US Elections 2020

[blackchubby38]

Kayne West is a hip hop artist and a Trump Supporter,Fanboy and Sellout,No i don't he is serious about running for president. He just doing this take votes away from Joe Biden.

Let me ask you a question,

What exactly makes Kayne a sellout?

[MrFanti]

Hard to believe Biden is "the best of the bunch".
Especially since he supported segregation.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/joe-biden-didn-t-just-compromise-segregationists-he-fought-their-n1021626

Joe Biden didn't just compromise with segregationists. He fought for their cause in schools, experts say.

IMHO, Tulsi Gabbard was the best of the Democrats....

[MrFanti]

Kayne West is a hip hop artist and a Trump Supporter,Fanboy and Sellout,No i don't he is serious about running for president. He just doing this take votes away from Joe Biden.

This guy is spot on in a lot areas...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2nQXzS8vsE

[Stavros]

The video addresses some issues while ignoring others. The extent to which Black Americans are the authors of their own problems is one that can be debated without a conclusion: if job opportunities are scarce and no capital invested in an individual to start a business, and if the person concerned has no education, the illegal trade in narcotics looks more than attractive, it may be all there is. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle of poverty=crime=lethal violence, The Wire as documentary rather than fiction. But isn't drug dealing a business too? Just because it is illegal, doesn't mean the traders don't learn how to trade.

Yes, the political parties promise everything to get the vote, they do it for all the 'communities' they appeal to, just as Reagan atracted Blue Collar workers who normally voted Democrat- and presided over the sharpest rise in unemployment since the 1930s, left office with the biggest budget deficit in US History, and was the President when jobs were off-shored to Asia, the very jobs that the Blue Collar voters had when they voted for him, or Clinton, when the process accelerated in the 1990s. The Democrats over time lost the reliablility of the Blue Collar vote, and complacency has maintained their overtures to the Black Vote -but has the protest against it through the 2016 vote improved the lives of either community?

The process was shaped by the ways in which capitalism has changed the way goods are made, and where, and make no mistake, however the President or, in his book, John Bolton claim China has 'ripped off' the US, the deal was that Americans invested in China would also get their cut, to the tune of billions of dollars. One businessman's resentment that he was not allowed in to China ought not to shape US trade policy, as it has to the detriment of Black and Blue Collar workers, but as Americans charge too much for their labour, how else were corporations to make a profit? In nearly four years, how many jobs shipped overseas have been 'repatriated'?

Both parties in the US have been plugged in to the same circuits of capital that worship the financials rather than the people, and it may be in the 21st century the US needs to reform its modes of political representation, but even in 2015 when the video was made, as today, what does this man have to say about voter suppression, when Black Americans are often the target community?

Libertarian politics begs so many questions: government may be the obstacle to progress and individual liberty, but without it, who is going to employ the majority of African Americans who work for the Federal or State Government and their agencies? The public sector has grown because Government has taken on more responsibility for market operations than used to be the case, because markets don't deliver jobs as Libertarians claim, and one wonders what a Libertarian America would have, indeed, could have done to tackle Covid-19 if in the US everyone was 'on their own' to make the best of life on their own wits, skills and ambition with no health care, no Medicare, nothing?
And when he criticises Obama for doing nothing in his first term, what about health care? Plus the fact that when he became President the US was losing 800,000 jobs a month, which he reversed through the rescue of a banking system on the verge of collapse, creating the conditions for economic recovery, even if many of the 'new jobs' created were low-skilled, low-paid, zero-hours contacts etc, but 'a job is a job and better than nothing'- does this not merit some praise, given that Black Americans in 2008 were more likely to lose those jobs, and are mired in debt because of health care costs?

In assigning personal responsibility to collective problems, lies the pivot of controversy. Of course individuals can make their own way, Black or White, but they also rely on the network of support that the capitalist system provides, but do Black entrepreneurs get the same opportunities as the others? And if the political system is there to enable parties to change laws and regulations, have the Democrats been so bad for Black or all Americans with their policies on the environment, on voting rights, on social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage? It is easy to be cynical about Democrat politicies and policies, but since 2015 the full frontal assault that the new 'Republican' party (if indeed it is Republican) has embarked on, has not only sought to reverse every policy made when Obama was President, it is doing so in large part because Republicans cannot and will not accept a Black Man in the White House.

And if a Libertarian replies, so what? Prove in some way that not having Federal Government and taxes benefits Black Americans the same as every other American, because unless Libertarian politics offers equal opportunities, it will fail, and fail with even worse consequences for the losers when there is no welfare, no safety net. Libertarian politics is a fantasy, the very real issues Black Americans have to deal with, many of which exist in other communities too (why do gangs exist where they exist?) are in some parts their own to deal with, but do not take place isolated from the US economy, at either the Federal or local level, and if Black Mayors rule over problem cities, is that because Democrats are inherently incompetent, that they just use their funds for themselves, or because the financial base of their administation is so weak in a culture where taxation is some sort of sin against human nature, rather than being the tool that invests in services and jobs?

[Stavros]

The YouTube source of the video posted by Mr Fanti links to the one below, referring to Jason Riley and his book, which is quoted at the start saying:

'The sober truth is that the most important civil rights battles were fought and won 4 decades before the Obama Presidency'

-He forgot to add, 'But the war against those rights continued' -hard to believe that someone writing for the Wall St Journal is so ignorant of his own history, but maybe that is how he got his job? I guess he has never heard of the Cato Institute, the American Enterprise Institute, the Koch Bros, and associated people and groups determined to not only not accept the Civil Rights legislation of the 1960s, but as I write have lawsuits and campaigns to carry on reversing them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zorEMP8GxBA

[broncofan]

Let me ask you a question,

What exactly makes Kayne a sellout?
If this were a discussion about what makes someone a sellout to Black people I wouldn't offer an opinion out of respect.

I suppose the question I have is whether the idea of someone being considered a "sellout" assumes a particular role in society for members of the group they are presumed to have sold out. In that sense, I kind of have stayed away from similar terms even when they involve my own ethnic/religious group because I think they make assumptions about how Black people/Muslims/Gay men or women should act.

Another perspective would be that any time someone is called a "sellout" one might ask whether their behavior is only objectionable because they are a member of a particular minority group or whether it can be condemned in general terms. I would condemn Kanye's support of Trump in general terms, though I'm fairly extreme, in that I lose respect for people if I find they support Trump.

I think Trump has debased the country and our values and has done a lot to promote racism. It's difficult for me to take someone seriously if they honestly think he's good for this country.

[blackchubby38]

If this were a discussion about what makes someone a sellout to Black people I wouldn't offer an opinion out of respect.

I suppose the question I have is whether the idea of someone being considered a "sellout" assumes a particular role in society for members of the group they are presumed to have sold out. In that sense, I kind of have stayed away from similar terms even when they involve my own ethnic/religious group because I think they make assumptions about how Black people/Muslims/Gay men or women should act.

Another perspective would be that any time someone is called a "sellout" one might ask whether their behavior is only objectionable because they are a member of a particular minority group or whether it can be condemned in general terms. I would condemn Kanye's support of Trump in general terms, though I'm fairly extreme, in that I lose respect for people if I find they support Trump.

I think Trump has debased the country and our values and has done a lot to promote racism. It's difficult for me to take someone seriously if they honestly think he's good for this country.

Its fair to disagree with someone if the politician they support goes against your own political views and you think said politician has been terrible at his job and has done many of things that Trump has done.

Its also fair to call someone a "sellout" if they indeed sold out or compromised on what they believed in for some type of financial gain. Some would say that as progressive and as social justice minded as the NBA is, they "sold out" when it came to criticizing China over their treatment of Hong Kong because of their business relationship with the country.

But what is not fair is to call a member of a particular minority group, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion a "sellout" if they decide to have differing set of political views from what is the status quo. Black people are not monolithic. We all don't talk the same, come from same places, and sometimes don't share the same life experiences. So why should we be expected to all vote the same.

In all honesty, I find calling a black person a "sellout" more offensive then using the N word.

[MrFanti]

But what is not fair is to call a member of a particular minority group, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion a "sellout" if they decide to have differing set of political views from what is the status quo. Black people are not monolithic. We all don't talk the same, come from same places, and sometimes don't share the same life experiences. So why should we be expected to all vote the same.

In all honesty, I find calling a black person a "sellout" more offensive then using the N word.

WORD!!!

The problem is that the Mainstream Media only portrays the Black Democrats/Left - and the Mainstream Media DO NOT portray Independent and Libertarian Blacks.....(and only give little coverage to the Republican Blacks)
And thus the non-Black general public is getting a skewed and slanted perspective on the Black community

And yes, I am a Black male...

[KnightHawk 2.0]

Let me ask you a question,

What exactly makes Kayne a sellout?Kayne West's support for Donald Trump, A person who called for the death penalty for the central park five {5 african-american and latino teenagers} who was accused and indicted for assault and rape of a 28 year white female jogger in 1989, and even though charges against them were vacated 13 years later,he still though they were guilty,created the birther movement in 2011 by claiming that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States,even though he was,In 2017 called african-american athletes sons of bitches because they were kneeling during the national anthem,and protesting police brutality and racial injustice,referring to predominately african countries as shitholes, calling the black lives matter murial in front of his fifth avenue residence a symbol of hate,using tear gas,flashbang grenades,pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse peaceful protesters so he can take a photo op in front of a church,calling confederate monuments magnificent and stoking fear and division on the daily basis on social media and other despicable acts he has done over the years.

[MrFanti]

Kayne West's support for Donald Trump, A person who called for the death penalty for the central park five {5 african-american and latino teenagers} who was accused and indicted for assault and rape of a 28 year white female jogger in 1989, and even though charges against them were vacated 13 years later,he still though they were guilty,created the birther movement in 2011 by claiming that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States,even though he was,In 2017 called african-american athletes sons of bitches because they were kneeling during the national anthem,and protesting police brutality and racial injustice,referring to predominately african countries as shitholes, calling the black lives matter murial in front of his fifth avenue residence a symbol of hate,using tear gas,flashbang grenades,pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse peaceful protesters so he can take a photo op in front of a church,calling confederate monuments magnificent and stoking fear and division on the daily basis on social media and other despicable acts he has done over the years.

Are you prepared to call all these people "sell-outs" as well then?

[MrFanti]

Kayne West's support for Donald Trump, A person who called for the death penalty for the central park five {5 african-american and latino teenagers} who was accused and indicted for assault and rape of a 28 year white female jogger in 1989, and even though charges against them were vacated 13 years later,he still though they were guilty,created the birther movement in 2011 by claiming that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States,even though he was,In 2017 called african-american athletes sons of bitches because they were kneeling during the national anthem,and protesting police brutality and racial injustice,referring to predominately african countries as shitholes, calling the black lives matter murial in front of his fifth avenue residence a symbol of hate,using tear gas,flashbang grenades,pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse peaceful protesters so he can take a photo op in front of a church,calling confederate monuments magnificent and stoking fear and division on the daily basis on social media and other despicable acts he has done over the years.

Is Jesse Jackson a Sell-Out too?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5lcART6TTE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNqKmnP9-M4

[blackchubby38]

Kayne West's support for Donald Trump, A person who called for the death penalty for the central park five {5 african-american and latino teenagers} who was accused and indicted for assault and rape of a 28 year white female jogger in 1989, and even though charges against them were vacated 13 years later,he still though they were guilty,created the birther movement in 2011 by claiming that Barack Obama wasn't born in the United States,even though he was,In 2017 called african-american athletes sons of bitches because they were kneeling during the national anthem,and protesting police brutality and racial injustice,referring to predominately african countries as shitholes, calling the black lives matter murial in front of his fifth avenue residence a symbol of hate,using tear gas,flashbang grenades,pepper spray and rubber bullets to disperse peaceful protesters so he can take a photo op in front of a church,calling confederate monuments magnificent and stoking fear and division on the daily basis on social media and other despicable acts he has done over the years.

Yes we all know about Trump's history when it comes to blacks and other minorities. But if Kayne West or any other black person wants to continue to support him for their own personal reasons, then that's there right as an American. As for calling him a sellout, see my previous post:

But what is not fair is to call a member of a particular minority group, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion a "sellout" if they decide to have differing set of political views from what is the status quo. Black people are not monolithic. We all don't talk the same, come from same places, and sometimes don't share the same life experiences. So why should we be expected to all vote the same.

Now I will say this. I don't think Kayne is serious about running for President. I mean this country is truly finished then if those are only three individuals that we could find to run for the most important position in the free world.

But if he is doing it as a favor for Trump and not for "altruistic" reasons, then he can go fuck off.

[broncofan]

I agree with you that minorities should not have constraints on who they vote for or what parties they are expected to support.

In the case of Kanye, I do think supporting Trump will make it difficult for him to weigh in on civil rights issues without being called a hypocrite. Yesterday Donald Trump went on twitter to ask why Bubba Wallace wasn't apologizing and to imply Nascar's lower ratings were the result of them wanting to get rid of the Confederate flag. The racism is even more flagrant now than when he was running in 2016 and people's fatigue in dealing with it is clear.

I don't think Biden is an especially strong candidate but he has experience and is a like-able guy. As for Trump and Kanye, I'd say they're both megalomaniacs with an inflated sense of self-importance who overestimate their own intelligence. Even without ideology I would trust Biden to do a serious and competent job before Trump. In your cynicism about the candidates you maybe forget some of what makes Trump extraordinary and dangerous.

[MrFanti]

But what is not fair is to call a member of a particular minority group, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion a "sellout" if they decide to have differing set of political views from what is the status quo. Black people are not monolithic. We all don't talk the same, come from same places, and sometimes don't share the same life experiences. So why should we be expected to all vote the same.


Again, WORD!!!!
And like I said earlier, the general public is getting a skewed and slanted view of the Black community due to the pretty much ZERO reporting of Independent and Libertarian Blacks.....

And yes, I am a Black male....

[Stavros]

Again, WORD!!!!
And like I said earlier, the general public is getting a skewed and slanted view of the Black community due to the pretty much ZERO reporting of Independent and Libertarian Blacks.....
And yes, I am a Black male....

There is a limit to what I can say about the US media as I am not plugged into it, and I do think there is scope for a broader debate about politics beyond the two-party dominance. I think your problem is that the Libertarian argument is academic and in practical terms close to worthless. It might have Rupert Murdoch as its champion, his attempt to recruit the 45th President to roll back the frontiers of Government, reduce taxes, and end welfare has proven to be a false promise: the 45th President has smothered American Government in a swamp of corruption and lies while increasing the volume of funds the Federal Govt pumps into the economy, where a Libertarian would not spend so much as a quarter.

Black or white, Libertarian ideas have a credibilty gap so in a way it is a pity they cannot be aired more in the media so that people can understand what nonsense it is. Rand Paul would be a delight, as his record shows -for a man who thinks Government should be all but aboished, he was very keen at one time to decide he should take his own initiatives on foreign policy with regard to US/Iran relations, leaving Bolton to refer to him, sarcastically as 'Secretary of State Paul'- the man should in theory not have a foreign policy at all. For Libertarians there are markets and individuals, and nothing else.
There are many ways Black Americans can improve their lives without being dependent on the State, yet so many Corporations depend on State support, one wonders why Black Entrepreneurs don't get the same tax holidays/sweetheart deals their competitors do -or maybe they do? I see that Kanye person has had a hand-out from the tax-payer in the form of a loan somewhere between $5-10 million, so maybe I just wrong.

Incidentally, and not of much relevance to you, here in the UK Paris Dennard has been on both the BBC-2 Newsnight programme and Channel 4 News a few times, defending the current administration, as both Channels do interviews supporters who are not elected officials.

Can I also point out the lack of Black senior officials in the US Government? If Black Republicans are to be admired, maybe they should get some of the top jobs, as happened with Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell? In the UK, two of the most senior positions in Government, Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, are held by Asians (Priti Patel and Rishi Sunak, respectively), and we have had junior ministers with African ancesty -and in the Conservative Party! I don't rate them highly because I am not a Conservative, but when it comes to 'minority representation', why are US Conservatives so backward?

Could it be that the 45th President, having ridiculed Black people as 'stupid and lazy' -including the 44th President- just doesn't trust them with the responsibilities of high office?

[MrFanti]

There is a limit to what I can say about the US media as I am not plugged into it, and I do think there is scope for a broader debate about politics beyond the two-party dominance. I think your problem is that the Libertarian argument is academic and in practical terms close to worthless. It might have Rupert Murdoch as its champion, his attempt to recruit the 45th President to roll back the frontiers of Government, reduce taxes, and end welfare has proven to be a false promise: the 45th President has smothered American Government in a swamp of corruption and lies while increasing the volume of funds the Federal Govt pumps into the economy, where a Libertarian would not spend so much as a quarter.

Black or white, Libertarian ideas have a credibilty gap so in a way it is a pity they cannot be aired more in the media so that people can understand what nonsense it is. Rand Paul would be a delight, as his record shows -for a man who thinks Government should be all but aboished, he was very keen at one time to decide he should take his own initiatives on foreign policy with regard to US/Iran relations, leaving Bolton to refer to him, sarcastically as 'Secretary of State Paul'- the man should in theory not have a foreign policy at all. For Libertarians there are markets and individuals, and nothing else.
There are many ways Black Americans can improve their lives without being dependent on the State, yet so many Corporations depend on State support, one wonders why Black Entrepreneurs don't get the same tax holidays/sweetheart deals their competitors do -or maybe they do? I see that Kanye person has had a hand-out from the tax-payer in the form of a loan somewhere between $5-10 million, so maybe I just wrong.

Incidentally, and not of much relevance to you, here in the UK Paris Dennard has been on both the BBC-2 Newsnight programme and Channel 4 News a few times, defending the current administration, as both Channels do interviews supporters who are not elected officials.

Can I also point out the lack of Black senior officials in the US Government? If Black Republicans are to be admired, maybe they should get some of the top jobs, as happened with Condoleeza Rice and Colin Powell? In the UK, two of the most senior positions in Government, Home Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, are held by Asians (Priti Patel and Rishi Sunak, respectively), and we have had junior ministers with African ancesty -and in the Conservative Party! I don't rate them highly because I am not a Conservative, but when it comes to 'minority representation', why are US Conservatives so backward?

Could it be that the 45th President, having ridiculed Black people as 'stupid and lazy' -including the 44th President- just doesn't trust them with the responsibilities of high office?

Democrats also have a credibility gap as they have tried to deny and/or skew their developing of Jim Crow Laws and Segregation (which the latter Joe Biden supported). - "Nonsense" is just your opinion - and you don't speak for all.
The main stream media is dominated by Democrat based media so of course, the general public is going to a skewed view of Independents and Libertarians. Look at the mayor history of these 3 major cities that have been run into the ground; Detroit, Chicago, and Baltimore. All 3 have continuous decades of mayors from the Democrat party - and not one single Independent, Libertarian, or Republican. So as Eric July (the Black Libertarian) stated in the video, to blame the Republicans for the failures of these cities makes absolutely no sense. And as far as Independents are concerned, Ross Perot IMHO would have made an excellent US President.

While I'm NOT a Trump supporter, your last statement is completely incorrect when you look at the growing number of Black voters that have/had left the Democrat party and voting for Trump. But I don't blame you because as I continually say, the Main Stream US media does not show Independent/Libertarian/Conservatives which is why your last statement is incorrect - you have a slanted view (thanks to the main stream media) of the Black community. And an interesting side note. Whether you're for Trump or despise him, his Prison Reform Act GREATLY helped Black Americans and most recently, his restoration of funding to historically Black Colleges (that ironically, was slashed by the Obama administration) has also helped the Black community as well and ***could*** explain (in part), the reason of the increase in Black voters to Trump.

And 2 things I said in cased you glossed over them.
1) I said I'm not a Trump supporter
2) Democrat Tulsi Gabbard is a much better candidate (IMHO) than Joe Biden - hands down.

The Black community is also divided on what exactly BLM actually means - and if you've seen CNN, I happen to side with Terry Crews and NOT Don Lemon. Statistically speaking, 6 children under the age of 10 were shot and killed by other Black Americans this past weekend. Where is "our" outrage over this (these types of senseless killings by "us") that has gone on for DECADES?

I get the police brutality aspect of it but GUESS WHAT? Statistically speaking, I as a Black man have a much greater chance of being killed by another Black man than I do by law enforcement........So yes, I stand on Terry Crew's side....

[MrFanti]

There is a limit to what I can say about the US media as I am not plugged into it,
Oh and to conclude..."blackchubby38" said it best:
"Black people are not monolithic."

But yet the mainstream media that you view shows us as monolithic

[holzz]

#kaynein

[filghy2]

I think your problem is that the Libertarian argument is academic and in practical terms close to worthless.

Covid-19 is the perfect demonstration of this. What would be the libertarian response? Let it rip and leave it to people to look after themselves?

[filghy2]

Democrats also have a credibility gap as they have tried to deny and/or skew their developing of Jim Crow Laws and Segregation (which the latter Joe Biden supported). - "Nonsense" is just your opinion - and you don't speak for all.

I think it is you who has the credibility gap. You seem to have overlooked the fact that Civil Rights legislation was implemented by a Democrat President and Congress, along with many other things that have happened since then. I'm surprised you didn't mention Abraham Lincoln.

It's one thing to be independent and make an effort to be open-minded. It's quite another thing to deliberately avoid acknowledging certain inconvenient truths as you have done consistently. Anyone who overlooks Trump's long history of racism and appealing to racism, such as documented in this article, is clearly making a concerted effort not to see certain things. https://www.vox.com/2016/7/25/12270880/donald-trump-racist-racism-history

It's not so much what you say - it's what you avoid saying. As I've pointed out numerous times, you don't seem to have ever uttered a single negative word about Trump or the Republican Party on this forum. A true independent is willing to criticise both sides where it is warranted - as blackchubby does. You, sir, are a phoney independent.

[Stavros]

I think it is you who has the credibility gap. You seem to have overlooked the fact that Civil Rights legislation was implemented by a Democrat President and Congress, along with many other things that have happened since then.

In addition to which that legislation was supported by many Republican members of House and Senate, which is why I think the 1960s is the pivotal decade in US politics in recent times.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=MrFanti;1935412]
Democrats also have a credibility gap as they have tried to deny and/or skew their developing of Jim Crow Laws and Segregation (which the latter Joe Biden supported). -
--One one level you are right, as history shows that Democrats in the South maintained segregation for most of the 100 years that passed between the end of the Civil War and the Civil Rights laws of 1965. You probably know that in the 1860s Democrats in the South wanted a Federal Slave Regulation Code rather than abolition, and that its rejection by Northern Democrats illustrated their fatal weakness. But you also know that over that 100 years the Republican and Democrat parties changed fundamentally, mostly because of the industrial revolution that transformed the geography of the lower 48, and that just as the Republicans became associated with the rich of Wall St, so with Roosevellt the Democrats became the party of blue collar workers, thus attracting Black Americans in the age when they had work, and crucially, the dignity of work. But crucial too is the fact that as the economy recovered, the Democrats were able to retain their support though I admit I don't know if more Black Americans voted for Eisenhower than had voted Republican before.
The killer for the Democrats, is that when LBJ embarked on his reforms in the 1960s, almost en masse the 'Dixiecrats' turned Red, and the South became a 'safe haven' for the Republicans. It is a fascinating transformation that begs questions about political culture in the US. You have the moral compromise in which Democrats accepted segregation as a 'fact of life' while supportig the emerging civil rights movement: the moral support undermined by practical inaction prior to LBJ.
You have the vicious opposition in the South to JFK as a Catholic, so that on hearing the news of his assassination, children in a Texas school broke into cheers and applause. You have, consequent to Civil Rights law, not just a growing and systemic opposition to all that rights legislation provided, but a growth in so-called 'Evangelical Christianity' which buttressed the foundational idea that Christianity is 'the very breath of American history'.
Allen Matusow, in The Unraveling of America (1984) provides a deep and sharply critical account of the 'Liberalism' of the 1960s that helps explain the ways in which the South changed, in which the issues unleashed in the 1960s so polarised opinion across the country, it was only a matter of time before someone like Gingrich could weaponise it, and make bi-partisan decision-making a form of treason -to his idea of Republican virtue.

The main stream media is dominated by Democrat based media so of course, the general public is going to a skewed view of Independents and Libertarians.
-What is the mainstream media, and does it include Fox News? I don't know a lot about it, but it seems to me that more and more Americans, probably a majority under the age of 30, don't watch it, and get their news from social media or sites like The Daily Beast or even Breitbart, which is not so much a news feed as a propaganda tool for extremists.
You are probably right with regard to the exposure of Lbertarian ideas in the media, but is it the case that MSM regularly interviews the Marxists who do want a revolution in the USA?

Look at the mayor history of these 3 major cities that have been run into the ground; Detroit, Chicago, and Baltimore. All 3 have continuous decades of mayors from the Democrat party - and not one single Independent, Libertarian, or Republican. So as Eric July (the Black Libertarian) stated in the video, to blame the Republicans for the failures of these cities makes absolutely no sense. And as far as Independents are concerned, Ross Perot IMHO would have made an excellent US President.
-Yes, but. What Detroit, Chicago and Baltimore share is their experience of industrial capitalism since the 1960s, summed up in the loss of blue collar jobs. In part due to automation in the motor industry, in part to over-capacity in the steel industry, the truth is there never were 'jobs for life' in those three cities, and as the city revenues declined so the struggle to provide services in education as well as maintaining jobs has hit these cities hard.
The key factor has been an aversion to taxation, with the consequence that Democrats are just as scared of taxes as Republican claim they don't need them. New York City was in crisis in the 1960s and 1970s when companes moved to New Jersey to avoid paying city taxes, but revived when Globalization made New York the epicentre of a financial revolution that made so much money the city could attract companies back without the fear of punitive taxation- throw in the demand for quality accommodation in Manhattan and you can see how the Borough was transformed. But in this sense, New York is blessed because of Wall St, where Baltimore is cursed because its source of jobs, in Steel, in the Dockyards, evaporated between the 1960s and 2008 -and with the continuing growth of AI and the social impact of Covid 19, the question now is whether cities can survive as they have before, or if the epicentre of State economies is going to move to the suburbs where people work from home.

And if you take away the dignity of work, what is left to sustain the person's valuation of themselves?

And what happened in Kansas when the Republican Governor decided to slash taxes? Within six months the state was almost bankrupt. And if the three cities you put in the dock have had Democrat Mayors that have failed to revive the economy to 1950s levels, why are so many Red states now dependent on Government contracts in the Defence industry, or loans to the tune of $12-14 billion a year to compensate farmers who have lost their jobs owing to tariffs on China? You are homing on Democrats when the villain in all this is, as usual, capitalism. Where is the honest critique of capitalism as it currently functions in the US?

While I'm NOT a Trump supporter, your last statement is completely incorrect when you look at the growing number of Black voters that have/had left the Democrat party and voting for Trump. But I don't blame you because as I continually say, the Main Stream US media does not show Independent/Libertarian/Conservatives which is why your last statement is incorrect - you have a slanted view (thanks to the main stream media) of the Black community. And an interesting side note. Whether you're for Trump or despise him, his Prison Reform Act GREATLY helped Black Americans and most recently, his restoration of funding to historically Black Colleges (that ironically, was slashed by the Obama administration) has also helped the Black community as well and ***could*** explain (in part), the reason of the increase in Black voters to Trump.
-Not a cop out but I don't know enough about these issues to debate them, though I believe Obama was the first President to actually visit a Federal penitentiary, and was concerned about the volume of prisoners incarcerated for trivial crimes, with many prisoners there because of the Clinton era 'reforms' that created a permanent criminal caste, unable to shake off their convictions to vote or get a job.

The Black community is also divided on what exactly BLM actually means - and if you've seen CNN, I happen to side with Terry Crews and NOT Don Lemon. Statistically speaking, 6 children under the age of 10 were shot and killed by other Black Americans this past weekend. Where is "our" outrage over this (these types of senseless killings by "us") that has gone on for DECADES?
-I can't comment on this as I don't watch CNN and don't know who Terry Crews and Don Lemon are.

I get the police brutality aspect of it but GUESS WHAT? Statistically speaking, I as a Black man have a much greater chance of being killed by another Black man than I do by law enforcement........So yes, I stand on Terry Crew's side....
-Do you not have an even greater chance of dying in a road traffic accident? Maybe it is time to bite the bullet on the 2nd Amendment and begin the agonising process of taking away the guns....

As for my last comment, you have not in fact addressed it: if the Republican Party has done so much for Black Americans, why are so few Black Republicans to be seen in Congress or the White House, compared to GW Bush who promoted Powell and Rice? There are many issues we have not touched on, and I do accept that it is facile to pigeon-hole Black Americans, or indeed, White Americans, but I feel that since the 1960s, the political culture of your country has embraced divisive ideologies that have deep roots, because Race has so permeated American life it is all but impossible to dilute it.
It is tragic, because beyond the cruelty, the hate and the mind-numbing ignorance, there are still so many things you should celebrate in the US. As I think I said in another thread, watching both the film Hidden Figures, and a documentary on NASA is to be reminded of what can be done when Americans produce something greater than themselves, when they respect each other as themselves.

[MrFanti]

As for my last comment, you have not in fact addressed it: if the Republican Party has done so much for Black Americans, why are so few Black Republicans to be seen in Congress or the White House, compared to GW Bush who promoted Powell and Rice?.
These are choices made by each individual POTUS that I can't answer. As far as congress is concerned, I would say that in part, it's due to the mis-information that many Black Americans have.

But remember, whether you agree or disagree with the current POTUS, the Prison Reform Act and restoration of funding has greatly helped Black Americans - and to be brutally honest, it amazes me that the Obama administration did NOT implement Prison Reform.

Now here's the kicker.

Under the Obama Administration, the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities definitely benefitted WAY MORE than they have under the Trump administration.

HOWEVER...

Under the Trump Administration, the Black community has benefitted more than they did under the Obama administration.

Now let's let's plug in the Black Church - which has been a huge framework within the Black community (despite MANY people on this forum mocking religion - if you want to understand Black America, then you have to understand the role of the Black Church within Black America)

And finally to conclude, more food for thought.
This video represent an aspect of Black America that you will not see via Democrat dominated mainstream media - and thus I'll continue to say that unfortunately, the result continues to be that folks like you continue to get as skewed and slanted view of the Black American community...

As "blackchubby38" said..."we are not monolithic" - And I'll we continually are portrayed as monolithic and that simply isn't the case.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F44ZKJ8FVJw

[MrFanti]

As for my last comment, you have not in fact addressed it: if the Republican Party has done so much for Black Americans, why are so few Black Republicans to be seen in Congress or the White House, compared to GW Bush who promoted Powell and Rice? There are many issues we have not touched on, and I do accept that it is facile to pigeon-hole Black Americans, or indeed, White Americans, but I feel that since the 1960s, the political culture of your country has embraced divisive ideologies that have deep roots, because Race has so permeated American life it is all but impossible to dilute it.

Addendum: Here's some additional food for thought.
The Black Democrat community LOVES Malcolm X - and of course, its understandably why.

HOWEVER, once again, a VERY IMPORTANT belief of Malcom X is conveniently ignored and/or omitted that if Blacks truly knew about and understood, then you might see more Black Independents/Libertarians/Republicans in congress.
Lucky for us, digital media has it preserved.

Now just listen to this speech by Malcom X....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7QxccW72qU

[broncofan]

I can't know for certain why there aren't more Black Republicans. It is possible that having an attorney general in Jeff Sessions who wanted to prosecute universities with affirmative action programs for civil rights infractions when white supremacist groups are rampant in this country is one reason. Maybe because the Republican President wants to preserve Confederate statues, has come out in defense of the Confederate flag, and dogwhistles anti-Black racism. BTW one can disagree with affirmative action without thinking we should prosecute universities for civil rights infractions for trying to make their student bodies more diverse. That said, I have no criticism for Black Republicans that I wouldn't have for Republicans generally. I'm just pointing out that I'm not overly surprised Republicans are not popular with most minority groups.

I just want to finish by saying I called Kanye a megalomaniac. He's worse than that. He's a complete fool. https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1280823740780236801

[MrFanti]

I can't know for certain why there aren't more Black Republicans. It is possible that having an attorney general in Jeff Sessions who wanted to prosecute universities with affirmative action programs for civil rights infractions when white supremacist groups are rampant in this country is one reason. Maybe because the Republican President wants to preserve Confederate statues, has come out in defense of the Confederate flag, and dogwhistles anti-Black racism. BTW one can disagree with affirmative action without thinking we should prosecute universities for civil rights infractions for trying to make their student bodies more diverse. That said, I have no criticism for Black Republicans that I wouldn't have for Republicans generally. I'm just pointing out that I'm not overly surprised Republicans are not popular with most minority groups.

I just want to finish by saying I called Kanye a megalomaniac. He's worse than that. He's a complete fool. https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1280823740780236801

I would say it goes back to the Malcolm X speech in that Black Americans simply ignored and/or didn't listen to Malcolm X

Basically, Malcom X is saying that "we" don't have to vote Republican - but we should not vote Democrat like a bunch of lemmings every election.
Case in point are cities/mayor issues of cities 'run into the ground' as Libertarian Eric July stated and I said, the election data of Chicago, Detroit, and Baltimore prove both X's and July's points.

And to be honest, Black America wants to get more action rather than mouth from the Democratic Party, then IMHO, Black America should in mass for the next Independent candidate.

HOWEVER, there are elements within the BLM movement that want to establish a separate "BLM" political party. IF this happens (a separate BLM political party), then my guess is that you'd see the Democrats in full panic mode and actually start doing things rather than mouthing things.

That being said, there are more Black Republicans amongst the people/voters than what a lot of people think & that number is slowly growing...

[blackchubby38]

I think the main reason why there aren't more black Republicans is because the party is primarily responsible for the one thing that has had a negative impact on the black and Latino community for over 40 years. Something that has been complete and abject failure. Despite that failure, it is still going on today.

That would be the war on drugs. It started with Nixon, but kicked in the high gear under both Reagan and H.W. Bush. You can argue that it helped contribute to the fractured relationship between the police and the black community. It led to the creation of unfair prison sentencing laws. It caused a domino effect that led to the passing of the 1994 Crime Bill. Which as I have said before, parts of which that I don't have a problem with. But that law was definitely passed with the war on drugs in mind.

Also while I'm all in favor of the Prison Reform being passed. Lets be perfectly honest about something. The main reason why some Republicans have had an epiphany on the war on drugs is because of the impact the opioid epidemic has had on their base. Or more importantly, the children and the grandchildren of their base.

[blackchubby38]

I would say it goes back to the Malcolm X speech in that Black Americans simply ignored and/or didn't listen to Malcolm X

Basically, Malcom X is saying that "we" don't have to vote Republican - but we should not vote Democrat like a bunch of lemmings every election.
Case in point are cities/mayor issues of cities 'run into the ground' as Libertarian Eric July stated and I said, the election data of Chicago, Detroit, and Baltimore prove both X's and July's points.

And to be honest, Black America wants to get more action rather than mouth from the Democratic Party, then IMHO, Black America should in mass for the next Independent candidate.

HOWEVER, there are elements within the BLM movement that want to establish a separate "BLM" political party. IF this happens (a separate BLM political party), then my guess is that you'd see the Democrats in full panic mode and actually start doing things rather than mouthing things.

That being said, there are more Black Republicans amongst the people/voters than what a lot of people think & that number is slowly growing...

