Calling it now: Dems snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in 2016.

Started by Doktor Howl, August 04, 2015, 12:19:20 AM

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Doktor Howl

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on August 10, 2015, 05:50:26 PM
So Sanders was doomed before, and he's doomed now. And?

I had him at 3:1 against, now 10:1 against.

All I'm saying is he can't please everyone during the election, and he now has to do that.  Either the blue collar Whites bail or the Blacks bail.  Or at least enough of either group to kill the momentum that he has gathered.  He's gonna crash like Howie Dean, but for entirely different reasons.

The other result will be a gigantic split in the left, as the Sanders supporters and BLM point blame at each other and scream abuse.

This is why the left is ineffectual.  So is the right these days, for more or less the same reason.  Meanwhile, the good folks at Raytheon and Corrections Corporation of America and Exxon lick their lips and chuckle, because this is in fact the perfect political climate for their objectives.
Molon Lube

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on August 10, 2015, 05:52:56 PM
There is something really nasty about the "support for your side is conditional, based on politeness" narrative...

I'll admit that my immediate response was "why the FUCK are they doing this to the one candidate who seems most likely to be receptive to your message." But, I guess he really WAS receptive to their message, in spite of that?

I dunno. My gut reaction sure felt a lot like standard white, educated liberal hand-wringing, and it's hard for me to shake that impression. But my gut is for processing shit, not politics, so maybe it demands re-examination.

My support for things like Black Live Matter (and the understanding that shit like #AllLivesMatter is a way of hijacking the message to render it meaningless) is definitely not conditional based on politeness. This event doesn't make me want to turn against it. But I'm struggling with trying to figure out if it was the politically astute thing to do.

BLM is important to everyone, whether or not they realize it.

But seizing the stage isn't impoliteness.  It conveys a completely different message.
Molon Lube

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Sanders DIDN'T have the black vote. I'm pretty sure he was assuming that he would, but that was a bad assumption. If Democrats don't take a hard stance on police reform, they are going to lose the black vote, potentially for the long haul.

Sanders thought that he could move his campaign forward without even specifically addressing plans for police reform on his platform. You seem to have a big misunderstanding regarding what the protesters wanted, and what several other BLM protesters have asked Sanders for; they wanted him to include police reform on his platform. That doesn't mean that they want him to focus on it, or spend a ton of time talking about it; they wanted him to CLEARLY ADDRESS IT. The fact that he clearly thought that he didn't need to clearly address it from the very beginning of his campaign says VERY CLEARLY that he doesn't consider it a priority. You can bet that Clinton won't make that mistake, and if the Republicans are smart (which fortunately they are not) they will drum up a candidate who is more black-friendly than Jeb Bush, and have them embrace the shit out of police reform.

THE ASSUMPTION THAT BLACKS ARE LIBERAL IS A STUPID ONE. Yet Democrats seem to mostly be persistently, blindly ignorant of the fact that black communities lean toward religious and conservative. It is the thinnest of ties keeping the black vote tethered to the Democratic party, and it won't take much to sever it. Sanders made the right choice by adding black lives matter to his website yesterday and officially including it in his platform, and addressing it immediately in Portland. That might not be enough to make up for the mistake he made by not having it in his platform from day one.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 10, 2015, 05:58:54 PM
Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on August 10, 2015, 05:52:56 PM
There is something really nasty about the "support for your side is conditional, based on politeness" narrative...

I'll admit that my immediate response was "why the FUCK are they doing this to the one candidate who seems most likely to be receptive to your message." But, I guess he really WAS receptive to their message, in spite of that?

I dunno. My gut reaction sure felt a lot like standard white, educated liberal hand-wringing, and it's hard for me to shake that impression. But my gut is for processing shit, not politics, so maybe it demands re-examination.

My support for things like Black Live Matter (and the understanding that shit like #AllLivesMatter is a way of hijacking the message to render it meaningless) is definitely not conditional based on politeness. This event doesn't make me want to turn against it. But I'm struggling with trying to figure out if it was the politically astute thing to do.

BLM is important to everyone, whether or not they realize it.

But seizing the stage isn't impoliteness.  It conveys a completely different message.

Yes. What it conveys is "Stop letting police murder us or we're going to fuck your shit up".
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Cainad (dec.)

