mentioned how he plans on doing any of the things he's proposed? I mean, I know that there's something really wrong that we need to figure out, and I know that things are going to be terrific and that some people are losers and there will be a wall with a door in it, but has he actually put forth any kind of actionable platform? At all? I suspect that I know the answer to that question but the answer terrifies me in light of his level of support so I need to ask the question anyway.

the wall with the door will be beautiful

trump and america make more sense if you view them as zen koans

What is it that you're trying to say? Why on earth would that word-choice be important?

― Frederik B

caring about word choice matters because it helps me keep my head above water in the land of toxic political discourse i call my home. word choice is not a big deal, apparently, to Leninist Hilary Clinton supporters from Denmark

Trump's been on a bit of an evangelical kick the past week, and I believe he's identified God as one of the winners.

x-post: Compared to dismantling white supremacy, then yeah, it seems pretty petty and insignificant to harp on whether Sanders self-describes as 'radical'. But hey, good for you that you can keep you're head over water that way, that's a real privilege, y'know.

just try saying you are a radical in any US airport or public space. this isn't Denmark

But if Trump had been the Messiah he woulda never let himself be captured by the Romans. Just sayin.

(xxpost)

Yeah, these days 'radical' basically means 'extremist' among certain groups. Unless it's prefixed with a 'totally', and then you're cool.

bernie's campaign is predicated on the argument that most americans agree w/ his policies. he's not making a radical argument - he's arguing that his opinions are mainstream.

https://vine.co/v/ieb6HAZ2apO

The rhyming thing throughout the speech was odd as fuck.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/donald-trump-is-really-unpopular-with-general-election-voters/

donald trump used to be really unpopular w/ gop primary voters too. not saying there it won't be considerably more difficult for him to pull it off again just let's not count out the american ppl's ability to fuck up just yet.

used to be really unpopular w/ gop primary voters too

when was this?

prior to announcing his candidacy?

Kind of the opposite problem of Jeb!'s.

Has Trump mentioned how he plans on doing any of the things he's proposed?

umm, because he's a winner, and winners get things done. god it's like you're not listening

deals

All else aside, I totally don't get how someone who's like a prototypical asshole boss could be so popular with people who probably have or have had an asshole boss.

they have fantasies of being asshole bosses themselves