2012 US Election thread - slowly going nowhere

[poaw]

Here's as coherent and sensible as it gets: The entire world enslaved black people. Everybody did it. Somehow, amazingly, in other countries, they're not fucking martyrs and manage to live normal lives without having everything set up 'special' just for them.

My country propagates the myth that they need special treatment further enabling the condition. To compound that, if you were to suggest a program of any kind was created for only white people, even if the exact same program exists for a black person, you would, in my country, be called a fucking racist.



It is literally that fucking bad and there are half a dozen posts on this very page that back that up. Everybody is a racist, its your ability to acknowledge that and operate socially with that information that separates you from some cross burning hillbilly in Alabama.

Just want to point out that a lot of your information is not factually accurate. The entire world didn't take African slaves, African tribes took slaves from other tribes but the slave industry came about by way of Europeans. Most notably the ones with economies based around oceanic trade (Spain, England, Netherlands, France). The reason they don't have the same problems (and by extension the same solutions) as the US can be summed up by this:

Attachment 2928

Everywhere that had a significant black population ended up disenfranchising them through various means as a system of control. The result is a subculture with disparate social, moral, and economic ideals from the "mainstream". These are the same places where people wonder "What is wrong with black people?". Look at the similar situation in places like South Africa.

The problem could have been solved nearly 150 years ago. Following the Civil War freed slaves went to school, voted and got elected into office. By any tangible measure they would be almost as well off educationally, economically and socially as whites within a generation. Instead their civil rights got traded away in a quid pro quo to create the "New South". Which lead to another 100 fucked up years (Jim Crow was some pretty special treatment) and another 50 years of people saying "Why won't they just get over it?" as if two generations if some incredible length of time for cultural and social norms to shift and a middle class to emerge.

No one has said that creating entertainment for an exclusively white audience is racist. You just declared it to be so and used my doubts about it's fiscal viability as "proof" of your position.

Yea its still not the same as black people are treated in the US but feel free to carry on.

Probably because more than 90% of Black people survived slavery and stayed in the country.

[somedude76]

Just want to point out that a lot of your information is not factually accurate. The entire world didn't take African slaves, African tribes took slaves from other tribes but the slave industry came about by way of Europeans. Most notably the ones with economies based around oceanic trade (Spain, England, Netherlands, France).

Hmm, I dunno. I am pretty sure that your "fact" that the "slave industry came out by way of Europeans" is not correct. The Islamic world and the middle east have a very long track record of slavery. Equal to or greater than Europeans from what I understand. In the 1960's they were still trading slaves in Saudi Arabia.

Slavery was around long before the discovery of the new world. Seems absurd to me to say that the slave industry was a spawn of Europeans.

Also, only today does slavery have anything to do with race or racism. How many Americans know that there were black slave owners in America?

[poaw]

Hmm, I dunno. I am pretty sure that your "fact" that the "slave industry came out by way of Europeans" is not correct. The Islamic world and the middle east have a very long track record of slavery. Equal to or greater than Europeans from what I understand. In the 1960's they were still trading slaves in Saudi Arabia.

I missed the word "American" in there. It was should have said "the American slave industry". Native Americans, Arabs, Perisans, Africans, Polynesians and others all took slaves at various points in history also, but the wholesale relocation of an ethnic group and attendant cultural obliteration only happened from the European variety. You know, the kind that causes long term problems when you take so many slaves for such a long period of time that they completely lose their non-slave identity.

The institutions of slavery themselves are so wildly different that in the most extreme cases you almost can't find a common thread. In some places a "slave" was someone who worked in the service of someone's household and was both trained and allowed to conduct business transactions of behalf of his master and allowed to move around freely, in others it was basically a drawn out death sentence as they died from overwork, starvation and exposure. In other places you weren't allowed to keep a slave longer than X number of years in others if any of your parentage had at any time been a slave that made you a slave.

I'd try to explain the difference in more depth and about how the institutions that came after slavery like Jim Crow and sharecropping were part of propagating the same slave/master black/white dynamic in the south and how both the core and justification for it was the idea of racial supremacy but it might be lost of someone who actually thinks black people are the majority of the American population.

[Raketefrau]

http://www.theawl.com/2012/05/black-...-lockdown#more

You may remember how last Memorial Day, Miami Beach police officers gunned down black tourists and seized the cellphones of anyone recording the cops in action. (Spoiler: the shot bystanders, ignored for a full year now, are suing!) Well, Urban Beach Weekend is back again this weekend, and the city is ready!

My favorite part:

"The president of Miami Beach’s police union also said the department’s brass called for a 2,000-arrest quota."