I think for the most part Democrats have done things for the black community. But what they have done and the impact it has had, is whole different discussion for another day.

When it comes to BLM, I don't see them forming their own party. What I can see happening is that between them and the Democratic Socialists of America taking over the Democratic party and forcing the moderates and even some liberals out of it. I think this will especially happen if Biden, a candidate that they didn't want in the first place loses to Trump in November.

While I think in short term that would be bad for the country, in the long term it might be want this country needs Maybe the moderates from both parties will come together and give people who are sick and tired of partisan politics a third option at the polls.

[trish]

We are effectively a two party nation. If you don't vote Democratic, then you're handing the election to the Republicans. If you want representation you've got to take over a major party or at least establish your power within a major party. That's what evangelists did, what tea-baggers did, what gun nuts did and what Trump exploited. It may be harder to do in the Democratic Party because it's larger and more diverse. Than again maybe that'll make it easier. Liberals voting third party is always bad news.

[MrFanti]

What I can see happening is that between them and the Democratic Socialists of America taking over the Democratic party and forcing the moderates and even some liberals out of it. I think this will especially happen if Biden, a candidate that they didn't want in the first place loses to Trump in November.

While I think in short term that would be bad for the country, in the long term it might be want this country needs Maybe the moderates from both parties will come together and give people who are sick and tired of partisan politics a third option at the polls.

I generally agree with you here (not completely but I see where you're coming from)
And I'll add that the reason why both Trump and Sanders rose to power is due to BOTH parties being sick of 'partisan politics' (like you stated) - and additionally, BOTH parties being tired of establishment politicians.
Trump is not a Republican just like Sanders is not a Democrat - each just picked a side that would give them the best chance of winning.

[Stavros]

These are choices made by each individual POTUS that I can't answer. As far as congress is concerned, I would say that in part, it's due to the mis-information that many Black Americans have.
But remember, whether you agree or disagree with the current POTUS, the Prison Reform Act and restoration of funding has greatly helped Black Americans - and to be brutally honest, it amazes me that the Obama administration did NOT implement Prison Reform.

Now here's the kicker.

Under the Obama Administration, the LGBTQ and Hispanic communities definitely benefitted WAY MORE than they have under the Trump administration.

HOWEVER...

Under the Trump Administration, the Black community has benefitted more than they did under the Obama administration.

Now let's let's plug in the Black Church - which has been a huge framework within the Black community (despite MANY people on this forum mocking religion - if you want to understand Black America, then you have to understand the role of the Black Church within Black America)

And finally to conclude, more food for thought.
This video represent an aspect of Black America that you will not see via Democrat dominated mainstream media - and thus I'll continue to say that unfortunately, the result continues to be that folks like you continue to get as skewed and slanted view of the Black American community...

As "blackchubby38" said..."we are not monolithic" - And I'll we continually are portrayed as monolithic and that simply isn't the case.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F44ZKJ8FVJw

I hope I have not given the impression I think Black Americans are all the same, it is has not been my intention to say so. I can't really discuss Black Churches other than to wonder if 'their' Christianity is different from the kind represented by say, Pastor Jeffress and Pastor White. I was raised in a Christian household and don't understand where these people are coming from, let alone where they are going to. As 'Malcolm X' might argue, many if not most West African slaves might have been Muslims, but did they need to believe in the salvation of Jesus Christ and the Resurretion as the only hope they had of living a better life? This is what Malcolm would probably dismiss as being another form of slavery, an emotional one. It is a bit odd to refer to it, perhaps, but in Eastern Nigeria after the devastation of the Biafran secession, there was a surge in the number of people, not just Igbo who embraced an eschatological vision of Christianity, as if the reality of life on Earth in the here and now was too bleak to contemplate -or change.

Thereagain, when Jeremiah Wright from the pulpit chanted 'God Damn America' it was because he believed that by ignoring the scriptures, America had lost its way, that it was not truly a nation of faith. But how would any politician implement the scriptures when they are part of a pick'n mix menu and Pastors of any colour choose the cherries that make their pie taste the best? I am not longer a practising Christian, but I wouldn't eat an American pie that offers bait and switch rather than a purity of faith that can not be realised in everyday life outside of various legal measures to ban Abortion, Homosexuality and anything 'transgendered' as well as Divorce; laws that insist the Government can and indeed, must control your body and your mind. Does this mean Black Christians in America are homophobic because of their Christian faith? Not being monolithic, I guess some are, some aren't.

I don't know enough about prison reform to comment, but I assume it was a rare example these days of bi-partisan co-operation in Congress, and doubt the President even read the Act, but was given an A4 precis with photos and bullet points prepared by Under-President Kushner.

Under the Trump Administration, the Black community has benefitted more than they did under the Obama administration.
-How? Not being a community in the first place, according to you, what benefits have disabled Black Americans received from an administration that is taking the axe to the Americans with Disabilities Act? By your own meaure, the advances made for all LGBTQ Americans must also include the Black Transgendered Americans whose rights are being taken away, not protected or extended. As for health care, how many Black Americans are either losing their access to health care, or can't get it because of -pre-existing' conditions, and how many are mired in debt because of the costs of health care for members of their families? Your Government gives away trillions of dollars in relief, in loans, in compensation for jobs lost to tariffs on China -with that kind of money it could probaby have paid off every debt owed by Black Americans, but has not -the priority has been to help the rich.

The first video is a good one, but I recall some of the Feminists in the 1960s went way beyond campaigning for wage equality or reasonable issues that most people could identify with and support, and I think in the US there are extremes in social movements that do make mistakes, as the speaker identiifies -incidentally, I had no idea there was a statue of Lenin in the USA, so that was a revelation. Even odder, one of my closest friends met Che Guevara in Cuba, but that's a long story.

As for Malcolm X, I don't know how many Black Americans admire him, the film by Spike Lee was poor not because of its attempt to elevate Malcolm's status to hero, but because I saw the fillm after reading Manning Marable's brilliant biography (I reviewed it in this section some years ago)- Lee left out a lot of details that did not fit with his image of Malcolm. He was a complex man, a sensational speaker, and touches a lot of nerves, but in the end is he not just one among many Black Americans across the decades who reject the USA and seek a form of autonomous existence within America so great is their alienation and lack of trust in 'White America'? It must have some emotional appeal, but I don't see it as being in its details soemthing that appeals to a majority. But then neither do Libertarian ideas attact anyone other than those who want a Utopia to replace the unacceptable reality that makes them so discontented.

[Stavros]

That would be the war on drugs

Major issue that you raise, one that ought never to be ignored.

[MrFanti]

Stavros,

- Biased speculation and no proof that POTUS didn't read the Act
- Prior to COVID-19, Black unemployment hit the LOWEST that it's ever been in US history
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/economy/black-unemployment-rate/index.html
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/yes-trump-deserves-credit-on-black-unemployment
- Trump's policy moves have actually helped out the MIDDLE CLASS but again, the Democrat biased media will have you believing that only the rich are gaining under Trump.

- Yes, like I said earlier, Transgender rights were better under the Obama Administration than the Trump administration - no argument from me here.

Now, I leave you more food for thought - this video is from 2013
I ask myself what happened to Don Lemon now? - Because IMHO, back in 2013, Lemon was SPOT ON in a number of key areas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUuqamwW2ro

[MrFanti]

Stavros

One last religious point that I forgot to make.
In some aspects, the Hispanic Catholic community and the Black Church are somewhat similar in terms of importance towards each group - with a few individuals lingering as Independents. The far left atheist/agnostic Democrats IMHO need to be a bit careful because if they push too far and alienate religion, then Democrats will lose a significant amount of Black and Hispanic votes from within their respective religious communities.

[filghy2]

- Prior to COVID-19, Black unemployment hit the LOWEST that it's ever been in US history
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/06/economy/black-unemployment-rate/index.html
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/yes-trump-deserves-credit-on-black-unemployment
- Trump's policy moves have actually helped out the MIDDLE CLASS but again, the Democrat biased media will have you believing that only the rich are gaining under Trump.

How many of the economic gains from the past 3 years will survive the current recession though? I don't see how you can give Trump the credit for the previous expansion (which was essentially an extension of what was already happening under Obama) but absolve him of any responsibility for the current downturn which is clearly being exacerbated by his dereliction of duty on the coronavirus.

I'm not sure what policies you are referring to, but the vast majority of benefits from the 2017 tax package go to people on higher incomes, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Taxes on low-to-middle income earners will actually rise in the long run. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Cuts_and_Jobs_Act_of_2017
1260302

[Stavros]

One last religious point that I forgot to make.
In some aspects, the Hispanic Catholic community and the Black Church are somewhat similar in terms of importance towards each group - with a few individuals lingering as Independents. The far left atheist/agnostic Democrats IMHO need to be a bit careful because if they push too far and alienate religion, then Democrats will lose a significant amount of Black and Hispanic votes from within their respective religious communities.

I don't know enough about this, but it seems to me that just as there has been a transformation in the US with regard to its attitudes to the Roman Catholic church, I do wonder what impact churches might have on issues such as abortion, divorce and same-sex relationships. The assumption must be that people of 'faith' are more conservative than they are liberal. So your point about a cleavage between Christians and the Democrats must be taken seriously, with the question being on social policy, can the 45th President with his rhetoric of insult, abuse and hate really present himself as an authetic champion of 'Christian values' when he has none for himself?

[Stavros]

- Biased speculation and no proof that POTUS didn't read the Act
- Prior to COVID-19, Black unemployment hit the LOWEST that it's ever been in US history
- Trump's policy moves have actually helped out the MIDDLE CLASS but again, the Democrat biased media will have you believing that only the rich are gaining under Trump.
- Yes, like I said earlier, Transgender rights were better under the Obama Administration than the Trump administration - no argument from me here.
Now, I leave you more food for thought - this video is from 2013
I ask myself what happened to Don Lemon now? - Because IMHO, back in 2013, Lemon was SPOT ON in a number of key areas.


Your post is loaded with dodgy arguments.

-My biased views on the President are based on the various accounts I have read, in three books now, which all make it clear he cannot read let alone absorb complex literature; that he has complained he cannot understand the language of the Constitution, that he can only absorb material presented to him on one or two sheets of paper with illustrations rather than text. One doesn't need to ridicule so a semi-literate a man, he does it for himself in his 'tweets' with their infanitle language and spelling mistakes.

-The attempt to depict 'the Black Family' as a unique problem is not new, Daniel Moynihan did it in the 1970s, Charles Murray has made a career out of it, and as for Bill O'Reilly, the man is a preposterous fool. I have his book 'The Closing of the Muslim Mind', a book that is intellectually weak, historically inaccurate and politically offensive. He has not one original idea, and like Lemon is determined to avoid asking real questions and replace them with a narrative made up of stereotypes which soothe his pained ego. Moreover, it does rather sound like the 'Black Family' presents Black Americans as a monolithic block, shaped by single-parenthood, drugs, gangs, bad language and so on, but where is the context for all of this, and where is the Black Middle Class in all of this?

As a Libertarian I am sure what disappoints you is the appparent lack of individual ambition, of the kind I suspect you have and many other Black people do. The Moynihan-Murray arguments thus revolve around welfare creating a lack of incentive to work, thus undermining the very kind of individual ambition that could lead to young men leading better lives and being more socially mobile and responsible.

But where is the context provided by Capitalism in the US since the 1960s, when changes to production technology began to change the nature of the workforce; when heavy industry owing to over-capacity and automation meant Black 'Blue Collar' workers were in the front line for redundancy and unemployment? If you extend these changes to production, you can, I argue, see how the urban environment has changed too, with high-volume jobs on medium pay being replaced by low-volume jobs and low-pay.
Indeed, what proportion of all those jobs reducing Black unemployment pay more than the minimum wage? Moreover, it is possible that Black Urban dwelling youth can become caught in a trap where their income on welfare is higher than the income they would get from flipping burgers, or stacking shelves in a grocery store. Yes, this creates a problem if the dignity of work is replaced by the stigma of unemployment, but is there not an argument to be made that charts the phenomenal rise in the consumption of recreational and addictive narcotics since the 1980s, and how distortions in job-poor neighborhood economies are created by high risk/high reward dealing in drugs? If Black youth sees no credible route out of urban poverty other than through dealing, the business argument is a winner, as ironically, it is only because these drugs are illegal that means these young Black Entrepreneurs are more likely to end up in Prison than the Forbes 100.

Capitalism has narrowed opportunities in urban environments, and just as I believe the majority of Black Americans work in the public sector, so, as with the sons of working class English people who were the first in the family to go to university who also work in the public sector, their political loyalty is owed to a Labour/Democrat party that is perceived to protect public sector jobs most likely to be cut by Conservatives.

The Democrats have been accused of losing touch with their Blue Collar base, but the Blue Collars jobs are not there in volume any more, whereas public sector jobs, or jobs for firms on Government contacts -Federal, State, County- are abundant. This, surely, is the new base on which the Democrats are based? But is it enough to win elections, and is it not the case that with under-funded urban public schools, a lack of local facilities, that young Black people leave school not as attractive job candidates, but as marginalized citizens with 'attitude' and poor employment prospects?

Markets have failed, and in this new wave Capitalism where Governments make market decisions, it is easy for Democrats to claim to protect 'the Middle Class', as they constantly do, leaving behind those least able to make their way on their own, abandoned by a party too scared to spend real money on tackling urban poverty, poor education, and crime. And the Middle Class that has suffered in recent decades, with stagnant wages and increased costs in health and education.
How easy it is to sneer at the hip hop brigades of 21st century youth rather than tackle their problems; and can there be any advance on gangs and shootings if no effort is made, no serious effort to either repeal the 2nd Amendment, or pass laws that take away the guns? Paticularly when guns in themselves become symbols of power the powerless need to feel important?

There is a cowardice in the Democrat Party on policy, and the Republicans have thus become the party of change, but change that is destructive rather than creative, that reverses existing policies rather than proposing new ones; that appears to be a party of division, indeed, of punishment, rather than one that at least opines 'if it ain' hurtin' it ain't workin''. It seems to me the last 3+ years exhibit a moral vacuum at the heart of American government. Nice 'n easy Joe Biden may win votes just because he is not a pompous, self-obsessed foul-mouthed incompetent who has said, twice now, that Americans are 'total scum, they are Human Scum' the sort of thing, along with with description of Hillary Clinton as a 'skank' that would have been top of the hour news, where now it passed under the bridge, a turd in the water with intelligent men and women shrugging their shoulders and explaining 'well, that's Donald', as if there were nothing more to say. But does Biden have the bottle to propose real change, and not just 'change that you can believe in'?

Publc Health now joins Climate Change and issues around work to become the most urgent policy issues we need to have addressed, but I see no sign of radical action being proposed by the Democrats, just as in the UK we have the same set of problems with the addition of Brexit in the next 6 months rumbling away like an angry volcano.
We may just be rumbling along, or there may be eruptions, who knows? But are we not capable of finding creative solutions, rather than sneeering and jeering at people less fortunate than ourselves?

[broncofan]

I don't see how you can give Trump the credit for the previous expansion (which was essentially an extension of what was already happening under Obama) but absolve him of any responsibility for the current downturn which is clearly being exacerbated by his dereliction of duty on the coronavirus.-middle income earners will actually rise in the long run.

He either takes responsibility for the economy or the excess death toll and in my view most fair if it's both. We were told that we were going to tolerate more deaths because the economy is important. Everyone rational told him that the economy would tank even worse if he allowed outbreaks to get out of control.

People want to know what he could have done differently, the truth is everything. Every stupid thing that came out of his mouth, from his claim that 99% of people have no complications when the hospitalization rate is 20% to his refusal to wear a mask to his insistence that the cure is worse than the disease. His job was to inform people because maybe it's not so easy for everyone to digest what's going on....well apparently his cognitive difficulties are worse than most people's. Also consider his nauseating and disingenuous populism about how opening the economy was for the common man, who apparently would prefer to be ventilated in order to get a paycheck than to have the government provide reasonable assistance and subsidies.

He was so focused on number of cases but if there's a relevant scoreboard it's for deaths. And those people have family members who mourn them. And a large percent of those who died would not have died if our response was competent.

We talk about how us Democrats should want to nominate someone with an inspiring agenda. I completely agree. But as Trish said, we know the alternative. This guy is the alternative. Nearly started a catastrophic war with Iran. Made nuclear threats to North Korea on twitter. And has run the most incompetent, corrupt administration ever.

[MrFanti]

Your post is loaded with dodgy arguments.

We are through then since your obvious bias has clouded your ability to look at this based on facts.
Note that I've given credit where due to BOTH Obama and Trump.

That being said, I do hope that you've learned a bit more about our Black American community than what's been shown to you.

[MrFanti]

We talk about how us Democrats should want to nominate someone with an inspiring agenda. I

And that person IMHO, like I said earlier was Tulsi Gabbard.

[MrFanti]

I don't know enough about this, but it seems to me that just as there has been a transformation in the US with regard to its attitudes to the Roman Catholic church, I do wonder what impact churches might have on issues such as abortion, divorce and same-sex relationships. The assumption must be that people of 'faith' are more conservative than they are liberal. So your point about a cleavage between Christians and the Democrats must be taken seriously, with the question being on social policy, can the 45th President with his rhetoric of insult, abuse and hate really present himself as an authetic champion of 'Christian values' when he has none for himself?

So you are correct when it comes to the Catholic Church - no argument from me here. However, most of their "believer base" is still there. And that "believer base" regardless of how we feel here about abortion, divorce, and same-sex relationships see things differently than we members of this forum. But what I was eluding to earlier in my previous post is that if they (to include the Black church) are pushed by Democrats to a point where they feel their rights are threatened, then the Democrats might as well forget their vote. The question after that is IMHO whether or not this voting base moves towards an Independent arena or Republican.

[MrFanti]

One last thing...
With regards to the Hispanic community, they are not a "slam dunk" Democrat voting base which is why the Obama administration spent so much attention towards trying to capture the Hispanic voting base.
As you can see the below, the Hispanic community is divided somewhat like the Black community is.

https://www.oann.com/goya-foods-faces-boycott-over-ceos-support-for-president-trump/?fbclid=IwAR04IQNqwicJ690Y6yqGcrZS5mpiXKMhQUpYCPi4 I69A1I0jqKyzMWDwSz8

[KnightHawk 2.0]

He either takes responsibility for the economy or the excess death toll and in my view most fair if it's both. We were told that we were going to tolerate more deaths because the economy is important. Everyone rational told him that the economy would tank even worse if he allowed outbreaks to get out of control.

People want to know what he could have done differently, the truth is everything. Every stupid thing that came out of his mouth, from his claim that 99% of people have no complications when the hospitalization rate is 20% to his refusal to wear a mask to his insistence that the cure is worse than the disease. His job was to inform people because maybe it's not so easy for everyone to digest what's going on....well apparently his cognitive difficulties are worse than most people's. Also consider his nauseating and disingenuous populism about how opening the economy was for the common man, who apparently would prefer to be ventilated in order to get a paycheck than to have the government provide reasonable assistance and subsidies.

He was so focused on number of cases but if there's a relevant scoreboard it's for deaths. And those people have family members who mourn them. And a large percent of those who died would not have died if our response was competent.

We talk about how us Democrats should want to nominate someone with an inspiring agenda. I completely agree. But as Trish said, we know the alternative. This guy is the alternative. Nearly started a catastrophic war with Iran. Made nuclear threats to North Korea on twitter. And has run the most incompetent, corrupt administration ever.Completely Agree 1000%.

[fred41]

We talk about how us Democrats should want to nominate someone with an inspiring agenda. I completely agree. But as Trish said, we know the alternative. This guy is the alternative. Nearly started a catastrophic war with Iran. Made nuclear threats to North Korea on twitter. And has run the most incompetent, corrupt administration ever.

I liked your answer and pretty much agreed, except for this last paragraph. You should have ended it after the second sentence...if we’re being honest. Why?...lol...name any Republican you can think of that you would definitely vote for against Biden in this election.

[broncofan]

I liked your answer and pretty much agreed, except for this last paragraph. You should have ended it after the second sentence...if we’re being honest. Why?...lol...name any Republican you can think of that you would definitely vote for against Biden in this election.
I see your point. Fortunately for me when you hit the thumbs up it's a yes or no kind of thing, so no exceptions:)

[Stavros]

We are through then since your obvious bias has clouded your ability to look at this based on facts.
Note that I've given credit where due to BOTH Obama and Trump.

That being said, I do hope that you've learned a bit more about our Black American community than what's been shown to you.


It is a pity you choose to end a debate by not addressing its issues -for example, my argument that this President has not done good things for Black Americans if they are a) disabled, and b) have severe financial debts owing to family illness. How Black Americans have experienced the general issues that affect Americans is just as important as those which you claim are specific to them, which does tend to collapse a more general problem into a 'black' one.

It means you avoid talking about drugs, gangs and above all, guns, guns, and then guns. How many people would have been shot in Chicago last weekend if the men involved did not have such ease of access to guns? The 2nd Amendment is the death warrant of America, not just its Black ciizens.

It means you avoid the structural issues in the US economy which has seen a significant decline in manufacturing jobs that Black Americans had access to -why else did they migrate from the South to North, or South to West (ie, California)? Globalization is being used as an excuse to emphasise National rather than than global economics, but is it the case that service sector jobs rather than manufacturing jobs have left Black Americans worse off, and is it not the case that Black Americans are most likely to suffer from job losses if it is the urban economy that changes most as businesses adapt to Covid 19?

What I think is crucial, that you have also avoided, is, since the 1970s of the decline of Blue Collar support for the Democrats, but the rise of the public or civil servant as the foundation of the party's electoral support. It is, I think, one of the few areas where developments in the UK have also been found in the US: as the working class vote in the UK for Labour declined after 1979 -think of Thatcher's three consecutive election victories- so the Party found its most loyal voters in local government, and public services such as health, education and transport. As markets failed, or succeeded in the pure sense that to survive, capitalism exported jobs from Europe and North America to Asia and Latin America (less so to Africa), so the State, be it central/Federal government, or as defined in the US, State and County authorities, stepped in to compensate, with the result on one level that millions of Americans now work for some form of State authority. On another level this is where Libertarians like you step in to criticize this process, though you have not told us what happens when markets fail -or maybe that this form of Keynesian economics produces hardened arteries in the economy that means it doesn't work efficiently.

The critique of the EPA you offered last year, I think it was, was if I recall based critically on its efficiency as a Federal agency, but however it is run, has the US since 2016 advanced the cause of environmental politics and its issues by making it easier for industrial businesses to damage and pollute the environment? While many jobs in the EPA have been shredded, some if not all I assume with your blessing, has it made a positive difference, or is it not the case that basic rights local people have to clean water and unpolluted rivers and streams have been replaced by no rights at all? How many of the residents of Flint, Michigan, whose water from the tap was/is brown and undrinkable, are Black? Is that water problem their fault?

Finally, the point for African Americans, and tell me if I am wrong about this, is that with or without a college degree, most of the routes into a steady job are found in Federal/State/County agencies, that without this 'salariat' the Democrats would not have the solid base that they need to take care of if they are to win elections, even before they seek the votes of other workers. And is it also not the case, that when the axe is taken to such jobs, it is Black workers who are at the front of the redundancy line?

I can't force you to debate these issues, but I feel there is a lot more going on than can be expressed in your frustration with some of the very real problems Black Americans face at work and at home, and many of them are not unique but can be found in all sorts of places. That this Republican Party is indifferent to most of the USA is what undermines its claim to represent them, and not just because they are in effect, a minority party themselves. There is some sort of crisis in the US when it comes to defining what is good for the collective mass of Americans and the Individual, you can see it played out with some of the nonsensical things some Americans on tv (as shown on Channel 4 News in the UK last night) have said about wearing, or not wearing a mask in public. And perhaps nothing confirms the trend to individualism at the expense of the country, is the President pardoning his friends because he has attempted to re-write history, or shall we say, without the statues, erase the history he doesn't approve of, and replace it with his own -an illegal campaign that resulted in an enquiry and jail time, is now a 'hoax'. But when Bolton says on numerous occasions in his book that the President cannot and does not distinguish between his personal interests and the interests of the USA it is logical for him to pardon criminals if they are his mates- and to criminalize his enemies. That it makes the USA look like a Banana Republic does not seem to matter to a lot of people, but how can we, in the UK, trust a nuclear-armed power when the Head of State is so unworthy of our trust?

[Stavros]

In the case of Roger Stone I should correct my point at the end, Stone has had his prison sentence commuted, he was not pardoned.

[blackchubby38]

I liked your answer and pretty much agreed, except for this last paragraph. You should have ended it after the second sentence...if we’re being honest. Why?...lol...name any Republican you can think of that you would definitely vote for against Biden in this election.

I can think of two Republicans that I would vote for against Biden in this election. The former governor of Ohio, John Kasich and the current one Mike Dewine.

[MrFanti]

I can think of two Republicans that I would vote for against Biden in this election. The former governor of Ohio, John Kasich and the current one Mike Dewine.
Yes..
Biden is like the Romney/McCain of the Democrats - MUCH better Democrat candidates who should be in there instead of Biden.

[MrFanti]

Why?...lol...name any Republican you can think of that you would definitely vote for against Biden in this election.
Just like Sith ;-)
Why should one vote Republican or Democrat only?

But since you've limited yourself to one 2 parties, I'll still answer your question. Susan Collins, and BLACK moderate Republican Will Hurd are 2 that I would definitely pick over Biden.

[blackchubby38]

So you are correct when it comes to the Catholic Church - no argument from me here. However, most of their "believer base" is still there. And that "believer base" regardless of how we feel here about abortion, divorce, and same-sex relationships see things differently than we members of this forum. But what I was eluding to earlier in my previous post is that if they (to include the Black church) are pushed by Democrats to a point where they feel their rights are threatened, then the Democrats might as well forget their vote. The question after that is IMHO whether or not this voting base moves towards an Independent arena or Republican.

I happen to be an atheist. But if there is one thing I do know is that no matter far left the party might get, they never will push away the black church. While they maybe open minded about other things, there is still a majority of young black people that believe in god. They can't shake that part of their upbringing.

In fact, I think its safe to say that the black church and to lesser extent the Catholic one seems to be more accepted than the white Christian Evangelical one among Democrats.

[fred41]

Just like Sith ;-)
Why should one vote Republican or Democrat only?

But since you've limited yourself to one 2 parties, I'll still answer your question. Susan Collins, and BLACK moderate Republican Will Hurd are 2 that I would definitely pick over Biden.

Well if you’re directing this at me, you should know - I don’t limit myself to one party, as a matter of fact - I’ve voted Republican far more often than I’ve voted Democrat...and if it wasn’t for Trump, that would probably continue. Why? because Joe Biden was never really President material in my view. Now that he’s a shell of his former self, why would I think he’s more fit for the job, as opposed to earlier times?

The quote was directed at Bronc and he understood what it meant. His quote made it seem as if only there was another Republican running, other than Trump, then he’d have someone else to vote for, other than the uninspiring Biden. But he and I both know that he would faithfully vote Biden regardless of ANY Republican running against him, thereby making the quote a little dishonest. But it’s the type of dishonesty we all sometimes employ when making political comparisons...so I just thought it humorous and , I think he did too, when it was pointed out - judging by his reply.

I do prefer Biden to a majority of the Democratic Primary Slate (I don’t want to rehash all that, I’ve already posted my preferred choices on multiple threads)...but by no means would he be my preferred choice over many other good folks, both Democrat and Republican, who simply aren’t running.

[broncofan]

I guess what I mean is that voting right now has nothing to do with ideology bc the Republican candidate is corrupt, and corrupt to an extent that I never envisioned for either party. He will do whatever he's allowed to get away with and that includes corruption of the pardon process and total corruption of the Justice Department. He has also destroyed the careers of honest civil servants when they refused to lie for him.

If a candidate for the Democratic party did anything within a mile of that I'd vote Republican. I wouldn't vote for Mitt Romney or 2008 John McCain over Joe Biden because frankly I see Joe as innocuous and he's a Democrat. But I am yet to see a Democrat who would let people die for ego gratification. I'd take Mitt Romney over a pro-choice, pro gay marriage, high progressive tax rate Trump bc Trump's flaws are not purely ideological. He is uniquely unqualified to look after other human beings.

The campaign could be billed as a Democrat v. an autocratic piece of garbage who has no respect for our form of government and places no value on people's lives.

[broncofan]

For me to vote for a Republican the Democrat would have to be off the charts bad in some way. A conspiracy theorist, a total incompetent that could sow disaster just because he or she is unable to handle a serious situation, or thoroughly corrupt.

I wrote that other post in such a rush that I'm not sure if I meant to imply I would vote Republican if not for Trump (which as Fred says is false) or just that I don't really care about the Democratic candidate bc I see the election as a referendum on Trump, who is off the charts bad in so many ways.

[fred41]

I guess what I mean is that voting right now has nothing to do with ideology bc the Republican candidate is corrupt, and corrupt to an extent that I never envisioned for either party. He will do whatever he's allowed to get away with and that includes corruption of the pardon process and total corruption of the Justice Department. He has also destroyed the careers of honest civil servants when they refused to lie for him.

If a candidate for the Democratic party did anything within a mile of that I'd vote Republican. I wouldn't vote for Mitt Romney or 2008 John McCain over Joe Biden because frankly I see Joe as innocuous and he's a Democrat. But I am yet to see a Democrat who would let people die for ego gratification. I'd take Mitt Romney over a pro-choice, pro gay marriage, high progressive tax rate Trump bc Trump's flaws are not purely ideological. He is uniquely unqualified to look after other human beings.

The campaign could be billed as a Democrat v. an autocratic piece of garbage who has no respect for our form of government and places no value on people's lives.

Lol...True.

[MrFanti]

Well if you’re directing this at me, you should know - I don’t limit myself to one party, as a matter of fact - I’ve voted Republican far more often than I’ve voted Democrat...and if it wasn’t for Trump, that would probably continue. Why? because Joe Biden was never really President material in my view. Now that he’s a shell of his former self, why would I think he’s more fit for the job, as opposed to earlier times?

The quote was directed at Bronc and he understood what it meant. His quote made it seem as if only there was another Republican running, other than Trump, then he’d have someone else to vote for, other than the uninspiring Biden. But he and I both know that he would faithfully vote Biden regardless of ANY Republican running against him, thereby making the quote a little dishonest. But it’s the type of dishonesty we all sometimes employ when making political comparisons...so I just thought it humorous and , I think he did too, when it was pointed out - judging by his reply.

I do prefer Biden to a majority of the Democratic Primary Slate (I don’t want to rehash all that, I’ve already posted my preferred choices on multiple threads)...but by no means would he be my preferred choice over many other good folks, both Democrat and Republican, who simply aren’t running.

Understood and no offense taken on my end.

[MrFanti]

I happen to be an atheist. But if there is one thing I do know is that no matter far left the party might get, they never will push away the black church. While they maybe open minded about other things, there is still a majority of young black people that believe in god. They can't shake that part of their upbringing.

In fact, I think its safe to say that the black church and to lesser extent the Catholic one seems to be more accepted than the white Christian Evangelical one among Democrats.


You might have a point - but the far left IMHO seems to be sliding more in favor of Islam over Christianity in general...
I also in general agree with you about the Black church being more accepted than the White one..

It will be interesting to watch as it pans out!

[Stavros]

I happen to be an atheist. But if there is one thing I do know is that no matter far left the party might get, they never will push away the black church. While they maybe open minded about other things, there is still a majority of young black people that believe in god. They can't shake that part of their upbringing.

In fact, I think its safe to say that the black church and to lesser extent the Catholic one seems to be more accepted than the white Christian Evangelical one among Democrats.


I admit to being puzzled by religious groups, more so in the US which I don't know a lot about, but also in the UK where the Black communities have either tended to be of West Indian origins and Pentecostalist, while the growth of African immigration has seen a growth in churches which tend to emphasize the eternity to come rather than the here and now, though I don't doubt they do some charitable work in their local areas. What many of these churches appear to have is a deep disapproval of the socially liberal laws with regard to same-sex relations, abortion and divorce.

Islam and Judaism undoubtedly regard same-sex relations as a sin, whereas Islam is ambivalent on abortion- in theory opposed but in practice allowed in some situations-, and divorce is not only accepted, but controversially so, owing to those Hadith that allow a man to divorce his wife without even consulting her.
The cultural division in the UK has also opened since the Church of England allowed women to be ordained and become Bishops, while many Conservatves now view the CoE as a 'left-wing' oufit, a legacy of the 1980s when an official report by the Bishops was critical of the impact Thatcher's policies had had on poverty.

Do all the churches adhere to strict beliefs on same-sex marriage, abortion and divorce? In the US the only policy position that can match the values of the church is to make same-sex relations, abortion and divorce illegal, so why don't they campaign on this basis? If the Democrats have a credibility gap with 'fundamentalist Christians', is it a gap filled by the Constitution rather than by faith? I can't think of a Democrat President in the 100 years who did not broadcast his Christian faith, even if all this 'God Bless America' stuff only became normalized, or ritualized by Reagan.

The problem is that Conservatives, by definition must want to conserve the Constitution, but if they think various amendments have undermined their faith, then instead of using the free speech amendment to effectively change the law to make other Constitutional provisions illegal, I think they should declare themselves opposed to the issue noted above. The same is true of Islam with regard to same-sex relations.

It seems to me, and I have said this before, that States Rights is being used to re-define term limits to make an abortion all but impossible in the State, without changing the law (Rose-v-Wade); just as cuts to the budgets of Planned Parenthood Centres also tend to focus on their abortion advice rather than say, contraception and other family planning issues; and that the proposed amendments to the Free Speech laws are designed to come as close as the State can to marginalizing LGBTQ people or even shutting them out of commercial transactions, which is not a ban, but comes close to being one in practical terms.

There seems to be to be a devious set of actions taking place that, in the name of religious freedom, if implemented give people of faith superior, rather than equal rights to other Americans. The 'cultural war' that it is being argued the President thinks will win him votes, ought if the Religious Lobbies are more honest, go beyond the 'cancel culture' with regard to statues and the names of public buildings, and support all laws aimed at taking all rights away from LGBTQ and not just with regard to the miitary. It just has not been as explicit as I think it ought to be, to give Americans a clear choice.

I have not understood the claim that 'the left' is soft on Islam. I can see that there has been tactical politics which in the UK is driven by issues around immigration rather than religion. Moreover, given that most Muslim immigrants, be they from West Africa, the Horn (Somalia and the Sudan in particular) and either Pakistan or Bangladesh are self-employed and are opposed to taxes and not just same-sex relations, it makes no sense for these immigrant communities to vote Labour or be associated with the 'left' -they are natural conservatives, and it is perhaps noticeable that most Black and Brown Conservative MPs have a background in either Africa or the Punjab, where Labour MPs have a closer connection to the Caribbean.

It is difficult for me to get a handle on this re the US, because religion has declined so much as an influence in British politics. If a politician stood on a platform and said 'God Bless you all' the sound of ridiculous laughter would surely follow. Even 'God Save the Queen' is reserved for international sporting matches and candlelit dinners in Oxbridge colleges or Gentleman's clubs, maybe even Golf clubs, but who cares about them?

