guillaumeb
guillaumeb's JournalIn the country of FOXlandia....
In the country of FOXlandia....Trump actually is a successful businessman.
In the country of FOXlandia....Trump is innocent of every accusation of sexual misconduct.
In the country of FOXlandia....Trump won the 2020 election, beating Biden by millions of votes.
I could continue, but it is fairly obvious that millions of apparently sane US citizens live in FOXlandia.
Can we reach them?
My thoughts on the Ahmad Arbery case:
The case of Ahmad Arbery, like that of Trayvon Martin, and so many others, involves white citizens stopping and killing black citizens because those black citizens are running.
Students of US history know that the first police forces in the southern US were slave patrols. Often, all white males were legally required to be part of the slave patrols, and they were generally required to be armed.
The foundation for this was that blacks were slaves, and their movements were strictly controlled by the white, slave holding class. Any black person outside could expect to be stopped and questioned. Especially a running person.
Consider the case of Ahmad Arbery. He was running for exercise in the area where he lived.
But he was a black male running.
As a white male, if I run in my area, or any area, it is assumed that I am exercising,
but if a black male is running, racists assume that he is running from something, or running away from someone. And that assumption is the foundation for why these white civilians felt empowered to go home, arm themselves, and literally hunt Arbery down, trapping him with their trucks, before killing him.
These white vigilantes could have called the police, and let them handle the situation, but they felt entitled and empowered to go out and arrest Arbery. The killers claimed to be making a citizen’s arrest, but Georgia law only allows for that if the citizen making the arrest saw a crime being committed, or has knowledge of the crime that was committed.
Neither situation applied, and all three were convicted. But that conviction does not change anything. It does not change the underlying assumption that if a black person is running, they are running away because, in the eyes of their white pursuers, they are guilty.
How do we, or can we, educate white people to reject the dead hand of the slaveholding past? How do we, or can we, educate armed white citizens to stop playing at being police? Self-defense is one thing, but these three convicted killers literally hunted Arbery down, then confronting him with weapons.
I was listening to Hal Sparks today as I canvassed for Marie Newman.
He played numerous clips of Trump....speaking, I suppose it should be called, in the sense that words were coming out of his lying mouth.
But it sounded as if someone threw some words in a pile and picked them out in random order.
When I read comments from the red hatted sheep about how smart Trump is, and how well he speaks, I can only wonder if the speaker/write is joking, or high, or engaging in "owning the liberals" performance art.
And 71 million voted for him.
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State....."
How exactly does the NRA/GOP/SCOTUS decide that this means that anyone can become a vigilante patrolling the streets and becoming judge, jury, and executioner?
Scalia, and the GOP segment of the SCOTUS, essentially dismissed half of the actual Amendment as "merely prefatory" so that Mr. Originalist, Antonin Scalia, could "discover" a right that gives every (white) person the right to carry a firearm.
Ed Dept. Opens Inquiry on District That Wanted "Opposing" Lessons on Holocaust
From the article:
On Wednesday, the OCR acknowledged that an inquiry had been opened in the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, Texas. The district faces three separate allegations of discrimination based on race and gender filed by students, and claims to be “fully cooperating” with the agency’s work.
To read more:
https://truthout.org/articles/ed-dept-opens-inquiry-on-district-that-wanted-opposing-lessons-on-holocaust/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=3a9c222a-6fc3-4921-9acf-f88de50ae8dc
Threatened by Blackness: Rev. Barber condemns attorney's 'Black pastors' remarks
From the article:
To see/hear more:
https://news.yahoo.com/threatened-blackness-rev-barber-condemns-062741137.html
How can we change the media narrative, and stop the constant "austerity economics" message?
Can we speak frankly about the “P” word?
Yes, speaking about the “P” word makes some people uncomfortable, but having a strong, robust P gives a person confidence.
Not having a P makes a person weaker, uncertain about the future
.
I am speaking, of course, about pensions, and how they went from being relatively common, to being something that only a fraction of people now have in the US.
In 1970, 45% of private sector employees were covered by a defined benefit pension plan. Federal and State Government employees were also covered by Civil Service and State Civil Service plans. These plans, covering approximately 62% of workers, provided a set benefit that the employee could count on in retirement, and Social Security was seen as a supplement.
But in 1978, Congress passed the Revenue Act, which was the foundation for what are called “defined contribution” plans. Under these plans, benefits depended entirely on how much the employee contributed, how much the employer contributed, and critically, how the contributions were invested.
These plans were touted by the rich as a way for everyone to become a millionaire by investing in the stock market. And thanks to Ronald Reagan, and a compliant Congress, companies were allowed to essentially steal the money from many company-run pension plans, and pensions magically disappeared.
Today, unlike 62% of workers in 1970, only 24% of workers are covered by a defined benefit pension plan. And how has that “freedom to invest” worked out for us all?
In 2020, the median IRA account was $21,000 dollars. So ½ of all workers have less than $21,000 saved. The average is approximately $106,000, but that number is skewed sharply upward by the small fraction who are worth millions.
Like “trickle down economics”, the myth that average workers can become millionaires by investing in the stock market is a lie. Yes, the media promotes the lie by over publicizing the very rare success story, but financial insecurity for most workers was the only long lasting result from laws that allowed pensions to be stolen from American workers.
Godless grifters: How the New Atheists merged with the far right
From the article:
Fast-forward to the present: What a grift that was! Many of the most prominent New Atheists turned out to be nothing more than self-aggrandizing, dogmatic, irascible, censorious, morally compromised people who, at every opportunity, have propped up the powerful over the powerless, the privileged over the marginalized......
https://www.salon.com/2021/06/05/how-the-new-atheists-merged-with-the-far-right-a-story-of-intellectual-grift-and-abject-surrender/
Some people are looking to get rich. Some love power. Some, as the article illustrates, are misogynists or racists.
I judge people by their actions, not their professed positions.
The GOP has one massive ally.
Stupidity.
Never underestimate the ability of stupid and uninformed voters to repeatedly make poor decisions.
There is a current thread about the GOP, and the infrastructure Bills.
It is here:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216042681
https://politicalwire.com/2021/11/11/gop-wrestles-with-infrastructure-vote/
It could just as easily be titled "GOP leadership struggles to contain an outbreak of sanity".
It is obvious to any sane observer that the GOP has no plans that do not revolve around cutting taxes for the billionaire class.
There is no GOP healthcare plan, no GOP economic plan, no GOP infrastructure plan.
Only fear based slogans and appeals to racism.
My congratulations to any Democrats who must negotiate with these people.
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Member since: Mon Jan 26, 2015, 06:15 PMNumber of posts: 42,649