2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Bernie Supporters - Please read my post [View all]DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)Just to be clear, I am not blaming Obama for the racism, I am saying that having someone in a position of power who is a minority does not always equal gains. I have said consistently, that even though the Jeb Bushes, Marco Rubios and Ted Cruzes play their Espanol like a fiddle, there is nothing , nothing, that they can do to let this Latino even allow them to be dogcatcher. Why, because frankly, their policies stink. As far as Obama goes, I got pilloried on a regular basis for being an Obama-bot. I remember when just not supporting Hillary on DU got people called sexist, even after many Hillary supporters found out the person they were calling a sexist pig was actually a woman.
However, in matters like the TPP, like Keystone, I did criticize SOME of Obama's decisions, but frankly that was because a) he told us to speak up B) I smelled people ready to talk him into weakening or warping his ideas, and then take advantage when the watered down idea did not work, just like they did for the bailouts (which actually got paid), The Gm bailout (which resulted in keeping GM in America rather than being chopped up and sold to China), The stimulus, and oh yes Obamacare. All of these were good ideas that then got chopped up and blunted by many people, and yes, we had every right to say "Obama, don't let them water it down, we elected you to do this stuff, screw the Rahm Emmanuels and Bill Clintons that want to drive your presidency from the backseat, just so that they can grab the wheel." Despite the fact these ideas Obama had were blunted and stunted by his mostly white "friends" most of those ideas WORKED, and made the nation a better place for it. Obama's ideas worked despite the fact that his friends tried to do everything to weaken or kill them.
I got enraged when Bill called Obama a "Wuss" because he WISELY refused to go to war with Syria, and I was even more mad when Hillary did her book "Hard choices" where she attacked Obama directly. Unlike many of the far left, I did want to see Obama succeed, and I think that despite some areas of criticism, history will remember him as being the person that helped save America from itself.
But frankly, I am not blind to the fact that when Hillary decides to make a "hard Choice" she will stab Obama in the back, so I have no problem asking her to be proactive and cover up weak spots that will be exploited, like the TPP, because this will be exploited not just to destroy her in the election, but so that whatever GOP who tries to win will be able to spend the next four years ripping apart everything Obama did. That is not being racist or sexist, that is trying to make sure the Obama legacy does not get shot by friendly fire, again, something that sadly the democrats are very very good at.
BTW, as far as the one without the other, the point is that Blacks, and indeed, all minorities need to have economic and social justice, and that neither racism nor poverty will really be solved unless both are attacked, on both fronts. Yes, there can be the poor whites that are not called racial slurs, but if the goal is to advance minorities to the point where we are not messed with, we will need to cover both fronts, because if we let one front go, that is where the majority will strike. We know that racism was used by the rich to distract the working class from the fact that the rich cared less about them than the blacks they owned, but that does not change the fact until there are black and brown people having stable jobs, CEO positions, and businesses, we will be carrying knives to gunfights. We know that the majority is racist, yes, and that they have built walls around them, but the brick in that wall is the economic justice side, where the student loan business keeps minorities out of college, where the credit side makes sure minorities cannot buy houses or make businesses. Economic injustice arms racism, we need to disarm it.
Hillary does not need to just say pretty words, or even just make sure pretty laws are in place to make sure that discrimination is a crime. Oh, those are needed, and oh yes, I do LOVE it when she talks about how these "voter id laws" need to go, or how we need to keep the voting rights act alive. Yes yes yes, all needed, all wanted, go Hillary.. However, we do need to hear what she will do for us economically, because economic injustice protects injustice. The LGBT taught us that you need to say "thegaytm is closed" to quote a favorite DU meme. We need to be able to tell Hillary that all these nice words of civil rights are NEEDED, but frankly, we want some jobs too, because we know that regardless of color, America listens to green.
We will not advance as long as we can either be called slurs, or have our jobs or money being taken away at the whim of the majority.