[Raketefrau]

A little more back-on-topic:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-31/how-to-listen-for-racism-on-the-campaign-trail-jeffrey-goldberg.html

Here are some things you could learn about black Americans from the recent statements and insinuations of Republican presidential candidates, Republican congressmen and Republican-friendly radio personalities:
Black people have lost the desire to perform a day’s work. Black people rely on food stamps provided to them by white taxpayers. Black people, including Barack and Michelle Obama, believe that the U.S. owes them something because they are black. Black children should workas janitors in their high schools as a way to keep them from becoming pimps. And the pathologies afflicting black Americans are caused partly by the Democratic Party, which has created in them a dependency on government not dissimilar to the forced dependency of slaves on their owners.

[Dunarad]

:america:

[poaw]

I can't help but feel that France shouldn't be the one tut-tut'ing the US about intolerance.

[somedude76]

Why? Because they're frustrated with Islamic immigrants?

[poaw]

Yes, especially because a lot of those "immigrants" are French citizens.

[Hilmar Keller]

What's French for 'raghead'?

[Grogoth]

la tête de chiffon

[somedude76]

Yes, especially because a lot of those "immigrants" are French citizens.

I'd cut the French a lot of slack there. Muslim group think is a pain in the ass.

[jimmychrist]

It's much worse than any other group think because

[Dunarad]

A great part of arabistan was ours till 40 years ago, it's not like we did not civilized them. But they don't really like us, i wonder why

[Fartman]

they don't really like us, i wonder why

because you're french lol

[somedude76]

It's much worse than any other group think because

you know why, don't play dumb.

[Grim]

A great part of arabistan was ours till 40 years ago, it's not like we did not civilized them. But they don't really like us, i wonder why

Yeah, that part of the world really turned out great after you were done with it...

[Malaclypse]

Yeah, that part of the world really turned out great after you were done with it...

Comparing Maghreb and Mashriq, it almost seems like the French left a smaller mess than the Brits.

[Manfred Hideous]

Uhhh, their aren't any laws against hate speech in the US. I think they made an Amendment about that kinda thing at some point or something.

From a culture standpoint apathy doesn't work if that's your solution to race relations. Because being apathetic towards other races while favoring your own will lead to the exact same problems as were having now and end up as a kind of karmic punchline when the US becomes a Hispanic nation in your lifetime.

I'm not sure how to respond. I wasn't speaking of hate speech laws. I was talking about forced bussing, quotas, and legislation that gave minorities an advantage over the white population. This is especially relevant now since the whites aren't even much of a majority these days.

As for apathy, where did I say anything about giving preferences to my own color? I mean totally not giving a fuck about black/white/hispanic/white(asian).

I like latinas, so the idea of having more of them isn't such a terrible thing to me.

:america:

Yeah we're such terrible people. Maybe if we elected a black man to the highest office like the Europeans do... Oh wait.

Anyway, the primaries are all but over. Obama's been more challenged in the Dem primary than Romney has in the last couple of months. Let's start the general election thread. That should be a blast.

[Fartman]

Let's start the general election thread. That should be a blast.

[Grim]

Comparing Maghreb and Mashriq, it almost seems like the French left a smaller mess than the Brits.

I hear Syria is wonderful this time of year.

And lets not forget the peaceful democracy that is Lebanon.

[Raketefrau]

I personally vote we keep this going until the Convention.

[somedude76]

I hear Syria is wonderful this time of year.

And lets not forget the peaceful democracy that is Lebanon.

Lebanon was a pretty good place until "Palestinians", the PLO, Iran and every Jew hating Middle-Eastern country played their hand in fucking it up.

[Brooks Puuntai]

Let's start the general election thread. That should be a blast.

They need to restart the Republican nominee primaries again. That was at least comical to watch, so far(granted it is early) the general election has been boring as shit.

[Fartman]

They need to restart the Republican nominee primaries again. That was at least comical to watch

Having no Democrat primaries to compare them to might have helped.. Oh wai..
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...ratic-primary/

[poaw]

Uhh, he was comparing the Republican primaries to the general election, if you had kept reading for 9 more words that would have been clear.

[Grath]

Having no Democrat primaries to compare them to might have helped.. Oh wai..
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics...ratic-primary/

This is probably one of those satirical news things i don't get (like when the onion was reporting on how well inner city gang kids knew the metric weight system) but I'm pretty sure a 17.5 year Extortion sentence is going to be a felony and felons are restricted from running. I mean, its been 23 years since i took Civics so you'll excuse me if thats changed somehow or wrong but I believe that article to be a ruse my good sir.

[poaw]

They're restricted from running in the general election, but I guess the party rules allow them to participate in the primaries and earn delegates.