[MrFanti]

A few more videos that expand into the hidden facts that contrary to what you see on the mainstream media, not all Black Americans are united under "BLM"....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JocOjvPizzY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSg5UQSy14Q

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs6YcaynF0c

[MrFanti]

Here's a very interesting one...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZIvSXiVOZs

[fred41]

Yup Fanti, I’ve seen a lot of these. It happens a lot in NYC. They always seem to be majority white...you always have a least one sweaty, shirtless skater boy dude screaming repetitive nonsense (I used to wonder if it’s the same guy, but there’s actually lots of guys [I was ready to say ‘kids’ , but...no] like that). You will notice however, that there’s usually at least one or two black people fronting it, usually with a megaphone. That’s not by accident...when BLM organizes this, either alone or in conjunction with other groups, they insist on being in the forefront...I would assume, because otherwise it would look like it’s what it really is - an annoying anarchistic temper tantrum daring establishment to stop them...and often leadership is found weak. It wasn’t like that at first - they even had a protest on my street - it was fairly nice, all things considered. But, now you got the “Occupy” crowd involved along with almost every other annoying human being on the planet. I wish your city well. It’s already done countless damage to mine. Just look at the rising crime statistics.

[fred41]

I think maybe the problem is the Antifa and Occupy crowd. They love hijacking shit. There were reports early on that BLM tried to distance themselves from it...but I don’t know.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBbPJsNZMPg

[fred41]

My issues though, are how they are affecting my city. Should probably be in a different thread, but seeing how few people even comment here now...I guess it really doesn’t matter anymore.

[MrFanti]

My issues though, are how they are affecting my city. Should probably be in a different thread, but seeing how few people even comment here now...I guess it really doesn’t matter anymore.
I hope the silence here is now due in part to some folks realizing that what they are being shown by the media in terms of "BLM" is not representative of how all of Black America feels....

[Stavros]

Oh dear, poor Mr Felder had his evening spoiled by a small demonstration that got out of hand. It is not known why the demonstrrators chose that part of Dallas, but if it is the case they did not convert anyone there to the cause, it was a flop. It is an illustration of the problem that some, perhaps most of the demonstations reveal: when a cause so broad as race is organized by a marginal few, it has no traction. Yes, people will turn up, shout, wave placards, provoke law enforcement, but as a political movement is is all sound and fury, signifying nothing, because it wants structural change that is not possible without the kind of revolution Mr Felder thinks the 'trained Marxists' want to achieve -in Texas?

And what is a 'trained Marxist' anyway? They have had lectures on Dialectics? Base and Superstructure? Party organization and the development of Cadres? The lecture by Angela Davis below, offers a different way of seeing things, from 2008, but still relevant today.

She talks about the difference betweeen collective action and 'heroic individualism' -she points out that what was cruial in the Civil Rights movement in the south in the 1960s was collective action with a specific focus, for example, not a struggle for racial equality as a grand gesture for all of the USA, but unpicking the elements of segregation in the South, one by one, with the Montgomery Bus Boycott the perfect example, and, she emphasizes, a boycott organized by women, Joanne Robinson and Rosa Parks both being part of that campaign.
Again, though she concedes the faults in the Black Panther Party she points out it had, in Oakland, a specific focus: to monitor police activity, showing up when law enforcement stopped a Black man holding copies of the law in one hand, and a gun in the other, to make it clear law enforcement had to respect a citizen's rights (this is before Miranda). But, Davis, notes, history prefers the heroic indivduals, like Martin Luther King, rather than the otherwise nameless men and women who did the organizing, ran off the leaflets, mounted the demonstrations.

She makes the point that a Women's Welfare organization in the 1960s campaigned for two things: either jobs, or what today is called a universal basic income. And as she believes knowledge is socially constructed, she argues the definition of meanings ought not to be left to the State. The people have a right to define what is real, just as they have a right not so much to erase history, as to re-write it using the voices and the achievements of those who went before that were so easily ignored and forgotten.

But here is the crowning irony for Mr Felder and his hysterical whining about 'Cultural Marxism' -it is that the Republican Party and the alt-right has adopted the Marxian or more properly, the Leninist strategy amended by Gramsci that has become known as the 'march through the institutions'. Not so much 'Cultural Marxism' as 'Cultural Individualism'. For just as the Koch Bros, the Moral Majority, the Christian Evangelists and others in the 1960s and 1970s began to invade the Universities and the Media with their Libertarian propaganda, so in the State House they have picked off one policy after another to undo all that collective action achieved in the 1960s -voting rights, abortion, religious freedom, gender suppression- to become in practical terms more successful than any feeble American Marxist organization, and not least higher up the food chain where Democrats seem terrified of reversing or challenging effetively an erosion of Liberal Democracy whose greatest and most vicious Champion is in the White House.

Who is it today, that is actually changing America? Not the left.

I commend this speech, as it does contain some valuable insights-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc6RHtEbiOA

[fred41]

I hope the silence here is now due in part to some folks realizing that what they are being shown by the media in terms of "BLM" is not representative of how all of Black America feels....

When I wrote “ few people comment here now” , I meant that in general about the ‘Politics and Religion’ section. Seemed like it used to be way busier once upon a time.

[MrFanti]

Yup Fanti, I’ve seen a lot of these. It happens a lot in NYC. They always seem to be majority white...you always have a least one sweaty, shirtless skater boy dude screaming repetitive nonsense (I used to wonder if it’s the same guy, but there’s actually lots of guys [I was ready to say ‘kids’ , but...no] like that). You will notice however, that there’s usually at least one or two black people fronting it, usually with a megaphone. That’s not by accident...when BLM organizes this, either alone or in conjunction with other groups, they insist on being in the forefront...I would assume, because otherwise it would look like it’s what it really is - an annoying anarchistic temper tantrum daring establishment to stop them...and often leadership is found weak. It wasn’t like that at first - they even had a protest on my street - it was fairly nice, all things considered. But, now you got the “Occupy” crowd involved along with almost every other annoying human being on the planet. I wish your city well. It’s already done countless damage to mine. Just look at the rising crime statistics.

So....
First take a look at the Black Libertarian video that I posted - specifically how Black people are insulted by the Democrats and we don't even realize it! This never more apparent than when Joe Biden said that (to paraphrase) that 'you ain't Black if you don't vote for him'. That recent video of the White BLM and what Biden said are perfect examples that support the Black Libertarian saying that White Democrats think Black people are too stupid to think for ourselves and thus they (White Democrat) have to rush in and "save the day".

And you ***might*** be able to make a case that White establishment Democrats do not want another minority in the White House anymore....because of all the available people....Joe Biden is "THE ONE"....?

[fred41]

So....
First take a look at the Black Libertarian video that I posted - specifically how Black people are insulted by the Democrats and we don't even realize it! This never more apparent than when Joe Biden said that (to paraphrase) that 'you ain't Black if you don't vote for him'. That recent video of the White BLM and what Biden said are perfect examples that support the Black Libertarian saying that White Democrats think Black people are too stupid to think for ourselves and thus they (White Democrat) have to rush in and "save the day".

And you ***might*** be able to make a case that White establishment Democrats do not want another minority in the White House anymore....because of all the available people....Joe Biden is "THE ONE"....?

Listen, I try to be as upfront as i can when I

[fred41]

...sorry, don’t know what happened to the rest of that last quote, but I suspect Mr. Bourbon might of played a role in that. Don’t remember entirely what the post consisted of, but going by the content of the last few posts and the beginning of the last sentence...I believe what I was trying to say was ...I’ve already seen some of those videos. I’m white and retired from a non NYPD LE position in NYC. My political leanings at this moment are moderate...swinging slightly right. As such, having friends and ex work mates in conservative leaning employment, I often see videos like this on social media. Conservative white guys will always tout videos by conservative black people, as if that automatically makes their point...as opposed to the extreme political left, who either ignore those points...or openly deride them (white, often relatively wealthy, liberals telling people living their lives in their black skin...how wrong they are...lol...hello Bernie Bros). I see that you consider yourself a Libertarian. I ran with that for a while when I was younger. Thing is, none of those political concepts - Libertarian, Socialist, Communist - whatever, really work in real life. Because in order for a pure idealistic political form to work, you need people to be incorruptible, and that’s never going to happen. What seems to work for now, is a mix of certain political policies.
Anyways, it seems to my eye (despite what might actually be completely different, given that a video narrative could be edited to change viewpoint) that we had a predominant POC patronage and staff at a restaurant in perhaps a mall (?) including children, trying to enjoy a meal (hard enough to do in at least NYC right now) and being annoyed by an unnecessary, unruly group who also end up breaking shit. But hey, I could be wrong.

[fred41]

And you ***might*** be able to make a case that White establishment Democrats do not want another minority in the White House anymore....because of all the available people....Joe Biden is "THE ONE"....?

Sorry MrFanti, I never addressed this part of your quote. I don’t honestly think you can blame white establishment Democrats for this one. Neither Kamala Harris nor Cory Booker seemed to poll well in the black community. One of the reasons Joe Biden is still standing, is because of older southern black voters...thank God for that, in my opinion, because it cancelled out the, under 30, northern black votes for Bernie.

[MrFanti]

I see that you consider yourself a Libertarian. I ran with that for a while when I was younger. Thing is, none of those political concepts - Libertarian, Socialist, Communist - whatever, really work in real life.
There's a lot that I like about Libertarians (one example is how they're against Federal Government control of everything) but oftentimes, they are a bit too close to Anarchy for me LoL.
But if you're a Democrat or Republican, I'd say talk to a Libertarian so they can point out the bullshit within your own respective party.

[fred41]

There's a lot that I like about Libertarians (one example is how they're against Federal Government control of everything) but oftentimes, they are a bit too close to Anarchy for me LoL.
But if you're a Democrat or Republican, I'd say talk to a Libertarian so they can point out the bullshit within your own respective party.

I hear you, but I believe there are Libertarians on both right and left fields. Right now I’m an Independent voter out of honesty. I may have to say “Fuck that” though, because in order to vote locally, I need to be able to vote in the Democratic primaries. So I may have to switch to Democrat out of expediency.

[blackchubby38]

Sorry MrFanti, I never addressed this part of your quote. I don’t honestly think you can blame white establishment Democrats for this one. Neither Kamala Harris nor Cory Booker seemed to poll well in the black community. One of the reasons Joe Biden is still standing, is because of older southern black voters...thank God for that, in my opinion, because it cancelled out the, under 30, northern black votes for Bernie.

Also from what I can tell, Julian Castro didn't poll too well in the Hispanic community either.

[blackchubby38]

Stavros: Regarding "the trained Marxist" thing:

http://nypost.com/2020/06/25/blm-co-founder-describes-herself-as-trained-marxist/

[MrFanti]

I'll just put this here...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFpaG_bvFZM

[MrFanti]

stavros: Regarding "the trained marxist" thing:

http://nypost.com/2020/06/25/blm-co-founder-describes-herself-as-trained-marxist/

Facts!!!
Exactly why I ceased having fact based discussion with Stavros - he doesn't want to hear the truth.

[MrFanti]

Also from what I can tell, Julian Castro didn't poll too well in the Hispanic community either.
He's loved in Texas....maybe not nationwide, but here in Texas both he and his brother are the "golden children"....

[Stavros]

Facts!!!
Exactly why I ceased having fact based discussion with Stavros - he doesn't want to hear the truth.

We don't have fact based discussions because your attachment to the truth is often elusive, and you don't think beyond the narrow perspective your libertarian ideas have boxed you into. For all your critiques of BLM, Obama, etc, you have offered not one policy alternative that I can think of, or any options to deal with the way in which the concept of race has saturated American life since Jamestown, to echo Hughes, that most perceptive of Americans.

[Stavros]

Stavros: Regarding "the trained Marxist" thing:


Blackchubby38, thanks for the link, which gives me a better perspective but does not alter my view that BLM can organize around specific campaigns -statues and name-changing being two that are 'on trend'- but that as an organization it cannot make any major structural changes over the long term, and in any case, just as there are 16 BLM 'Chapters' in the US (there are at least four separate BLM groups in the UK) Marxists have a chronic tendency to fall out among themselves, so other than the demonstrations based around the topics mentioned above, they may be a nuisance to nocturnal diners in Texas and Americans going about their daily work -if they have any- I don't see BLM having the impact they think they will have.

One of the difficuties so-called 'Trained Marxists' of the kind that you find with Patrice Cullors have, is that their fixation with the 'superstructure' means they actually rarely offer a Marxian critique of contemporary capitalism with regard to the means of production and how it shapes the social relations of production -they are interested in the social bit, but have little regard for the economics, other than some platitudes about wages and profits.

It is also the case in the US that they have a problem which their European comrades do not. On the one hand, they must tactically endorse the Revolution of 1776 because it was a Revolution, and what's not to like about that? It is tactical, because it was not a Socialist Revolution, just as Marxists in Europe endorse the French Revolution for what it was, while using the way in which it developed to maintain their fidelity to Marx as the man who offered the justification for Revolution in the changed circumstances of the 19th century.

But even here they have a problem, because Marx endorsed with enthusiasm the formation of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) in 1878, thereby endorsing what became known as the 'Parliamentary Road to Socialism' -integrating Marxists into a Bourgeois system of government that they were supposed to overthrow by leading the Proletariat in the revolutionary transformation of Germany. Ironically or not, by 1914 the SPD had become so absorbed by Bourgeois politics it voted for the war credits that enabled the Empire to go to war with both France and Russia, sealing its fate, though this was not the intention of Ebert at the time. Not for the first or the last time, Marxists in 1914 were unable to disentangle their need to maintain their links with 'the people' with the State and Nationalism, two emerging sources of social power in the 19th century that Marx did not consider important in themselves, merely as tools of the 'ruling class'. Nationalism in particular has been the nemesis of Marxists and Communists since 1914, as the fate of both the USSR and China has shown.

And in America, some of the most bitter and resentful critics of Saul Alinsky were the Marxists who argued his successful campaigns had 'merely' integrated previously under-representated Black citizens of Chicago into the very City administration that 'oppressed' them -so what do they think they can achieve with BLM that is going to actually be revolutionary? Very little, I suspect, but that's the problem of Race, which runs through American like its blood.

Now consider another American dilemma- the tactical endorsement of the Revolution is made as part of an evolving economy which, passing through various stages, has used slavery and market capitalism to mainain its exploitation and oppression of Americans in an unjust system that cannot be reformed. But, because of the emphasis that people like Cullors put on culture, what now appears to be an opportunity to revisit American's Liberal Revolution, poses major problems for their attempt to recruit a new cohort of 'Comrades' into the longer term attempt to transform America.

This is because -and this is just my take on it- Americans revere Washington, Jeffrson, Lincolm et al, for their justification of, and organized revolution against the Crown and British America and in Lincoln's case, against slavery. That the founders owned slaves was never part of the argument, it was a Liberal Revoution and one that privileged White Americans of European ancestry, true, but that also was not controversial until I think Charles Beard challenged the narratives of American history that had prevailed until his pioneering work in the early 20th century. In addition, surely Marxists must argue that Lincoln only liberated slaves so that they could be re-enslaved by capitalism -we are all, after all, wage-slaves under market condtions-and thus form a comradeship with the Libertarians who must also condemn Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln for betraying the Revolution by imposing on the American people a regime based on the wickedness of Taxation, and the Evil known as Government.

Thus, while I think many Americans are not afraid of reviewing their history and asking hard questions about the Statues and the Names of buldings, easly taken away and changed, I think it is a win-lose campaign for BLM rather than a win-win.

Yes, there is little to justify statues that revere the anti-American Confederates, there are strong arguments for re-naming buildings adornned with Woodrow Wilson; I am not so sure about Washington or Jefferson. Andrew Jackson and Martin van Buren were instrumental in the creaton of the Trail of Tears, but if genocidal violence is to be the measure of American men, then the entire history of the Continental Americas must not only be re-examined, it asks too much of the American people, because immigration and violence are two of the most fundamental forces that have shaped the country, but what a 'Marxist' narrative offers is a grim procession of failure to adhere to 21st century demands that offers nothing positive in its place, and robs that history of its context.

Critics will argue that Marxists in power have a bad habit of re-writing history, but right now, they are not the only ones at it, and while I am sure BLM will make a nuisance of themselves, and particulary those Black Americans who can say with honesty 'not in my name' (on which I agree with Mr Fanti), the real threat to the USA internally, as I have pointed out, does not come from a small groups of agitated BLM supporters, whatever their colour or credentials, but from the organized zealots of what is oddly known as Conservative America, institutionalized in the Federalist Society -an unelected body which has more real power than BLM- with its supporters in Congress and the White House, using the same radical campaign tactics of 'the left' to systematically unpick every advance made in the USA since 1965- except of course the Federalists/Conservatives are themselves re-interpreting history to correct its 'mistakes'...

But, in a polarized country like the USA, if you don't want BLM on this side, or the Federalist Society on the other, what does the Middle Way offer, given the extent to which Covid 19 has buggered your economy and exposed the rank incompetence of Mayors, Governors and indeed, the President--? It is always interesting, if for many peope tedious to constantly re-visit history, or read my posts, just as most Americans are worried about their jobs, housing, health care and education.

While getting into a lather over BLM, I think you are missing the bigger picture which to me is a blur, when for once, you might need a Blair?

[MrFanti]

More DANGEROUS than Law Enforcement - Black On Black crimes and homicide...(Yes this is a truth NOT reported by the mainstream Democratic dominated media)
And what some within the Black Community believe SHOULD BE INCLUDED within the "BLM" movement....(I.E, we have to clean the crap out of our own house first...)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8522121/Four-teens-attack-pregnant-mother-fly-kick-toddler-daughter.html?fbclid=IwAR3mB0piPcliUqlJoF-MObHeQz8IFoUDJBf42C_enDWtdNgX8yZw9B0x1QQ

[filghy2]

More DANGEROUS than Law Enforcement - Black On Black crimes and homicide...(Yes this is a truth NOT reported by the mainstream Democratic dominated media)
And what some within the Black Community believe SHOULD BE INCLUDED within the "BLM" movement....(I.E, we have to clean the crap out of our own house first...)

So what do you propose should be done? And why do you present this as an either/or choice, as if nothing can or should be done about police violence until other issues affecting blacks are addressed? That sounds like the same basic logical error as your infamous alcohol vs gun deaths argument.

As Stavros noted, your posts always seem very short on solutions - and very long on diverting attention from issues you don't like because they are championed by "the left".

[broncofan]

That sounds like the same basic logical error as your infamous alcohol vs gun deaths argument.


I was going to say "logically equivalent" but there is one difference. When people use "Black on Black" crime as a way to divert from other issues it's more than a diversion. They're often saying the Black community doesn't deserve protections from civil rights violations because there is some level of guilt borne by the community as a whole.

So the logic is often, "how can THEY complain about y when THEY are also doing x." But who is they? The logic breaks down as soon as you ask this question. Individuals who commit crimes aren't a justification for police brutality against individuals who haven't committed crimes....or even police brutality against those who've committed crimes. Police brutality is always wrong!

[MrFanti]

Note: I quit debating with filghy2 because that individual doesn't want to see the truth either, and instead resorts to "logical error".....
No need for me to waste my time anymore....

And for clarification in case filghy2 missed it, I am an American Black male...

[MrFanti]

When people use "Black on Black" crime as a way to divert from other issues it's more than a diversion. They're often saying the Black community doesn't deserve protections from civil rights violations because there is some level of guilt borne by the community as a whole.

So the logic is often, "how can THEY complain about y when THEY are also doing x." But who is they? The logic breaks down as soon as you ask this question. Individuals who commit crimes aren't a justification for police brutality against individuals who haven't committed crimes....or even police brutality against those who've committed crimes. Police brutality is always wrong!

Who are these "people" that you're referring to?
I've already shown that within my Black American community, we are divided on "BLM".....And we're no in unison as the mainstream Democratic media portrays us to be....

That being said, I believe I understand your response here...

I'm going to make the assumption that "filghy2" is not a Black American, otherwise he/she would have some clue about what I've been talking about within this thread....

[MrFanti]

Here's another interesting perspective from within my divided Black American community....

A group called 'Black Guns Matter' is teaching Black Americans how to use firearms
https://www.yahoo.com/news/group-called-black-guns-matter-180300856.html

[MrFanti]

Additional Clarification:

One thing that Black America IS united on is that we are getting tired of White America (regardless of where they stand politically) thinking that they know what's best for us. Black America is finally beginning to think and do for ourselves instead of having White America doing this. And the Democrats are getting a rude awakening to this.... (see below).

BET founder Robert Johnson urges Black Lives Matter to form its own independent political party
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/23/robert-johnson-urges-black-lives-matter-to-form-a-political-party.html

[blackchubby38]

Note: I quit debating with filghy2 because that individual doesn't want to see the truth either, and instead resorts to "logical error".....
No need for me to waste my time anymore....

And for clarification in case filghy2 missed it, I am an American Black male...

Seriously dude, you don't have to keep reminding people that you're black.

[MrFanti]

Seriously dude, you don't have to keep reminding people that you're black.
Noted.

[filghy2]

Note: I quit debating with filghy2 because that individual doesn't want to see the truth either, and instead resorts to "logical error".....
No need for me to waste my time anymore....

And for clarification in case filghy2 missed it, I am an American Black male...

What are you you suggesting - that because you are an American black male nobody else is entitled to question anything you say on these subjects? I never claim to speak for anyone but myself, and I think that applies equally to you.

You can't quit debating people because you've never really tried it. The problem is not that you have a different opinion. The problem is that you belabour the same points ad nauseum (eg "mainstream Democrat media") and refuse to engage with other peoples' responses. That makes for very tedious discussion.

Incidentally, this thread is about the coming US elections so can we please get back to the topic? If you want to keep posting about BLM-related issues you should really start another thread.

[filghy2]

According to exit polls, black votes in the 2016 election were 88% for Clinton, 8% for Trump and 4% for others.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election

I think that tells you how representative Fanti and the fellow libertarians he cites are.

[MrFanti]

140 Seconds of facts NOT reported by the Mainstream Media...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjXAACwR8h8

[broncofan]

So basically the same stuff you already said but some dude shouting it on a YouTube video.

[MrFanti]

So basically the same stuff you already said but some dude shouting it on a YouTube video.
Zing!
You missed the point!

[broncofan]

Zing!
You missed the point!
In your own words tell us the point. It looks like you just posted a video of some random person saying a lot of the stuff you already said. Are the arguments more convincing because he made them? Are they more convincing because of the way he said them?

Nobody is suppressing this viewpoint. It's just not all that compelling for reasons others have spelled out on the last couple of pages.

[Stavros]

I wonder, with the President's poll ratings falling, is this Biden's election to lose? Through complacency rather than a gaffe, or even the choice of VP?

And, if the US does not get itself sorted by November, can the election take place? It seems incredible to me that an open-air convention in Florida in August can go ahead, but what are the practical implications if even by November so many people are still ill and confined to home? Are the majority of affected people in the South elderly white, dare one say, 'Republican' voters?
Then there are the polling machines that don't work, the legal challenge over the Poll Tax in Florida, etc et-

And what about the result in these conditions? I am probably thinking the worst, but there are reasoons for this....

[filghy2]

Yes, back to the topic. It seems that there is a potential mechanism through which Trump could steal the election with a thin veneer of legality if Republican-controlled legislatures in some states refuse to certify the outcome. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/17/trump-biden-win-democrat-landslide

I wonder how likely this is, though I'm sure Trump would not baulk at it. If Republicans lose the battleground states then defying the will of the people does not sound like a way to win them back. One would hope that enough Republicans would realise that risking future disaster to allow an unpopular President to cling to office would not be a good move. Still, that sort of logic has not worked well over the past 4 years.

You Americans might need to resort to people power and take to the streets en masse to get rid of this guy.

[Stavros]

I think you are pointing in the right direction, filghy2, with this irony: the extent to which this President already questions the ways in which Americans vote, even if designed to claim he is being cheated out of a win here and there, does actually beg the questions about the mechanisms by which Americans vote, indeed, who even is permitted to vote. Why does voting differ so much from one State to another? Why do some States allow people with convictions to vote, but not in others? Given that voting is a fundamental right, should it not be organized Federally by an Independent Federal Commission that designes, manages and reports the results of elections? It shoud undermine claims of voter fraud, even though this is rare in US elections.

And if as Freedland argues, Biden gets a landslide, will this not be so impossible as to be fake? This is a President who never loses, so how is he going to act this time if he does? Probably by crying foul. It still looks to me like the messiest election in the US in my lifetime.

[blackchubby38]

I wonder, with the President's poll ratings falling, is this Biden's election to lose? Through complacency rather than a gaffe, or even the choice of VP?

And, if the US does not get itself sorted by November, can the election take place? It seems incredible to me that an open-air convention in Florida in August can go ahead, but what are the practical implications if even by November so many people are still ill and confined to home? Are the majority of affected people in the South elderly white, dare one say, 'Republican' voters?
Then there are the polling machines that don't work, the legal challenge over the Poll Tax in Florida, etc et-

And what about the result in these conditions? I am probably thinking the worst, but there are reasoons for this....

Although I have no faith in the polls, it is exactly Biden's election to lose. Some of it could be to his own doing. I would say in this order:

1. His VP pick
2. Complacency
3. Over confidence
4. A gaffe

He can also lose the election if people don't like the direction the country is going in come November. In the wake of George Floyd's murder and the protests/riots, there has been a rise in violent crime and it seems that Democratic leaders don't want address the issue for fear of alienating their base. Or if they do address it, they come up with a bunch of other reasons for the spike.

If enough of the independents and/moderates get fed up, they maybe willing to accept 4 more years of Trump because of the law and order issue.

[broncofan]

If enough of the independents and/moderates get fed up, they maybe willing to accept 4 more years of Trump because of the law and order issue.
If there are people that would vote for someone who has committed at least a half dozen impeachable acts, has engaged in financial corruption, and commuted the sentence of a felon who lied to protect him it is not because they're concerned about law and order. It's because they only want some people to be able to break the law. All sorts of crazy things can happen but this will be a tough election to argue both sides are equally bad given that only one side has decided to do away with our constitutional form of government.

[MrFanti]

Black Americans are finally showing the Democrats that Democrats can no longer use, abuse, and take advantage of the Black vote!!

Black Americans Have a Message for Democrats: Not Being Trump Is Not Enough
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/31/us/politics/black-americans-democrats-trump.html

[MrFanti]

Although I have no faith in the polls, it is exactly Biden's election to lose.
Exactly!
Hillary was favored in every single poll......

[MrFanti]

If enough of the independents and/moderates get fed up, they maybe willing to accept 4 more years of Trump because of the law and order issue.

Correct again!

[MrFanti]

"Broncofan",
Your bias never ceases to amaze me!
You give me a "thumbs down" for quoting something from someone else but do not give the ORIGINAL POSTER a "thumbs down"
LMAO!!!!!

[broncofan]

"Broncofan",
Your bias never ceases to amaze me!
You give me a "thumbs down" for quoting something from someone else but do not give the ORIGINAL POSTER a "thumbs down"
LMAO!!!!!
I amaze myself sometimes. The original post was fine. I don't agree with every point, but at least it was a view. You posted three times without saying anything.

First, the same argument about how not every Black person likes the Democratic party. Fine, but your political views are still not that well represented within the Black community. Posting a two month old article doesn't change that. And btw, everyone agrees that you're entitled to your views....that doesn't mean those views are all that common.

Then two more posts just to say you agree with someone. Since when does a post need your pronouncement that it's correct? Like the post and write something of your own for the love of all things holy. Not a big deal but the cheerleading is annoying. Should I just quote you from now on and say "incorrect!" every time I disagree. I figured it was just easier to dislike your post. Have a good evening!

[filghy2]

Given that voting is a fundamental right, should it not be organized Federally by an Independent Federal Commission that designes, manages and reports the results of elections?

No dispute from me, given I live in a normal country that has such a system. It's beyond belief to me that a democracy would have a system where the parties competing in the election run the voting process - as well as relying on the losing party being willing to certify that it lost. That looks like a powder keg just waiting to explode and the November election could be the spark that does it.

[filghy2]

He can also lose the election if people don't like the direction the country is going in come November. In the wake of George Floyd's murder and the protests/riots, there has been a rise in violent crime and it seems that Democratic leaders don't want address the issue for fear of alienating their base. Or if they do address it, they come up with a bunch of other reasons for the spike.

This recent article suggests that overall violent crime is actually down on last year, though murders are up. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/upshot/murders-rising-crime-coronavirus.html

If there has been an increase, why do you attribute it to the protests rather than the economic downturn and lockdowns caused by the coronavirus?

The US is about the most heavily-policed developed country in the world, yet it also has the highest rates of violent crime. Doesn't that suggest that more law and order can't be a sufficient solution - that there also has to be a focus on the underlying economic and social factors?

[broncofan]

The only outlandish and dangerous idea I've heard from some Democrats is the suggestion that police be de-funded. It doesn't have mainstream support and is not anything close to part of Joe Biden's platform. Most policing is done locally as police forces are enforcing state law.

When I hear a crazy idea from the left I generally assume it will not be represented in a Biden administration. When I hear a crazy comment from someone on the right, I not only think Trump will have surrogates who agree with it, but he will never clearly denounce the bad idea if it comes from someone who flatters him.

If someone wants to vote for Trump over Biden I assume they were looking for an excuse to all along. Biden could not more clearly represent a return to normalcy; respect for rule of law, respect for experts, and respect for constitutional norms. No more threatening retribution on people doing their jobs, no more threatening political opponents with prosecution, no more intervening on behalf of friends, no more financial self-dealing, no more threatening war on twitter, and no more threatening war crimes like he did with Iran.

I honestly think Biden should be the ideal candidate for moderates and independents given the fact that he's been around forever and is pragmatic. You can always cherrypick something scary about something in certain parts of the left but you're talking about total entrenchment of that extremism on the right...

[blackchubby38]

This recent article suggests that overall violent crime is actually down on last year, though murders are up. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/06/upshot/murders-rising-crime-coronavirus.html

If there has been an increase, why do you attribute it to the protests rather than the economic downturn and lockdowns caused by the coronavirus?

The US is about the most heavily-policed developed country in the world, yet it also has the highest rates of violent crime. Doesn't that suggest that more law and order can't be a sufficient solution - that there also has to be a focus on the underlying economic and social factors?

I didn't mean to make it sound like the protests were the cause of the spike in violent crime. Just saying what's been happening since then. Here in NYC there has been a rise in shootings and murder when you compare that stats to last year.

Through July 12, the city has recorded 634 shootings compared to 394 for the same period last year, a 60% increase. There have been 203 murders so far in 2020, a 23% jump compared to same time period in 2019, when the city recorded 165 killings.

I don't think the economic downturn isn't the only reason why that has happened.

The state recently passed a bail reform law and even before the pandemic there was evidence that it wasn't working. There are people who are out on the streets that just shouldn't be. You combine that with an economic downturn, a pandemic and shitty leadership on the local level, then the people who these reforms are supposed to help are usually the ones who wind up getting hurt in the end.

While you can focus on underlying economic and social factors, you still need smart and effective policing to combat crime.

http:////www.cnn.com/2020/07/18/us/nypd-commissioner-lawmakers/index.html

[Stavros]

No dispute from me, given I live in a normal country that has such a system. It's beyond belief to me that a democracy would have a system where the parties competing in the election run the voting process - as well as relying on the losing party being willing to certify that it lost. That looks like a powder keg just waiting to explode and the November election could be the spark that does it.

A good point, but not relevant to this thread is the reserve power of the Governor-General, partly due to the recent release of Sir John Kerr's justification for sacking Gough Whitlam (an act that trashed the Labour Party yet led to the reforms that enabled Bob Hawke to take command by the end of the decade)- I wonder, is it because the Queen remains Head of State in Australia that the Governor-General retains 'reserve powers', and, if Austalia were to become a Republic, would a President have the same powers?

[Stavros]

Exactly!
Hillary was favored in every single poll......

And the polls were right! She won nearly 3 million more votes than her rival for the White House. Clinton lost the Electoral College, with the smallest of margins in what, four States?

Look, Mr Fanti, nobody here disagrees with you, that there is a diversity of politics among Black Americans, and I think most of us can agree that for years the Democrats have taken 'the Black Vote' for granted.
But so too has the Republican Party, or are you telling me that the strenuous efforts made to remove Black people from the electoral register in Republican run States, to impose financial conditions on registering to vote for ex-convicts, to closing polling stations on election day in primarily Black areas, is 'simple racism', ie- because the people are Black? Or is it because the Republicans also assume all Black people in, say, the Carolinas vote Democrat?

I would prefer, too, a more important analysis of the structural issues involved here- how, over the 100 years after 'Juneteenth', there was a significant geographical shift among Black Americans, from rural areas to urban areas, and how this was motivated by the availability of jobs -partcularly in Los Angeles, which, as Mike Davis argued in City of Quartz (1990) was originally estabished as a community of White Christians fleeing the North-West to get away from the Blacks and the Jews, with the added intention to shut them out of their Shangri-La, at which they failed (having dismissed the film industry as a waste of time and money, they left it to the Jews they despised on the basis they would fail -ha-ha on that one!).

Is it the case that the importance of Black Americans as industrial workers (auto in Michigan, aerospace in California) condemned them to become the 'urban poor' when automation and re-structuring between 1960-2000 shredded the jobs they once had? They became ripe for the welfare system that Murray and others has argued has undermined 'the Black family', (important to create a 'unique' problem) to which one adds the desperate effect narcotics has had on Black Urban America, with the additional availabiity of guns -though one notes, pace Chicago, that the phenomenal rate of drug-related crime and murder in Washington DC in the 1980s and 1990s has since declined , and why is that?

There is a fascinating profile in today's paper of that exquisite actor, Alfre Woodard, due to the release of the film Clemency. In it, she not only points out her great-grandfather was born into slavery, that-

"...he showed up in records as ‘property’ when he was eight years old” – but that after emancipation he went on to be a landowner with his own acres. “There was a period of reconstruction right after the proclamation. These people had only the rags on their backs, but they got out there and did it for themselves,” Woodard says. “That story rarely gets told, but what a great lesson it would make. We had more black representation in the legislature in that period, before lynching and the Jim Crow laws, than we had up until about a decade ago.” (my underlinings)
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/19/alfre-woodard-we-want-all-those-with-a-stake-in-the-death-row-business-to-see-this-film-clemency

The key point is that Black people not only had the ability, then as now, to make something of their lives without welfare or affirmative action, but that many of the wider advances, in voting rights and crucially, access to senior offices in the US Government -were then taken away from Black people, not because they were not good at being Postmaster General or civil servants, but because they were Black. Yet for some, this reinforced their need for self-reliance, so that, as Woodard says of the Tulsa community in which she was raised-

"Ironically, partly because of segregation the community she grew up in was incredibly vibrant, she says. “Everyone lived together – doctors, lawyers, ballerinas, pole dancers. You could go to the well-off white part of town, but not to the white working-class areas. The butting of heads was between well-off black people and working-class whites. Classism was as important as racism in some ways.”

Here is the point: what does a man or woman do if they are not Doctors, Lawyers or Ballerinas? What if their standard of education is lower, less well-funded than their parents? Clearly some continue to do well, but we always come back to this unknown factor in Libertarian arguments, that if you take away welfare, former dependents will get jobs, that markets and individuals provide- what happens to the losers? Those who fail? Some fail through personal inadequacy, that is true of all segments of society, but suppose failure is the consequence of poverty at every level, in terms of income, and mentality? And, have Black Americans, rural or urban been most disadvantaged, and since when?

