YoungDemCA
YoungDemCA's JournalDavid Duke: Donald Trump's candidacy a "net positive" for white nationalists (i.e. racists)
Trump’s campaign is “positive in the fact that there’s less political correctness and people are getting the courage to speak out,” Duke said, though he acknowledged that the Donald “speaks a little more, actually a lot more radically, than I talk.”
“He’s giving voice to a lot of people — he appeals to the values and interests of the European-American majority,” Duke continued, “and that’s the underlying appeal of his popularity.” When asked if he considered Trump’s positions on minorities and Muslims to be divisive, Duke said that “the divisive factor is the overwhelming thrust of the American media, which is basically very divisive.”
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/28/former_kkk_grand_wizard_says_the_donald_even_trumps_him_when_it_comes_to_speaking_radically_about_americas_future/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
New York Sheet Metal Workers Case Highlights Persistence of Workplace Discrimination
Their union, Local 28 of the Sheet Metal Workers, was featured this year in advertising highlighting the changing face of the construction industry. “Opportunity. Diversity. Middle class careers,” reads one of the ads run by the city’s building trades association. “This is what union construction looks like.”
But the multiracial tableau obscures a stark racial divide: The union’s white members have received more work and larger pensions, data show. In contrast, minority members, who have lagged for decades, often struggle to find steady jobs and to earn enough credit to retire on time with full pensions.
snip:
Similar allegations have emerged in lawsuits filed against a pipe fitters union in Chicago and an operating engineers local in New York City, among others. An operating engineers union in Philadelphia and an ironworkers local in New York City, also accused of discriminating against minorities, remain under court supervision, as does Local 28.
But the sheet metal workers’ case provides a rare, detailed view of discrimination’s cost and toll on black workers. It also offers insight into an insular world in which union officials and contractors have wielded considerable influence in determining which union members snare the well-paying, blue-collar jobs that have provided generations of white men a pathway into the middle class.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/21/nyregion/minority-sheet-metal-workers-in-new-york-start-getting-back-pay-after-decades-of-bias.html?_r=0
Bolding and underlining mine.
To those Republicans who think Trump has gone too far...
...where the hell have you been for the past 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40, etc. years?
I don't see how Republican candidates like John Kasich and Jeb Bush can sleep at night when they (and countless other politicians, pundits, media figures, wealthy donors, and activists) have done nothing but stoke the flames of white working-and-middle class backlash politics since - arguably - the 1960s.
Of course, they haven't actually satisfied most (if not all) of the far-right fantasies that the Republican base wants, such as building a big fucking wall on the border with Mexico, or nuking the entire Middle East, or kicking all of the black people and other PoC off of "welfare", or overturning Roe v. Wade, because those aren't the priorities of the elite class of wealthy, powerful people that the Republican Establishment belongs to (or are at the very least, beholden to). So naturally, after decades of pandering to Ordinary Average Angry White Guy and then ignoring him (because let's face it, the GOP elite have absolute contempt for many of the people who vote for them) and yet his and his family's quality of life continues to suck even as the Republican politicians that he voted for, once in office, act contrary to so many of his interests...well, it figures that this kind of right-wing populist insurgency would reach a critical mass in light of this economic and political context.
Trump 2016 was not only inevitable, but completely predictable. And yet the Republican/Right-Wing Establishment continues to play innocent, as if they had nothing to do with sowing the seeds of their own destruction. What a bunch of despicable, self-serving cowards.
I would encourage you to look at the percentage of CEOs who are black
and compare it to the percentage of CEOs who are white. Likewise, look at unemployment figures by race.
Also, even at the individual level, racism affects all black people - regardless of an individual black person's socioeconomic, educational, or political power/status/achievements (just look at how much President Obama has been mistreated, obstructed by Congress, and verbally abused by much of white America 
).
Consider the reality that for the vast majority of our country's history, black people lived - have lived, and continue to live to a certain extent - in the fear of racial terrorism from whites. A racial terrorism, by the way, that has (often and for much of our country's history) been legally, politically, and socially sanctioned by the dominant white culture. Hell, this country was founded to a significant extent on the enslavement and unpaid, forced labor of men and women, parents and children - human beings who were kidnapped, sold into slavery, and forced to submit completely to their colonial European (and later, white American) owners. They were nonpersons. They were property. They were treated like animals - no, worse than animals.
Furthermore, once slavery was over, black men, women, and children lived with various forms of official (i.e. Jim Crow) and unofficial discrimination, marginalization, and yes, continued racial terrorism from whites - which amplified in the decades after the Civil War. This reality was true for all black people in the US, whether they were poor or affluent, Southern or non-Southern. Many thousands of black people were beaten, tortured, and/or murdered by whites over those decades; in fact, many lynchings in the Jim Crow South attracted large crowds. People brought their families to them. Pretty sick/sadistic.