[Manfred Hideous]

This is probably one of those satirical news things i don't get (like when the onion was reporting on how well inner city gang kids knew the metric weight system) but I'm pretty sure a 17.5 year Extortion sentence is going to be a felony and felons are restricted from running. I mean, its been 23 years since i took Civics so you'll excuse me if thats changed somehow or wrong but I believe that article to be a ruse my good sir.

I thought it was an Onion story at first, too. Turns out it actually happened that Obama had an actual race with a felon. Now, he beat him handily but it was amusing to see so much anti O voting in favor of a felon.

He won with 57% in Oklahoma, 76% in Louisiana, 88% in MO, and of course 59% in WV.

http://apps.sos.wv.gov/elections/res...unty=Statewide

I'm not saying he's in any real danger of losing the nomination (though had Hilary run, she would be the next president almost assuredly) but it's still pretty amusing.

[poaw]

Those states that are strongly anti-Obama aren't exactly the kinds of places where Hillary Clinton would be seen as a plucky underdog. The political complexion there is wrong.

[Mira Z]

I thought it was an Onion story at first, too. Turns out it actually happened that Obama had an actual race with a felon.

I suppose that electing someone that you know is a crook saves you the time and effort of finding out later.

[Manfred Hideous]

Clinton would likely lose those states but I think had she run (it's too late now unless Obama quits running) she would handily win the general election. It doesn't matter if the general makeup of those states is anti Obama. These were largely democrat voters rejecting the guy they pulled a lever for less than four years ago.


LOL Mira. You've got a point.

[Raketefrau]

Also, W. Virginia is a semi-closed primary state, which means that unaffiliated voters can vote in whichever primary they like.

Interesting that none of the articles I've seen about this mention that, nor are there any numbers about how many of the voters were registered Democrats.

Once upon a time there were things called Journalists, who were charged with things like Critical Thinking and Fact Checking, but these days it's all about the headline click-through.

And for clarity, I didn't vote for Obama last time, and I won't this time either. Just stating facts.

[Manfred Hideous]

Once upon a time there were things called Journalists, who were charged with things like Critical Thinking and Fact Checking, but these days it's all about the headline click-through.

When was this golden age of media? It'd be difficult to pinpoint a generation where the news media was unbiased. There were times they were more subtle about it (and I'd love to return to those years) but unopinionated journalism?

From the beginning of the US (yes I'm being US centric) we had a media that was raucous. Many of the people who began newspapers were agitators who got their start by fomenting a civil war. In following years we had media that gave us the Spanish American war, hawked papers with lurid front pages sold by kids paid to hawk on street corners, and a media that praised the benefits of Stalin's USSR (this was the more subtle period that people pine for as non biased journalism).

Media is written by humans for other humans. It's not going to be neutral. I'd be just as happy if the idiots who froth at the mouth on both sides would discover the benefits of being modest so that every retard on the street stops thinking he's a political analyst.

[Raketefrau]

I'm not talking about opinions, those always have and always will exist. I don't think anyone's that naive.

I'm talking about the difference between people writing articles for a major news outlet, or even many local newspapers as recently as 10 years ago, and people writing articles for <domain name>.com.

It's fun to point at newspapers as being ancient, crusty things, but the truth is that there was a real core of journalism going on at quite a few of them. My wife was a J-major, as were several friends of mine, and not only is the barrier of entry lower now, the expectations are horrific.

Political reporting happens because people are paid by newspapers to attend meetings, trials, hearings, etc. The whole idea of "investigative reporting" and political watchdogs is going away. It's going to be interesting to see what politics look like in another 10 years when we no longer have reporters dogging local/state politicians like they used to.

So yeah, I'm not talking about some ideal golden age when reporters were unbiased or weren't pushing an agenda, but at the risk of sounding like the old man I am, shit has really changed. The quality of reporting is... Well, I feel stupid just saying "quality of reporting." Noone even has expectations for it anymore. What was required to get people to watch the evening news, or subscribe to the local paper is light years away from what's required to get people to click on a link in hopes of collecting some online ad revenue. Sensationalism has always been an issue, but in Teh Intarweb Age it's exponentially worse.

The people I know who worked for newspapers would tell you (and some have told me) that they'd be reprimanded for publishing shit like that article. The simple formula of "Who, what, when, where, why and how" isn't there. Investigating any one of those would have given you a different story, but they wouldn't have gotten the clicks.

Some outlets still do the real reporting and just use the headlines to generate the clicks, but in this case even ABC News (you know, that bastion of left-wing propaganda) doesn't bother anymore.