These issues -poverty, urban violence + drugs + gangs cannot be dismissed as something to do with 'race' -surely it is embedded in the complications of the way the USA experiences capitalism, the distribution of work, as well as the distrbution of income? After all, the majority of White Americans are not Doctors, Lawyers or Ballerinas too.

[Stavros]

Although I have no faith in the polls, it is exactly Biden's election to lose. Some of it could be to his own doing. I would say in this order:

1. His VP pick
2. Complacency
3. Over confidence
4. A gaffe

He can also lose the election if people don't like the direction the country is going in come November. In the wake of George Floyd's murder and the protests/riots, there has been a rise in violent crime and it seems that Democratic leaders don't want address the issue for fear of alienating their base. Or if they do address it, they come up with a bunch of other reasons for the spike.

If enough of the independents and/moderates get fed up, they maybe willing to accept 4 more years of Trump because of the law and order issue.

Interesting, Blackchubby 38, that you shoud put the VP and Complacency in the top two. Robert Reich in today's Guardian/Observer (but I assume it is syndicated in other papers around the world), presents a remarkable picture of Americans of all political hues so opposed to the incumbent, that Biden is the Universal alternative to the man who has unified everyone against thim, thus:

"Donald Trump is on the verge of accomplishing what no American president has ever achieved – a truly multi-racial, multi-class, bipartisan political coalition so encompassing it could realign US politics for years to come.
Unfortunately for Trump, that coalition has come into existence to prevent him from having another term in office."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/19/donald-trump-presidential-election-joe-biden-coronavirus-pandemic

On this basis, Biden merely needs to talk softly, and avoid anything controversial -yes, the US will re-join the WHO; yes, the US will seek to endorse again the Paris Climate Change Agreement; Yes, one hopes, the EPA will regain its scientific purpose and re-impose strict regulations on industrial pollution. In other words, a reversal of the reversal of policy that has taken place since 2017.

But I wonder if it is wishful thinking on Reich's part. And in fact, as in the UK, there is an elephant in the room which people are ignoring, although it has been briefly referred to here in the UK -not 'Race', not Guns, not Defunding the Police, or Tearing Down Statues of Confederate General, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and JFK and Martin Luther King and Prince and James Brown and John Wayne -but this: TAXES.

We can't go on borrowing, even at zero interest rates; at some point, TAXES MUST RISE. Biden will undoubtedly say anything to get elected, even if he doesn't need to say so much, but let the incumbent talk himself into early retirement with his ugly, offensive, and ignorant appeal to prejudice and lies. And I suppose he could still win the Electoral College if the votes go close in some States, quite apart from the more sinister scenarios referred to in previous posts.

But when is someone going to argue that if change does come, it does not just mean change to the way we work, the residual fear of congregating with others undermining economic recovery, but the financial reality that someone has to pay for all the freebies being handed out by governments as substitues to pay, and the unavoidabe reality that the taxpayer is the only one left standing on the battlefield.

Workers of the World, Pay Up! Because nobody else is going to.

[MrFanti]

I didn't mean to make it sound like the protests were the cause of the spike in violent crime. Just saying what's been happening since then. Here in NYC there has been a rise in shootings and murder when you compare that stats to last year.

Through July 12, the city has recorded 634 shootings compared to 394 for the same period last year, a 60% increase. There have been 203 murders so far in 2020, a 23% jump compared to same time period in 2019, when the city recorded 165 killings.

I don't think the economic downturn isn't the only reason why that has happened.

The state recently passed a bail reform law and even before the pandemic there was evidence that it wasn't working. There are people who are out on the streets that just shouldn't be. You combine that with an economic downturn, a pandemic and shitty leadership on the local level, then the people who these reforms are supposed to help are usually the ones who wind up getting hurt in the end.

While you can focus on underlying economic and social factors, you still need smart and effective policing to combat crime.

http:////www.cnn.com/2020/07/18/us/nypd-commissioner-lawmakers/index.html

Well said!
And I think that a lot of these mayors that are currently presiding over high crime cities are going to be in for a rude awakening....But then again, Detroit is full of crime yet its citizens have continued to vote the same way for decades....

[filghy2]

A good point, but not relevant to this thread is the reserve power of the Governor-General, partly due to the recent release of Sir John Kerr's justification for sacking Gough Whitlam (an act that trashed the Labour Party yet led to the reforms that enabled Bob Hawke to take command by the end of the decade)- I wonder, is it because the Queen remains Head of State in Australia that the Governor-General retains 'reserve powers', and, if Austalia were to become a Republic, would a President have the same powers?

My understanding is the Governor-General's reserve powers were derived from the reserve powers of the British monarch, although the 1975 constitutional crisis could not happen in the UK because the upper house cannot block government financing bills.

The Republic referendum that failed in 1999 was for a minimalist change, with the head of state appointed by a two-thirds majority of Parliament on the PM's recommendation, rather than by the Queen. As that was the only change to the Constitution the reserve powers would have remained.

Some people have proposed that the reserve powers should be codified in a future referendum, so that the process for resolving a deadlock is clear rather than being left to the judgement of one person. The problem is that it would be very hard to get bipartisan agreement, which is essential for a referendum to succeed.

Fortunately, the 1975 crisis did not leading to ongoing problems of political instability because politicians appear to have accepted the need for restraint. There has been no further attempt to force an election by blocking supply since 1975.

[MrFanti]

And this person wants "Abolition of the United States"....
https://twitter.com/ElijahSchaffer/status/1284512759934267392

[broncofan]

I think Laphroaig asked this on another thread but I am curious how Biden is doing compared to Hillary at the same point. My sense just from glancing at poll numbers if that he's doing much better and that states that usually aren't even in contention appear to have swung blue.

We found out in the last election that polling doesn't always capture the entire picture and there are still 3 months and two weeks to go until the election. We also don't know to what extent Trump will try to suppress the vote, what's going to happen with mail in voting etc. I do think Biden is in a good position so far, but in such a divided country you can't take anything for granted.

[MrFanti]

Charles Barkley is WOKE WOKE
Can't fight racism with racism Black people!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgpoBpUCQ6E

[Stavros]

We also don't know to what extent Trump will try to suppress the vote, what's going to happen with mail in voting etc. I do think Biden is in a good position so far, but in such a divided country you can't take anything for granted.

I read somewhere the 'armed militias' of the Department of Homeland Security/Border Control Forces currently deployed in Oregon to deter 'potential' attacks on Federal property -including summary arrests and detention of innocent citizens- will be present in Democrat controlled cities because the Mayors are so incompetent and the threat so 'potential' -on the day you walk to the Polling Station, you may be escorted by an armed guard, or maybe the armed guard will assume you are about to deface a Federal wall or monument or pavestone, and arrest you so you can't vote. Might be best for the President to declare a State of Emergency and not hold the election at all.

[Stavros]

Charles Barkley is WOKE WOKE
Can't fight racism with racism]

I don't know Charles Barkley is, I don't know what 'Woke' means in its new life-is it a term of abuse now? And as for the guy in the video, he may have a point about the value of 'the home' in repairing human relations; his fixation on 'fatherless homes' is slippery, after all, were there not a substantal number of fatherless homes in the 1950s owing to the fathers killed in the Second World War and Korea? And suppose the home is a slum? How does one generate self-respect or any respect when living on the edge of destitution and sharing a run-down apartment with roaches and rats? Isn't that a good enough reason to spend summer nights on the street outside?

But when he says the Civil Rights have been won, he is an idiot, because many Republicans have been fighting against it since day one, and Edward Blum is a legal activist who the guy in the video needs to learn about-

"Some of Blum’s cases have had such an impact that even he has been taken aback. Nowhere is that truer than with Shelby County v Holder, a case (http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/shelby-county-v-holder/) he sponsored that in 2013 led the supreme court to overturn a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Blum told the Guardian he has worried over the fallout from that ruling, which spurred conservative legislators in Texas (http://www.votetexas.gov/register-to-vote/need-id/), North Carolina (http://www.advancementproject.org/pages/whos-affected-by-north-carolinas-voter-suppression-law) and elsewhere to revive laws that the Justice Department had previously blocked or was expected to block on the grounds that they were vehicles for minority vote suppression."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/05/edward-blum-voting-rights-act-civil-rights-affirmative-action

Kanye West promises to give a million bucks to every woman in the US when she has a child -he didn't say if she needed to be married. But I guess he could become 'the Black candidate' -I mean, there must be millions of Black Women who can see the opporunity to get laid and get rich a the same time, so what's not to like? Or, can't someone just tell Mr West to shut up?

[filghy2]

I think Laphroaig asked this on another thread but I am curious how Biden is doing compared to Hillary at the same point. My sense just from glancing at poll numbers if that he's doing much better and that states that usually aren't even in contention appear to have swung blue.

According to this article his lead is well ahead of Hillary Clinton's at the same stage in 2016, though she did have leads that were almost as large at later stages. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/19/biden-trump-polls-matchup-369261

The best antidote to pessimism about the election is Trump himself. The man can't seem to help making himself the issue, and as long as the election is a referendum on him I don't think he can win.

[filghy2]

I don't know Charles Barkley is

Former basketball player. I assume we can expect to see a video of every black person that Fanti can find who agrees with him (not that I'm wasting time watching any of them).

[broncofan]

According to this article his lead is well ahead of Hillary Clinton's at the same stage in 2016, though she did have leads that were almost as large at later stages. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/19/biden-trump-polls-matchup-369261

The best antidote to pessimism about the election is Trump himself. The man can't seem to help making himself the issue, and as long as the election is a referendum on him I don't think he can win.
Thanks. So it says her lead was about 7 points after the "grab her by the pussy" audio came out. My optimistic interpretation is that a lot of the things that made Trump's poll numbers dip in the past election cycle had to do with his indecency and memory of that can fade in two or three weeks. On the other hand, 140,000 people aren't suddenly going to spring to life.

I am curious what the postmortem is on the accuracy of the poll numbers for the last election. I recall on election night 538 gave Trump a 30% chance of winning and Nate Silver was being harangued by some Bernie Bro journalist who kept insisting Trump really had something like a 2% chance of winning. I'm pretty sure the guy pulled the 2% figure out of his ass and basically just wanted to call Silver a right wing shill.

You could see this guy grow embarrassed as the numbers came in. Then when Trump ended up winning the story was that 538 and other pollsters were way off.

And yet, I still have faith in polling as a statistical science, even though I don't know shit about it. I think sometimes it is tough to get representative samples and a lot can change in three months. And margin of error etc. But if the polls say Trump is down 10% nationally, that is very real. Let's see how durable it is.

[Stavros]

So, with the President's Private Army in Portland, and about to be deployed against the citizens USA in other Democrat-run cities -citizens he has described as 'total scum, they're human scum'- and with him casting doubt on him accepting the result of November election, if it goes ahead, it now is claimed the President can rule by decree anyway, so what is the purpose of Congress or the Supreme Court which will probably decline to make a judgment, while rule by decree/Executive Order will be endorsed by William Barr.

If this is not the start of anothe civil war, what is it? After all, is it not a) encouraging protestors to congregate in a threatening manner so that b) military force can be justified, aong with c) summary arrest and detention without trial of Americans 'threatening' Federal property? After all, how else do you clear the streets of 'human scum'?

"The Trump administration (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) has been consulting the former government lawyer who wrote the legal justification for waterboarding on how the president might try to rule by decree.
John Yoo told the Guardian he has been talking to White House officials about his view that a recent supreme court ruling on immigration (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/18/daca-supreme-court-decision-trump-dreamers) would allow Trump to issue executive orders on whether to apply existing federal laws.
“If the court really believes what it just did, then it just handed President Trump a great deal of power, too,” Yoo, a professor at Berkeley Law, said.
“The supreme court has said President Obama could [choose not to] enforce immigration laws for about 2 million cases. And why can’t the Trump administration do something similar with immigration – create its own … program, but it could do it in areas beyond that, like healthcare, tax policy, criminal justice, inner city policy. I talked to them a fair amount about cities, because of the disorder.”
In a Fox News Sunday Interview, Trump declared he would try to use that interpretation to try to force through decrees on healthcare, immigration and “various other plans” over the coming month. The White House consultations with Yoo were first reported by the Axios news website (https://www.axios.com/trump-executive-orders-supreme-court-daca-3d369f16-d9db-4e39-b8a0-946e670797b2.html)."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/20/trump-john-yoo-lawyer-torture-waterboarding

[broncofan]

"Some of Blum’s cases have had such an impact that even he has been taken aback. Nowhere is that truer than with Shelby County v Holder, a case (http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/shelby-county-v-holder/) he sponsored that in 2013 led the supreme court to overturn a key provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Blum told the Guardian he has worried over the fallout from that ruling, which spurred conservative legislators in Texas (http://www.votetexas.gov/register-to-vote/need-id/), North Carolina (http://www.advancementproject.org/pages/whos-affected-by-north-carolinas-voter-suppression-law) and elsewhere to revive laws that the Justice Department had previously blocked or was expected to block on the grounds that they were vehicles for minority vote suppression."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/05/edward-blum-voting-rights-act-civil-rights-affirmative-action

I didn't know who this guy is but I'm glad I do now. From looking at his wikipedia page it looks like he has spent his career fighting so-called reverse racism in the form of diversity policies that are intended to increase representation of discriminated against minority groups. Now he claims that his lifelong crusade to fight efforts to remedy this country's racism have led to the "unintended" consequence of disenfranchising minority voters. I'm afraid he has to own that one cause it's perfectly in accord with his other efforts.

Just a random thought but some people have way too much confidence. This guy is not a lawyer but his job is to match clients with lawyers for the purpose of creating test cases to challenge laws. How is that a job? It said before that he was a stockbroker! lol

[broncofan]

I recall on election night 538 gave Trump a 30% chance of winning and Nate Silver was being harangued by some Bernie Bro journalist who kept insisting Trump really had something like a 2% chance of winning. I'm pretty sure the guy pulled the 2% figure out of his ass and basically just wanted to call Silver a right wing shill.

You could see this guy grow embarrassed as the numbers came in. Then when Trump ended up winning the story was that 538 and other pollsters were way off.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/11/nate-silvers-forecast-probably-overstates-trumps-chances.html
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/nate-silver-huffington-post-polls-twitter-230815

This is an article on their disagreement written the day before the election. You can see from the nymag article's conclusion that at least some people had almost completely discounted Trump's chances.

Silver gave Hillary a 64.7% chance of winning on election night, which holds up better than the 98% chance Huffington Post gave her.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

So, with the President's Private Army in Portland, and about to be deployed against the citizens USA in other Democrat-run cities -citizens he has described as 'total scum, they're human scum'- and with him casting doubt on him accepting the result of November election, if it goes ahead, it now is claimed the President can rule by decree anyway, so what is the purpose of Congress or the Supreme Court which will probably decline to make a judgment, while rule by decree/Executive Order will be endorsed by William Barr.

If this is not the start of anothe civil war, what is it? After all, is it not a) encouraging protestors to congregate in a threatening manner so that b) military force can be justified, aong with c) summary arrest and detention without trial of Americans 'threatening' Federal property? After all, how else do you clear the streets of 'human scum'?

"The Trump administration (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/trump-administration) has been consulting the former government lawyer who wrote the legal justification for waterboarding on how the president might try to rule by decree.
John Yoo told the Guardian he has been talking to White House officials about his view that a recent supreme court ruling on immigration (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/18/daca-supreme-court-decision-trump-dreamers) would allow Trump to issue executive orders on whether to apply existing federal laws.
“If the court really believes what it just did, then it just handed President Trump a great deal of power, too,” Yoo, a professor at Berkeley Law, said.
“The supreme court has said President Obama could [choose not to] enforce immigration laws for about 2 million cases. And why can’t the Trump administration do something similar with immigration – create its own … program, but it could do it in areas beyond that, like healthcare, tax policy, criminal justice, inner city policy. I talked to them a fair amount about cities, because of the disorder.”
In a Fox News Sunday Interview, Trump declared he would try to use that interpretation to try to force through decrees on healthcare, immigration and “various other plans” over the coming month. The White House consultations with Yoo were first reported by the Axios news website (https://www.axios.com/trump-executive-orders-supreme-court-daca-3d369f16-d9db-4e39-b8a0-946e670797b2.html)."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/20/trump-john-yoo-lawyer-torture-waterboardingUS Citizens should be extremely concerned that Donald Trump has vowed to send federal officers to several american cities lead by democrats to boost his bid for re-election, this latest example clearly shows that he is willing to do anything to stay in power by any means necessary,including using federal officers in democratic cities to suppress the votes,because he's afraid of losing the november general election againist Joe Biden. And those enablers in the US Congress and Senate won't intervene,and will enable and allow him to continue disregard the US Constitution and do what he wants,because it will benefit them.

[MrFanti]

US Citizens should be extremely concerned that Donald Trump has vowed to send federal officers to several american cities
Agreed - no doubt one can definitely say that this goes against the 'tenants' (for lack of a better word) of states governing themselves.

That being said, my questions is when are the responsible mayors going to handle the violence and crime and get control of their cities?

[Stavros]

What the Mayors can do-

-Law Enforcement Reform: Create a Community Policing culture that puts 'bobbies on the beat' that residents can see every day, that tackles the dominance by gangs of the streets, by day and night. Boston has done it, and while Boston is not free of crime or drugs or gangs, the argument is that the levels of street crime have fallen.
-Jobs: young men and young women need the dignity of work, a dignity they can carry into their mature years.
-Education: young people need an education that will prepare them to become active and responsible adults in the workplace and society at large. Education requires money, the money to sustain a teaching cohort that students see throughout their school days, and even beyond, and schoolrooms that radiate the joy of learning, that have the resoures to make school a place children want to be, and yes, if necessary, the one place they can be guaranteed one hot meal a day.
-Legalize and control narctics: take away the crime, and give it the time: to become a market commodity. I understand the probems legalization brings, but if a 15 year old can make $100 a day slinging, what is the point of flipping burgers at McD, or studying to be an engineer, or even learning to read and write?
-Repeal the 2nd Amendment, or amend it to reduce access to firearms, limied to farmers in remote areas.
-Raise Taxes, and use Taxation to completely reform the Education system, to use Taxes as the foundation of a New Deal in educaiton for all, with one Federal, Nation-wide Curriculum that gives every American an equal opprtunity to thrive.
-Reimagine Cities: the Urban environment is heading into a crisis as the Coronavirus makes the congrgation of humans in small spaces a threat to public and private health. But even if Cities lose their commercial buildings if companies move out of town and people work from home, the City can become a place of Culture and Sport: it also needs looking after, thus
--Garden Cities: recruit young people into Garden City Commodores: create in the most run-down slums and Projects a respect for the streets and parks by cleaning them up, and planting tress and plants, with a permanet cadre of citizens looking after their neighborhood. The aim is not just to smarten a place up, but to make it a desirable place to be, to visit. Stick a stage in the park and have regularly Satuday or Sunday concerts, for free. Create tennis courts, basketball courts and so on, supervised with the option to train promising athletes.

Those are a few ideas of mine, Mr Fanti. What are yours?

[blackchubby38]

What the Mayors can do-

-Law Enforcement Reform: Create a Community Policing culture that puts 'bobbies on the beat' that residents can see every day, that tackles the dominance by gangs of the streets, by day and night. Boston has done it, and while Boston is not free of crime or drugs or gangs, the argument is that the levels of street crime have fallen.
-Jobs: young men and young women need the dignity of work, a dignity they can carry into their mature years.
-Education: young people need an education that will prepare them to become active and responsible adults in the workplace and society at large. Education requires money, the money to sustain a teaching cohort that students see throughout their school days, and even beyond, and schoolrooms that radiate the joy of learning, that have the resoures to make school a place children want to be, and yes, if necessary, the one place they can be guaranteed one hot meal a day.
-Legalize and control narctics: take away the crime, and give it the time: to become a market commodity. I understand the probems legalization brings, but if a 15 year old can make $100 a day slinging, what is the point of flipping burgers at McD, or studying to be an engineer, or even learning to read and write?
-Repeal the 2nd Amendment, or amend it to reduce access to firearms, limied to farmers in remote areas.
-Raise Taxes, and use Taxation to completely reform the Education system, to use Taxes as the foundation of a New Deal in educaiton for all, with one Federal, Nation-wide Curriculum that gives every American an equal opprtunity to thrive.
-Reimagine Cities: the Urban environment is heading into a crisis as the Coronavirus makes the congrgation of humans in small spaces a threat to public and private health. But even if Cities lose their commercial buildings if companies move out of town and people work from home, the City can become a place of Culture and Sport: it also needs looking after, thus
--Garden Cities: recruit young people into Garden City Commodores: create in the most run-down slums and Projects a respect for the streets and parks by cleaning them up, and planting tress and plants, with a permanet cadre of citizens looking after their neighborhood. The aim is not just to smarten a place up, but to make it a desirable place to be, to visit. Stick a stage in the park and have regularly Satuday or Sunday concerts, for free. Create tennis courts, basketball courts and so on, supervised with the option to train promising athletes.

Those are a few ideas of mine, Mr Fanti. What are yours?

Mayors can't repeal the 2nd amendment nor should it be repealed. Also NYC has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and yet gun violence is still a problem.

I think if you legalize and control narcotics, it will have a trickle down effect that can solve some of the other issues that you have mentioned. First you remove a major source of income from the gangs and therefore it impacts their dominance on the streets. It will make the cops' job a lot easier and they won't feel like when they're on patrol, they're doing it in the middle of a war zone. It will also allow them to concentrate on more serious offenses as well as reduce the amount of street crime.

Second, it gives a municipality another source of revenue so they can invest in education and job training programs. If you also legalize gambling and prostitution, there is another source of revenue to draw from. This should make raising taxes unnecessary and you use the existing tax revenue for things like infrastructure repairs.

I think reimagining cities sounds good in theory, but you're still going to have companies that are going to be resistant to having their employees working from home on a permanent basis. So for the ones that want to keep their commercial buildings, make it more viable for them to do so. For the ones that do want to move out of the city, find something some to replace the existing structures with that is beneficial for the city. Like more hospitals, affordable housing, small sized manufacturing centers or an Amazon distribution center. Thanks alot AOC!

As for the garden cities, speaking as a New Yorker. We have done tennis courts, basketball courts, etc thing. Parks are continually being renovated. But its up to the individual citizens to help keep them clean. There is park across the street from house that has been renovated and still people treat it like a dumping ground and don't clean up after themselves when they have cookouts. Which happen to be against the law in the first place.

Having said all that, you still need strong leadership make it happen at the local level. Something that is severely lacking here in NYC.

[blackchubby38]

Another thing I want bring up when it comes to education. We need begin to realize that college isn't for everybody and there really is nothing wrong with learning a trade. Because no matter how technologically advanced we get as a society, we still need plumbers, mechanics, and people to do HAVC work.

[filghy2]

Agreed - no doubt one can definitely say that this goes against the 'tenants' (for lack of a better word) of states governing themselves.

There is a better word: tenets https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tenet

It's lucky for you that you are absolutely unembarrassable.

[filghy2]

I am curious what the postmortem is on the accuracy of the poll numbers for the last election. I recall on election night 538 gave Trump a 30% chance of winning and Nate Silver was being harangued by some Bernie Bro journalist who kept insisting Trump really had something like a 2% chance of winning. I'm pretty sure the guy pulled the 2% figure out of his ass and basically just wanted to call Silver a right wing shill.

It's hard to believe the chance for one side could ever be as low as 2% in a well-established two-party system where the Presidency changes hands regularly.

The current popular narrative about polls not being reliable stems mainly from the twin surprises in 2016 - Brexit and Trump. That seems to be an example of the common human tendency to over-extrapolate from the most prominent recent events. This 2018 article by Nate Silver shows that polling errors in the 2016 election were actually around the average for Presidential elections. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-are-all-right/

All polls have some risk of being wrong because they are based on a small sample of the population. If people claim that these errors are systematic (rather than random errors that could go either way) they need to have some explanation for why they would systematically miss people with certain views. At the end of the day, pollsters make money from having a good reputation for accuracy, so they should have an incentive to try to get it right. Of course, they sometimes find shortcomings with their methodologies after the event, and when they do they fix it, which they've done since 2016 (eg giving more weighting to education levels).
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/2020-presidential-election-polls-accurate-explainer-biden-trump-2016-2020-7?

[broncofan]

Another thing I want bring up when it comes to education. We need begin to realize that college isn't for everybody and there really is nothing wrong with learning a trade. Because no matter how technologically advanced we get as a society, we still need plumbers, mechanics, and people to do HAVC work.
What I'm going to say may slightly derail the thread so I'll keep it short. I also think the way college education is structured should be re-thought. I went to a liberal arts college for undergrad and while I'm all for "enrichment" and reading the classics I don't think anyone NEEDS four years of it. Four years is enough time to be broadly educated AND at least lay the foundation for useful knowledge. Given how much time people waste in college I just think that the choice between enrichment and trade-oriented/career skills is a false choice.

[broncofan]

There is a better word: tenets https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/tenet

It's lucky for you that you are absolutely unembarrassable.
A while back a user created a screen name to pretend to be a shocked wife who had discovered his account on here. I remember the aha moment when I figured out that the word provardo was really bravado. Anyhow I think it's better the tenants govern themselves than the landlords.

[MrFanti]

Another thing I want bring up when it comes to education. We need begin to realize that college isn't for everybody and there really is nothing wrong with learning a trade. Because no matter how technologically advanced we get as a society, we still need plumbers, mechanics, and people to do HAVC work.
This is where the USA is falling behind.
In some instances, there are 6-figure jobs that are not being filled because no one knows how to weld, perform construction, etc......

[Stavros]

Mayors can't repeal the 2nd amendment nor should it be repealed. Also NYC has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and yet gun violence is still a problem.

I think if you legalize and control narcotics, it will have a trickle down effect that can solve some of the other issues that you have mentioned. First you remove a major source of income from the gangs and therefore it impacts their dominance on the streets. It will make the cops' job a lot easier and they won't feel like when they're on patrol, they're doing it in the middle of a war zone. It will also allow them to concentrate on more serious offenses as well as reduce the amount of street crime.

Second, it gives a municipality another source of revenue so they can invest in education and job training programs. If you also legalize gambling and prostitution, there is another source of revenue to draw from. This should make raising taxes unnecessary and you use the existing tax revenue for things like infrastructure repairs.

I think reimagining cities sounds good in theory, but you're still going to have companies that are going to be resistant to having their employees working from home on a permanent basis. So for the ones that want to keep their commercial buildings, make it more viable for them to do so. For the ones that do want to move out of the city, find something some to replace the existing structures with that is beneficial for the city. Like more hospitals, affordable housing, small sized manufacturing centers or an Amazon distribution center. Thanks alot AOC!

As for the garden cities, speaking as a New Yorker. We have done tennis courts, basketball courts, etc thing. Parks are continually being renovated. But its up to the individual citizens to help keep them clean. There is park across the street from house that has been renovated and still people treat it like a dumping ground and don't clean up after themselves when they have cookouts. Which happen to be against the law in the first place.

Having said all that, you still need strong leadership make it happen at the local level. Something that is severely lacking here in NYC.

I appreciate your feedback on what in my case were ideas floated to consider, given that I don't know how cities are organized in legal terms in the US. I think we can agree that the fundamentals are jobs and education, on the basis that people must believe they have a stake in their own environment, and a long term basis on which to develop as citizens, fathers and mothers, and so on, though this now appear to be an era of low-wages and job insecurity. I don't know why people have a lack of respect for local facilities, perhaps the 'Garden City' concept doesn't work if all that happens is that a neighbourhood is prettified but the 'gardeners' then leave to go somewhere else. And I can't believe in the 21st century planners smarter than me don't have better ideas on how to make urban environments better.

On guns the point you make illustrates the scope of the challenge- no matter how strict the laws are in NYC, if someone can drive to another state and buy weapons at a gun show, the availability of guns is not reduced. At some point as Americans, you have to decide if you are going to make a serious, nationwide effort to take the guns away, it is as basic and as necessary as raising taxes to pay off your debts and if possble fund more universal health care, and in education. These are not untouchabe, sacred cows.

It looks to me like the US is locked into a cultural debate which so narrows its frame of reference that instead of talking about an overhaul of the 2nd Amendment, its very existence is linked to some idea that it represents freedom, some unexplained original intention of the 'Founding Fathers' that cannot be changed without taking away something that 'defines' America, or that it is simply a non-starter as an election issue, the same being the case with the legalization of 'hard drugs' given that the outcome of the legalization of Marijuana has been mixed.

Like Abortion, Same-Sex Marriage, and Transgenders in the Military, the so-called 'Conservatives' can use these policy concerns as a warning that the foundations of the USA are being eroded, just as the President is probably provoking more violence in Democrat cities by sending in the 'troops' than if he did not do so. But is it not drugs and guns that fuel so much of the violence in cities like Chicago? I don't know about circiling the wagons, but circling round and around the same issues year after year must surely at some point make everyone dizzy and fall over? Yet nobody stands up and says 'let's do something different' -or such people are not listened to or written off as cranks.

I think you have dug yourselves into a hole, and you don't know how to get out of it. I think too, and it applies to the UK and Europe as well as the US, that people want a return to what we had pre-Covid but don't know how to do that, which is why we need some imaginative proposals for the future of our urban spaces, or we are going to see contractions in trade and business, which, aggravated by unemployment will make us all poorer.

Unfortunately, your last two sentences are bang on, as I don't know -certainly here in the UK- that we have the men and women of vision that can offer the kind of leadership required, indeed, we seem to be living in an era in which the leaders we have are distinguished by their incompetence and failure, and that is not something I expected to see in my lifetime, and I am not sure life will improve as I make my way to the Department Lounge.

[Stavros]

Sarah Cooper, shes done it again- (I couldn't find it on her twittter feed where there are other versions to enjoy)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8oaaP68i4s&feature=emb_title

[fred41]

Lol...does neither candidate really want to be President? Earlier in the year, with the economy chugging along just fine Trump looked like he would be tough to beat. But he totally botched the Covid response, simply because he wouldn’t just let his experts do it. He even screwed up the original briefings, by insisting (among other things) on squabbling with reporters. Then when he made the occasional rousing speech (usually best when keeping to his written script) he’d ruin it by immediately jumping on twitter and childishly arguing about god-knows-what. Unfortunately for the Republican Party - the man’s an idiot.
Now we have Joe Biden, who has a history of being ridden by gaffes, but now, at the age of 77 (78 in November) he clearly has a few less marbles in his noggin than he started with. It’s very much apparent to anyone with eyes and ears. His latest - “No sitting president has ever done this. Never, never, never. No Republican president has done this. No Democratic president. We’ve had racists, and they’ve existed, they’ve tried to get elected president. He’s the first one that has,” ....Really Joe?! No other racist Presidents? No Woodrow Wilson? No slave owners!?
Biden ‘should’ be a shoo-in at this point.
But the debates are going to be sad...they may turn out to be one of the most watched ever...at least the first one...but sad.
The highest office in the USA.

[MrFanti]

Lol...does neither candidate really want to be President? Earlier in the year, with the economy chugging along just fine Trump looked like he would be tough to beat. But he totally botched the Covid response, simply because he wouldn’t just let his experts do it. He even screwed up the original briefings, by insisting (among other things) on squabbling with reporters. Then when he made the occasional rousing speech (usually best when keeping to his written script) he’d ruin it by immediately jumping on twitter and childishly arguing about god-knows-what. Unfortunately for the Republican Party - the man’s an idiot.
Now we have Joe Biden, who has a history of being ridden by gaffes, but now, at the age of 77 (78 in November) he clearly has a few less marbles in his noggin than he started with. It’s very much apparent to anyone with eyes and ears. His latest - “No sitting president has ever done this. Never, never, never. No Republican president has done this. No Democratic president. We’ve had racists, and they’ve existed, they’ve tried to get elected president. He’s the first one that has,” ....Really Joe?! No other racist Presidents? No Woodrow Wilson? No slave owners!?
Biden ‘should’ be a shoo-in at this point.
But the debates are going to be sad...they may turn out to be one of the most watched ever...at least the first one...but sad.
The highest office in the USA.



I don't think Biden stands a chance in a debate with Trump - which is why it appears that he and his party trying their hardest to seriously restrict and/or omit debates and the parameters.
Biden is nowhere near what he was like when he was running in the primaries against Obama.

That being said, like I said in an earlier post, Tulsi Gabbard was my favorite of the Democrat primary candidates and she would smoke Trump in a debate.

[Stavros]

On the one hand if I were advising Biden, I would argue that in a public debate he should only say positive things about the US, and not even respond to the bitter and twisted rubbish the President has to say, when he is not praising himself for doing things no other President has ever achieved. The aim it seems to me, will be to depict Biden as senile and incapable, he may even go after Hunter Biden even though both he and Ivanka have had privileged access to China and Ivanka continues to do business with them regardless of what her father says, let alone Mike Pompeo on the basis of his 'Presidential' but ragged speech today. Probably best to not do the debate, or insist that before taking place the President apologize for calling Hillary Clinton a 'skank', and describing Americans as 'total scum, they're human scum' -at least settle the tone of debate before it starts.

I have said it before, the Democrats are afraid of change, and Biden is safe, but unimaginative, which may be why his VP is as important as Blackchubby38 says it may be.

[fred41]

I have said it before, the Democrats are afraid of change, and Biden is safe, but unimaginative, which may be why his VP is as important as Blackchubby38 says it may be.

Imaginative and wanting change?

I’ll settle for a leader that’s clear-eyed, rational and decisive.

Leave the rest to his staff and the legislative branch.

[Laphroaig]

Imaginative and wanting change?

I’ll settle for a leader that’s clear-eyed, rational and decisive.

Leave the rest to his staff and the legislative branch.

I'll admit I may not be seeing the full picture but from the outside looking in, it appears that both would struggle to tie their own shoe laces in the morning. How did it come to pass that these are the two "best" candidates for the most powerful position on earth? :shrug

[filghy2]

This article on problems facing the running of the coming election suggests the following elements are combining to create a perfect storm.

1. An Uncontrolled Pandemic
2. New Technology and New Processes
3. A Drought of Funding
4. Dislocated Voters
5. A Storm of Foreign Attacks
6. Misinformation and Disinformation
7. A Famine of Voter Protections
8. A Volcano in the Oval Office

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/07/24/2020-election-disaster-perfect-storm-372778

It seems it will take a miracle to avoid major problems. If a democracy can't run elections isn't that the ultimate indication that it's becoming a failed state?

[Stavros]

Imaginative and wanting change?

I’ll settle for a leader that’s clear-eyed, rational and decisive.

Leave the rest to his staff and the legislative branch.

On the one hand, you make a good point, probably because of the record of the sitting President, definitely if rational and decisive action earlier on would have/could have saved lives and prevented Covid 19 infections at the rate you now have in the US. On the other hand, is Vision not something that a President needs to unify the country around a project? For all his faults, and the fact he never lasted a term, JFK had vision, in particular with regard to the Moon- a choice that regardless of the dusty ball itself, transformed America science; Reagan had his 'Sunrise America' which did appeal to a lot of people in the aftermath of Watergate; and Obama had 'Hope and Change', the belief then that the GW Bush Presidency went so low anything was an improvement. If the alternative is 'American Carnage' then yes, maybe for a while Visions should be suspect.