That Sanders had the black vote is totally something I assumed. Damn it.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on August 10, 2015, 05:52:56 PM
There is something really nasty about the "support for your side is conditional, based on politeness" narrative...

I'll admit that my immediate response was "why the FUCK are they doing this to the one candidate who seems most likely to be receptive to your message." But, I guess he really WAS receptive to their message, in spite of that?

I dunno. My gut reaction sure felt a lot like standard white, educated liberal hand-wringing, and it's hard for me to shake that impression. But my gut is for processing shit, not politics, so maybe it demands re-examination.

My support for things like Black Live Matter (and the understanding that shit like #AllLivesMatter is a way of hijacking the message to render it meaningless) is definitely not conditional based on politeness. This event doesn't make me want to turn against it. But I'm struggling with trying to figure out if it was the politically astute thing to do.

Yes, there is something HORRIBLE about "if we don't like your manners, we'll disregard your message" when the message is PEOPLE BEING MURDERED IN THE STREETS. I mean, really, really, bad, deep-down ugly horrible.

And, as their press release makes extremely clear, they targeted Sanders because he ALMOST gets it. They targeted him because they want him to represent them. Because they want to vote for him.


"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Cainad (dec.)

Right... and the reactions on FB and most media are tut-tutting their form, as per usual.

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

If the Republican party abandoned the "pandering-to-the-negrophobes" white flight strategy they've been rolling with since Nixon, they would recapture the black vote in a heartbeat. I guarantee it.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Cainad (dec.) on August 10, 2015, 06:11:43 PM
Right... and the reactions on FB and most media are tut-tutting their form, as per usual.

Oh, yeah. Completely. The worst thing about Bernie Sanders is his supporters; the angry white liberal backlash is enough to turn my stomach.
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

"Poor form, poor form... if you had just continued to ask politely, we would have supported you, but since you didn't, I'm afraid I'll have to punish you by ignoring the fact that our police just keep slaughtering your kids without repercussions".

"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Doktor Howl

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on August 10, 2015, 06:01:53 PM
THE ASSUMPTION THAT BLACKS ARE LIBERAL IS A STUPID ONE.

That leaves Blacks in an interesting situation.

They can be conservative, which is more or less suicide (given the conservative approach to police shootings and, for that matter, Blacks in general).
They can be apolitical, which simply removes their voice.
They can start another political movement entirely, with a base of 13-19%.

In short, the Black vote isn't a kingmaker in this election; it is a king-breaker, but limited to breaking the candidate that is most sympathetic to BLM.  The Black vote is too small and spread out among electoral districts to affect any of the other candidates in this particular election.  The GOP is ignoring it entirely, and HRC assumes (probably correctly) that she'll get half the Black vote in the face of the GOP no matter what she does or does not do...But that she will probably still win without it.

Personally, I find the most important issue to be the environment, as it's a species survival thing.  He talked about that for the same amount of time that he talked about BLM last night.

I'm still going to vote for him, because I have a good idea of how he'd act as president...Which is to say, far better than any of the other candidates, on either BLM or the environment.

Molon Lube

Cainad (dec.)

I think the reason that narrative got me hook-line-and-sinker is not so much because it made my monocle pop out and fall into my free-range organic quinoa-kale smoothie, but because it was very easy for me to accept the idea that members of the religious right were deliberately trying to provoke dissent in the ranks.

But I probably had the wrong of it.

Doktor Howl

Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on August 10, 2015, 06:13:51 PM
If the Republican party abandoned the "pandering-to-the-negrophobes" white flight strategy they've been rolling with since Nixon, they would recapture the black vote in a heartbeat. I guarantee it.

That has in fact been their base since LBJ signed the civil rights act.  If they go against it, they lose 14 states minimum.  Not gonna happen.

Molon Lube

Mesozoic Mister Nigel

https://www.facebook.com/BLMSeattle/posts/716844418437393

QuotePRESS RELEASE: Black Lives Matter Seattle ‪#‎BowDownBernie‬ Action
MEDIA CONTACTS: Marissa Johnson (360) 840-6234 blacklivesmatterseattle@gmail.com
Black Lives Matter Seattle organizers and supporters take over Bernie Sanders' rally at Westlake on Saturday, August 8, 2015.

