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US politics: Manchin to the beat of a different drum


IheartIheartTesla

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1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Please proceed.

Voting rights, abortion rights, minority rights all under attack...its like the 60s all over again.

So apparently David Brooks wrote an op-ed in the NYT where he exhorted everyone to just relax, that this was in fact the 1960s all over again, and the "movement" would get coopted by power and people would start wanting nice things, and the culmination would be a morph into basically Whole Foods.  This essay was quoted with approbation by one of the mothers of a girl in my daughters' grade at our "book club."  (Which, by the way, was fascinating from an anthropological perspective - first one I ever attended, and WOW, many of them neither liked nor got Addie LaRue......).  Anyhow, I mildly suggested that perhaps that was a bit...reductive, and that I, for one, thought that the social movements of the 1960s and early 1970s might have done more lasting social change than Whole Foods, and I really wasn't in any hurry to go back to where we were in the 1960s....I liked my job, my own bank account and the fact that my husband didn't need to co-sign for a credit card.  It was......amusing.

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1 hour ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

Please proceed.

Voting rights, abortion rights, minority rights all under attack...its like the 60s all over again.

Well, the "Tree of Liberty must be refreshed with the blood of patriots" and all that jazz.  Or, "A republic, if we can keep it" I think is another one.  

The darker motives of humanity are always going to be with us.  We never get to sit back and call it a day.

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I think one could partially agree with Bobo in that this time around, corporations are firmly on the side of social change (I'd say at least for voting/minority stuff, abortion maybe not yet). So I wouldnt say co-opted, but rather embraced, which is good for the long term prospects of these movements.

Havent read the Op-Ed, but we could use the Costco template rather than Whole Foods (livable wages, affordable groceries and a 'woke CEO' who cares about his workers. Whole Foods I think is owned by the evil Lex Luthor wannabe Bezos, at least partly)

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1 minute ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

I think one could partially agree with Bobo in that this time around, corporations are firmly on the side of social change (I'd say at least for voting/minority stuff, abortion maybe not yet). So I wouldnt say co-opted, but rather embraced, which is good for the long term prospects of these movements.

Havent read the Op-Ed, but we could use the Costco template rather than Whole Foods (livable wages, affordable groceries and a 'woke CEO' who cares about his workers. Whole Foods I think is owned by the evil Lex Luthor wannabe Bezos, at least partly)

Oh, totally.  This was a sub set of a bunch of over-privileged Upper East Side independent Catholic School moms.  And honestly sometimes all you need to do is to push people a little bit - there was a lot of nodding and agreement until I weighed in.  Then there was a lot of agreement with what I said.  And then I changed the subject to another family’s new puppy because I couldn’t deal.

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1 hour ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

So apparently David Brooks wrote an op-ed in the NYT where he exhorted everyone to just relax, that this was in fact the 1960s all over again, and the "movement" would get coopted by power and people would start wanting nice things, and the culmination would be a morph into basically Whole Foods.  This essay was quoted with approbation by one of the mothers of a girl in my daughters' grade at our "book club."  (Which, by the way, was fascinating from an anthropological perspective - first one I ever attended, and WOW, many of them neither liked nor got Addie LaRue......).  Anyhow, I mildly suggested that perhaps that was a bit...reductive, and that I, for one, thought that the social movements of the 1960s and early 1970s might have done more lasting social change than Whole Foods, and I really wasn't in any hurry to go back to where we were in the 1960s....I liked my job, my own bank account and the fact that my husband didn't need to co-sign for a credit card.  It was......amusing.

I think a lot of people just don't understand how turbulent the civil rights movement actually was, how much mainstream America hated and loathed civil rights activists, and how violent the anti-progress forces were. Probably comes from a shitty, white-washed education. Like Rosa Parks refused to move, Martin Luther King gave a speech, there were some marches, and then America solved racism. And now MLK is cited as a positive role model by oblivious people who, sixty years ago, would have wanted him lynched for "playing the race card" or being "divisive" or some shit like that.

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I was white washed into cheering on the civil rights movement, thinking Nixon was a creep, believing that we had come a long way and that legal rights would make a difference. I had no idea that there was going to be a regression after Obama. Okay, I didn’t think people could be this bad, again! It did take a load of propaganda ( and still does Fox) to bring it out.

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49 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I think a lot of people just don't understand how turbulent the civil rights movement actually was, how much mainstream America hated and loathed civil rights activists, and how violent the anti-progress forces were. Probably comes from a shitty, white-washed education. Like Rosa Parks refused to move, Martin Luther King gave a speech, there were some marches, and then America solved racism. And now MLK is cited as a positive role model by oblivious people who, sixty years ago, would have wanted him lynched for "playing the race card" or being "divisive" or some shit like that.

I know its comforting to categorize people, but it does not reflect reality any more than any other huge stereotyped generalization.  My mother went to the South in the 60s to ride the trains on behalf of Black civil rights and integration.  She also must be one of the few boomers who never did drugs.  Her husbands were thus:  a brown immigrant, a black professional and a white midwesterner.  She was raised a Democrat and considered herself a liberal for most of my life.  She voted for Trump twice.  She doesn't fit your stereotype. 

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45 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

I think a lot of people just don't understand how turbulent the civil rights movement actually was, how much mainstream America hated and loathed civil rights activists, and how violent the anti-progress forces were

This book, just published, will inform. 