Where is your country going? The USA since 2017 has undermined international alliances, repdudiated signed agreements and treaties, shown itself critical of liberal democracy, praising autocrats and dictators, and attempted to withdraw from the global economy in the name of 'economic nationalism'. If the USA's enemies had asked the President to weaken the USA as a global power, the President has conceded to them. At home, the divisions that existed in the US before, threaten now to become a gulf so wide they may never be healed (we have the same problem in the UK but for different, Brexit reasons)- with the very real prospect that either the November election will not take place, or enough citizens be prevented from voting to call the result into question.

Yes, you have needed the kind of rational and decisive action that has seen Covid 19 handled better than in the USA -not defeated, but handled better -as in Italy, Spain, Germany, New Zealand, Scotland- but for the next 10 years, what as an American do you think is needed to give the country a sense of direction that fits with the challenges to the way we work and live?

Boris Johnson has a vision for the UK, and I think it is not just flawed, but a disaster waiting to happen, but we can debate the direction in which Brexit UK is going on the basis of that vision, but in the US there is a chaotic non-conversation replaced by futile confrontation, and mostly about issues you have been trying to deal with for as long as I can recall -race, guns, crime and drugs being the most obvious. And was it not because of a failure to tackle these, and related problems over the making and distribution of wealth that you ended up with that man's victory in 2016?

For all your need for rational decision making, is it not time to start changing the agenda rather than carry on going round in circles? 2016 did not change anything, the existing problems just got worse.

[fred41]

All three Presidents you refer to were good looking men with silver tongues, excellent speech writers and staff members they could rely on. There’s more to it of course...and each one also had different domestic and foreign problems to take care of including the occasional , often unexpected, crisis popping up here and there. Most of the foreign policy problems you state are simple undoing of President Trump’s simple undoing of President Obama’s policies. If Joe Biden wins the White House, that is probably what other world leaders expect to be done.

The one thing , that at this point, Joe can’t simply sweep under the rug, is the China problem. It will probably be his biggest foreign policy hurdle...especially since he always down played it in the past. You can’t hit a reboot and go back to trade as normal...I think most western countries agree on that. Their economic and military aggression needs to be confronted...but how? It’s a puzzle that needs to be solved multilaterally - all global leading heads coming together. Acting as if this was just created by Trump and going back to business as usual will just create larger problems down the road - and probably for a different administration , because I can’t credibly envision him Serving more than one term.

His biggest domestic problem will be (as seems always the case) the economy. If he wins, he will take office at a time where we still may not have a vaccine...or even if we do, there may be mutations, other viruses..who knows. All things considered, the market’s been doing well , but getting everything back and working is going to be a problem. There are jobs permanently lost, rents not paid (which means property taxes not paid either) ...and eventually the bills, beginning at the individual and extending all the way to the Federal government will come due. Take care of these economic problems, which are huge, and the others may also fall into place. These are things that will probably, also not be completely fixed during one term. Therefore, he will need to be an excellent crisis manager, who can fix things as they pop up...multiple fingers in multiple dams...holding it all together until the next leader with the sweeping visions you speak of, comes along. A lot of the divisiveness should be soothed by a difference in rhetoric, which may be another glaring problem here with Joe, but it will help that we no longer have a tweeting president.

[fred41]

I'll admit I may not be seeing the full picture but from the outside looking in, it appears that both would struggle to tie their own shoe laces in the morning. How did it come to pass that these are the two "best" candidates for the most powerful position on earth? :shrug

We share the same question Laphroaig.

[broncofan]

Most intelligent people would not want to be President. There has been a self-selection out of politics the more polarized our country has become. As President a person can expect to be vilified.

When Joe Biden has a gaffe it is often impulsive speech. He has been that way for a while. Trump's are often deliberate attempts to bolster his own ego, but in ways that don't show even a modicum of intelligence. He says things that it would literally take an idiot to believe. We'll have a vaccine in 3 months. Covid is "a flu". Not the flu, which it isn't, but A flu, which it also isn't. Inject yourself with disinfectant. People aren't sure whether it's a good idea to wear masks. Professors at Columbia concluded the pandemic response was bad because they're Trump haters. Hydroxychloroquine studies are rigged by Trump haters. We're doing better in responding to covid than any country in the world. We'll be open by Easter. And on and on.

For all his malapropisms and his clumsy speech I've never gotten the impression that Biden is dishonest or stupid. Our current President is both. Dream big? Well, having your country run by a moron means in situations like this 100,000 excess deaths so far. Threats of nuclear war on twitter which only have to be realized one time for all of us to be fucked. And corruption so bad that nobody he likes is allowed to face justice without his interference. Just get rid of the racist tyrant ffs.

[Stavros]

[QUOTE=fred41;1937379]

Allow me to embellish your fascinating arguments:

The one thing , that at this point, Joe can’t simply sweep under the rug, is the China problem. It will probably be his biggest foreign policy hurdle...especially since he always down played it in the past. You can’t hit a reboot and go back to trade as normal...I think most western countries agree on that. Their economic and military aggression needs to be confronted...but how? It’s a puzzle that needs to be solved multilaterally - all global leading heads coming together. Acting as if this was just created by Trump and going back to business as usual will just create larger problems down the road - and probably for a different administration , because I can’t credibly envision him Serving more than one term.

-Although I can see why China is now emerging as a 'problem' in need of a solution, the US as currently run is not in a position to do anything but make confrontational politics worse than it is now, aided and abetted I should add by the UK. Indeed, confrontational poliics might sound good and make the US look virile and uncompromising, but the record of its achievements is so poor one must ask why do it? Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran -where has confrontation got us? A better place?

To begin with, I think that if demand for goods does not grow, China will suffer because it produces so much of what we consume. There is no punishment or political stategy here. As with the fall in the price of oil per barrell and a decline in demand by industry -gas will continue to be an important segment for consumers worldwide-the fact that the global economy is going into a recession was evident before January, and has only happened sooner, and faster than expected, but now may be more extensive than might have been the case.
So on this level, China was going to have to deal with job losses but in an authoritatian state has the nation-wide resources to cope, and at least now the growth of China's domestic economy will be able to sustain a degree of activity so China will suffer, but it won't be fatal.

Undoubtedly, the difference between Xi and his predecessors is that they followed Deng Xioaping, who in his turn effectively repudiated Mao's economic nationalism. Xi, attempting to add his name to the theoretcal Matrix of revolutionary China, has been more 'activist' outside China than Deng, though he inherited the expansionist ambitions which so far have led to China's seizure of the 'Spratly' Islands about which nothing can be done, as I don't see Australia or the US going to war to remove China from the islands. And while annexation of territory is illegal in International Law, the USA, for example, has to explain why it is opposed to it when it is China annexing territory, but not when it is Israel, or Turkey, while the fact that nothing practical has been done to reverse Russia's annexations of the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine is a good example of the impotence that nuclear super-states exploit. At least John Bolton has a solution: savage sanctions, and if that don't work bomb 'em.

It means Mike Pompeo's speech was, in effect, not about China, but Mike's opeing gambit in his aim to be the next Republican candidate for the White House, with so far only two others in the running: Nikki Haley and Tucker Carlson. China, with or without Xi's activism, is broadly the same China that the US has been doing business with for decades, fully aware of the nature of Communist Party rule in China, fully aware of the 'Belt and Road' initiatives that have seen huge investments in Africa, giving China a strategic advantage in countries ridiculed by Pompeo's boss as 'shitholes'.

As I said before, it would be hypocritical to attack Hunter Biden on China, given that the President was denied the right to register his LLC's in China for the best part of two decades, but registered a hundred on his visit as President, and with his daughter Ivanka up to her elbows in Chinese production.

In other words, it is sound and fury, but Pompeo and the US and UK, have no idea how to deal with China other than imposing sanctions on it, if they do, because in the markets the Americans and Johnson believe in (or so they say), China fulfills that most basic of Capitalist rules: low cost, high returns that neither the US nor the UK can compete with -and no pesky Unions. For the time being, markets may be flat anyway for a year or more, but does anyone really think industrial production is going to be repatriated to our countries from China?

In the UK we have not cancelled China's contract to build (in partnership with the French) a new nuclear power reactor -is Pompeo going to insist we cancel the contract? Huawae has been part of the constuction of the 5G network in the UK, but has now been told that must not only end, but that the existing infrastructure must be torn out, at a cost of Billions, and presumably, Huawei will have to be given more Billions in compensation. So Pompeo's vision of a 'roll back' on China looks more like the rhetoric it is than a considered plan.

And on the same basis, I can't see Joe Biden making any more coherent statements on China other than acknowledge 'something needs to be done'. It may even suit him to make vague statements on it, to focus on the domestic problems which are far more important than China.

His biggest domestic problem will be (as seems always the case) the economy. If he wins, he will take office at a time where we still may not have a vaccine...or even if we do, there may be mutations, other viruses..who knows. All things considered, the market’s been doing well , but getting everything back and working is going to be a problem. There are jobs permanently lost, rents not paid (which means property taxes not paid either) ...and eventually the bills, beginning at the individual and extending all the way to the Federal government will come due. Take care of these economic problems, which are huge, and the others may also fall into place. These are things that will probably, also not be completely fixed during one term. Therefore, he will need to be an excellent crisis manager, who can fix things as they pop up...multiple fingers in multiple dams...holding it all together until the next leader with the sweeping visions you speak of, comes along. A lot of the divisiveness should be soothed by a difference in rhetoric, which may be another glaring problem here with Joe, but it will help that we no longer have a tweeting president.

-I agree with a lot of what you say. In the case of the Obama administration, he entered office in January 2009 when the US was losing 800,000 jobs a day and the banking system was in crisis. The recovery packages that Timothy Geithner put together at what, at the time was staggering cost, undoubtedly 'steadied the ship' and the US recovered over Obama's two terms.
On that basis, Biden could argue that he was part of the administration that dealt successfully with a national crisis, so he can be trusted to repeat in 2021 what he was part of in 2009. But, as you point out, whoever takes office in January will still need to deal with Covid 19, be it a 'second wave' (the first has yet to abate in the US), long term health problems, the dislocated economy and the two obstacles to anyone trying to deal with these issues will be the coossal Debt, and whether or not the President has a friendly or hostile Congress.

On balance, I would say the histrorical evidence suggests that Democrats have twice now, rescued the US from a financial mess left to them by Republicans -Clinton and Reagan/Bush I, Obama and Bush II. If this is to be repeated, Biden needs a strong team, and not just because people are not sure he has the stamina. But given the prospect that this time economic recovery will be slow (though I could be wrong about that), Biden may find himself closer to FDR who won his second term when unemployment in the US was still high, but had declined throughout his first term -it was a marginal improvement that secured that second term, but I think these days people are more impatient for results.

But what if Biden loses, what happens then?

[MrFanti]

Imaginative and wanting change?

I’ll settle for a leader that’s clear-eyed, rational and decisive.

Leave the rest to his staff and the legislative branch.

Agreed 100%
What the Democrats are AFRAID of is stopping all this violence in THEIR cities!

[MrFanti]

The one thing , that at this point, Joe can’t simply sweep under the rug, is the China problem. It will probably be his biggest foreign policy hurdle...especially since he always down played it in the past. You can’t hit a reboot and go back to trade as normal...I think most western countries agree on that. Their economic and military aggression needs to be confronted...dams...holding it all together until the next leader with the sweeping visions you speak of, comes along. A lot of the divisiveness should be soothed by a difference in rhetoric, which may be another glaring problem here with Joe, but it will help that we no longer have a tweeting president.

Like him or not, Trump has been the only successful US President at confronting and at times, winning against China. I also believe that Perot would have put China in it's place as well were he to have been elected.

Native scholar says Communist China has 'met its match' with Trump admin following consulate closure
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/scholar-communist-china-met-match-with-the-trump-admin-consulate-closure

[Stavros]

Like him or not, Trump has been the only successful US President at confronting and at times, winning against China. I also believe that Perot would have put China in it's place as well were he to have been elected.

For once you have posted a load of rubbish, or you need to inform us what you consider to be effective in the US relations with China.

On trade, the incumbent President boasts about nothing when he tries to argue he has done better than anyone ese -just on the fiasco of tariffs on Soybeans the collapse of the US market means American taxpayers forking out $12-14 billon a year to pay for this abject failure of a policy that has not hurt the Chinese at all.

On the WTO, the Obama administration between 2009=2016 lodged over 20 enforcement complaints to the WTO with regard to China, an effective means of changing China's practice as China wants to be seen abiding by the rules -since 2017 the Republican President has lodged one complaint, while his most effective action is to attempt to make the UN Agency irrelevant, thus an ineffective body in international trade regulaton -not effective at any level, just old-fashoned sabotage because the man with a string of bankrupt businesses to his name thinks global trade is best wiithout a regulatory body at all -a move that would benefit China, so daft is this man.

How has the US responded to the deportation and 're-education' of the Uighers? A slap on the wrist? Is the US going to take military action to remove the Chinese military from the Spratly Islands?

What about Ivanka Kushner's profitable business based in China, and her father registering over 100 of his LLC's on his first visit as President when for 15 years before that the Chinese told him to get lost?

The only effective relationship with China is the one the family has, because, as Bolton pointed out in his book, this President and his Family cannot tell the difference between their personal interests and the interests of the USA.

The USA has embarked on a trade war with the WTO, the EU, China -more or less the whole world -who has benefited? because it ain't the USA.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/09/trumps-real-trade-war-is-being-waged-on-the-wto/

https://ustr.gov/about-us/policy-offices/press-office/fact-sheets/2015/january/fact-sheet-obama-administration%E2%80%99s

[filghy2]

For once you have posted a load of rubbish

Surely you are being ironic

There's an obvious question which evidently hasn't occurred to Fanti - if Trump's approach toward China has been so successful then why has China's behaviour worsened during his term of office?

[Stavros]

I was being rude, and should not have been, but was frustrated with the kind of opinion expressed by Mr Fanti, so divorced from fact that it is. China is vulnerable to all sorts of criticism, but has been since the Communists have ruled the country in 1949, and even then the history of atrocities against human beings goes back so much further. People are attacking China now for crimes that have been staring us in the face for decades. It smacks of hypocrisy because it is, and n Pompeo's case is a nauseatingg hypocrisy given the man's obvious attempt to present himself as a 'tough leader', when he has no leadership skills, and is no more tough than a nightly rant by John Oliver -or Sean Hannity.

Mr Fanti can speak for himself, though I doubt he will respond to my post, and it is not specific to this thread, but I do wonder why people refer to China-US trade as if it had suddenly become a matter of critical urgency when the issues raised by the President amount to an invention based solely on his personal resentment that China 'treated him so badly', as said before, merging his personal interests with those of the USA. We could do with a more balanced and objective view of US-China relations, but as it is now becoming an election, issue, there is no hope of that. Transforming it into an either/or issue, either you back the US against China, or you back China against the US, the President is putting himself and his daughter in a vulnerable position. Anotherr example of the fact that even after nearly 4 years in the job, he doesn't know much about politics.

The real issue, outside the remit of this thread, is why since 2008 the very people who have emerged to attack Globlization also claim the remedy for the crisis of 2008 is to replace 'regulation-lite' with zero regulation, as if they are so ignorant of the causes of the financial crisis that they seek to repeat its mistakes. And, for good measure, by removing all obstacles to free trade, what do they think this will enable China to do?

[blackchubby38]

Let me clear about something, I don't what's happening in Portland and Seattle to happen anywhere else in the United States. But I don't live in Chicago, so I don't know what the residents that live in the areas that effected by gang violence are going through. So I can't fault any of them for thinking this way.

http:////www.yahoo.com/news/chicagos-south-side-violence-weary-113718234.html

[MrFanti]

Let me clear about something, I don't what's happening in Portland and Seattle to happen anywhere else in the United States. But I don't live in Chicago, so I don't know what the residents that live in the areas that effected by gang violence are going through. So I can't fault any of them for thinking this way.

http:////www.yahoo.com/news/chicagos-south-side-violence-weary-113718234.html
I grew up in Chicago and that city is arguably the most corrupt city in the USA!
And all the violent crime that has been going on for YEARS and DECADES (not just recently) falls squarely in the laps of the current mayor and all the previous mayors before her.

I'm glad to see the residents getting fed up because it's about time after all these years and decades of violence in the streets of Chicago!

[Stavros]

The Independent has published what seems to me a fair profile of the VP candidates known to be under consideration, the article has probably been syndicated in the US Press too.
These are (in alphabetical order)-

Stacey Abrams
Karen Bass
Keisha Lance Bottoms
Val Demings
Tammy Duckworth
Michelle Lujan Grisham
Kamala Harris
Susan Rice
Elizabeth Warren
Gretchen Whitmer

https://www.independent.co.uk/us-election-2020/joe-biden-vice-president-candidates-vp-pick-choices-2020-election-a9641101.html

[filghy2]

I was being rude, and should not have been, but was frustrated with the kind of opinion expressed by Mr Fanti, so divorced from fact that it is.

Getting angry at Fanti for posting drivel is as futile as getting angry at the weather. No matter what you say it will have no effect on him. I don't know what motivates him: maybe he's delusional enough to think he's persuading someone, or maybe he just likes to be annoying. Best to just ignore his posts as others seem to have learned to do.

[filghy2]

More than 152,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the US so far. The increase in murders this year must be a small fraction of that (there were around 16,000 murders in the latest year). I'm curious as to why some people seem to think the latter may be a bigger issue in the election.

Also, the data on murder rates don't seem to indicate any clear pattern in terms of which political party is in control of states or cities. In fact, the states with the highest murder rates are red states. So why are some people presenting this as if it were a Democrat problem?
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/murder-rate-by-state
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/blog/highest-murder-rate-cities-2019

[Stavros]

Getting angry at Fanti for posting drivel is as futile as getting angry at the weather. No matter what you say it will have no effect on him. I don't know what motivates him: maybe he's delusional enough to think he's persuading someone, or maybe he just likes to be annoying. Best to just ignore his posts as others seem to have learned to do.

I get frustrated with a lot of posts, and it is in my nature to be argumentative, though I hope because of the arguments not just for the sake of it. We have had some offensive people on these boards before, but not Mr Fanti. I think it is matter of how one views some issues, because of ideology, because of an aversion to it, on the basis of personal experience, knowledge, and so forth. As I like the rough and tumble of debate and argument, it is a pity people who post here don't engage in moe of it, and I don't want to stop it. Mr Fanti is robust enough to defend himself, if he wants to.

And sometimes there are specific issues. Watching the series, Once Upon a Time in Iraq in the present-day context, is moving (because of the individual stories), illuminating, and depressing because the crisis in Iraq in 2002-2003 was manufactured to suit the need the Republicans had to punish the Arabs for 9/11, but chose the wrong Arabs. The point that is not made in the TV series, perhaps because it is more about the personal experience of the 2003 war and its aftermath, rather than the politics, is that the very same Saddam Hussein who was a monster in 2003, had not only been a US ally when Iraq was fighting a war with Iran in the 1980s, the atrocities that sustained him in power were just as common in 1979 as they were in 2002-2003. Indeed, when Saddam took control of the Ba'ath Party in 1979 one of the first things he did was round up members of the Iraqi Communist Party and deal with the Saddam-style= imprisonment, torture and death. And it was the CIA that gave him so many of the names of Party members he didn't already know.

Now fast forward and suddenly China is the enemy, the very same China that is embedded in the US economy through its purchase of US debt, its inputs into the industrial and consumer economy, the US education system and so on. When the Chinese and the US normalized their relations in the 1970s, Russia had been the primary common factor, as the US was prepared then to overlook the multiple crimes and millions upon millions of deaths caused by Mao's catastrophic policies -the Great Leap Forward c1958-60) and the Great People's Cultural revolution (1966-69?) to make the new relationship work. So great has been the death and devastation of Mao's policies Covid 19 looks like a footnote to Chinese history in comparison.

But is it not the case, that ever since 1979, and indeed, that other trifling event in 1989, the US has been prepared to 'look the other way' when China behaves badly, and just 'take the money'? President Xi has yet to match Mao in terms of mega-deaths at home, though Mao's foreign adventures were not as effective as China's have been since, particularly in Africa, a continent that the US has tended to use as a lucrative mineral mine, or a toilet for their own shitty delusions. But if Nixon and Kissinger could and felt they had to deal with Mao, why not Xi, when China is more entangled with the US than Mao was?

The more obvious factor is that it is now the policy of one man, the US President, that has decided Confrontation is the best policy. It is a tactic he has used in the past in business, just as, when exposed as a bankrupt, a tax cheat or a law breaker, he created lawsuits designed to put his accusers in the dock. Not accused, but proven to have received illegal financial and political assistance from Russia in the 2016 campaign, he now embarks on investigatons designed to attack the people who proved it, on the basis that they are wrong.
Because this is a man unique in history, who is right about everything- even Buddha, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad admitted to having faults and making the wrong judgment. It doesn't matter how many times, and how many people insist that Hydroxychloroquine does not deal effectively with Covid 19, he cannot and he will no retract his claims, because he cannot and must never say sorry or say he is wrong about anything, so he is stuck with this nonsense, even as he can't see what a fool it makes of him- or just doesn't care.

In this case, the 'war on China' is entirely personal because of his resentment at the fact he was shut out of the 'China Dream' for so many years, and even with his daughter raking in the dollars from her Chinese investments, it is not enough and anyway, she is a privlleged American and above the law.

So here we are: China and Covid 19- the two issues the President barks about most, are the two issues in this campaign which make him the most vulnerable to attack -those serious about defeating him, at least in terms of political arguments, if not at the ballot box- need only let him use these ropes to hang himself. Unless, with the assistance of his Attorney General, they find a way to consolidate his position as the most unique of US Presidents, and postpone the elections for a year. I expect to be proven wrong on the last point, but I wonder if this is not being discussed behind closed doors in the White House? Maybe it is time for Under-President Kushner to put in an appearance. At least we know in the UK the Prime Minister has now little or no interest in Covid 19 and his absorbed with the Brexit Process that, after all, will define his reputation for years to come.

China's investments in the US-
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/040115/reasons-why-china-buys-us-treasury-bonds.asp

An interesting paper on the rapprochement between China and the US
https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/jcws.2006.8.4.3

All five episodes of Once Upon a Time in Iraq are now on the BBC iPlayer-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p08kr5t9/once-upon-a-time-in-iraq-series-1-5-legacy

[KnightHawk 2.0]

More than 152,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the US so far. The increase in murders this year must be a small fraction of that (there were around 16,000 murders in the latest year). I'm curious as to why some people seem to think the latter may be a bigger issue in the election.

Also, the data on murder rates don't seem to indicate any clear pattern in terms of which political party is in control of states or cities. In fact, the states with the highest murder rates are red states. So why are some people presenting this as if it were a Democrat problem?
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/murder-rate-by-state
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/blog/highest-murder-rate-cities-2019Because their would rather believe what the Clueless Buffoon In Chief, a person who has been downplaying the CO-VID 19 Global Pandemic from the very beginning says over the health experts, and in reality it isn't a Democratic problem, it's a Trump problem because he doesn't take any responsibility at all for his negligence and his administration failure to the global pandemic and come up with a nationwide plan on how to deal with the virus,instead of letting states fend for themselves. and blaming everyone else around him.

[blackchubby38]

More than 152,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the US so far. The increase in murders this year must be a small fraction of that (there were around 16,000 murders in the latest year). I'm curious as to why some people seem to think the latter may be a bigger issue in the election.

Also, the data on murder rates don't seem to indicate any clear pattern in terms of which political party is in control of states or cities. In fact, the states with the highest murder rates are red states. So why are some people presenting this as if it were a Democrat problem?
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/murder-rate-by-state
https://www.neighborhoodscout.com/blog/highest-murder-rate-cities-2019

If Trump loses the election his response to the Coronavirus will be the main reason why he loses it. But if he wins reelection, the idea that Democrats will be/are weak on crime and civil unrest will be one of the reasons why.

Now when it comes to the states with highest murder rates, yes its true that some of them are red states. However, the cities they occur in have long history of being run by Democrats.

New Orleans.-- The last time they voted for a Republican was at the end of the 19th century.
St. Louis.- The last Republican mayor was in 1949.
Detroit.- The last Republican mayor was in 1962.
Baltimore.- The last Republican mayor was in 1967.
Chester.- As alternated back and forth between the two parties.
Gary.- The last Republican mayor was in 1943.
Chicago.- The last Republican mayor was in 1943.

That's just the mayors. There is a very good chance that the Democrats also made up a considerable part of the city councils in those respective cities.

I will point out that the Democratic Party has changed over the past 50-60 years.

Now as we have discussed before, there are other reasons for a city having high crime rates. But poor leadership is one of them. Just look what's happening here in NYC. So it is fair to say that Democratic party bares some of the blame when it comes to certain cities having a history of high crime rates.

[Stavros]

If Trump loses the election his response to the Coronavirus will be the main reason why he loses it. But if he wins reelection, the idea that Democrats will be/are weak on crime and civil unrest will be one of the reasons why.


I add a question to your succinct view: what will the impact on the candidates be if they cannot hold mass rallies? Which of the two is likely to benefit from this? It appears to be Biden, but so far he has not been subjected to public scrutiny or tough questions from hostile journaists.

[blackchubby38]

I add a question to your succinct view: what will the impact on the candidates be if they cannot hold mass rallies? Which of the two is likely to benefit from this? It appears to be Biden, but so far he has not been subjected to public scrutiny or tough questions from hostile journaists.

It benefits Biden because I don't think he has the energy to speak in front of a large crowd for an extended period of time. I think Biden is going out of his way to make sure he doesn't get tough questions from hostile journalists. That's why he won't do a sit down interview with Chris Wallace from Fox News. Who is tough, but I think fair.

[Stavros]

As I predicted, it has been discussed 'at the highest level'. No debates, then. And maybe no election. The man certainly wants to go down in history for his unique style and decision making...

"Donald Trump (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) on Thursday morning floated the idea of delaying November’s presidential election, justifying the extraordinary suggestion by repeating his false claim that widespread voting by mail from home would result in a “fraudulent” result.

Trump’s incendiary proposal was dropped in a Thursday morning tweet (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1288818160389558273), as the US was reeling from bad economic news, digesting the death toll of 150,000 having been reached in the coronavirus pandemic and preparing for the funeral of Congressman John Lewis in Atlanta. In it he claimed without evidence that “universal mail-in voting” would lead to “the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT election in history”.
Trump, pontificating that the result would be a “great embarrassment to the USA”, he raised the prospect of a postponement. “Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???” he tweeted."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/30/trump-election-delay-distraction-tweet-economic-figures

[Stavros]

I understand only Congress can change the date of an election, but the point is one Murdoch will have rammed home, because he did it in the UK in the 1980s: every day, every hour, every minute, sow doubt in people's minds. The election will be rigged, it will be fake, it will be abused, it will be fraudulent. The Democrats will steal the election, they can't be trusted, they don't care. Say it in every media platform there is, all day and every day, so that it soaks into the minds of the voters.

Note: Herman Cain has died from Covid 19, a miserable way to die. Probably the most senior Republican to do so?

[Stavros]

It benefits Biden because I don't think he has the energy to speak in front of a large crowd for an extended period of time. I think Biden is going out of his way to make sure he doesn't get tough questions from hostile journalists. That's why he won't do a sit down interview with Chris Wallace from Fox News. Who is tough, but I think fair.

I agree with your points, and in fact, probably because I live here, I don't think I have ever seen Biden in a debate. Whatever. I think he leaning either to Susan Rice, or Kamala Harris.

[MrFanti]

Because their would rather believe what the Clueless Buffoon In Chief, a person who has been downplaying the CO-VID 19 Global Pandemic from the very beginning says over the health experts, and in reality it isn't a Democratic problem, it's a Trump problem because he doesn't take any responsibility at all for his negligence and his administration failure to the global pandemic and come up with a nationwide plan on how to deal with the virus,instead of letting states fend for themselves. and blaming everyone else around him.
Part of the problem is that the Black community still refuses to acknowledge the high rate of homicide by us and within our own community.
And folks that do are quickly shut down (Terry Crews for example) - which is why the "BLM" stuff has more holes in it than Swiss cheese.

That being said, there's more to voting on someone than just COVID-19. Hillary lost in part because she didn't diversify her audience - she ignored the middle class and the Sanders supporters and as result, she's sitting on the bench now. Biden has the opportunity now to seize the Sanders supporters but he's not doing the best job of it - however he's still doing better than Hillary did at capturing this voting group.

[MrFanti]

If Trump loses the election his response to the Coronavirus will be the main reason why he loses it. But if he wins reelection, the idea that Democrats will be/are weak on crime and civil unrest will be one of the reasons why.

Now when it comes to the states with highest murder rates, yes its true that some of them are red states. However, the cities they occur in have long history of being run by Democrats.

New Orleans.-- The last time they voted for a Republican was at the end of the 19th century.
St. Louis.- The last Republican mayor was in 1949.
Detroit.- The last Republican mayor was in 1962.
Baltimore.- The last Republican mayor was in 1967.
Chester.- As alternated back and forth between the two parties.
Gary.- The last Republican mayor was in 1943.
Chicago.- The last Republican mayor was in 1943.

That's just the mayors. There is a very good chance that the Democrats also made up a considerable part of the city councils in those respective cities.

I will point out that the Democratic Party has changed over the past 50-60 years.

Now as we have discussed before, there are other reasons for a city having high crime rates. But poor leadership is one of them. Just look what's happening here in NYC. So it is fair to say that Democratic party bares some of the blame when it comes to certain cities having a history of high crime rates.

That mayor list is key and why it's absurdly ridiculous for those mayors to blame Trump and the Republicans for THEIR CITY VIOLENCE issues when they haven't had a Republican/Libertarian/Independent mayor in DECADES.

[filghy2]

If Trump loses the election his response to the Coronavirus will be the main reason why he loses it. But if he wins reelection, the idea that Democrats will be/are weak on crime and civil unrest will be one of the reasons why.

Now when it comes to the states with highest murder rates, yes its true that some of them are red states. However, the cities they occur in have long history of being run by Democrats.

I still struggle to see how anyone who is not a member of the Trump cult could think that the problem of crime so outweighs all other issues facing the US, most of which would be exacerbated by Trump's reelection, that it warrants overlooking all his misdeeds. Trump has clearly contributed to the coronavirus debacle through irresponsible statements and neglect. I can't see anything that Biden has said or done that could be linked to the crime surge - which doesn't seem to be an area where the Federal government has much of a role in any case. That is, unless people want to tear up the constitution and turn the US into a authoritarian police state, which is where things will be headed if Trump is reelected.

I think there's a degree of spurious correlation in the association between party control and crime rates. Big densely-populated cities inherently tend to have higher crime rates. They also tend to be more politically liberal. That doesn't necessarily mean that one causes the other, because both are related to the characteristics of big cities. Liberal big cities also generally have higher-than-average incomes. https://www.businessinsider.com.au/average-household-income-biggest-us-cities-2018-12 Does that prove that Democrats are better at economic policy? Necessarily, because it may just reflect the fact that big cities tend to attract economic activity.

Also, one thing that is often overlooked is that crime rates are still way below levels of 40 years ago.

[filghy2]

Not necessarily, because it may just reflect the fact that big cities tend to attract economic activity.

Just to be clear

[Stavros]

That mayor list is key and why it's absurdly ridiculous for those mayors to blame Trump and the Republicans for THEIR CITY VIOLENCE issues when they haven't had a Republican/Libertarian/Independent mayor in DECADES.

As Filghy2 has indicated, the apparent correlation between Democrat run cities and crime is elusive at best, spurious at worst.

In the first place, are Democrat run cities, in fact, badly run? Are the Mayors incompetent, corrupt, and ignorant? Historically, it is true, Chicago has been a Democrat city, but was it not when Mayor Daley was Mayor that Saul Alinsky was at his peak as a community organizer because this Democrat run city had neglected the housing, education and voting issues around which Alinsky based his campaigns? Daley may have been a Democrat, he cannot be said to have been a Liberal.

And, with regard to crime, is it not the case that crime is often concentrated, geographically, into compact areas and is not city-wide? I imagine I could live in Chicago or Detroit for a year and never experience crime, depending on where I am. And when the crime-ridden areas are identified, are there not also issues of poor people chasing diminishing resources and turning on each other to extract what they can through dealing, for example? Again, we return to narcotics and guns, the two issues Mr Fanti seems reluctant to debate.

Second, in the last 50 years, the trend toward urban life has grown, but with this paradox: big tax paying, labour-intensive businesses have vacated the city, low-tax low-wage service jobs have moved in, granted the exception of those cities with major financial concerns -Investments in NYC, Petroleum in Houston, for example- with the accumulated profile that cities today raise lower rates of tax revenue than they did 50 years ago.

Third, most of the Democrat run Cities are in Republican run States where Republican legislators constantly block liberal laws associated with increasingly Liberal cities, and starve them of funds, indeed the division in the USA that is alleged to consist of the Coastal States (Liberal) with the Flyover States (Conservative) obscures the real division that exists within the States where it is marked by Urban-Rural concentrations of voters with oppoing views, and where for example, in a state like Ohio, one can imagine the voters in the counties think Cleveland is a cess-pool of depravity.

In this balance of forces, it appears the County wins over the City, the Republicans over the Democrats -you are blaming Democrats for problems that originate with so-called Conservatives.

It is thus facile to provide lists of Democrat run cities and squeal failure! What the US has done is develop a fetish for low taxes to the extent that most Americans have been impoverished twice over: through wage stagnation, and the economic of austerity with Republican legislatures withdrawing the funds that cities need if the people who live in them are to be given more opportunities to work and live better lives.

Conclusion, for cities and states be they Red or Blue: RAISE TAXES, SPEND THEM ON THE PEOPLE. Nothing short of a massive re-distribution of wealth can deal with the crisis we are all in, a remedy that applies to the UK too.

Cowards, flinch -Courage calls to Courage Everywhere.

[Stavros]

Just to be clear

You may find this article of interest

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/red-state-blue-city/513857/

[filghy2]

You may find this article of interest

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/03/red-state-blue-city/513857/

Thanks, it's an interesting issue. The US political system gives significantly more weight to rural voters, so if these trends continue minority rule could become the norm rather than the exception. That's going to raise more issues for social cohesion - how long will the majority continue to accept a system in which that they mostly don't get their way?

[blackchubby38]

Stavros:

What do you think is a fair rate for people to be taxed at? Here is what we pay in taxes here in New York:

http://www.communitytax.com/state-taxes/new-york-taxes/

[blackchubby38]

While I still think Biden will win in November, there is also still a long way to go until then:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Bks0dtz0aw

[MrFanti]

Stavros:

What do you think is a fair rate for people to be taxed at? Here is what we pay in taxes here in New York:

http://www.communitytax.com/state-taxes/new-york-taxes/

And right there is the problem.
Everyone says "fair share" but when you ask what are the EXACT numbers to be "fair", you get complete silence.....

[filghy2]

Stavros:

What do you think is a fair rate for people to be taxed at? Here is what we pay in taxes here in New York:

http://www.communitytax.com/state-taxes/new-york-taxes/

I think the US is about the only country that has state income and sales taxes. In most countries property tax is the only one levied at state or local level.

Overall the US is very low taxed by developed country standards - about the same as Turkey, which is a developing country.
1263038

The issue is about the right balance between private and public sectors. If you want to have developing country tax levels then you are going to have developing country public services. I think most of the benefits of lower taxes are illusory because Americans have to pay a lot more out of their own pockets for things like health and education as a well as putting up with poor infrastructure.

Current US tax levels are clearly unsustainable anyway. Even before the coronavirus the US government was borrowing massively to finance the last round of tax cuts. You also have an ageing population which is going to increase future budgetary pressures. At a minimum, your taxes probably need to rise to around the levels of countries like Australia, which would still be relatively low by international standards.