Even after FDR's New Deal (which in many ways, systematically excluded agricultural and domestic workers, who were mostly black - a concession to the Solid Democratic South) had been enacted, black Americans continued to be legally discriminated against by the white power structure, at all levels. It wasn't until the aftermath of WWII, where segregated black military units had demonstrated incredible courage and patriotism ( in spite of all the discrimination, prejudice, and racial terrorism that they faced at home) that (legal) segregation really started to be softened. And even then, there was resistance, especially (but not exclusively) from the South. "Massive" resistance. For crying out loud, the civil rights movement fractured the whole damn Democratic Party. The Republican Party of Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan readily exploited that split among Democrats; to this day, Southern whites have become extremely Republican.
However, let's not underestimate the ability of non-Southern white America to be racist against black people, as well. Think of the backlash to busing in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and elsewhere, for one. For another, think of the anger and venomous hatred which was spewed by whites every time a black person moved into a lily-white middle-class (or working-class, for that matter) suburban neighborhood. "White flight" happened for a reason, and the reason is racism - and all of the historical legacy that that encompasses.
The point I am trying to make here is that this painful, often-horrific and downright cruel history has affected - and continues to affect - ALL black Americans, regardless of their economic or social status. And conversely, racism/white supremacy has also affected ALL white Americans, in the realms of insidious, often-unconscious prejudices and unearned, often-subtle and un-quantifiable benefits. Unless more white Americans can admit and own up to this, and be willing to do the hard work of breaking down the barriers (that us white Americans created!) that separate us from our fellow human beings, our brothers and sisters of color, this will continue to be the norm and the reality in which we live.
A Disturbing Account of Anti-Abortion Victories Post-Roe (Truthout, 11/16/2015)
As availability ramped up, and as more and more women opted to end unwanted pregnancies, those who opposed abortion knew that they needed to sully providers and those who relied on them. Their first opportunity came in April 1974, 15 months after the legalization of abortion, when Dr. Kenneth Edelin, a Boston ob-gyn, was convicted of manslaughter for performing a hysterotomy, a then-common second trimester abortion method that is similar to a Caesarian delivery. Schoen writes that Edelin was charged because the prosecutor successfully argued that he had killed a live baby - not, as he contended, aborted a nonviable fetus.
Although the guilty verdict was overturned on appeal, the trial taught anti-choice activists valuable lessons about using the words "baby" and "murder" rather than "fetus" and "choice."
They subsequently learned about the power of images. Shortly after the Edelin trial ended, John and Barbara Willke, early leaders of the National Right to Life Committee, began to wave photos of fetal parts before audiences to enhance their argument that it was immoral to use fetal tissue for medical studies - never mentioning that research using fetal tissue had been instrumental in the development of vaccines for diseases like polio. Their goal was to increase revulsion toward abortion. The graphic depictions supplemented written copy that quoted scientists referring to the fetus "as a specimen rather than a charming infant-to-be," a strategy, Schoen reports, that elicited disgust, at least among those who already opposed abortion.
In addition, they hauled out the specter of Nazi medical experimentation as if Dr. Mengele and modern-day abortionists were one and the same. Not surprisingly, when anti-choice activists began referencing an abortion Holocaust, the language stuck. As one Catholic bishop told his flock, "If there is a more unspeakable crime than abortion itself, it is using victims of abortion as living human guinea pigs." It's an argument that has been trucked out repeatedly over the past four decades - and continues to be an anti-choice charm.
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/33653-a-disturbing-account-of-anti-abortion-victories-post-roe
Pretty timely, IMHO.
The burden of solidarity is shouldered by PoC. It's time white people recognize that (**AA GROUP**)
Like all of you, I have - over the years - read and heard countless exhortations from white people that they enthusiastically support equality for Black people and other Persons of Color (PoC). In many cases (especially in recent years), I have read and heard from many white liberals and Left-leaners that they "stand in solidarity with" PoC. While this is a nice sentiment and a noble ideal, what is the reality?
I'll tell you what the reality is. The reality is that the burden of solidarity on issues of racial justice and economic, political, and social parity for PoC falls almost exclusively on...PoC. While most white people will say that they support racial equality, few will actually practice it. Indeed, racial equality is more of an abstract ideal for white people, an "option" or "choice", while for Black people and other PoC, it is literally a matter of life or death.
