U.S. Politics: We're Saying Merry Christmas, Again

[Michael Seswatha Jordan]

1 minute ago, Relic said:

A and B will very rarely face the same amount of economic strain, for a variety of factors. Some of those factors are as simple as systemic racism, while other factors are more complicated, like housing segregation which created entire neighborhoods wherein the impoverished had a VERY difficult time moving up and on. If you want an example of the latter go visit the Canarsie Projects in Brooklyn, or re-watch The Wire. 

But, those same restraints are place in white people too. Have you ever heard of a trailer park? We have government housing in this small town of mine full of white poor people. You all are detached from reality. You see what you want to see and that's it. Those same constrains are put in white people just the same. As I said, 9 times out of 10 its a White male who is advocating this. 

[Relic]

59 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

But, those same restraints are place in white people too. Have you ever heard of a trailer park? We have government housing in this small town of mine full of white poor people. You all are detached from reality. You see what you want to see and that's it. Those same constrains are put in white people just the same. As I said, 9 times out of 10 its a White male who is advocating this. 

So wait. You just went off and scolded Dante for making judgments about people he doesn't know and then you tell me I'm detached from reality? That's...interesting. How do you justify that sort of behavior to yourself?

As for my reality, I have been many places and I have seen many different ways of life. I grew up in a grimy dangerous New York City in the 80s but have lived in rural areas of upper New York and Connecticut as well, and I have traveled across the entire continental United States twice. I have seen all faces of American poverty.  I have also seen some of the most profound poverty in the world in places like Honduras, Nepal, and India, shit that makes you want to die from sorrow. I'd say I have some experience, and i dare say more experience than you have probably had with what the world actually looks like. 

I am keenly aware of trailer parks, but they are very different from inner cities ghettos in many many ways, both in make up and facilities that are accessible from the projects (schools, libraries, counseling, medical care, and so on). Also this tidbit - 

Public housing serves black households at a rate substantially greater than their share of the renter population. Forty-eight percent of public housing households are black compared to only 19 percent of all renter households.⁶ Taking income into account does not alter this conclusion, since only 30 percent of households with incomes low enough to qualify for public housing are black.

Hispanic households are represented in public housing at a rate comparable to their share of renter households (10 percent versus 11 percent). Non-Hispanic white households occupy 39 percent of public housing, considerably less than their share of the total renter population (66 percent).

https://www.huduser.gov/periodicals/ushmc/spring95/spring95.html

You might be right in that the rich are now oppressing poor whites with a greater intensity than they might have been in the last century, but we still have it made in the shade compared to what it is like to be a poor "minority" (even that word, by tself, has an insidious influence on growing up as a non-white in the USA).  

 

[Week]

43 minutes ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

But, those same restraints are place in white people too. Have you ever heard of a trailer park? We have government housing in this small town of mine full of white poor people. You all are detached from reality. You see what you want to see and that's it. Those same constrains are put in white people just the same. As I said, 9 times out of 10 its a White male who is advocating this. 

You need to listen to/read from more people of color. I don't have a problem accessing these arguments on a daily basis from sources that I regularly engage in and neither should you. The root, Very Smart Brothas, Ijeoma Ulou, Didi Delgado, Shaun King, Ta Nehisi Coates, etc etc

[James Arryn]

3 hours ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

But, those same restraints are place in white people too. Have you ever heard of a trailer park? We have government housing in this small town of mine full of white poor people. You all are detached from reality. You see what you want to see and that's it. Those same constrains are put in white people just the same. As I said, 9 times out of 10 its a White male who is advocating this. 

White people can face many constraints without facing all of the constraints non-white people face. For example widespread racism. Saying black people face obstacles just for being black that white people don't face doesn't mean no white person faces anything. Honestly, this isn't that complicated. 

 

[DMC]

5 hours ago, denstorebog said:

If the system is currently so locked by gerrymandering that there's like a 5% chance that Dems will retake the House while Republicans and their president are historically unpopular, what do you do?

Well, the incumbency advantage is hardly anything new - especially in the House - and it's certainly not solely attributable to gerrymandering.  The fact is one party gaining 24 seats is always going to be statistically improbable if there's only a handful of open seats, especially this far out. 

Further, the FairVote analysis you referenced is based on only two indicators - the 2016 presidential vote and the incumbent's past electoral performance.  While they emphasize this is the largest amount of "safe" seats they've projected, this is compared to the last three cycles (2012, 2014, and 2016).  This first indicator suggests the presidential vote has become more partisan within districts since 2012, when the districts were drawn exactly the same as they are now (the number of safe GOP seats should also increase since the GOP obviously made gains in the aggregate presidential vote since 2012, or rather the Dems had significantly worse losses).  The second indicator is also likely mostly independent of gerrymandering; I'd hypothesize incumbents are increasing their margins as the 63 new GOP members elected in 2010 solidify their districts, generating (interparty) challengers with decreasing quality.