Haunted by Slavery: A Memoir of a Southern White Woman in the Freedom Struggle, by 92+ years young, trail-blazing Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, one of the most important figures in changing the methodology of historiography, pioneer founder of database compilation -- before computers, in Louisiana, while married to a Black Man. Racist FBI on her tail constantly, getting her fired from one job after another, getting landlords and banks to evict her from her homes.  Had to flee to France for a while. Surveilled constantly.  Always suspected this was going on but didn't know for certain until she finally was successful in getting a response to FOIA request for the records the FBI kept on her.  Not to mention -- sexism, from everybody, including her spouse.

https://www.amazon.com/Haunted-Slavery-Southern-Freedom-Struggle/dp/1642592749

 

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25 minutes ago, Cas Stark said:

I know its comforting to categorize people, but it does not reflect reality any more than any other huge stereotyped generalization.  My mother went to the South in the 60s to ride the trains on behalf of Black civil rights and integration.  She also must be one of the few boomers who never did drugs.  Her husbands were thus:  a brown immigrant, a black professional and a white midwesterner.  She was raised a Democrat and considered herself a liberal for most of my life.  She voted for Trump twice.  She doesn't fit your stereotype. 

Who did I stereotype? I said most Americans opposed the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King was very unpopular. This has nothing to do with your mom. I could give two shits how progressive you think she was before she voted for an obviously monstrous and stupid piece of shit twice.

Not everything is a conspiracy against white people. But hey, are you still peddling the both-sides lie that Democrats who criticized Trump were "rolling in the gutter" with him?

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29 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Who did I stereotype? I said most Americans opposed the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King was very unpopular. This has nothing to do with your mom. I could give two shits how progressive you think she was before she voted for an obviously monstrous and stupid piece of shit twice.

Not everything is a conspiracy against white people. But hey, are you still peddling the both-sides lie that Democrats who criticized Trump were "rolling in the gutter" with him?

Actually, I find the case of Cas Stark's mom pretty fascinating. Why, how, did she make a change like that?

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1 hour ago, DanteGabriel said:

Who did I stereotype? I said most Americans opposed the civil rights movement. Martin Luther King was very unpopular. This has nothing to do with your mom. I could give two shits how progressive you think she was before she voted for an obviously monstrous and stupid piece of shit twice.

Not everything is a conspiracy against white people. But hey, are you still peddling the both-sides lie that Democrats who criticized Trump were "rolling in the gutter" with him?

Thanks for reminding me, yet again, why I don't post on politics here.  

I'm not sure what you're referring to there, but if your question is  whether I still think both sides are contributing to the destruction of political norms that have held for many, many decades and that this very bad for the US, then the answer is yes.  

ETA.  LOL, of course it has 'nothing to do with my mom' because She.Doesn't.Fit.Your.Stereotype.  #enjoythatechochamber

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Gov. Abbott of TX has signed into law a heartbeat abortion ban law, but this one has a scary new wrinkle:

Quote

Senate Bill 8 (SB 8), passed by both chambers of the Republican-dominated Texas legislature, bars abortion at six weeks of pregnancy with no exception for rape or incest, amounting to a near-total ban as most women are not aware they are pregnant at this stage. While a dozen states have passed similar so-called “heartbeat” bills – bans on abortion once embryonic cardiac activity is detected – none have yet been enforced due to court challenges.

Unlike those measures, the Texas version absolves the state from enforcing the law. Instead it allows any private citizen the extraordinary authority to sue an abortion provider – they do not need to be connected to the patient or even reside in the same state, opening up the floodgates to harassing and frivolous civil lawsuits that could shut down clinics statewide.

In fact, any individual can sue anyone who “aids or abets” abortion care or someone who “intends” to help an abortion patient, a breathtakingly wide range of possible people and groups. While those who sue can collect a minimum of $10,000 if they are successful, those unjustly sued cannot recover legal fees. The anti-abortion law’s private enforcement provision is the first of its kind in the country.

“This law is so broadly written it could target not just abortion clinics and staff but anyone that volunteers or donates to an abortion fund or activist organization like ours,” says Aimee Arrambide, executive director of reproductive rights advocacy group, Avow Texas. “Domestic violence and rape crisis counselors who offer guidance, family members who lend money to abortion patients, a friend who gives a ride to an appointment, or even someone that provides an address to a clinic could also face lawsuits.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/19/texas-abortion-ban-law-greg-abbott

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But seriously I actually don't understand where the stereotyping accusation comes from.

I observed that civil rights activists and MLK were unpopular in the 60s. That is pretty well established. I said some people who now praise MLK would have disapproved of him at the time. I didn't say every white person or every Southerner. So where's the stereotyping?

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9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Gov. Abbott of TX has signed into law a heartbeat abortion ban law, but this one has a scary new wrinkle:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/19/texas-abortion-ban-law-greg-abbott

Yikes.  I'll never understand the utter and complete obsession the right has with abortion.  They don't care kids are dying in Gaza right now, half of them are cheering.  They didn't care about the kids WE bombed.  

But a tiny pack of accidentally created cells. . . time to march on Washington.   "Oh the baby is born?  To hell with it, go die in a gutter you freeloader."

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18 minutes ago, argonak said:

Yikes.  I'll never understand the utter and complete obsession the right has with abortion.  They don't care kids are dying in Gaza right now, half of them are cheering.  They didn't care about the kids WE bombed.  

But a tiny pack of accidentally created cells. . . time to march on Washington.   "Oh the baby is born?  To hell with it, go die in a gutter you freeloader."

Because it's really about punishing women for having sex. "Protecting innocent life" is just a convenient bullshit excuse for the vast majority of people obsessed with getting rid of abortion. 

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