[Manfred Hideous]

Rake,

I agree with most of your followup post. The bar IS way lower than it once was and Journos of today are goddamned retards who need to go back to H.S. and learn , uh I don't know... Write?

I was sad when ABC news finally joined the masses of idiots who employ monkeys with typewriters. They used to be my favorite news outlet.

I'm forty-four, so you're probably a whipper snapper to me.

In other news:

When you're a liberal and you lose Maureen Dowd's backing, you better start working on your resume.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/op...=1&ref=opinion

[Raketefrau]

It's awesome how he's constantly blamed for the economy, while Europe has been completely fucked and sliding back into recession. There's no way our economy is going to recover as long as Europe's not buying stuff from us.

But yeah, totally the fault of a president.

[Manfred Hideous]

Calm down, Nancy. All I pointed out was one of the most reliable liberal opinion hacks is saying he's a dumbass.

Honestly if I were a liberal I think I would be mad at him, too. I mean I'm not a supporter of his by any means but I think I'd be much more disparaging were I on the far left. I think the guy is weak and incompetent. They think (with some justification) that he's betrayed them.

[Mira Z]

Calm down, Nancy. All I pointed out was one of the most reliable liberal opinion hacks is saying he's a dumbass.

The only thing the left hates more than the right is the rest of the left:

[Raketefrau]

Calm down, Nancy. All I pointed out was one of the most reliable liberal opinion hacks is saying he's a dumbass.

Honestly if I were a liberal I think I would be mad at him, too. I mean I'm not a supporter of his by any means but I think I'd be much more disparaging were I on the far left. I think the guy is weak and incompetent. They think (with some justification) that he's betrayed them.

That wasn't aimed at you, don't take it personally. And my name's not Nancy, it's Chaniqua.

Personally, I think everyone *should* be pissed off at him, whether they're Queen of Liberal Columnists or Joe Fox Watcher, the guy's been giving in on wiretap laws and Big Brother type stuff left and right. On that front he might as well be W.

But the reality is that people will have their internal arguments and overlook just about anything even Dowd sees wrong just to avoid President Romney. And I can't say that I entirely blame them. The last fucking thing we could possibly need in this country is another Harvard MBA running the show.

[Bill Schwartzski]

Somehow, amazingly, in other countries, they're not fucking martyrs and manage to live normal lives without having everything set up 'special' just for them.

Are you talking about black people, or are you talking about obese fat baptists sucking down 128 oz Coca-colas who pay for their rascal scooters with medicare then bitch about Obama's overspending?

[Raketefrau]

Are you talking about black people, or are you talking about obese fat baptists sucking down 128 oz Coca-colas who pay for their rascal scooters with medicare then bitch about Obama's overspending?

It depends. What color are these hypothetical baptists?

[Bill Schwartzski]

It depends. What color are these hypothetical baptists?

They're fat. That's a race right?

edit: a very slow one wakka wakka

[Mira Z]

It depends. What color are these hypothetical baptists?

You should really be judging them on the hypothetical content of their character...

[Raketefrau]

Removing color from the equation, I'll take someone collecting unemployment over a baptist anyday.

[Manfred Hideous]

Today was a good day to troll in Wisconsin. Jesus, the tears are falling so heavily the streets are flooding. It appears not to even have been a terribly close vote.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...06-05-21-51-27

[Grim]

It was hilarious to watch peoples reaction to the vote. Some were crying on camera when their side lost, and one idiot was even going on about how "democracy died today"

[Manfred Hideous]

I don't remember his name but some (MSNBC I think) news guy literally had tears welling up as he 'reported' the news.

The left really went all in. I have to give them credit for putting their money where their mouth is but damn did it blow up on them.

[Raketefrau]

It was hilarious to watch peoples reaction to the vote. Some were crying on camera when their side lost, and one idiot was even going on about how "democracy died today"

Well, there's always been money in politics, obviously, but in this case it was pretty extreme -- $30m to $4m. Donors outside WI were putting up $500k/each, and another $30m was spent on top of Walker's money outside his campaign. $37m was the previous spending record, this election went to $63m.

So when people say "democracy died today" and whatnot, it's because this is the first real test of what's gonna happen post-Citizens United.

[Grim]

Well, there's always been money in politics, obviously, but in this case it was pretty extreme -- $30m to $4m. Donors outside WI were putting up $500k/each, and another $30m was spent on top of Walker's money outside his campaign. $37m was the previous spending record, this election went to $63m.

So when people say "democracy died today" and whatnot, it's because this is the first real test of what's gonna happen post-Citizens United.

I get what your saying, but at its core is the idea (sadly true) that Americans are easily influenced by dumb commercials and less by actually looking at issues and weighing cost/benefits.