5 hours ago, denstorebog said:

It does look pretty grim when the Dems' best hope for retaking power is that the de facto powerholders choose to throw the towel in the ring. Especially if four more are needed after Tiberi's resignation.

I think the important thing to keep in mind is there's undoubtedly endogeneity between large scale retirements and House takeovers.  Now, the scandals certainly helped in 1994 (ethics) and 2006 (page) - and right now all we got is Tim Murphy - but seems clear to me a lot of members retire before House takeovers because they recognize the difficult-to-impossible electoral environment.  Right now 538 says Trump is at 38 to 56 while the generic ballot is at 48 Dem to 37.6 GOP.  If it still looks like that come spring time, combined with a GOP legislative agenda grounded in continued inertia and Bannon making good on his large-scale primary campaign, I think it's reasonable to expect quite a few GOP members to say fuck it dude.

[ThinkerX]

29 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

If the system is currently so locked by gerrymandering that there's like a 5% chance that Dems will retake the House while Republicans and their president are historically unpopular, what do you do?

Overlooked here is that the 'red' districts tend to be rural, and are undergoing a near catastrophic population implosion.  The next census will likely have interesting implications for those districts.  To make matters even worse for republicans, those of a more liberal bent, whose occupations are not location dependent, are starting to move into those areas.  I see this on my route; a steady uptick in democratic party/leftist fliers, while meanwhile the conservative crowd is dying off - literally. 

and yes, I know the quote didn't originate with dmc515, I merely stole it from his post.

[DanteGabriel]

Democrats have tried to help poor and working class people. Evidence is the Affordable Care Act and the Children's Health Insurance Program. It is not correct to say poor and working class white people have been ignored by both parties because I just gave two examples of Democrats trying to help. 

If @Michael Seswatha Jordan wants to keep looking for things to misunderstand and find resentments in my posts, that's not on me. Fuck's sake, he tried to take offense to my mention of "dipshit pundits" -- meaning guys like David Brooks who regularly trot out useless columns about how we need to understand the economic insecurities of the white working class. But somehow "dipshit pundit" becomes another scab to pick at in your resentful and blinkered view of the world. I guess my mistake was leaving any sort of room for interpretation, because his evident mode of reading is to assume any reference he doesn't understand is a personal insult? Hard to say. Done trying to figure it out.

I'm tired of swimming upstream against his insecurities and inability to parse an argument. Done with his crap.

[Darth Richard II]

11 hours ago, Morpheus said:

You are entering the vicinity of an area adjacent to a location. The kind of place where there might be a monster, or some kind of weird mirror. These are just examples; it could also be something much better. Maybe a Nazi is President. Prepare to enter: The Scary Door.

[DanteGabriel]

White middle-schoolers in Virginia sexually assault black kids, while chanting racial slurs. And they filmed it and shared it on social media. They must have done it because they feel so ignored by both parties. Listen to the tortured economic insecurity and worries about the coal industry as they chant those slurs. But I must only think racism is a big problem because of my 70s and 80s worldview. No doubt someone could link some videos of well-respected black people (seriously, who you got? Bill Cosby? Charles Barkley? Omarosa?) to tell me white privilege is a fading problem.

[denstorebog]

Okay, what. 

Trump Admin Revokes Bill Browder's US Visa

This comes after Interpol has finally accepted Putin's request to put Browder on their wanted list.

Seriously, what.

[Rippounet]

8 hours ago, Michael Seswatha Jordan said:

That's exactly what I said. That the Gap is closing. And, why, are people so insistent upon the fact that if white person A and Black person B face the same economic strain, that B will have it harder? Makes zero sense. Just holding on to an ideology that is fading, as you said yourself.

It's not what I said. The gap is closing, but for the wrong reasons, and it's not closed just yet.
Basically everyone is facing the same considerable macroeconomic constraints, but that doesn't mean microeconomic inequalities don't remain. In dire economic times, they can even have a much greater impact on people's lives.
The reason I answered you in the first place is because I have a problem when anyone says that white people are being "ignored" or feel ignored. It always sounds as if minorities' problems have disappeared, or as if they have been pampered, when neither is the case.
Like, I got this info in literally ten seconds:

Quote

According to the 2014 U.S. Census Bureau ACS study (see charts below) 27% of all African American men, women and children live below the poverty level compared to just 11% of all Americans. An even higher percentage (38%) of Black children live in poverty compared to 22% of all children in America.