Even in discussions of racial justice among Left-leaning sources, the white perspective is privileged - and in ways that are more insidious than the raw racism of the "backlash" Right. But I am sure that most of those reading this post know this. And yet...no matter how much PoC try to explain, clarify, or articulate their concerns, demands, and struggles, the burden of solidarity continues to be theirs to shoulder.
It's easy to merely call for solidarity, far more difficult to actually live it, practice it, and shoulder its burden. I challenge all white people (myself included) who read this post to seriously and honestly examine themselves, to humble themselves and admit that in some small, often-unintentional ways, they (we) have all contributed to the problem, that we have all failed our black and brown brothers and sisters, and that we can do better. We must do better. Lives - the lives of black and brown folks - depend on it.
At the end of the day, we all have a stake in equality and justice. It's time that white folks admit that with their (our) actions, and not merely our words. That would make (for white people) "solidarity" not just a feel-good slogan to assuage our sense of guilt, but a shared responsibility with our brothers and sisters of color to make the world a better place for us, our children, and their children as well.
- YoungDemCA
"Poppy" Bush's signature role in Iran-Contra, in addition to the actual (criminal) policies....
....included obstructing justice, lying to investigators, etc. Oh, and he pardoned basically everyone involved once he became President.
(Making this an OP, even though I posted it in another thread):
The first President Bush had publicly portrayed himself as “out-of-the-loop” on both the Iran and Contra operations—and indeed had fostered that image of innocence throughout the 1988 presidential campaign. The 89-page Mixter report is nothing less than a chronicle of mendacity on Bush’s part. The report reveals for the first time that in 1983, Bush chaired a secret “Special Situation Group” that had “recommended specific covert operations” including “the mining of Nicaragua’s rivers and harbors.” Between 1984 and 1986, he attended no less than a dozen meetings at which illicit assistance to the contras was discussed.
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/25/the_iran_contra_scandal_25_years_later/
The Reagan-Bush administration's biggest defender in Congress at the time? Dick Cheney.
Did Bush select Cheney as Secretary of Defense in his administration as a reward/payback/returning him the favor of helping him (and other Reagan administration officials for that matter, including Reagan himself) avoid criminal prosecution? Quite possibly, IMHO.
Furthermore, did Cheney learn valuable lessons from the Iran-Contra saga about how much criminal activity, abuse of power, and obstruction of justice a (Republican) administration can get away with at the highest levels of power? Most definitely.
Yet, it was Bill Clinton who got impeached for lying about his sex life.
That made impeachment in the contemporary era a cruel joke - which just may have been what the Republican administration that succeeded Clinton wanted.
With Cheney and Daddy's Bush's son/namesake being "elected" (more like APPOINTED by the Rehnquist Court in a 5-4 decision - thanks, Ronnie Reagan and Daddy Bush for your right-wing justices!
) in 2000, and 9/11 giving them an excuse to assume quasi-dictatorial powers (with an increasingly Republican Congress rubber-stamping their administration...), the Republicans finally had the trifecta: control of the Presidency, the Supreme Court, and both houses of Congress. And they behaved rather predictably once in power, actually. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and whatnot.
I have not forgotten what Reagan/Bush Family/Cheney and their allies have done. But sadly and infuriatingly, they got away with it.
History will not be kind to these war criminals - that is, assuming that history isn't thoroughly colonized by the Right. I don't think we can assume that, either. Many people have already forgotten, it seems. That is simply unacceptable and immoral to me.
Let's not forget Daddy Bush's signature role in Iran-Contra and covering that up
Obstructing justice, lying to investigators, etc. Oh, and he pardoned basically everyone involved once he became President.
The first President Bush had publicly portrayed himself as “out-of-the-loop” on both the Iran and Contra operations—and indeed had fostered that image of innocence throughout the 1988 presidential campaign. The 89-page Mixter report is nothing less than a chronicle of mendacity on Bush’s part. The report reveals for the first time that in 1983, Bush chaired a secret “Special Situation Group” that had “recommended specific covert operations” including “the mining of Nicaragua’s rivers and harbors.” Between 1984 and 1986, he attended no less than a dozen meetings at which illicit assistance to the contras was discussed.
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/25/the_iran_contra_scandal_25_years_later/
The Reagan-Bush administration's biggest defender in Congress at the time? Dick Cheney.
Did Bush select Cheney as Secretary of Defense in his administration as a reward/payback/returning him the favor of helping him (and other Reagan administration officials for that matter, including Reagan himself) avoid criminal prosecution? Quite possibly, IMHO.
Furthermore, did Cheney learn valuable lessons from Iran-Contra about how much criminal activity, abuse of power, and obstruction of justice one can get away with at the highest levels of power? Most definitely.