[Stavros]

Stavros:
What do you think is a fair rate for people to be taxed at? Here is what we pay in taxes here in New York:
/ (http://www.communitytax.com/state-taxes/new-york-taxes/)

You raise and important question, but as filghy2 points out the variations in tax that exist in the US and the UK make it a difficult one to answer specifically with regard to numbers, but I will have a go.

In your case, one would need to know what your income is to assess the fairness of tax in New York, but as you pay taxes on other things -I am thinking of your sales taxes, for example- the whole profile of your tax burden is difficult to assess. I make a moral case for taxation at the end.

As a means of comparison, for the UK as a whole, Income Tax is levied at the following levels of income-
-Up to £12,500 pa no tax is paid on income (£12,500=$16,353.87) [today's rates]
-£12,501-£50,000 tax is 20% (£50,000=$65,415.4-eight
-£50,001-£150,000 tax is 40% (£150,000-$196,245.74)
-over £150,000 tax is 45%.

If I were to be in charge, I would revise these rates, because I don't believe in income tax relief, and believe every citizen should pay tax, and though I think that senior citizens should not pay tax, I think we should pay a National Insurance contribution, ie for the NHS.

My rates would look like this
£5,000-£10,000 -3% tax
£10,001-£20,000- 5% tax
£20,001-£35,000- 10% tax
£35,001-£50,000- 25% tax
£50,001-£100,000- 45% tax
£100,001-£300,000- 60% tax
£300,001-£500,000-65%
£500,000+ 70%.
*The higher rate of tax is based on the likelihood that jobs that pay in excess of £100,000 usually include addtional sources of income, such as share options and other perks which can be very generous. It is possible for example, for someone on a salary of £150,000 to be awarded share options worth three times that amount, and that doees not include the alternative sources of income that can be found -many company directors sit on more than one Board, so that the annual tax requirement of say 65% of a salary can be found from the income of directorships and share sales.

Corporation Tax in the UK in general terms is 19%. I would differentiate between the size and value of commercial firms, and while 19% might be fair for small enterprises, for large corporations I would be thinking in terms of 80% to 95% for those with annual profits in excess of £1-5 billion.

National Insurance is based on weekly contributions, with no NI paid up to £183. Earning from £183-962 =NI rate of 12%, above £962 it is 2%, whereas I would charge those earning in excess of £962 a month 20% (retaining most of the exemptions, eg married or pregnant women, but with a nominal 3% charge on annual income from pensions).

In the UK we do not have sales taxes -these existed before the UK joined the European Economic Community in 1973, whereupon the UK replaced its Sales Tax with an EEC-wide Value Added Tax system. In theory, the UK leaving the EU can abolish VAT and revert to the Sales Tax that existed before, indeed, Michael Gove has suggested it can be replaced, whereas the consensus is that VAT is an estabished mode of taxation globally, and that the UK need not replace it -its existence helps assess the relative economic performance of States, offering a common denominator when, for example, the IMF makes calculations. VAT in the UK at 20% raises approx.£125 bn a year, amounting to 18% of tax receipts.

In addition to Income Tax, National Insurance, Corporation Tax and VAT, we pay Customs and Excise Duties on tobacco and alcohol, which is why Wine and Spirits in the UK often cost more than on the Continent, though obviously, if you don't smoke or drink you don't pay these taxes.

The UK also now has a Sugar Tax, or the Soft Drinks Industry Levy -24 pence on drinks with 8 grams of sugar per 100ml; 18 pence a litre if there are 5-8 grams per 100ml.

Local tax is called Council Tax, and varies from one jurisdiction from another. It covers local services from the collection of refuse, care and management of the streets, parks, etc, and services such as council run care homes, libraries, the fire service. There are no uniform figures to offer, Council Tax is assessed on the value of property and income; but for comparison, I pay approx £50 a month in Council Tax.

I am sure Mr Fanti, as a Libertarian, will want to chant that favourite slogan such ideologues have: All Taxation is Theft. I would argue, if I had the time, that Taxation has been one of the most profound inventions of humankind, it is up there with cooked food, the wheel and wellls, musical instruments and computing. It has played a crucial role in the develoment of the State as the primary means of collective identification, becoming intricately woven in with our ideas of freedom, private property, and political representation.

The justification of taxation has evolved over time along with the State, and has often been part of a rebellion against the State, most famously in this counry, the Peasan't Revolt of 1381. If this rebellion was provoked by the unreasonable demands of the State at the time -Richard II's war with France was the occasion for a sudden increase in tax demand- the the growth of first, the mercantile capitalist economy, and then the Industrial, eroded the superior powers of the Monarch and the landed Aristocracy, and forced revisions which depleted the extensive authority of the Crown and the ascendant power of the Merchants and landowners. Taxation thus became a means of prising away the power of the monarchy, being associated with the corruption of that power.

The rebellion against the Crown in British America is a salutory lesson in this regard, but the critical point is that even though George Washington wanted to disband the Continental Army, and in doing so, govern as President of a tax free United States, the practical need to retain a Federal Army meant a tax had to be raised to pay for it -in addition because the British continued to wage war against the US until 1812. Again, the first formal income tax levy in the UK was imposed in 1798 to pay for the war against Napoleon Bonaparte, just as the first Federal Income Taxes in the US were introduced in 1861 duing the Confederate War, the IRS being created in 1862.

What has been important in recent times, has been the way that taxation as a 'war fund' has morphed into the growth of the State, mostly to cope with/pay for the negative social consequences of industrial growth, and in particular the growth of cities. Once 19th century governments realised that to maintain 'social peace' they needed to ameliorate the worst examples of poverty, then the concept of State-as opposed to Religous-based- welfare -Germany being a pioneer of this- became common.
With the exception of those libertarians who are opposed to all forms of taxation and welfare, I think most people accept the State must intervene if markets fail to maintain employment, income and the means that sustain a decent life.

But what has been phenomenal in the last few decades is the use of taxes not to remedy market failure, but to replace markets, taxes being the means whereby the banking system was protected and repaired after 2008, with taxes now funding so much market activity made redundant by Covid 19 it may be the only means by which our economies are prevented from total collapse. The point being that what starts out as the Government borrowing eventually becomes taxation as this is the only secure means of repaying debt. The consumer always pays.

But if this gives taxation a moral as well as economic purpose, the moral argument is that in a liberal market economy, taxation is best justified when being raised to pay for those services markets either do not want to provide, or whose provision is inadequte, the most obvious being health and education.

Taxation also binds the citizen to state in both an individual and collective manner, giving the citizen rights of representation, and also rights to change the government and the system of taxation, and thus is embedded in the idea of the freedom of the individual. To argue that 'all taxation is theft' is to deny the right of the citizen to participate in the State at any level, handing power to an assumed market that is expected to function in place of the State without a single guarantee that the freedom of the indivdual will be protected, and without guaranteeing the protection of the rule of law. Taxes are part of the social contract that exchanges a degree of individual liberty in return for the protection of the State.

These issues aside, if the US is now to be the main employer of the American worker, the main source of revenue for unemployed Americans, retired Americans, and fund American childhood, then it is time to re-think your Tax structures and Tax Commitments.

It is time to offer American Citizens a New Deal, in which you create a Federal Health Service that guarantees free access to health care at the time of need for every citizen from the day they are born to the day they die; and free education for children to the age of 18.

I think it is an election-winning policy, but will Biden be courageous enough to propose it?

[broncofan]

As a means of comparison, for the UK as a whole, Income Tax is levied at the following levels of income-
-Up to £12,500 pa no tax is paid on income (£12,500=$16,353.87) [today's rates]
-£12,501-£50,000 tax is 20% (£50,000=$65,415.4-eight
-£50,001-£150,000 tax is 40% (£150,000-$196,245.74)
-over £150,000 tax is 45%.

Our highest bracket for marginal income tax rate is 37%, kicking in at about 518,000 dollars. People making between 80-160,000 pay about 24%. Of course, their total tax liability is lower because it's a marginal rate (graduated up) and there is also the issue of the standard deduction and personal exemptions that lower the amount of "taxable income". https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets/

One thing I can say looking at Britain's tax brackets is that I'm a bit surprised that the 40% tax starts at as low a level as it does given that the highest rate tops out at 45%. In tax policy they might say there isn't good "vertical equity". People who are not similarly situated should not have similar burdens. The difference in lifestyle and ability to pay taxes between someone making 50,000 pounds and someone making 150,000 pounds is night and day.

So I agree more with your proposed schedule. Even though you have people in a similar bracket at 45%, the rates go up more when someone's income goes from above average to wealthy. I might have people making between 50 and 100,000 pounds paying closer to 35% but then it would rise in a similar manner to the one you propose.

[Stavros]

Our highest bracket for marginal income tax rate is 37%, kicking in at about 518,000 dollars. People making between 80-160,000 pay about 24%. Of course, their total tax liability is lower because it's a marginal rate (graduated up) and there is also the issue of the standard deduction and personal exemptions that lower the amount of "taxable income". https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/taxes/federal-income-tax-brackets/

One thing I can say looking at Britain's tax brackets is that I'm a bit surprised that the 40% tax starts at as low a level as it does given that the highest rate tops out at 45%. In tax policy they might say there isn't good "vertical equity". People who are not similarly situated should not have similar burdens. The difference in lifestyle and ability to pay taxes between someone making 50,000 pounds and someone making 150,000 pounds is night and day.

So I agree more with your proposed schedule. Even though you have people in a similar bracket at 45%, the rates go up more when someone's income goes from above average to wealthy. I might have people making between 50 and 100,000 pounds paying closer to 35% but then it would rise in a similar manner to the one you propose.

The key point in the UK is that our tax policy is based on a mxture of ideology and duplicity. It began with Margaret Thatcher's 1979 campaign in which she argued that by lowering tax you give wage-earners more of their money to spend as they wish, pretty much the same as what Reagan said, but in the the case of the US, something that has been part of the income/tax culture that owes its pedigree to the 1776 Revolution.

I think on balance, and setting aside low-wage earners, the key component of the American work culture compared to Europe, was based on higher than average wages, lower than average taxes, so that the spending power of the American worker was sufficient to meet the costs of housing, transport, health and education, and that it is the stagnation, in some cases the decline of this wage-earning and spending power -since the 1970s or Reagan?- that has been the source of so much anger and discontent. It seems to me the average American is poorer in 2020 than he or she was in 1960.

By contrast, in Europe we have a tax-and-spend culture that is remote from the American idea. If Biden were to propose a tax system of the kind supported for decades in Sweden, he would be dismissed as a Communist. In the UK, what Thatcher did was indeed to cut income tax, the duplicity lay in the increase in supplementary taxes, such as VAT, so that the overall tax burden did not decrease but was increased, particularly in the cases of smokers and drinkers.

The critical point, because it has affected Labour as well as the Conservative Party, is that there is some sort of Concete Block in the schedules of the mind which says Nothing over 50% income tax for the 'Middle Class'. It has become an ideological impasse, a black hole into which nobody intends to step. 50% income tax is as Taboo in tax policy for middle earners as Incest.

On one level I agree with it, on the basis that the service economy we have -pre-Covid, whatever survives after it- needs those spare pounds to thrive, but it is also the case that in the UK, funding for the NHS is taken from wages at the same time as income tax, so that unless people choose to add private health insurance policies to their outgoing expenses, and choose to send their children to privately run, expensive schools, basic costs on health and education are met by the State from taxation. It is in this sense that by paying for crucial services by tax, people are free of the burdens of anxiety falling ill can induce, and know there will always be a school for their children, though quality in all these things varies across the country.

The area which excites a lot of waffle is with high wage earners, who, as I said, often have additional sources of income to their salary. I doubt that taxing the rich helps solve the debt problem, but if I say it produces a more equitable society, then that is seen as some sort of Socialism, which, having in mind a moral economy rather than a market economy makes it a useless argument. For the point is that it has value as a Liberal as well as a Socialist idea, but in a different context: that the distribution of wealth should be more equitable in a capitalist market-based economy, because by sharing wealth more, more consumers are created, and if we are to have service-based rather than manufacturing-based economies, what was once spare cash, is the essential soure of spending that keeps a service economy motoring along, maintaining jobs as well as the perceived quality of life factor, such as pavement cafes in summer, restaurants, bars and clubs, opera and recitals, gigs and festivals.

I don't think people object to people earning millions a year if they have worked for it, because of their hard work, ambition, and creativity. Even in the case of that screeching idiot, Madonna, or for that matter, Barry Manilow (who can at least sing, a skill unknown to Madonna).

The difference between Bill Gates and his President, is that Bill Gates created something, and built a commercial firm with a useful and popular product, whereas the President sat in his father's office earning a handsome sum of money for doing basically nothing. According to his niece, when he showed up in the office, he spent most of the morning reading the newspaper and magazine clippings about himself the staff knew he liked to read. And when he did branch out on his own, he built tall buildings with money borrowed from other sources rather than his own, and when his casinos went bankrupt, he aways got someone else to pay the bills. This is the kind of capitalism that earns resentment and contempt rather than admiration; in the early 1970s when there was a controversy over a notorious asset-stripper in the UK, Capitalist Prime Minister Edward Heath referred to it as 'the unacceptable face of Capitalism'. The money that goes with it appears tainted, and dirty.

Any thoughts on Corporation Tax? It seems everyone now wants to compete in a race to zero tax, Eisenhower had it at 90%. In the case of Covid-sticken economies, I can see the logic of a tax holiday if it helps revive an ailing economy, but as joseph Stiglitz has pointed out before, when artful tax lawyers can reduce Corporation Tax to 10% whatever the headline rate, the tax needs to be reconsidered. By all means have a holiday, but then take a fair share. And with firms like Amazon making billions, what's wrong with 90%. Or maybe in Corporation Tax too, you can't get over 50% without invoking Satan and his wicked works.

But will taxes and the debt be part of the debate from now until November? If the President looks back over the last 4 years, any gains he thinks were made have been wiped out this year, so it doesn't look like a vote winner. As for the debt, which used to be the millstone around Obama's neck, I don't think anyone wants to talk about it, even as it is that other Black Hole toward which the US and the rest of the word is headed.

Crash, bang, wallop what a picture! What a photograph!
They are hiding, and they are scared.

[broncofan]

Very interesting post Stavros. I agree with it though I don't know a lot about corporate tax policy. I don't even know off the top of my head what our corporate tax rate is though I could quickly look it up. Corporate tax is probably easier to dodge than individual income tax as companies can move their headquarters and manufacturing plants to evade tax burdens that might have to be apportioned between different countries. While technically someone can change citizenship to avoid individual income taxes, it seems to me corporate tax is more likely to involve a race to the bottom dynamic in which raising rates won't always result in more tax revenue because companies deliberately choose situs based on tax liability.

While I can see some arguing that raising tax rates for the rich must be based on their ability to help pay for government services rather than to create equity, I don't think we necessarily need to choose. More equity doesn't have to be the direct result of their paying so much in taxes that they're no longer rich but instead be the result of creating the kinds of social programs and opportunities that create social and economic mobility. That may sound idealistic but equity is a good thing as is healthcare, educational opportunities and social safety net.

One question I have is at what point someone is rich. There are many grades along the way in my opinion. Whereas someone is unlikely to become rich with an income of between 50-100,000 pounds, someone making 150,000 to 200,000 pounds has those investment opportunities. I think sparing the middle class makes a lot of sense here where they do not have much of a buffer against catastrophic medical bills....maybe less crucial in Britain where you have NHS, but I can still see an important distinction between doing well and rich.

[blackchubby38]

Very interesting post Stavros. I agree with it though I don't know a lot about corporate tax policy. I don't even know off the top of my head what our corporate tax rate is though I could quickly look it up. Corporate tax is probably easier to dodge than individual income tax as companies can move their headquarters and manufacturing plants to evade tax burdens that might have to be apportioned between different countries. While technically someone can change citizenship to avoid individual income taxes, it seems to me corporate tax is more likely to involve a race to the bottom dynamic in which raising rates won't always result in more tax revenue because companies deliberately choose situs based on tax liability.

While I can see some arguing that raising tax rates for the rich must be based on their ability to help pay for government services rather than to create equity, I don't think we necessarily need to choose. More equity doesn't have to be the direct result of their paying so much in taxes that they're no longer rich but instead be the result of creating the kinds of social programs and opportunities that create social and economic mobility. That may sound idealistic but equity is a good thing as is healthcare, educational opportunities and social safety net.

One question I have is at what point someone is rich. There are many grades along the way in my opinion. Whereas someone is unlikely to become rich with an income of between 50-100,000 pounds, someone making 150,000 to 200,000 pounds has those investment opportunities. I think sparing the middle class makes a lot of sense here where they do not have much of a buffer against catastrophic medical bills....maybe less crucial in Britain where you have NHS, but I can still see an important distinction between doing well and rich.

I think the distinction between doing well and being rich depends a few different factors. The most important being where a person lives.

If a person's gross income is a million dollars, but they live in NYC, I think they're definitely doing well, but can't be considered rich. Especially if they're married and have children.

If a person's gross income is $500,000 and they live in NYC, I would consider that person to be upper middle class/lower upper class.

But I think the important thing to remember is that its not distinction between being rich and doing well that should be focus of who should pay more what when it comes to raising taxes. I think the distinction should be between who is wealthy and who is rich. Chris Rock put it best when he said:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZWeFtgEAEk


While this video is from 2004, I think the view still stands today. Especially when you consider the income gap in this country.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

As I predicted, it has been discussed 'at the highest level'. No debates, then. And maybe no election. The man certainly wants to go down in history for his unique style and decision making...

"Donald Trump (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump) on Thursday morning floated the idea of delaying November’s presidential election, justifying the extraordinary suggestion by repeating his false claim that widespread voting by mail from home would result in a “fraudulent” result.

Trump’s incendiary proposal was dropped in a Thursday morning tweet (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1288818160389558273), as the US was reeling from bad economic news, digesting the death toll of 150,000 having been reached in the coronavirus pandemic and preparing for the funeral of Congressman John Lewis in Atlanta. In it he claimed without evidence that “universal mail-in voting” would lead to “the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT election in history”.
Trump, pontificating that the result would be a “great embarrassment to the USA”, he raised the prospect of a postponement. “Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???” he tweeted."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/30/trump-election-delay-distraction-tweet-economic-figuresThis latest tweet from The Clueless Buffoon In Chief shows he is afraid of losing the November Presidential Election,and is desperate to hold on to power and get re-elected, and also shows that he's a hypocrite because him and everybody in his administration voted by mail. and is laying the groundwork to challenge the results of the election. he doesn't have the authority to postpone the election,only the United States Congress has the authority.

[MrFanti]

Once again, Biden drives a few more Black Americans towards being Independents, Libertarians, or Republicans:
(If Biden keeps talking like this, he's going to cause his own loss in November)

Joe Biden: ‘Unlike the African American Community … the Latino Community Is an Incredibly Diverse Community’
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/08/06/joe-biden-unlike-the-african-american-community-the-latino-community-is-an-incredibly-diverse-community-nabj/

[MrFanti]

Here's an interesting data point:
81 Percent of Black Americans Want the Same Level, or More, of Police Presence: Gallup
https://reason.com/2020/08/06/81-percent-of-black-americans-want-the-same-level-or-more-of-police-presence-gallup/

[MrFanti]

Interesting article of concern from a Democrat

Joe Biden's Capitulation to the Crazy Left is Alienating Democrats Like Me
https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/07/joe-bidens-capitulation-to-the-crazy-left-is-alienating-democrats-like-me/
"The Hard Left Controls Biden Now"
"Biden Betrays Law Enforcement"

"....These voters cannot be discounted as racists or deplorables who need to be canceled. Their votes matter just as much as the protesters and rioters. They could easily lift Trump to a second term.
If that happens, Democrats will have only themselves to blame. The coronavirus gave them the chance to show what real leadership looks like. So far, they have failed.
Democrats have a small window to come to their senses, reconnect with working people, and fix it. But that will require them to get out of Washington and stand up to the special interests that are exploiting the virus for political gain — and that seems increasingly unlikely."

[Stavros]

Once again, Biden drives a few more Black Americans towards being Independents, Libertarians, or Republicans:
(If Biden keeps talking like this, he's going to cause his own loss in November)

Joe Biden: ‘Unlike the African American Community … the Latino Community Is an Incredibly Diverse Community’


So Biden can sometimes say something stupid -of the two candidates for the Presidency, who would you say is capable of saying the most stupid things -indeed, who is on record saying the most stupid things?; and will enough Black Americans because of what Biden said, change their vote?

By contrast Biden makes modest statements, compared to his competitor, who couches so much in absoutes there is no room for reality to get a look in: 'nobody ever saw that before', 'the greatest economy in the history of the world' (what does that even mean?); the greatest, the best, the finest, from a man who wants you to visit Yoseminite Park, or Thighland (don't we all?), who presides over a system that gives milions of dollars in loans to the Kushner famiy, father and sons...how many Black-owned and run businesses got millions of tax payer dollars?
...gaffes, if they are to define the election, are already stacked up against the Incumbent, and no amount of disinfectant is going to make his self-inflicted wounds heal before November. Some statements are so shocking they are never forgotten.

Long after Biden's remark about Black Americans is forgotten, Disinfectant may be identified as the Keyword of the 2020 campaign.

[Stavros]

Is it a clever move by the President, to use an Executive Order to spend money without the approval of Congress? On the one hand he provokes a debate about the income Americans need and want -as defined by him-while ignoring the rule of law, and on the other hand by provoking litigation, his time-honured tactic for dealing with his own failures- he ties down the Democrats in process rather tha policy, lest the policy be exposed to the claim made by Robert Reich that while their President takes money away, his corporate buddies have received more money than they can spend?

Thus:
"Asked by a reporter why the benefits would be $400 instead of the previous $600, Trump responded: “This is the money they need, this is the money they want, this gives them a great incentive to go back to work.” He added: “There was a difficulty with the 600 number because it really was a disincentive.” "
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/08/trump-signs-orders-for-coronavirus-relief-with-lower-level-of-extra-aid-for-jobless

and
ince the start of the pandemic, American billionaires have been cleaning up. As more than 50 million Americans filed for unemployment insurance, billionaires became $637bn richer (https://www.businessinsider.com/billionaires-net-worth-increases-coronavirus-pandemic-2020-7). Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth has ballooned 59% (https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-net-worth-priscilla-chan-2017-10). Amazon’s Jeff Bezos’s, 39% (https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/353647). Walmart’s Walton family has added $25b (https://www.bloomberg.com/features/richest-families-in-the-world/?sref=0KUfhQHv)n (https://www.bloomberg.com/features/richest-families-in-the-world/?sref=0KUfhQHv). .....On 28 July, Trump announced a $765m deal (https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2020/08/06/as-millions-worry-about-unemployment-benefits-kodak-get-a-765-million-loan-via-the-white-house/) with the firm (Kodak) to bring drug production back to the United States. He called it “one of the most important deals in the history of the US pharmaceutical industries,” even though Kodak isn’t even a pharmaceutical company.
.....This much is clear: Trump and his Republican enablers won’t provide $600 per week (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/08/trump-signs-orders-for-coronavirus-relief-with-lower-level-of-extra-aid-for-jobless) to tens of millions of Americans who need the money to survive the pandemic, because Trump and the GOP believe the money undermines incentives to work. Yet Trump has no problem letting billionaires illegally profit off the pandemic. He thinks that as long as they buoy the stock market, they’re helping the American economy.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/09/trump-has-no-problem-letting-billionaires-profit-off-the-pandemic

[Stavros]

As predicted, Kamala Harris will be Biden's running mate. A clever move on his part, for however much doubt and dirt is now stirred by friend or foe, Senator Harris does appear to be sane, capable of articulating an alternative future for her country without using the language of the sewer, and may appeal to those voters being told her party is in the grip of the 'radical left', when it is the insertion of extremists from the right into the Republican Party that has been the stand-out aspect of party politics since 2016.

Needless to say, for all his contempt for her now, he must concede, she can't be all that bad-

"The president first donated to Ms Harris in 2011 as she was running for attorney general. That donation amounted to $5,000 (£3,793). He then donated another $1,000 (£758) to her re-election campaign in 2013, Washington newspaper McClatchy (https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article226975319.html) reported on Monday.
Ivanka Trump (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/ivanka-trump) also donated thousands of dollars to the Democratic senator. In 2014 she donated a reported $2,000 (£1,517) to Ms Harris’ re-election efforts."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kamala-harris-donald-ivanka-trump-donations-california-a8807421.html

Maybe the Republicans should ask themselves of their leader -Is he one of us?

And now it gets interesting, but will Biden and Harris be safe, or sorry?

[KnightHawk 2.0]

As predicted, Kamala Harris will be Biden's running mate. A clever move on his part, for however much doubt and dirt is now stirred by friend or foe, Senator Harris does appear to be sane, capable of articulating an alternative future for her country without using the language of the sewer, and may appeal to those voters being told her party is in the grip of the 'radical left', when it is the insertion of extremists from the right into the Republican Party that has been the stand-out aspect of party politics since 2016.

Needless to say, for all his contempt for her now, he must concede, she can't be all that bad-

"The president first donated to Ms Harris in 2011 as she was running for attorney general. That donation amounted to $5,000 (£3,793). He then donated another $1,000 (£758) to her re-election campaign in 2013, Washington newspaper McClatchy (https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article226975319.html) reported on Monday.
Ivanka Trump (https://www.independent.co.uk/topic/ivanka-trump) also donated thousands of dollars to the Democratic senator. In 2014 she donated a reported $2,000 (£1,517) to Ms Harris’ re-election efforts."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/kamala-harris-donald-ivanka-trump-donations-california-a8807421.html

Maybe the Republicans should ask themselves of their leader -Is he one of us?

And now it gets interesting, but will Biden and Harris be safe, or sorry?Agree,Joe Biden selecting Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate was a clever move on his part. and she is capable of articulating an alternative future for the country without using divisive language,and appeal to voters being told that her party is in the grip of the radical left,when in fact it is the insertion of extremists from the right who have taking over the Republican Party that has been the stand out aspect of the party politics since 2016. and also agree the Republicans should ask themselves of their so-called leader is he one of them.

[Stavros]

It is clever in various senses:
a) if the Republicans want to use Law and Order as their stick to beat the Democrats with, they have in Kamala Harris a former Attorney General for California, in effect the second most powerful AG in the US, and also one who has, shall we say, 'disappointed' the very same left that the Republicans claim she has become part of. One wonders if anyone in that party, from the White House to the outhouse, has ever met anyone left-wing, or maybe they keep watching old George MCGovern videos? And how left-wing was he?

b) Harris, rather than scaring off the 'suburban' voter, may actually increase the Democrats vote, as suburbs today are not what they were in the 1950s, as is remarked of one in Texas-

"Nearly 500 miles east, in the expanse of metropolitan Houston, Democrat Sri Preston Kulkarni is running to represent a suburban congressional district that is worlds apart fromthe one that exists in Trump’s imagination.
Texas’ 22nd congressional district, which is almost (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas%27s_22nd_congressional_district) the size of Rhode Island and nearly as populous, is so diverse that his campaign is distributing literature in 21 languages."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/09/donald-trump-outdated-approach-falls-flat-america-diverse-democratic-suburbs

c) I am sure Mr Fanti will dismiss the claim that Senator Harris represents, or even has the right to represent Black voters, but on the other hand, if Black voters look at the candidates and ask, 'Who is best among them for me?' I think the majority might choose her -who else? Mike Pence, by contrast? Has anyone ever seen his lips move when he speaks?

d) I believe Harris might be the least Christian candidate in US history -although she attended a Baptist school growing up, via her father I assume, her family history is dominated by her (now deceased) Hindu mother (the father left when Harris was 7 seven years old) and she also went to Hindu temples. She is married to a Jew, and although I don't believe she converted to Judaism, she has a solid record of support for Israel including the popular misconception as expressed here: "“Years later when I visited Israel for the first time, I saw the fruits of that effort and the Israeli ingenuity that has truly made a desert bloom.” (Historical note: there was no desert to bloom before the 1880s, the fertile areas of what is now Israel were producing oranges and olives and plums and wheat and...etc no need to let Israeli propaganda spoil reality for ya) ---but that is hardly surprising for top-tier Democrats, even if she does, or used to believe in a two-state solution -you can read a snippet or two about it here-
https://www.jta.org/2019/01/11/politics/5-jewish-things-to-know-about-kamala-harris

The point might be that for those Republicans who feel they have 'lost' their America to a generation or two of immigrants who don't share their Christian European heritage, Harris represents exactly what it is that they think they have lost.

It may also be the case, as she identifies as Black, that Harris is only 50% closer to Slavery compared to Obama, who was also identified as Black but had no family connection to the Atlantic Slave Trade. It means the US has yet to see anyone fully connected to Slavery reach high office -but I am not sure who that would be.

As for the President, if his Law and Order shtick doesn't work with Harris, is he going to take a gamble on using 'race' to bait her? His only route appears to be via BLM if he can make it stick, and depending on how she responds to BLM questions.

[Stavros]

How to either win the election, or so cripple the US Postal Service that postal votes don't arrive or get counted- the solution, if more and more people intend to vote by mail, is to increase funding for the Service, and hire more people-the article also makes the point that as many Agency and Department heads are 'Acting' it means they have not had Congressional approval and are thus directly appointed by the President -does this mean they are not accountable to Congress?

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/donald-trump-us-postal-service-democracy_n_5f31f7d2c5b6fc009a5c6381?ri18n=true&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9jb25zZW50LnlhaG9vLmNvbS9j b2xsZWN0Q29uc2VudD9zZXNzaW9uSWQ9M19jYy1zZXNzaW9uXz hjYmI2OTAxLTllYjgtNGQ1Ni1hOWFlLWE1YzI2MDAyZjNkYSZs YW5nPWVuLXVzJmlubGluZT1mYWxzZQ&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANRj4qPh-2aPdGzAlzz3wV6_Y2KQuUVd4px2le74Abz35kevd1G9tfbNJIe hqvoE2YDvhbZOd1W9xXZQK4tgyCJDP1odvLTFgw4GmKzpe3FA4 UFUdBoFJrYVW9Ozahdo4PnbO5lqFcdW8HgBzMI9oIj2bKrbbqC D1KJtTZ-8koL0

[broncofan]

I believe Harris might be the least Christian candidate in US history -although she attended a Baptist school growing up, via her father I assume, her family history is dominated by her (now deceased) Hindu mother (the father left when Harris was 7 seven years old) and she also went to Hindu temples. She is married to a Jew, and although I don't believe she converted to Judaism, she has a solid record of support for Israel including the popular misconception as expressed here: "“Years later when I visited Israel for the first time, I saw the fruits of that effort and the Israeli ingenuity that has truly made a desert bloom.” (Historical note: there was no desert to bloom before the 1880s, the fertile areas of what is now Israel were producing oranges and olives and plums and wheat and...etc no need to let Israeli propaganda spoil reality for ya) ---but that is hardly surprising for top-tier Democrats, even if she does, or used to believe in a two-state solution -you can read a snippet or two about it here-
https://www.jta.org/2019/01/11/politics/5-jewish-things-to-know-about-kamala-harris

There has been some talk of her views on Israel with a picture of her with Netanyahu garnering a lot of attention. I don't think a picture of a U.S. senator with a foreign head of state, even a right-wing authoritarian head of state, is quite the gotcha some people think it is, particularly since Israel is a state the U.S. has diplomatic relations with.

With 164,000 dead Americans, most of them preventable, and an incumbent who has destroyed the rule of law and wants to appoint Supreme Court Justices to roll back civil rights I don't think her exaggerations about Israel's agricultural accomplishments are going to end up being too much of an issue.

The left could have nominated Bernie, who wanted to cut aid to Israel, block settlement building, and end the Gaza siege. He didn't do it in an exciting and demagogic way but his views were pretty clear that he was going to change the direction of U.S. policy with respect to Israel. It was one of the few things I appreciated about him.

[broncofan]

I liked the choice of Kamala Harris because she's charismatic and very good at one on one debate. I'm not the only person to think this but I just imagine her dismantling Mike Pence in a debate because she's always so prepared.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

I liked the choice of Kamala Harris because she's charismatic and very good at one on one debate. I'm not the only person to think this but I just imagine her dismantling Mike Pence in a debate because she's always so prepared.
Agree that Kamala Harris is charismatic and very good at one on one debate. and can also see her dismantling Mike-Delusional Clown-Pence in a debate,because she is always prepared.

[Stavros]

There has been some talk of her views on Israel with a picture of her with Netanyahu garnering a lot of attention. I don't think a picture of a U.S. senator with a foreign head of state, even a right-wing authoritarian head of state, is quite the gotcha some people think it is, particularly since Israel is a state the U.S. has diplomatic relations with.

With 164,000 dead Americans, most of them preventable, and an incumbent who has destroyed the rule of law and wants to appoint Supreme Court Justices to roll back civil rights I don't think her exaggerations about Israel's agricultural accomplishments are going to end up being too much of an issue.

The left could have nominated Bernie, who wanted to cut aid to Israel, block settlement building, and end the Gaza siege. He didn't do it in an exciting and demagogic way but his views were pretty clear that he was going to change the direction of U.S. policy with respect to Israel. It was one of the few things I appreciated about him.

My point was not really about policy, I was interested in the influences in her life, and wondered if her views on Israel were shaped by her marriage, or if she held those views before. The remark about blooming deserts suggests someone who has swallowed one of Zionism's enduring myths, and also suggests she either knows little about 'the others' or is in any way more committed to the interests of Israel than of the Palestinians. That the Christian component in her identity seems vague to me at the moment is one of the interesting angles, she may yet have to make some religious declarations as it has seemed since Reagan that the White House is off-limits to anyone who does not declare a belief in the Bible, attend 'Prayer Breakfasts', church on Sunday, and chant 'God Bless America'.

What has puzzled me for some time is the ease with which so-called Christians or 'Evangelical Christians' in the US support Israel at the same time as showing zero interest in the rights of Christians who have either been living in 'the Holy Land' since the days of Jesus, or through the Eastern Orthodox Christian churches and their communities have established a continuous presence in Jerusalem for over 1,000 years. Whatever.

I also note that her maternal Grandfather, PV Gopalan was as hostile an activist to the British in India as Obama's father was to the British in Kenya, and that he was a Minister in Nehru's government dealing with refugees from 'East Pakistan' before accepting another job dealing with the rehabilitation of refugees in Zambia. She has been critical of India'a treatment of Kashmir, so it remains to be seen if this other extremist (and his even more aggressive sidekick Amit Shah) will claim her as 'India's own' given that the last thing he wants is to be publicly criticised for his annexation of Kashmir.
Her maternal Grandmother in Jamaica was a member of the Jamaica Labour Party.

Of course she has baggage, and not just from her years in California, and on policy issues I would expect her to lean more to the 'play it safe' side of the Democrat party, to be a reassuring voice to moderate voters, the opposite of how the Presdident and his teams are depicting her, though it is a bit rich for the nastiest and most foul-mouthed President to call her 'nasty'.

Right now I don't think the Republicans know how to handle her, but there is some way to go yet, and if it comes down to impresssions, it is up to her and Biden not to make major gaffes. But will she tell the truth about the debt and take the view taxes must rise to pay it off? And is she soft on Wall St?