Today BLM Seattle, with the support of other Black organizers and non-Black allies and accomplices, held Bernie Sanders publicly accountable for his lack of support for the Black Lives Matter movement and his blatantly silencing response to the ‪#‎SayHerName‬ ‪#‎IfIDieInPoliceCustody‬ action that took place at Netroots this year.

Bernie's arrival in Seattle is largely significant in the context of the state of emergency Black lives are in locally as well as across America. The Seattle Police Department has been under federal consent decree for the last three years and has been continually plagued by use-of-force violations and racist scandals amongst their rank and file. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray has refused to push any reform measures for police accountability, not even the numerous recommendations of his self-appointed Community Police Commission. The Seattle School District suspends Black students at a rate six times higher than their white counterparts, feeding Black children into the school-to-prison pipeline. King County has fought hard to push through a plan to build a $210 million new youth jail to imprison these children, amid intense community criticism and dissent. The Central District, a historically Black neighborhood in Seattle, has undergone rapid gentrification over the past few decades, with Black people being displaced from the only neighborhood that we could legally live in until just years ago. While white men profit off of the legalization of marijuana, our prisons are still filled with Black people who are over-incarcerated for drug offenses.

This city is filled with white progressives, which is why Bernie Sanders' camp was obviously expecting a friendly and consenting audience for today's campaign visit. The problem with Sanders', and with white Seattle progressives in general, is that they are utterly and totally useless (when not outright harmful) in terms of the fight for Black lives. While we are drowning in their liberal rhetoric, we have yet to see them support Black grassroots movements or take on any measure of risk and responsibility for ending the tyranny of white supremacy in our country and in our city. This willful passivity while claiming solidarity with the ‪#‎BlackLivesMatter‬ movement in an effort to be relevant is over. White progressive Seattle and Bernie Sanders cannot call themselves liberals while they participate in the racist system that claims Black lives. Bernie Sanders will not continue to call himself a man of the people, while ignoring the plight of Black people. Presidential candidates will not win Black votes without putting out an explicit criminal justice reform package. As was said at the Netroots action, presidential candidates should expect to be shut down and confronted every step along the way of this presidential campaign. Black people are in a state of emergency. Lines have been drawn in the sand. You are either fighting continuously and measurably to protect Black life in America, or you are a part of the white supremacist system that we will tear down in the liberation of our people.

On this, nearly the one year anniversary of the ruthless murder of Mike Brown, we honor Black lives lost by doing the unthinkable, the unapologetic, and the unrespectable. Out of radical love for our Black brothers and sisters, we put our lives and our bodies on the line to testify to their persecution and resilience. We join together in Black love to #SayHerName and declare that #BlackLivesMatter, understanding that our love will disrupt the complicity and corruption of our anti-Black society; GOP, Democrat, and otherwise.

There is no business as usual while Black lives are lost. We will ensure this by any means necessary.

With the strength of our ancestors and for the future of our children,
Black Lives Matter Seattle Co-Founders
Marissa Johnson and Mara Willaford
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 10, 2015, 06:22:46 PM
Quote from: Mesozoic Mister Nigel on August 10, 2015, 06:01:53 PM
THE ASSUMPTION THAT BLACKS ARE LIBERAL IS A STUPID ONE.

That leaves Blacks in an interesting situation.

They can be conservative, which is more or less suicide (given the conservative approach to police shootings and, for that matter, Blacks in general).
They can be apolitical, which simply removes their voice.
They can start another political movement entirely, with a base of 13-19%.

In short, the Black vote isn't a kingmaker in this election; it is a king-breaker, but limited to breaking the candidate that is most sympathetic to BLM.  The Black vote is too small and spread out among electoral districts to affect any of the other candidates in this particular election.  The GOP is ignoring it entirely, and HRC assumes (probably correctly) that she'll get half the Black vote in the face of the GOP no matter what she does or does not do...But that she will probably still win without it.

Personally, I find the most important issue to be the environment, as it's a species survival thing.  He talked about that for the same amount of time that he talked about BLM last night.

I'm still going to vote for him, because I have a good idea of how he'd act as president...Which is to say, far better than any of the other candidates, on either BLM or the environment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/13/opinion/charles-blow-race-to-the-finish.html
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."