I think these parts of the article are important to keep in mind
In eastern Kentucky and other former Democratic bastions that have swung Republican in the past several decades, the people who most rely on the safety-net programs secured by Democrats are, by and large, not voting against their own interests by electing Republicans. Rather, they are not voting, period. They have, as voting data, surveys and my own reporting suggest, become profoundly disconnected from the political process.
The people in these communities who are voting Republican in larger proportions are those who are a notch or two up the economic ladder — the sheriff’s deputy, the teacher, the highway worker, the motel clerk, the gas station owner and the coal miner. And their growing allegiance to the Republicans is, in part, a reaction against what they perceive, among those below them on the economic ladder, as a growing dependency on the safety net, the most visible manifestation of downward mobility in their declining towns.
snip:
Meanwhile, many people who in fact most use and need social benefits are simply not voting at all. Voter participation is low among the poorest Americans, and in many parts of the country that have moved red, the rates have fallen off the charts. West Virginia ranked 50th for turnout in 2012; also in the bottom 10 were other states that have shifted sharply red in recent years, including Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee.
Bolding mine.
A lot of working-class/lower-middle income people really resent the reality that people poorer than them receive disproportionately more (direct) government assistance than they do. They are especially angered when "irresponsible" people (single mothers with lots of kids, drug addicts/alcoholics, people who are persistently unemployed) continue to receive "handouts"; thus, they don't want to pay any of their income (taxes) to support "those people" (and yes, there's definitely a significant racial element to it).
I also think there's another aspect of this that doesn't get talked about much: How the tax code has become more regressive in recent decades - the same period where real wages have stagnated, inequality has grown, and social mobility for lower and middle-income Americans has rapidly declined. When working people are making less money overall and simultaneously shouldering more of the burden of funding the US government, anti-tax populism grows among the working class.
As our economy becomes more of a zero-sum game, as poverty increases and working and middle class Americans become more financially insecure, and as more good-paying working-class jobs are automated or off-shored, feelings of solidarity with their fellow working men and women (let alone the poorest Americans or "illegals"
have rapidly declined (Notice how low the unionization rate is these days, particularly in the private sector?).
All of these factors together, along with social, religious, and racial conservatism, have conspired to make a significant segment of the American white working class very hostile to liberalism (which has actually changed a lot too since the days of the New Deal) in recent decades.
John F. Kennedy: Address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt. (June 25, 1963)
Tomorrow is the 52nd anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's assassination. Only months before that fateful day in Dallas, the President gave a speech in Frankfurt. Here are some excerpts (apologies for the length, but it's just so good).
But can there be such a title? In my own home city of Boston, Faneuil Hall-once the meeting-place of the authors of the American Revolution--has long been known as the "cradle of American liberty." But when, in 1852, the Hungarian patriot Kossuth addressed an audience there, he criticized its name. "It is," he said, "a great name-but there is something in it which saddens my heart. You should not say 'American liberty.' You should say 'liberty in America. Liberty should not be either American or European--it should just be 'liberty.'"
Kossuth was right. For unless liberty flourishes in all lands, it cannot flourish in one. Conceived in one hall, it must be carried out in many.] Thus, the seeds of the American Revolution had been brought earlier from Europe, and they later took root around the world. And the German Revolution of 1848 transmitted ideas and idealists to America and to other lands. Today, in 1963, democracy and liberty are more international than ever before. And the spirit of the Frankfurt Assembly, like the spirit of Faneuil Hall, must live in many hearts and nations if it is to live at all.
It is not a mission of self-defense alone-for that is a means, not an end. It is not a mission of arbitrary power for we reject the idea of one nation dominating another. The mission is to create a new social order, rounded on liberty and justice, in which men are the masters of their fate, in which states are the servants of their citizens, and in which all men and women can share a better life for themselves and their children. That is the object of our common policy.
To realize this vision, we must seek a world of peace--a world in which peoples dwell together in mutual respect and work together in mutual regard--a world where peace is not a mere interlude between wars, but an incentive to the creative energies of humanity. We will not find such a peace today, or even tomorrow. The obstacles to hope are large and menacing. Yet the goal of a peaceful world--today and tomorrow-must shape our decisions and inspire our purposes.
So we are all idealists. We are all visionaries. Let it not be said of this Atlantic generation that we left ideals and visions to the past, nor purpose and determination to our adversaries. We have come too far, we have sacrificed too much, to disdain the future now. And we shall ever remember what Goethe told us--that the "highest wisdom, the best that mankind ever knew" was the realization that "he only earns his freedom and existence who daily conquers them anew."
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=9303
Bolding mine (I highly recommend reading the whole speech).
JFK: Gone too soon, but never forgotten.
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