[broncofan]

My point was not really about policy, I was interested in the influences in her life, and wondered if her views on Israel were shaped by her marriage, or if she held those views before. The remark about blooming deserts suggests someone who has swallowed one of Zionism's enduring myths, and also suggests she either knows little about 'the others' or is in any way more committed to the interests of Israel than of the Palestinians. That the Christian component in her identity seems vague to me at the moment is one of the interesting angles, she may yet have to make some religious declarations as it has seemed since Reagan that the White House is off-limits to anyone who does not declare a belief in the Bible, attend 'Prayer Breakfasts', church on Sunday, and chant 'God Bless America'.

I understand your point and also the implication of saying the Israelis "made the desert bloom", which is a vapid and foolish claim. In addition to being politically motivated propaganda, the idea is a racist one in the sense that it assumes people who were there for centuries could not cultivate the land or were incapable of using the land. I also don't like the claim that an area containing some desert is somehow improved by transforming it. I don't think everyone who says this thinks through the negative implication though. They may think they are speaking to Israeli efforts and not be aware they are misrepresenting the history of the area and erasing the existence of its Palestinian inhabitants, which is wrong.

Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff only got married a few years ago when they were both about 50 years old. But that doesn't mean she had strong opinions about the subject or a lot of knowledge about it until then. I would be surprised if her marriage to him did not influence her stance on Israel simply because Doug seems to be politically active in pro-Israel circles.

My point, and I didn't mean it as a rebuke, is one that you kind of alluded to in your post. Her stance is not out of step with the Democratic party for the most part. I was very happy to see during the primary season both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren avoid going to AIPAC. That IS extremely important because these kind of glib talking points are ones you would hear at the venue of a political lobby like AIPAC. I don't think the choice of Biden should be seen as a rejection of that type of change since this is not a hugely visible issue in our primary season.

[Stavros]

I agree with your last point -the US is committed to the defence of Israel and I see no change taking place to that strategic partnership. It doesn't mean, however, that every US administration should bend the knee to Benjamin Netanyahu, but we saw with Obama what happens when they don't, though in Obama's case, it was clear Netanyahu was never going to even think a Black man could be his equal, let alone his superior.

Whatever the ignorance American politicians share about the Middle East with the general public, the framework within which decisions are being made is shaped by the broader conflict in the region between Saudi Arabia and Iran, a conflict that has overtaken the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that dominated the region for so many year.

The UAE's recognition of Israel, for example, is a ruse that has been cobbled together by Under-President Kushner and his buddy, Yousef al-Otaiba, the one whose 'legendary' parties in DC and other more private sessions going back at least 5 years has brought Saudi Arabia's mad Crown Prince MbS into contact with -and more worryingly, agreement wiith- Gen. Petraeus, Martin Indyk, and eventually the Kushner elite, enablling MbS to boast he has Kushner in his pocket, though the amount of gold that might have passed between them has not been confirmed.
All of them loathe Qatar, which, though less urgent than Iran, is small enough to be pushed around for daring to support the Palestinian cause.

It is easy enough to get Netanyahu to say there won't be any new settlement activity, as he will merely encourage it to expand in existing settlements. More broadly, the Saudi Arabia-Israeli alliance has brought the UAE into its orbit, as both have been involved in the catastrophic war in the Yemen, with the UAE, lacking armed forces of any size, using Erik Prince to create 'mercenaries' fighting on behalf of the UAE in this repeat of the futile war that engulfed the Yemen in the 1960s, the first time Israel and Saudi Arabia came together, the US using Israel as a corridor through which to ship arms to Saudi Arabia.

Out of this, I wonder how much a new Democrat Admin can change. The most obvious, and the easiest foreign policy change will be to take the US back into the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

The Iran Nuclear Deal is a tough one, because Iran has changed its position -but, were the US to lift sanctions on Iran, indeed, to open dialogue with it, this might change Iran's position, added to which its inept handling of Covid 19 and falling oil revenues mean it is in need of funds and support. But this would upset the US-Israel-Saudi linkage and though Biden might be reluctant to upset them, I think he must. By intervening in the triangle of terror that the UAE-Saudi Arabia and Israel has formed , Biden could bring an end to the war in Yemen, which in reality both Saudi Arabia and the UAE want out of, and which with a dialogue with Iran might be achieved, as Yemen is really of little use to Iran, and has in any case split apart again as it did in the 1960s.

If Biden and Harris want to be different, a new approach to the Middle East as outlined above is one way to do it, but will meet fercious resistance by religious nutters in Congress, and by Netanyahu -though his own future as Prime Minister is not secure- as for MbS, we don't know how he will cope with Biden and Harris, as they cannot be as easily bought as the current President (or can they?).

it is also not clear to me what the US position is on Libya, Syria and Iraq, while its position on Afghanistan and negotiating with the Taliban is also in disarray. At the heart of the Libyan conflict is Kushner's buddy, the UAE, using its money to curry influence with the French at the expense of the Turks, leaving Biden with a thorny problem, given the legacy of the Benghazi raid. Who to back in Libya? What Biden might want in Syria, regime change, is looking unlkely for the time being, unless Bashar al-Asad is assassinated (and if so, by a member of his own family) or the Russians reduce their commitment to the place. A new Democrat admin must ask, does the US stay in these places, or make a serious attempt to negotiate settlements?

Two last foreign policy obstacles the current admiin has created: 1) Russia and the future of nuclear weapons development; and 2) China in general and trade in particular.

If we assume Biden cannot take the US back to where it was in 2016, where does he want the US to go from here? Most of the world has pushed the US aside, and the 45th President has been integral to the strategic weakness the US now finds itself in. Could it be that in the new dispensation, Biden is an ineffective world leader, because crucial players no longer rely on the US to get what they want? A new US administration could thus present credible and practical solutions, and be ignored by those for whom political power comes out of the barrrel of a gun.

Some links to cause thought-
A Prince, An Arab and A Russian meet in a bar-
https://www.fastcompany.com/90233994/how-a-secret-seychelles-meeting-signaled-the-uae-pull-in-trump-d-c

Otaiba, Otaiba
https://theintercept.com/2018/10/23/yousef-al-otaiba-khashoggi-washington/

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-a-powerful-player-in-washington-uae-envoy-s-message-on-annexation-draws-a-red-line-1.8918626

https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2019/08/280493/uae-newspaper-israel-real-enemy/

[Stavros]

"It is easy enough to get Netanyahu to say there won't be any new settlement activity, as he will merely encourage it to expand in existing settlements."
My mistake, Netanyahu has said Israel will not annexe the West Bank, which it probably wasn't going to (at this time) anyway.

[Stavros]

"President Donald Trump says he has heard Democratic running mate Kamala Harris "doesn't qualify" to serve as US vice-president, amplifying a fringe legal theory critics decry as racist."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53774289

Again? What is wrong with this man? Has he no policies he wants to talk about that he thinks needs four more years? Or is he just going to spend three months insuliting and abusing Americans?

[KnightHawk 2.0]

"President Donald Trump says he has heard Democratic running mate Kamala Harris "doesn't qualify" to serve as US vice-president, amplifying a fringe legal theory critics decry as racist."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53774289

Again? What is wrong with this man? Has he no policies he wants to talk about that he thinks needs four more years? Or is he just going to spend three months insuliting and abusing Americans?That's rich coming from a Clueless Buffoon who is has done a terrible job of handling the CO-VID 19 Global Pandemic and has absolutely no business being the president of the United States,and this is just another example of him stoking fear and division to rile his base of supporters and enablers. he is an uneducated,unfit,unqualified,mentally unstable demagouge and malignant narcissist who thinks by using the race card and attacking Kamala Harris,he'll increase his chances of getting re-elected,and the US doesn't need four more of him and corrupt administration. and this also shows that he is afraid of powerful women, and i think that Kamala Harris is qualified to serve as US Vice President,unlike that delusional clown Mike Pence.

[MrFanti]

Republican Party that has been the stand out aspect of the party politics since 2016. and also agree the Republicans should ask themselves of their so-called leader is he one of them.
Trump is about as Republican as Sanders is Democrat.

Both Sanders and Trump are products of establishment Democrats being pissed and establishment Republicans being pissed. But make no mistake, Trump is as much Republican as Sanders is Democrat.

[Stavros]

Trump is about as Republican as Sanders is Democrat.
Both Sanders and Trump are products of establishment Democrats being pissed and establishment Republicans being pissed. But make no mistake, Trump is as much Republican as Sanders is Democrat.

Two things that exist in the US system that puzzle me: how a political party can accept as nominee to lead it, someone with no proven record of being 'a member' -because you don't have membership rolls like we do in Europe. Indeed, if a person could only be elected to represent a party through annual membership fees and a party card, the President today would be someone else. Sanders has no more right to claim the Democrat ticket than does Angela Davis, yet both could try, just as Alex Jones or James Woods could seek the leadership of the Republican Party.

Marjorie Taylor Green is a QAnon supporter, whatever that means, but presumably believes the US is run by a cabal of paedophiles and cannibals, and Jews of course, yet she has the full-throated endorsement of a man who, as far as we know, is neither a peadophile nor a cannibal....that it was even possible for this woman to become the Republican Party candidate tells you something about the cockeyed, out-of-date nonsense that is 'party politics' in the USA.

The second puzzing question is, what, today, is a Republican? Just as we ought to be having a debate in the UK to answer the question, 'What is a Conservatve?' -it used to be a pragmatic party of stability, but is now a radical party of change- what happened to that American party that was once associated with sound money and fiscal responsibility? Thus

"The problem in the long run has been that the Republican Party is no longer the party of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge and Dwight Eisenhower, but the one of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Donald Trump.
Starting with Nixon, most Republican presidents have found that cutting taxes wins votes but that cutting popular government programs has the opposite effect. Therefore, these modern presidents have slashed taxes while cranking the spending spigot, benefiting them by increasing their political fortunes but harming the increasingly debt-ridden country."
https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/412217-trump-continues-gop-hypocrisy-on-fiscal-responsibility

The simple fact is that the Republican Party is now the party of daft money and fiscal chaos. It was Dick Cheney who said 'Deficits don't matter'. As for the 45th President who seems to me to have been living in debt for most of his business life, his claim he would 'wipe out' the National Debt' in 8 years is exposed as the hooey it always was:

"Trump has a cavalier attitude about the nation’s debt load. During the campaign, he said the nation could "borrow knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal.”13
He added, “The United States will never default because you can print the money (https://www.thebalance.com/is-the-federal-reserve-printing-money-3305842)." "
https://www.thebalance.com/trump-plans-to-reduce-national-debt-4114401
(This link also confirms the point made in The Hill article, that tax cuts and spending cuts contradict each other)

Instead of being asked about their fideity to party policy favourites like payroll taxes and medicaid, maybe the candidates should be asked:
-What sort of cannibal are you? Legs or breast?
-How do you like your American economy: roasted or fried?

Yes, the Obama Presidency added to the debt, but then it had to spend its way out of the fiscal chaos it inherited from George W. Bush.

But hey, who is going to bother debating the debt in this election? Cowardice hides from the truth everywhere, sort of an inversion of Millicent Fawcett's declaration when campaging for the right of women to vote- Courage calls to Courage Everywhere-

When the Centenary of the 19th Amendment falls in three days time, who will have the courage to stand up in the USA and tell the truth? About the most intense and open threat to voting since 1776, the most threatening debt since 1607...

[filghy2]

The second puzzing question is, what, today, is a Republican?

I think the answer is that the Republican party is now essentially a tribalist party rather than being conservative in a philosophical sense. The purpose of gaining political power is not to advance some coherent notion of what makes a better society for most of its members, but to advance the interests of the tribe at the expense of those who are not part of the tribe. The tribe is an overlapping coalition of white nationalists (or at least people concerned with white status), wealthy capitalists, evangelical Christians and gun fans whose interests are mostly aligned.

This change preceded Trump, but he has taken it further and been more overt about it. That is why 90% of Republicans support him regardless of what he says or does and regardless of whether he ignores principles the party claimed to stand for previously. Principles like fiscal responsibility matter only when they serve the tribal interest (opposing spending on those outside the tribe) but otherwise they can be ignored (tax cuts or spending that benefits the tribe). The same goes for other supposed principles like states rights and limited executive power. No doubt these principles will be conveniently rediscovered during the next Democrat administration.

[Stavros]

All good points, filghy2, to which one can add the remarks by Robert Reich which appeared in the Observer yesterday-

"The Democratic party is basically a governing party, organized around developing and implementing public policies. The Republican party has become an attack party, organized around developing and implementing political vitriol. Democrats legislate. Republicans (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/republicans) fulminate.
[Lee] Atwater, trained in the southern swamp of the modern Republican party, once noted: “Republicans in the south could not win elections by talking about issues. You had to make the case that the other guy, the other candidate, is a bad guy.” Over time, the GOP’s core competence came to be vilification."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/16/us-election-democrats-republicans-trump

[filghy2]

The Republican party has become an attack party, organized around developing and implementing political vitriol. [/url]

That goes to a related point, that tribalists tend to be very focussed on hostility and resentment towards those outside the tribe. They may even reject policies that could benefit them if they perceive that others would receive a disproportionate share of the benefits. It is often argued that race is the main reason why the US has such a limited social safety net.

Another element of the tribalist mindset is the need to exclude outside influences that might challenge the prevailing culture - hence, the Republican party's increasing tendency towards anti-intellectualism and anti-internationalism.

[Stavros]

I wonder why, other than voter suppression, the Democrats don't make more of all the Rights that Americans had, which have been taken away since 2017, in particular the rights of America's disabled.

And since January, the Covid Contact now shrouds American's racial contractt-

"The coronavirus epidemic has rendered the racial contract visible in multiple ways. Once the disproportionate impact of the epidemic was revealed to the American political and financial elite, many began to regard the rising death toll less as a national emergency than as an inconvenience. Temporary measures meant to prevent the spread of the disease by restricting movement, mandating the wearing of masks, or barring large social gatherings have become the foulest tyranny. The lives of workers at the front lines of the pandemic—such as meatpackers, transportation workers, and grocery clerks—have been deemed so worthless that legislators want to immunize their employers from liability (https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-05-06/business-groups-lobby-congress-to-ease-their-liability-to-corornavirus) even as they force them to work under unsafe conditions. In East New York, police assault black residents (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/nyregion/nypd-social-distancing-race-coronavirus.html) for violating social-distancing rules; in Lower Manhattan, they dole out masks and smiles to white pedestrians."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/americas-racial-contract-showing/611389/

[broncofan]

This change preceded Trump, but he has taken it further and been more overt about it.
Your contributions here have helped me see that. I think it hadn't been completely obvious to me because their most recent presidential candidates have tried to hide that fact. Both Mitt Romney and John McCain were more or less respectable faces covering a brewing pot of racism, corruption, and political tribalism. They have also been able to exploit a corrupt right-wing media empire that systematically deceives large portions of the population about basic, objective facts. Fox News had been there but new media keeps popping up to keep up with their conspiracy theories, from Breitbart to OANN. If Fox doesn't promote Hydroxychloroquine or isn't committed to the idea that Harris is ineligible to run as President, there are nascent outlets that will fill the void.

The problem with expecting Republicans to rein in Trump is not that they don't have the courage but that they are happy to support his erosion of the rule of law if he is able to get away with it. I worry about the financial corruption but in the long-term I worry more about the use of executive authority to cover up crimes for their allies and to persecute their enemies.

Beyond that development, there is the grim reality that Trump has personally caused a death toll in this country through negligence, egotism, and incompetence. The fact that people are unaware of this speaks to the dearth of reliable and easily digestible news and the lack of accountability in government. It is too easy to make personal failures seem like someone else's fault, in addition to the fact that a portion of the public has become resistant to believing indisputable, but inconvenient truths. If Trump wins this election, it will mark an American decline, if we're not already part of the way down that slope.

[MrFanti]

BET founder Robert Johnson calls for $14 trillion of reparations for slavery
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/01/bets-robert-johnson-calls-for-14-trillion-of-reparations-for-slavery.html

It will be interesting to see just how much in taxes from their paycheck that White Democrats will take (before even they get upset) so I can get my share of this! (If it were to happen under Biden/Harris)....

[Stavros]

Reparations, one of the most stupid and damaging ideas in human history- punishment, guilt, call it what you will. The reparations that France imposed on Haiti in 1825 were not paid off until 1947, making one wonder if more money was lost to Reparations than was made from the Slavery whose abolition in Haiti it was meant to compensate. France, again, imposed such punitive reparations on Germany after the First World War, it has been claimed it fed into the resentment that underpinned Hitler's political programme. And Germany met this old rogue again after the Second World War, counted in bilions, not to mention the USA's 'intellectual reparations' known as 'Operation Paperclip'.
And what was the point of Germany paying Reparations to the victors of 1945 and the US pumping bilions into West Germany as part of the 'Marshall Plan'? I guess money goes around, and around, and around.

For who gets the money? If you get it, what will you do with it, buy a house? It is a nonsense, and should be dismissed as such.

[decastro]

Reparations, one of the most stupid and damaging ideas in human history- punishment, guilt, call it what you will. The reparations that France imposed on Haiti in 1825 were not paid off until 1947, making one wonder if more money was lost to Reparations than was made from the Slavery whose abolition in Haiti it was meant to compensate. France, again, imposed such punitive reparations on Germany after the First World War, it has been claimed it fed into the resentment that underpinned Hitler's political programme. And Germany met this old rogue again after the Second World War, counted in bilions, not to mention the USA's 'intellectual reparations' known as 'Operation Paperclip'.
And what was the point of Germany paying Reparations to the victors of 1945 and the US pumping bilions into West Germany as part of the 'Marshall Plan'? I guess money goes around, and around, and around.

For who gets the money? If you get it, what will you do with it, buy a house? It is a nonsense, and should be dismissed as such.

not sure I'm following your logic here....if you could identify the families that profited from slavery and have them pay back wages, adjusting for inflation, to the families of the slaves they owned, why would this be a stupid and damaging idea? lol How could it be any more damaging than the act of slavery itself? And how could buying a house, if you don't own one already be dismissed as nonsense?

[Stavros]

not sure I'm following your logic here....if you could identify the families that profited from slavery and have them pay back wages, adjusting for inflation, to the families of the slaves they owned, why would this be a stupid and damaging idea? lol How could it be any more damaging than the act of slavery itself? And how could buying a house, if you don't own one already be dismissed as nonsense?

a) if this is an election issue for the Demcrats, it is an issue that will lose them votes.

b) from a practical point of view, you not only need to name and shame slave owners, but name their slaves, so their descendants get the money.

c) suppose the descendants of slave owners denounce slavery, claiming they have no liability for something they oppose? And suppose the descendant of a slave owner has married a Black woman descended from slaves? In practical terms it is either hard, or undesirable to follow through a policy on the basis of a register should one be compiled, and how many court cases will result from descendants of slaves who are not, but just see an opportunity to make some money? And so on. It is a legal minefield, do you want to step onto it?

d) The only reasonable way to approach this is to admit that slavery was an important part of the economy of British America and the United States, and that the wealth created which was spent in various forms in the US, can thus be computed into the contemporary wealth of the US from which reparations would be drawn, so that the logical move is to create a more equitable dsitribution of wealth for all, bearing in mind that White people were denied the opportunity to work on the plantations because Slave labour was cheaper. Re-distriibute wealth through a reform of the tax system and public services, create or amend existing education and employment so that Black people have an equal opportunity to learn and work, and you go some way to repairing the damage caused by Slavery.

e) but will this solve the problem of 'Race' in America? I doubt it. Stop fussing about a past you cannot change, and fuss about a future you can.

[decastro]

a) if this is an election issue for the Demcrats, it is an issue that will lose them votes.

b) from a practical point of view, you not only need to name and shame slave owners, but name their slaves, so their descendants get the money.

c) suppose the descendants of slave owners denounce slavery, claiming they have no liability for something they oppose? And suppose the descendant of a slave owner has married a Black woman descended from slaves? In practical terms it is either hard, or undesirable to follow through a policy on the basis of a register should one be compiled, and how many court cases will result from descendants of slaves who are not, but just see an opportunity to make some money? And so on. It is a legal minefield, do you want to step onto it?

d) The only reasonable way to approach this is to admit that slavery was an important part of the economy of British America and the United States, and that the wealth created which was spent in various forms in the US, can thus be computed into the contemporary wealth of the US from which reparations would be drawn, so that the logical move is to create a more equitable dsitribution of wealth for all, bearing in mind that White people were denied the opportunity to work on the plantations because Slave labour was cheaper. Re-distriibute wealth through a reform of the tax system and public services, create or amend existing education and employment so that Black people have an equal opportunity to learn and work, and you go some way to repairing the damage caused by Slavery.

e) but will this solve the problem of 'Race' in America? I doubt it. Stop fussing about a past you cannot change, and fuss about a future you can.

my POV is this, its 2020, we can carbon date rocks from thousands of years ago, you can go to ancestry.com and find out if you're related to Lincoln, I dont think it would be impossible to do some forensic accounting, track down slave owners and yes also their slaves, I thought that was implied.

I think you're looking at it from a socio/political point of view when my only angle on it is an economic one, i.e. I work you pay. If a family has benefitted from slavery, if they have money that old, they can afford to pay the descendants of the families that worked for them. its really simple. the rest of us should not be taxed and not every african american would get paid. i do not think it would solve racism, but thats not the point. you got free labor, generations of your family benefited from the profits while simultaneously entire generations of Black families had to start from scratch because their entire working lives amounted to nothing. The reasons that youre giving for not doing it are kind of silly in comparison. I mean, if someone told me i wouldnt be getting my paycheck because of "political reasons" or because it wouldnt solve "racism in america" I'd say fuck you pay me. ive heard the "redistribution of wealth thru other means" argument and yea thats like telling someone you'll pay them back in chuck e cheese tokens. no thanks, I want money like every body else has. again, fuck you, pay me. Ironically these concerns of yours are all the same reasons given for delaying abolition. "they wouldnt know what to do with the freedom" or "wasnt the right time" or "oh what about the economic consequences?" etc etc. Sometimes you have to do the right thing first then worry about the consequences after. Lincoln understood this.

finally, we are a group of sentient creatures on a floating orb in outer space, what one person chooses to fuss over is really not up to you to decide. an argument could be made that all actions are futile in the grand scheme of things so who are you to say what one person should be worrying over? In any case, i'm not fussing, my family members were not slaves, I wouldnt see any money from this. i'm also very well aware that reparations will never happen and it doesnt bother or surprise me, we dont live in a just country, a 5 year old could tell you that. But I do not see the past and future as separate entities. In fact, the very concept of laws and justice are to do just that, make right the past to protect the future. Would you tell a rape victim to stop fussing about the past? Man the crazy thing is we are a country full of people that sues each other successfully every day for minor minor infractions. And yet you've got people telling Blacks to just walk it off.

[broncofan]

Man the crazy thing is we are a country full of people that sues each other successfully every day for minor minor infractions. And yet you've got people telling Blacks to just walk it off.
I don't have fully formed opinions on reparations because I support the idea but am not sure what the implementation would look like. You are right that people sue each other for all types of wrongs but typically those suits are filed by the person directly aggrieved against the person who caused them physical, economic, or emotional harm. Occasionally suits are filed by survivors for the pain and suffering of someone who died on behalf of that person's estate or by survivors for their own emotional loss when their loved one is killed by someone else's negligence or malice.

As a lawsuit filed under existing statutory or common law it would not work. As an act of legislation by Congress intended to compensate descendants of slaves for the persecution of their ancestors it might. I think we can provide reparations or stipends for the descendants of Black people who suffered under this system, but I also don't know whether we should go back to interrogate the source of people's inheritance. Money is inherited, guilt isn't and while I actually think estates should be taxed at a much higher rate in this country, I don't think we should have actions that strip vested wealth based on the actions of one's ancestors. Just my view.

[broncofan]

Just to clarify my meaning: I would support reparations for the descendants of slaves as a moral rather than legal imperative. It would be a way to acknowledge wrongs committed against Black people, for the inability of slaves after slavery's abolition to seek legal redress for themselves and their immediate descendants, and for the many broken promises by this country after slavery was abolished. I don't think it makes sense under existing tort law or should be a litigated issue.

I agree with Stavros that it would not be a popular position for the Democratic party to take. Even if implemented in a thoughtful and rational way, it would neither erase the historic effects of racism nor prevent their continuation, but I'm sure there are proposals I would support anyway.

[filghy2]

Rather than reparations, why not focus on policies that would improve the lot of black people and address the causes of their disadvantage? I think history is way too messy to be toting up how much different people gained or lost from past injustices. The best way to atone for past sins is to acknowledge them and build a better and fairer society for the future.

This would be consistent with the approach taken after WWII. Rather than sending sending Germany and Japan a bill, the victorious Western democracies focussed on trying to build a world in which all countries could pursue prosperity peacefully to try to ensure that the conditions that led to militaristic nationalism did not reemerge. Obviously it wasn't done perfectly, but the outcomes were pretty good in historical terms.

[decastro]

i'm not even really dwelling on the moral side of this, I just believe its really simple, if you owe somebody, pay them. theres nothing more american than that, we've always been capitalists. not being sure about what the implementation would look like is never a good reason to not do something. if the father is dead, pay the son. and so on and so forth. my thoughts on this are exceedingly simple. maybe i'm being naive but there has to be a reasonable way to do this, something that accommodates both families, whether it be paid installments or a cap on how much you have to pay back based on your current net worth. Money is amoral, i'm not talking about uprooting a familys way of life to punish them, I don't think anybody wants that. But if the families of those who owned slaves aren't paying the bulk of reparations, then whose gonna pay it? Your average white citizen? lol yea right. there isn't a direct precedent for this, but analyzing what america did with native americans could provide some insight. Honestly if i were white and I knew my family benefited from slavery I would take the initiative myself and make it right. My thoughts on this issue are also informed by everyday american life. e.g. I've worked hard to get my credit score to a good place but i still get calls from debt collectors about shit that they forgot i paid already. A friends father passed away and he still gets mails in his fathers name about old credit card balances. My point is, money doesn't die, debt doesn't die, we are reminded of this every second of every day, and with technology being what it is, everything is quantified, records don't get washed away. now more than ever it wouldn't be difficult to apply the same vigor to collecting old debt from slavery as they do to collecting debt from student loans.

I'll end with this, both you and Stavros have alluded to a kind of futility in reparations ability to erase racism in america. I can't speak for all blacks, i'm not al sharpton, but I can tell you that nobody I know thinks fixing racism in this country is even a remote possibility anymore. We haven't for a long time, even the most optimistic Black people I know. At this point, we just don't want our kids to get shot in the street like dogs, or run down by white supremacists trying to make a point, or shot in the back by police officers. Lol the standards are pretty low. I should honestly just be happy that neither of you are denying that slavery happened. For a while now, I've thought that Malcolm X's idea of giving a state or states to blacks was probably the right way to go, as sad as it is to say. In any case, The MLK dream has been dead for a while now and nobody I know even cares that much, its just watching unarmed people get killed by people who are supposed to be protecting them thats getting old. Getting killed over traffic violations. But i'll digress. At the end of the day, Reparations is really just about people getting what they're owed, its the principle of the thing. Like how The Dude just wanted his fucking carpet back. And I would support it, no matter the circumstance, if the roles were reversed, if blacks owed whites in some alternate reality, if humans owed aliens(in the future) if mice rose up and demanded damages for all the experiments we did on their relatives, I would support reparations for mice. If you provide a service for someone, you should get paid for it, from now until the end of recorded civilization, time shouldn't be a factor as long as time exists because Money does not die.
P.S. Ive gotta thank you Stavros, I burst out laughing when you wrote "White people were denied the opportunity to work on the plantations". I hope you let me quote you on that, I've never heard it put quite that way before.

[broncofan]

Lol the standards are pretty low. I should honestly just be happy that neither of you are denying that slavery happened.
You're right the standards are low. You wrote two giant block paragraphs without a single useful or logical point in them and then insinuate I'm racist for supporting reparations for moral rather than legal reasons. It's hard for me to believe you could write that second sentence without feeling like an unusually dishonest person.

You say stuff like it really is this simple and then proceed to give examples that show why it actually isn't simple. The reason you're contacted by creditors is because it's your debt. When money passes through an estate and then branches in a half dozen directions, then is converted into a bunch of other assets, it becomes difficult to trace. In fact, it can become impossible to trace given the fact that money is fungible.

I also didn't say that not knowing how it should be implemented is a reason not to do it. It's a reason to think about its implementation because you'd have decisions to make instead of simply declaring that it's simple. I also didn't say the fact that it would not end racism is a reason not to do it. I proceeded to say I would support some forms of it nonetheless.

After reading your last two posts I can't think of a worse advocate for reparations than you. Beyond that, I'll be happy to discuss the Democratic convention or any other subject.

[MrFanti]

Reparations, one of the most stupid and damaging ideas in human history- punishment, guilt, call it what you will.
Welcome to the crazy world of the New Democrats in the USA.
We're at a point now where Bill Clinton could be considered as "moderate Republican" when compared to today's far Left Democrats.....

And guess what, the Reparation Movement is growing:
So again, I have to wonder at what point will White Democrats who back "BLM" get pissed when they have that annual "Reparation Tax" on the income tax withheld?

Duke prof proposes $12 trillion in reparations....$800k per eligible Black household
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=15473

[decastro]

You're right the standards are low. You wrote two giant block paragraphs without a single useful or logical point in them and then insinuate I'm racist for supporting reparations for moral rather than legal reasons. It's hard for me to believe you could write that second sentence without feeling like an unusually dishonest person.



i didn't insinuate that you're racist, I just meant to separate morality or guilt from my thoughts on this. I actually found your posts to be fair and honest. And I appreciate the mind behind them. I'm having a hard time seeing in my post where you got that from. Money is amoral is really my point, which is what makes it simple. if I didn't pay back my loans, the government would come after my kids. and then my grandkids and my great grandkids. They're not doing it with the intent to punish my kids, they're doing it because thats what they do; its a machine. If you can't grasp the thread I'm pulling at there, then I don't know what else to say. If you state you're doing it as a moral imperative, I can appreciate that, but you will have detractors who open up pandoras box. Who hasn't been wronged in the past on some level? But if you keep it focused simply on, lets have estates pay back what they owe, then it doesn't need to get so messy. An estate is not a person. You both bring up solid points, and regretfully I can't give you explicit answers, I am not, as you say, an advocate for reparations. I don't waste my time on lost causes. But I don't think that doing some forensic accounting would be as difficult as you all are making it out to be. In fact i know it wouldn't be. The second sentence was a joke or referendum on where we are at in political discourse. But you sound upset; you are taking my examples maybe a bit too literally. I'm not a dishonest person. At least, not unusually. You are both right, the legal side of this is murky. But again, I don't think its an insurmountable problem. Men created laws, we are not chained to them, we can make changes if we need to.

[broncofan]

Thanks. I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Apologies.

[MrFanti]

Interesting coverage the last 2 nights...

[Stavros]

i'm not even really dwelling on the moral side of this, I just believe its really simple, if you owe somebody, pay them. theres nothing more american than that, we've always been capitalists. not being sure about what the implementation would look like is never a good reason to not do something. if the father is dead, pay the son. and so on and so forth. my thoughts on this are exceedingly simple. maybe i'm being naive but there has to be a reasonable way to do this, something that accommodates both families, whether it be paid installments or a cap on how much you have to pay back based on your current net worth. Money is amoral, i'm not talking about uprooting a familys way of life to punish them, I don't think anybody wants that. But if the families of those who owned slaves aren't paying the bulk of reparations, then whose gonna pay it? Your average white citizen? lol yea right. there isn't a direct precedent for this, but analyzing what america did with native americans could provide some insight. Honestly if i were white and I knew my family benefited from slavery I would take the initiative myself and make it right. My thoughts on this issue are also informed by everyday american life. e.g. I've worked hard to get my credit score to a good place but i still get calls from debt collectors about shit that they forgot i paid already. A friends father passed away and he still gets mails in his fathers name about old credit card balances. My point is, money doesn't die, debt doesn't die, we are reminded of this every second of every day, and with technology being what it is, everything is quantified, records don't get washed away. now more than ever it wouldn't be difficult to apply the same vigor to collecting old debt from slavery as they do to collecting debt from student loans.

I'll end with this, both you and Stavros have alluded to a kind of futility in reparations ability to erase racism in america. I can't speak for all blacks, i'm not al sharpton, but I can tell you that nobody I know thinks fixing racism in this country is even a remote possibility anymore. We haven't for a long time, even the most optimistic Black people I know. At this point, we just don't want our kids to get shot in the street like dogs, or run down by white supremacists trying to make a point, or shot in the back by police officers. Lol the standards are pretty low. I should honestly just be happy that neither of you are denying that slavery happened. For a while now, I've thought that Malcolm X's idea of giving a state or states to blacks was probably the right way to go, as sad as it is to say. In any case, The MLK dream has been dead for a while now and nobody I know even cares that much, its just watching unarmed people get killed by people who are supposed to be protecting them thats getting old. Getting killed over traffic violations. But i'll digress. At the end of the day, Reparations is really just about people getting what they're owed, its the principle of the thing. Like how The Dude just wanted his fucking carpet back. And I would support it, no matter the circumstance, if the roles were reversed, if blacks owed whites in some alternate reality, if humans owed aliens(in the future) if mice rose up and demanded damages for all the experiments we did on their relatives, I would support reparations for mice. If you provide a service for someone, you should get paid for it, from now until the end of recorded civilization, time shouldn't be a factor as long as time exists because Money does not die.
P.S. Ive gotta thank you Stavros, I burst out laughing when you wrote "White people were denied the opportunity to work on the plantations". I hope you let me quote you on that, I've never heard it put quite that way before.

Thank you for locking horns on this subject. It appears to be tangential to the thread on the 2020 election, though Joe Biden has said he is sympathetic to the Reparations movement (see the FT link below), any further action being dependent on the practical ways of doing it.

It is most definitely a moral issue, as the judgment being made is that slavery was wrong, that it was in economic terms hugely beneficial to a few but resulted in the exploitation of the many. Part of the problem lies in identifying those who benefited, not just the families in the 'South' but the traders who purchased slaves and shipped them from Africa via Britain to the Caribbean and the US -but also the investors, such as the Banks, the Corporations and, of course the Church of England. The final judgment is that to make the wrong right, compensation should be paid, some have suggested, not to individuals, but in the form of community investment in the Caribbean and the UK to improve opportunities, thus-

"Prof Beckford, who teaches at the Queen’s Foundation Birmingham, advises UK business beneficiaries to apologise, publish historic records and engage in a “restorative process”. This would include financial support for Caribbean nations and black community groups"
https://www.ft.com/content/945c6136-0b92-41bf-bd80-a80d944bb0b8

As I said before I am not sure how any of this is to be calculated, though the FT article above offers figures. I think the wider problem is that Slavery was not just a phenomenon limited to the Southern States of the US or the Caribbean, given the extent of slavery all the way through Central America to Brazil. And why I also understand the localized campaign in the US, which is something Americans must sort out, slavery in the US, be it British America or the US, was so important to the growth of the British economy in an age of 'Enlightenment' and Industrial Revolution, ought American campaigners be asking beneficiaries in the UK to pay their share if they have the money, with Benedict Cumberbatch's sincere apology for his family's links to the trade being sufficient in his case (see the FT article)?