More to the point, I dislike the way you introduce race in this. The middle-class is under attack throughout the West. The fact that the middle-class is predominantly white shouldn't matter because it is everyone's problem. It's not a case of the pie having to be shared between whites and minorities, but a case of the pie becoming smaller for the 99%.
Generally speaking, I find it utterly mind-boggling how in dire economic times, people will resent those who are worse off than themselves, or start denying the fact they are worse off. It's not always about race too -that's kind of an American thing originally. In other countries it can be about whether the unemployed have "incentives" to get back to work, whether the State isn't spending too much on welfare... etc.
It's a sad sad tendency of the human race. Though of course, it's a tendency that is fueled by those who actually benefit from it. Minorities, immigrants and refugees are used to distract people. Because when people start looking at what is done for them, they forget that it has little to do with their own situation.

[Larry of the Lawn]

10 minutes ago, Triskan said:

It is kind of remarkable, isn't it?  The billionaire class screws everyone else and yet somehow minorities are to blame.  

Divide and conquer

[Yukle]

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

The reason I answered you in the first place is because I have a problem when anyone says that white people are being "ignored" or feel ignored. It always sounds as if minorities' problems have disappeared, or as if they have been pampered, when neither is the case.

...

More to the point, I dislike the way you introduce race in this. The middle-class is under attack throughout the West. The fact that the middle-class is predominantly white shouldn't matter because it is everyone's problem. It's not a case of the pie having to be shared between whites and minorities, but a case of the pie becoming smaller for the 99%.
 

You're right about this. It highlights that poverty is usually a repeating cycle that is very hard to break out of.

Black people are over-represented in poverty stats because most black Americans' parents and grandparents faced impoverishing discrimination within their lifetimes. Segregation ended, certainly, but it didn't come with a cheque to also eliminate the living conditions at the same time. So poor black people, whose lives were bitterly ruined by unfair unemployment, lack of opportunity and so on had their children grow up without the institutionalised racism... but not the funds to put them through school. Or the education to get a high-paying job to get those funds.

So it's not so much that they're black, it's that their ancestors were. A different story played out for white families. They were in manufacturing, their jobs went and they hadn't the education or means to break the crippling poverty that now faced them. Their children can't easily break from poverty either.

The USA is multicultural and has been since its foundation (although not always by choice) and, as a separate issue beyond race, ethnicity or culture, it is crippling its middle-class into deeper and deeper poverty. It's not just that wealth isn't being distributed, it's that all of the tools needed to develop and grow - paved roads, functioning schools even clean water - aren't functioning because taxes aren't being paid.

Perhaps the most dangerous but clever ideology ever propagated by the rich is the lie that governments cannot be trusted. Why do so many rich white men encourage you to ignore the government, to fight the system, to neglect voting because they're all liars, to withhold taxes and so on? Because they own the government. It works to their interests and your apathy is essential. Government is the only check against them controlling wealth they could otherwise be forced to share, and it's for their own sake that they don't want you to empower governments to act as a means against oligarchies forming.

Perhaps the most telling statistic: for all of their bluster about how you should ignore the government, millionaires are the most reliable people to vote in the USA.

[ants]

4 hours ago, denstorebog said:

Okay, what. 

Trump Admin Revokes Bill Browder's US Visa

This comes after Interpol has finally accepted Putin's request to put Browder on their wanted list.

Seriously, what.

Interpol "accepting" Putin's request is slightly unfair.  Russia found a back way of getting him automatically added to the interpol lists. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

21 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

Well, at least you are not faced with the political choice I am.  We had local municipal elections here a couple weeks back - city council, that sort of thing.  Heavily conservative area, so lots of promises about balanced budgets and promoting growth.  But, the contest for Borough Mayor (County to most of you) ended in a tie, requiring a runoff election next week.  The contenders are:

- a not-quite far right corporate shill, endorsed by the republican party (used to be with the utility company); and

- the slightly more liberal but very probably corrupt part owner of the local auto dealership (and yes, they have a used car lot full of lemons)

Decisions, decisions.  (I didn't vote for either one first time around btw) 

Suggestions?

 

Throw the ball out of bounds or punt, but dont let the bastards sack you.

[DireWolfSpirit]

2 hours ago, Yukle said:

You're right about this. It highlights that poverty is usually a repeating cycle that is very hard to break out of.

Black people are over-represented in poverty stats because most black Americans' parents and grandparents faced impoverishing discrimination within their lifetimes. Segregation ended, certainly, but it didn't come with a cheque to also eliminate the living conditions at the same time. So poor black people, whose lives were bitterly ruined by unfair unemployment, lack of opportunity and so on had their children grow up without the institutionalised racism... but not the funds to put them through school. Or the education to get a high-paying job to get those funds.

So it's not so much that they're black, it's that their ancestors were. A different story played out for white families. They were in manufacturing, their jobs went and they hadn't the education or means to break the crippling poverty that now faced them. Their children can't easily break from poverty either.

The USA is multicultural and has been since its foundation (although not always by choice) and, as a separate issue beyond race, ethnicity or culture, it is crippling its middle-class into deeper and deeper poverty. It's not just that wealth isn't being distributed, it's that all of the tools needed to develop and grow - paved roads, functioning schools even clean water - aren't functioning because taxes aren't being paid.

Perhaps the most dangerous but clever ideology ever propagated by the rich is the lie that governments cannot be trusted. Why do so many rich white men encourage you to ignore the government, to fight the system, to neglect voting because they're all liars, to withhold taxes and so on? Because they own the government. It works to their interests and your apathy is essential. Government is the only check against them controlling wealth they could otherwise be forced to share, and it's for their own sake that they don't want you to empower governments to act as a means against oligarchies forming.

Perhaps the most telling statistic: for all of their bluster about how you should ignore the government, millionaires are the most reliable people to vote in the USA.

This is a magnificent post, the bolded bares repeating imo.

[Darzin]

So reading the news lately I am somewhat concerned about the lefts seeming lack of support for any immigration control whatsoever.  After Trump’s election it just kind of happened where now you see a lot of articles bemoaning the deportation of undocumented immigrants. I mean as the law stands people lacking a visa have no legal rights to be in the country unless you change that I really don’t see the issue with existing laws being enforced. I’ve seen articles bemoaning an immigrant being arrested for dropping off their kids, and this one talking about ICE agents arresting people at court. Shockingly the law is enforced at a courthouse. I mean I get what their criticizing that it makes it hard for undocumented immigrants to use the court system, but that’s really criticizing a symptom rather than the problem. The problem is that we’ve failed so much with immigration control that undocumented people need to use the courthouse or are even allowed is the problem.

 

I mean I’ve lived abroad quite a bit and I can’t think of a country where I would be able to go to court with no visa. I’d need to show my passport and with no visa well then I would be deported. I understand the temptation to move somewhere when you really want to without the proper visa. I’ve lived places without 100% correct documentation, and if I was found out by the police I would expect to be summarily deported or at least fined and need to be careful around police. I live in China now and some teachers are working illegally on a tourist visa or without proper documentation it opens them up to exploitation by their employer, but no one says oh they should just stay in China. The answer is to get correct documentation.

 

I mean take a look at this article here, it’s meant to be sympathetic look at the police harassing the brown people. But the reason they are doing it is because those people have no right to be in the country and the job of ICE is to remove people who are not in the country. Many of the articles I’ve been reading on left wing news sights seem to take an issue with this. I get that Trump is horrible and a racist and I get that ICE rounding up families and people who have committed no crimes, but lack the documentation to be here feels very fascist. But every country controls their borders and what many on the left seem to be passively advocating although I don’t think they’ve thought it through is a system where if you manage to get here you can stay whether you have a visa or no. Which to me seems an absolutely insane proposition, if you wanto fix the immigration system then fix and if you can’t then leaving people in a legal gray area and rewarding those who break the law to come here but just letting them stay in limbo is an absurd proposition. I don’t see any problem with deporting people who lack a visa or residency permit just like every other country in the world does and I think the left really needs to think about what many of us are advocating.

[Rippounet]

5 hours ago, Yukle said:

Perhaps the most dangerous but clever ideology ever propagated by the rich is the lie that governments cannot be trusted.

Yup. The great success of the "conservative revolution" was to convince around half of the population to vote against their own self-interest, election after election.

[Relic]

11 hours ago, Triskan said:

 On a separate note it's pretty crazy to me how both parties have big splits at the moment.  The Dems are having the Sanders progressive wing v. the more centrist liberal wing, and the Republicans have the so-called establishment versus the Bannon / Trump wing.  I really hope that Bannon's threats to primary everyone cause chaos for the GOP and lead them to lose some winnable races.  I think it could potentially help the Dems swing some seats like maybe Arizona.

These parties should be allowed to fracture and split off into their own entities. Having two choices sucks, and has turned out to be really really divisive. 

[James Arryn]

5 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

This is a magnificent post, the bolded bares repeating imo.

Agreed. 

Whenever you see capitalism introduced pretty suddenly...fallen soviet states, freshly independent post-colonies, etc. you see the same dynamic; the rise of corrupt powerful individuals, be they called warlords, robber barons, oligarchs, w/e. Because that's how it works with capitalism and little government, wealth advantage is immediately invested in destroying competition/increasing advantage and so you see an increasing stratification. 

Government is literally the only treatment for this pattern, and so it's no surprise that the 'elites'...Altherion's radar just spiked...want as little of it as possible, excepting where it can be used to divide the rest amongst themselves and therefore reduce the odds of political solutions.