On of the reasons I think Reparations is stupid is because we cannot undo history, and the attempts to repair the damage often look feeble and lacking in sincerity. We cannot pretend the Roman Empire never happened, though the irony is that most people here tend to think the Romans left Britain in better condition than it was when they arrived. We cannot undo the British Empire, but in some cases, we can actually perform small acts, even if they do not really 'bring closure' to something whose significance endures today.
For example, there has been a long and tedious debate about the 'Elgin Marbles', so called because Lord Elgin brought them back from Greece to park them in the British Museum -if paintings stolen by the Nazis can be returned to the families who owned, them, why not the Marbles? In 1897, the British retaliated against the people of Benin, who objected to White marauders trying to subject their Kingdom to Queen Victoria's Empire, by destroying as much as they could of Benin's cultural treasures, and looted the rest, the Benin Bronzes sitting if not alongside the Elgin Marbles, on another floor of the British Museum -should they be repatriated?

I supported the Rhodes Must Fall because it is actually irrelevant if there is a Statue of Cecil Rhodes in Oriel College, but I don't have much time for statues of people anyway. The irony in Oxford, is that Rhodes House, which opened in 1928 is not only one of the most beautiful libraries I have done research in, it is the place to go if you want to study Slavery, and the British Empire in Africa and the Caribbean, and so far, nobody has suggested either closing it down or re-naming it because it is funded in part by the Rhodes Trust, that inherited the vast wealth Cecil Rhodes made from Diamonds in South Africa (think De Beers) and minerals in the two Rhodesias named after him (Zambia and Zimbabwe today). Whether or not one can calculate how much money was made by Rhodes or anyone else in the pillage of Africa, or the British in India, or Australia, I just don't see Reparations as a practical issue that makes sense. It is to me at worst a form of revenge and punishment, as it was for Haiti and Germany; at best a fad, though I note that I used to see Selma James on demos in London in the 1970s with her pamphlets on 'Wages due Lesbians' which has since morphed into the movement associated with Wages For Housework, including Black Women for Wages for Housework, and they probably would have had a stand in Milwaukee this week had the Democrat Convention taken place.

Two final points: yes, it might sound daft to say white people were denied the right to work on plantations, but think in terms of the geography of labour in British America and the US, and ask why it is that, with the exception of California, the whitest States are in the Mid-West, the Plains and the North-East, with the bizarre fact that the most intense political BLM protests appear to be taking place in Portland, one of the Whitest cities in the USA. Then ask when and why did Black people move to California?
Working class immigrants and Americans were shut out of the South because of slavery, and though they took advantage of the seasonal/migrant work opportunities in 'the west', they did not become rich out of it, and were also exploited, so how much better off than the slaves were they in financial terms? It is a complex story, but to defend my remark, again, ask yourself how does the geography of labour translate into the geography of race in America?

Lastly, slavery did not end. One form of it did. Capitalism is rooted in slavery -wage slavery- and for as long as we cannot live without money, we shall never be truly free as human beings. That is why socialism must abolish money, and it is why, when you put this to so-called Socialists, Trotskyists, even some 'left-wing' Anarchists, you can see them get very anxious. 'After the revolution' is another common response.

As with the British Labour party, the Democrats are committed to managing capitalism better than the Republicans, that is the bottom line. I think it is probably what most Americans want. The best you can hope for in the next 4 years if they win, is reform of health care. It seems to me to be the most urgent issue on the table.

So I don't doubt Reparations will be on the agenda in the US, but I don't know how it can be done, and what its purpose is, when the fundamental issue of equal opportunity for all is surely the most obvious policy framework that can be established in so rich a country.

[MrFanti]

This is truly sad....The BEST DEMOCRATIC candidate (IMHO)for Office of the President of the United States....given 'the hand' by her own party...

Tulsi Gabbard Says the DNC Didn't Even Ask Her To Speak
https://reason.com/2020/08/20/tulsi-gabbard-says-the-dnc-didnt-even-ask-her-to-speak/

[MrFanti]

Speaking of Democrat TULSI GABBARD, here's a stance of hers that's very close to this forum:

Only Tulsi Gabbard Wants to Decriminalize Sex Work, but Other Dems Show Signs of Progress on the Issue
https://reason.com/2020/02/10/only-tulsi-gabbard-wants-to-decriminalize-sex-work-but-other-dems-show-signs-of-progress-on-the-issue/

[Stavros]

From the man who abandoned his wife and children -a role model for all Americans, or just like his Dad? - and the other day criticised the new Barbie doll (!)...

""Biden has promised to take that money back out of your pocket and keep it in the Swamp," Mr Trump said, adding: "That makes sense, considering Joe Biden is basically the Loch Ness Monster of the Swamp. For the past half-century, he's been lurking around in there."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53884591

-So four Republican Presidents were part of- maybe they created?- the Swamp -Nixon, Reagan, GH and GW Bush -is that why the Republican Party of Lincoln, Hoover and Eisenhower is now the party of one man, the PoT?

As for Loch Ness, is it not time to lay the Monster that does not exist there to rest, and restore the reputation the Loch has for its natural beauty?

LIBERATE LOCH NESS!!

[KnightHawk 2.0]

From the man who abandoned his wife and children -a role model for all Americans, or just like his Dad? - and the other day criticised the new Barbie doll (!)...

""Biden has promised to take that money back out of your pocket and keep it in the Swamp," Mr Trump said, adding: "That makes sense, considering Joe Biden is basically the Loch Ness Monster of the Swamp. For the past half-century, he's been lurking around in there."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53884591

-So four Republican Presidents were part of- maybe they created?- the Swamp -Nixon, Reagan, GH and GW Bush -is that why the Republican Party of Lincoln, Hoover and Eisenhower is now the party of one man, the PoT?

As for Loch Ness, is it not time to lay the Monster that does not exist there to rest, and restore the reputation the Loch has for its natural beauty?

LIBERATE LOCH NESS!!Donald-Jackwagon-Trump jr is just like his uneducated,unfit,unqualified and malignant narcissist father, stoking fear and division and spreading misinformation about his father's political opponent, because he thinks it will work to get his father re-elected. and the Republican Party is no longer the party of Ronald Reagan,George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush,is now the party of Donald Trump,because they have been enabling and allowing him to do what he wants,he whenever he wants and don't hold him accountable for his actions,and attack anyone who disagrees with their so-called leader.

[MrFanti]

. and the Republican Party is no longer the party of Ronald Reagan,George Herbert Walker Bush and George Walker Bush,is now the party of Donald Trump,b.
And...The Democratic Party has lurched so far left, it is no longer the party of Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton

[Stavros]

And...The Democratic Party has lurched so far left, it is no longer the party of Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton

Other than parroting the PoT, you need to explain what you mean by 'far left', given that in the UK we have a different interpretation of the term, Trotskyists, mostly.

The Democrat Party of Roosevelt, if it ceased to hang on to its credentials, lost them in 1968 even though LBJ's Great Society Programme in some of its details was retained by the supposedly free-market, hands-off Govt of Richard Nixon. As Allen Matusow in his study of the 1960s, 'The Unraveling of America' showed, JFK was timid where LBJ was bold, but apart from the single term Carter, which owed a lot to the fall-out from Watergate, every Democrat administration since has been defined by the legacy of Ronald Reagan, so to even think of Clinton in the same vein as FDR is simply wrong, indeed, the critical failure of the Clinton Presidency was that its desperate need to recruit 'Reagan Democrats' allowed it to drift apart from its 'blue collar' base, coinciding with the de-industrialization that was happening in Europe too, where the Labour Party of Keir Hardie and Clement Attlee was taken into a new dimension by Tony Blair, regarded as Margaret Thatcher's natural heir, which is how she saw him. Labour has yet to recover from that fundamental change, indeed, even under Starmer is struggling to re-define itself.

Obama was another timid Democrat terrified of upsetting that now mythical 'suburban middle class' voter, and I see Biden is likely to simply have to reverse much of what has happened since 2016, if he has the balls to do it.
By which I mean, taking the US back into the Paris Climate Change process, reversing and strengthening those aspects of the EPA and environmental regulations which have been cut since 2017, restoring cuts and extending new rights in the Americans with Disabiities Act, with two complex unknowns -nuclear developments in the Middle East, esp with regard to Iran, Saudi Arabia and the UAE; and with regard to the next generation of conventional and nuclear arms proliferation with regard to the INF and Open Skies agreements.

Is Biden going to return the US Embassy in Israel to Tel-Aviv? I doubt it. Is he going to suddenly discover the novel idea that Palestinians have rights, and force Israel to end its criminal siege of the Gaza District? Nah. What's left about that, or being more critical of the Saudis? What would be 'left-wing' would be to campaign for a nuclear-free Middle East, but that ain't going to happen.

So the question is what is 'left' or 'far left' in the Democrats platform? Not defunding the police, and if police reform does emerge as a major domestic issue, it should be, given the extent to which policing in some cities appears more as a confrontation between the State and the Citizen rather than a partnership in law and order.

What are the Democrats policies on Education, Housing, and crucially, Health? The Labour Government elected in the UK in 1945 created our National Health Service, a 'single-payer' system that Michael Pence has rejected as a model, preferring a 'business' to a 'service' which is what we have in the UK -this is what Pence said, I have highlighted the key word in bold :

"We want a dynamic national, health insurance marketplace that lowers costs, increases quality, and gives more choices to working families."
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-vice-president-healthcare/

Pence also used the case of Charlie Gard to attack single-payer health care such as the UK, but did so without reference to either the medical needs of the child, or the decisions made by courts of law that upheld the medical decision to terminate the life, a rare and difficult case that cannot be made responsible for the operations of the NHS-
https://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/18/opinions/pence-charlie-gard-opinion-klitzman/index.html

Obama's Afforable Care Act is an example of timid policy making even though it provoked such rage and reaction. And yet-

"Without correcting the fundamental structural flaws in health care financing, overall health care costs will remain poorly controlled. Though our clinical outcomes are mediocre by comparison [1], the average per capita cost of health care in the United States is twice that of other modern nations [2]. Increasingly, these costs are being borne by patients and government, driving personal bankruptcies and ever more austere public policies [3, 4]. Under the ACA, 30 million people will still have no coverage [5], and countless more will have inadequate coverage [1]."
https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/single-payer-system-would-reduce-us-health-care-costs/2012-11

But would a 'National Health Service' in the US be a 'left' or 'far left' policy? Look at the grievous mess the US has made of Covid 19 -without prejudice to a cohort of outstanding health care professionals- and like most people outside the US you might ask if the time has come for a complete overhaul of the health care Business, to create a health care Service. What's left-wing about that?

You are spending the trillions and trillions of dollars on Covid-19 relief packages and the Military Industry of Death and Destruction, can't you even contemplate providing your own citizens with health care free at the time of need from the moment you are born to the moment you die?

The Parrots might trill that the 'radical left' want to abolish borders and cancel all regulations on immigration, but there hasn't been a Democrat admin that did it, and the Biden/Harris one, if elected, is not going to either. Defending the rights people have to seek asylum in the US, or migrate there to find work, is not left wiing, but a basic human right, and it is not that hard to produce a coherent policy that does not encourage illegal immigration and processes genuine cases of asylum, and it isn't left-wing to criticise the filthy languuage that is used to demonize immigrants, though it has been common in the US since the attacks on the Chinese in the 19th century, and that was just one social group.

In fact, the dilemma for the Democrats in reality, is that the Biden/Harris ticket looks tame and timid, a re-run of Clinton and Obama, and while this may be, in practical terms, significantly better than what you have right now, it does not address the fundamentals, such as the future of employment, the future of your staggering debts, and the apparently impossible solutions to gun violence, ie the guns; and Race, which after all, and in so many ways, competes with the Constitution to define the USA.

And if you ask Junior, or Skittles, the Princess Royal or Under-President Kushner, what is your housing policy? Expect a look of either surprise, or panic. Does this so-called Republican Party have any policies it wants to present during its convention, or has it now become just another tv show, one for all the family, featuring the family getting rich off your arse?

[Stavros]

Perhaps someone can inform members of the US Administration -or the members of the family- that 50 years ago there was no trade between China and the US as China was still convulsed by the Great People's Cultural Revolution, and the first open contact between the two took place in 1971 when China and the US played table tennis.

Perhaps someone can rebut the frankly silly, and verifiably bogus claims made by Father and Son-

“Most politicians spend their entire careers in Washington DC and get absolutely nothing accomplished. For example: Joe Biden. Joe Biden is a politician who has been in government for 47 years,” Eric Trump said.
“He is a career politician who has never signed the front of a check and does not know the slightest thing about the American worker or the American business — the engine which fuels the greatest economy the world has ever known,” he said.
https://nypost.com/2020/08/25/rnc-2020-eric-trump-calls-joe-biden-giant-relief-for-terrorists/


“For 47 years, Joe Biden took the donations of blue collar workers, gave them hugs and even kisses” – laughter from the audience – “and told them he felt their pain – and then he flew back to Washington and voted to ship their jobs to China and many other distant lands. Joe Biden spent his entire career outsourcing the dreams of American workers, offshoring their jobs, opening their borders, and sending their sons and daughters to fight in endless foreign wars.”
Later, another framing: “We have spent the last four years reversing the damage Joe Biden inflicted over the last 47 years. Biden’s record is a shameful roll call of the most catastrophic betrayals and blunders in our lifetime …
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/28/donald-trump-rnc-speech-analysis

And yet, according to the Congressional Record, Joe Biden in his career sponsored 1,071 Bills, and co-sponsored 3,374. Amongst the Bills that make up his 'shameful record call' are-

Crime Victims with Disabilities Act of 2008 (2007-2008 )
Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2008 (2007-2008 )
International Violence Against Women Act of 2007 (2007-2008 )
Women's Health and Cancer Rights Act of 2003 (2003-2004)

47 years of nothing? Compared to 4 years of what, in comparison? And who was President when the off-shoring of jobs began? Ronald Reagan.

https://www.congress.gov/member/joseph-biden/B000444?searchResultViewType=expanded&pageSize=100&q=%7B%22subject%22%3A%22Health%22%7D

https://projects.propublica.org/represent/members/B000444/bills-sponsored/110

[broncofan]

The Republican convention is a joke. It includes speeches by every Trump child, as though they are qualified to weigh in on the direction our country is going in. It includes fear-mongering over mask wearing when we've had the worst response to covid in the entire industrialized world and are falling apart as a country. They have nothing to offer except fear and hatred as their movement is completely bereft of any underlying principles.

I really don't know what it is they're running on. Their only hope is that they convince people that Biden will support anarchy or be in favor of defunding police instead of fighting police brutality but once again that depends on misinformation. There was some suggestion that the Democratic party has strayed too far to the left, but Biden's nomination was a referendum on more radical policies that may be a tough sell for some people in this country. With Biden you get a slightly left of center agenda with a return to normalcy, both in process and rule of law. Even if you're a conservative, the alternative of racism, corruption, nepotism, and dysfunctional chaos in government should not be attractive.

[KnightHawk 2.0]

The Republican convention is a joke. It includes speeches by every Trump child, as though they are qualified to weigh in on the direction our country is going in. It includes fear-mongering over mask wearing when we've had the worst response to covid in the entire industrialized world and are falling apart as a country. They have nothing to offer except fear and hatred as their movement is completely bereft of any underlying principles.

I really don't know what it is they're running on. Their only hope is that they convince people that Biden will support anarchy or be in favor of defunding police instead of fighting police brutality but once again that depends on misinformation. There was some suggestion that the Democratic party has strayed too far to the left, but Biden's nomination was a referendum on more radical policies that may be a tough sell for some people in this country. With Biden you get a slightly left of center agenda with a return to normalcy, both in process and rule of law. Even if you're a conservative, the alternative of racism, corruption, nepotism, and dysfunctional chaos in government should not be attractive.Completely agree that the Republican National Convention aka Trump Enablers Convention was a joke,Donald-Jackwagon-Trump Jr,Eric-Dopey Ass-Trump,Tiffany-DADKB-Trump and Ivanka-Trustfund-Trump are just like their Demagouge And Malignant Narcissist father,stoking fear and division to rile up his delusional base,and portraying their father as a leader,which is he isn't. and none of them are qualified to weigh in on the direction the United States is going. and they are running on fear,hatred,lies,misinformation and propaganda trying to convince voters that Joe Biden is will support anarchy and defund the police,and destroy the country if he gets elected. and also agree that with Joe Biden,US Citizens will get someone who will have a plan to return the country to normalcy,both in process and rule of law.

[Stavros]

with Joe Biden,US Citizens will get someone who will have a plan to return the country to normalcy,both in process and rule of law.


You hope. The great takeway from the PoT Convention is that the wife of the rent collector from New Jersey and Under-President of the USA, Ivana (for that is her name), is the favoured successor to the Crown. Bannon may say she is 'dumb as a brick', but daddy loves her, in a manner of speaking (and we hope that's all it is, for her sake), and it is his party now.

Having seen Mitchell McConnell claiming that the Democrats are going to tell you what car you can drive, and how many burgers you can eat, with or without cheese and pickle (a detail he missed), the US appears to be moving into surreal territory, but the joke is on you, because 'they' are in fact deadly serious.

[broncofan]

You hope. The great takeway from the PoT Convention is that the wife of the rent collector from New Jersey and Under-President of the USA, Ivana (for that is her name), is the favoured successor to the Crown. Bannon may say she is 'dumb as a brick', but daddy loves her, in a manner of speaking (and we hope that's all it is, for her sake), and it is his party now.

It will be fascinating/horrifying to see what happens to this dynasty, not just 2 months from now, but 10 years down the road. Although Ivanka is the favoured successor, she is robotic, seems to lack whatever charisma her dad has although charisma is probably not the right word.

Donald, for all of his faults, has mastered the art of bullshit. He's uninhibited, able to gladhand people and pretend he knows things he doesn't and all his supporters really want is the pretense of competence combined with childish invective. Ivanka has that calculated, overly formal snobbery thing down but I actually wonder whether Donald Jr. is not the slicker operator. He's malicious, is able to parrot talking points better than his dad, and is uninhibited and aggressive in the same ridiculous way.

Ivanka may be dumb as a brick but she's smart for a Trump. I'm just not sure being slightly smarter than her Dad and brothers is actually helpful given that they have tools to take advantage of their primal stupidity.

Anyhow, I hope the entire Trump nightmare ends in November.

[Stavros]

It is probably no surprise that the President is presenting his law and order case in a simple manner with regard to American cities: Democrats run cities of crime and violence. An article in today's New York Times, offers a more complex argument with examples, and asks some basic questions, though I doubt many or any will be asked of the President, and I am sure he will not bother to answer them.
Or maybe refer to anarchists armed with cans of soup as taking over with Joe Biden's permission.

For example, why are so many big cities run by Democrats rather than by Republicans? The article suggests in many cases the Republican party has given up trying to win those cities. I could add that even when Democrats have run cities, the policies they had responsibility for were not so far from the Republican Party- Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago was not what one would calll a Progressive Democrat.

The President selects his victims, ignoring the smaller but Republican run cities where crime is rife, and ignoring the Democrat cities where crime has fallen over the last 25-30 years, for example New York and Boston. Moreover, and I ask this having no day-to-day experience of living in New York, if Republican Mayor Giuliani played an important role in reducing crime, why under successive Democrats has New York not reverted to the levels of crime and violence that were common the the 1970s and 1980s?

And as the article points out, Mayors have limited powers and limited funds,and have often been prevented from taking action to combat crime -gun violence, for example- by the Courts, and the President has launched a barrage of criticism and invective but without a single practical, policy-based solution, his only reaction so far being to actually or threaten to militarize the situation on the ground.

And of course it looks bad when people are shot dead or injured, when there are riots in the streets and shops looted and burned. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, white collar crime -most of it commtted by white people- also causes damage to people's lives. Indeed, I wonder if, rather than rob a bank at gunpoint -wearing a mask, of course!-, which these days is a crime in decline, the robbery can be done by remote control. It doesn't make for good action films, but is closer to reality.

As I say, I don't know what the reality is, I do know I felt safer at night in Manhattan in 2004 than I did in 1983, but that doesn't mean this is true for residents of all the Boroughs, as Manhattan might be an exception. Is the South Bronx still referred to as 'Fort Apache?'

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/upshot/trump-democratic-cities.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

[MrFanti]

Other than parroting the PoT, you need to explain what you mean by 'far left', given that in the UK we have a different interpretation of the term, Trotskyists, mostly.


The "far left" here in the states are the new progressives coming into power. I.E., Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, IIhan Omar, and, Rashida Tlaib. The Kennedy and Clinton Democrats for example would have taken an early an immediate stance in the violence that's happening within the U.S. cities - all of which interestingly have Democrat mayors as well. Also, 3 Pelosi backed candidates have now lost progressive candidates as well (the latest being Pelosi backed Joseph Kennedy losing to progressives backed Ed Markey).

[MrFanti]

Also.....

As 'Black Chubby' eluded to in an earlier post, violence may very well determine who wins in November.
We are already seeing Biden and Harris whom were either silent (Biden) or sided with arrested protestors (Harris) now changing their tune and subsequently condemning violent protests.

[blackchubby38]

It is probably no surprise that the President is presenting his law and order case in a simple manner with regard to American cities: Democrats run cities of crime and violence. An article in today's New York Times, offers a more complex argument with examples, and asks some basic questions, though I doubt many or any will be asked of the President, and I am sure he will not bother to answer them.
Or maybe refer to anarchists armed with cans of soup as taking over with Joe Biden's permission.

For example, why are so many big cities run by Democrats rather than by Republicans? The article suggests in many cases the Republican party has given up trying to win those cities. I could add that even when Democrats have run cities, the policies they had responsibility for were not so far from the Republican Party- Mayor Richard Daley in Chicago was not what one would calll a Progressive Democrat.

The President selects his victims, ignoring the smaller but Republican run cities where crime is rife, and ignoring the Democrat cities where crime has fallen over the last 25-30 years, for example New York and Boston. Moreover, and I ask this having no day-to-day experience of living in New York, if Republican Mayor Giuliani played an important role in reducing crime, why under successive Democrats has New York not reverted to the levels of crime and violence that were common the the 1970s and 1980s?

And as the article points out, Mayors have limited powers and limited funds,and have often been prevented from taking action to combat crime -gun violence, for example- by the Courts, and the President has launched a barrage of criticism and invective but without a single practical, policy-based solution, his only reaction so far being to actually or threaten to militarize the situation on the ground.

And of course it looks bad when people are shot dead or injured, when there are riots in the streets and shops looted and burned. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, white collar crime -most of it commtted by white people- also causes damage to people's lives. Indeed, I wonder if, rather than rob a bank at gunpoint -wearing a mask, of course!-, which these days is a crime in decline, the robbery can be done by remote control. It doesn't make for good action films, but is closer to reality.

As I say, I don't know what the reality is, I do know I felt safer at night in Manhattan in 2004 than I did in 1983, but that doesn't mean this is true for residents of all the Boroughs, as Manhattan might be an exception. Is the South Bronx still referred to as 'Fort Apache?'

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/02/upshot/trump-democratic-cities.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

No the South Bronx is still not referred to as "Fort Apache".

Also Mayor Bloomberg was a Republican/Independent when he ran the city. So the only Democratic mayor we have had since Giuliani is Deblasio and my feelings about him are already well known.


But when it comes to Trump presenting the law and order case as to the reason why he should be reelected, he is doing it for two reasons.

1. It changes the topic of discussion from Covid 19.

2. It may actually work if voters don't look at it from a long term standpoint as a reduction in crime over the past 25 years or so and they look at what's been happening in the Democratic ran cities in the wake of George Floyd's death. Or more specifically, Portland, Minneapolis, NYC, and Chicago.

There has been protests that have delved into rioting and looting going on in Portland for almost 90 days now and for whatever reason the mayor has allowed it to go on for a longer than it should have.

We all saw what happened in Minneapolis and this article goes into detail on how it happened:

http:////www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/us/minneapolis-government-george-floyd.html


Here in NYC:

http://nypost.com/2020/08/31/nyc-passes-grim-milestone-with-over-1000-shootings-in-2020/


Chicago:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/10/chicago-looters-riot-magnificent-mile/


Finally, there was what happened in Kenosha last week.

Now we all know what precipitated the riots and that was the murder of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake. While its the important to address issues such police brutality and the appropriate use of force, there is a difference between addressing issues and overreacting to them. I apologize in advance, but that's the only word I can come up with.

I believe there was an overreaction to the death of Floyd, which led to how the police were allowed to combat the looters and rioting. Then there was the "defund the police mantra", which in turn has led to a rush to pass legislation in certain cities to address the issue of police misconduct. I believe this has contributed to rise in shootings and crime here in NYC.

Also remember this from back in June:

ACLU of Minnesota
@ACLUMN
BREAKING: Minneapolis City Council members have announced their intent to disband the Minneapolis Police Department and invest in community-led public safety.

Now while Biden has said that he isn't for defunding the police, he can't help fact that there are leaders from his party who are doing otherwise. It also doesn't help fact that two of the riots took place in battleground states.

Trump can win reelection if he is able to peel off some undecided voters who think that rioting and looting is not the answer to enacting police reform. Especially if it was their property that got destroyed.

He can do the same if he increases his support from Blacks and Latinos whose neighborhoods will be the first to suffer from defunding the police measures. Or just from the ones who also believe in law and order.

[Stavros]

The "far left" here in the states are the new progressives coming into power. I.E., Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, IIhan Omar, and, Rashida Tlaib. The Kennedy and Clinton Democrats for example would have taken an early an immediate stance in the violence that's happening within the U.S. cities - all of which interestingly have Democrat mayors as well. Also, 3 Pelosi backed candidates have now lost progressive candidates as well (the latest being Pelosi backed Joseph Kennedy losing to progressives backed Ed Markey).


Mr Fanti, you at least put 'far left' in quotation marks, because from where I am, neither AOC/the Squad nor the Democrat Party or Sanders can be considered even 'left-wing' let alone 'far left' -which to me suggests Trotskyists, and Anarchist-Communists (as opposed to Libertarians, or Utopian-Anarchists).

Yes, it suits the Republicans to demonize the DP and the Squad as Socialists who will destroy America, but you know as well as I do this is rubbish. In the first place, and I think I have pointed this out before, Democrats since Reagan have defined their politics and created policies framed by so-called 'Reaganomics' which treats taxation as a Sin against Humanity, and maintained the 'tough on crime' policies of the Clinton Presidecy which condemned petty criminilas to life imprisonment, until I believe Obama and his successor have tackled because it was both stupid and very expensive.

This article corrects the view the Squad reflect the Democrat Party as it is, even though some of the so-called Left's policies are appealing (ask yourself to whom, and why?) -the core question here is whether or not they appeal to enough voters to make a difference in November, given that absent votes from supporters of Sanders and the 'left' is claimed to be one reason why Clinton did not become President, even with 3 million more votes than the Republican.

"This may shock you, given the preposterous amount of media attention that has been lavished on those four women, but the truth is that they in no way represent the broad sentiments of grassroots Democrats nationwide — or even the sentiments of most House Democrats. In fact, the largest (https://www.rollcall.com/news/congress/new-democrats-launch-task-forces-to-help-craft-the-house-majoritys-policy-agenda) ideological group within the House Democratic caucus is a centrist, moderate group called the New Democrat Coalition. The coalition’s members (including Pennsylvania’s Susan Wild, Madeleine Dean and Chrissy Houlahan) predominantly hail from swing suburban districts — the same districts that went blue in 2018, toppled the GOP House majority and put the Democrats in charge".
https://whyy.org/articles/will-the-overexposed-squad-take-democrats-over-the-cliff/

Is the 'Green New Deal' a 'far left' policy option? No. Here is how the Guadian describes it-

"The proposal (https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/5729033/Green-New-Deal-FINAL.pdf) outlines the broad principles of a plan simultaneously to fight inequity and tackle climate change. It does not contain policy details or advocate for specific ways of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But with a broad brush it aims to begin to make the US carbon-neutral – net zero carbon emissions – in 10 years."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/11/green-new-deal-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-ed-markey

Ten years is clearly too ambitious, but that ambition is not derived from being 'too left' or any 'left', as it is broadly in line, give a decade or two- with the postion of many parties in Europe -and the point is that even Boris Johnson's Conservative Party accepts the principle of carbon emissions, but has a target of 2050 rather than 2030- Johnson's new wife is known to be a 'green' advocate, something that hard core Tories think makes Johnson a 'wet' when it comes to the environment, and there was the comical moment in June when Johnson felt he needed to declare 'I am not a Communist' owing to the extent of State intervention in the economy. But the key point is that Ocasio-Cortez may like to think she is 'left-wing' but to people like me she is a moderate who would easily fit into the Labour Party over here.

So, will the Demcrats re-commit the USA to the Paris Climate Change accords?
Will the Democrats remove the US Embassy in Israel frm Jerusalem back to Tel-Aviv?
Will the US take direct action -any action- to end Israel's siege of the Gaza District and end its illegal occupation of Palestine?
Will the Democrats commit to negotiating a global reduction of nuclear weapons, commit to a Nuclear-Free Middle East, and negotiate a major, significant reduction of conventional weapons with the Russians and the Chinese, and halt immediately any proposal to create a Space Force'?
Will the Democrats 'tear down that wall' and produce a coherent poicy on immigration, and tackle the causes of illegal immigration?
Will the Democrats campaign to legalize narcotics?
The list goes on, but don't expect anything from the Democrats that isn't safe, and designed not to upset the legions of so called 'Middle Americans' who are apparently terrified of policies that are so basic in Europe we don't use them as tools of engagement.

If you want Socialist policies, take major industries and services into public ownership -is AOC advocating that? No. Is anyone caampaigning to repeal the 2nd Amendment? Not that I know of. And why would the left, so called, be soft on immigration when most new immigrants think markets work better than States, who want less rather than more government in their lives, and have retarded views on same-sex marriage?

The Republicans can threaten America with bogus policies, even in the UK we dont have 'free health care' or 'free welfare', and even the Republicans have not declared they will end all forms of welfare if re-elected, and anyway, what is wrong with a single-payer health care system when forms of it exist across Europe, it works, and is cheaper and more efficient than the callous, immoral, profit-based business you have in the US?

Reagan established an alternative to FDR's New Deal Administation, and so far, nobody has challenged it, though AOC and her chums and Sanders have poked it about.

And if your attitudes are merely reactions to what the Republicans say, rather than being formed from a different and more rational and realistic perspective, then you will end up collapsing into the very same worthless stereoypes that Republicans rely on.

[Stavros]

No the South Bronx is still not referred to as "Fort Apache".

Also Mayor Bloomberg was a Republican/Independent when he ran the city. So the only Democratic mayor we have had since Giuliani is Deblasio and my feelings about him are already well known.


But when it comes to Trump presenting the law and order case as to the reason why he should be reelected, he is doing it for two reasons.

1. It changes the topic of discussion from Covid 19.

2. It may actually work if voters don't look at it from a long term standpoint as a reduction in crime over the past 25 years or so and they look at what's been happening in the Democratic ran cities in the wake of George Floyd's death. Or more specifically, Portland, Minneapolis, NYC, and Chicago.

There has been protests that have delved into rioting and looting going on in Portland for almost 90 days now and for whatever reason the mayor has allowed it to go on for a longer than it should have.

We all saw what happened in Minneapolis and this article goes into detail on how it happened:

http:////www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/us/minneapolis-government-george-floyd.html


Here in NYC:

http://nypost.com/2020/08/31/nyc-passes-grim-milestone-with-over-1000-shootings-in-2020/


Chicago:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/10/chicago-looters-riot-magnificent-mile/


Finally, there was what happened in Kenosha last week.

Now we all know what precipitated the riots and that was the murder of George Floyd and the shooting of Jacob Blake. While its the important to address issues such police brutality and the appropriate use of force, there is a difference between addressing issues and overreacting to them. I apologize in advance, but that's the only word I can come up with.

I believe there was an overreaction to the death of Floyd, which led to how the police were allowed to combat the looters and rioting. Then there was the "defund the police mantra", which in turn has led to a rush to pass legislation in certain cities to address the issue of police misconduct. I believe this has contributed to rise in shootings and crime here in NYC.

Also remember this from back in June:

ACLU of Minnesota
@ACLUMN
BREAKING: Minneapolis City Council members have announced their intent to disband the Minneapolis Police Department and invest in community-led public safety.

Now while Biden has said that he isn't for defunding the police, he can't help fact that there are leaders from his party who are doing otherwise. It also doesn't help fact that two of the riots took place in battleground states.

Trump can win reelection if he is able to peel off some undecided voters who think that rioting and looting is not the answer to enacting police reform. Especially if it was their property that got destroyed.

He can do the same if he increases his support from Blacks and Latinos whose neighborhoods will be the first to suffer from defunding the police measures. Or just from the ones who also believe in law and order.

Thanks for your perspectives. On one level, what often happens in elections is that the campaign is shaped by events and personalities rather than policy, and in this one, there is a lack of policy and too much personality.

Yes, personality is important. In our election last December, both major parties presented colossal spending commitments to re-generate the post-industrial North, but a key factor was the fact that most people did not like or trust Jeremy Corbyn, even though Boris Johnson is probably the least trustworthy party leader the Conservatives have ever had. It appears the choice in the US is between four more years of a foul-mouthed, ignorant bully, or Uncle Joe, who will read America bed-time stories, and be gentle and nice.

Yes, factions in the party will break out and make headlines, and the Republicans will exploit that, but given the outrageous things Republicans have said and will say, which to me are something most Americans would/should find outrageous and unacceptable too, this aspect of the campaign is there for both sides to exploit.

I just don't know how to explain the urban violence that you refer to, because it must have complex roots. I suspect on investigation, and I think this is true of Kenosha, de-industriaization has taken away a lot of the jobs that Black Americans relied on in the past, and that this marks a generational shift,noted in Europe as well as North America, that our children will be worse off than we have been.
Their grandparents had steady jobs, probably their parents, or they were in the first wave of redundancies in the 1980s-1990s. And, critically, either new jobs have been low-paid service sector jobs, or have been in small-scale manufacture that is not geographically in the places they live in.
I recall, I think it was Channel 4 News in the UK, reporting on small industries in Indiana and the owner of a trailer business who stated candidly that he needed immigrants to do jobs that locals would not do- but without making the point that if they wanted to move from Baltimore or Kenosha to Indiana, young Black people would get those jobs. As I argued a week or so ago, the geography of labour in the US might reveal something about the opportinities that are, or are not available to Black Americans, but specifically, Black Americans under 30.

Does this breed resentment that expresses itself in violence, and violence against property? To some extent I think it does, we had savage riots in the UK in 2011 and it appeared the world was coming to an end, then next year we had the Olympic Games and everyne was happy. Or so it seemed. I also wonder if decades of neglect creates in people a cynical disregard for the Government, Federal or State, and thus an indifference to the damage rioting causes.

Yes there are some on the left who use these flashpoints in an attempt to recruit young people to their organized cause, like BLM, but in the long term I don't see this being anything other than a nuisance, albeit a damaging one. Small cells of Marxist-Leninists, Trotskyists and so forth can organize demonstrations and protests and people in the heat of the moment will join in, without subscribing to the vision of a worker's paradise.

The cultural dimension, where famous people from Sports, Music and so forth give a voice to protest reflect the divisions in the country, but I don't see any concrete proposals that can be transformed into pactical policy options. How does any society end Racism? It can be tackled, it can be hedged in by the law, but as an attitude I don't know the answer, because even people much younger than me are racists, so I can't congratulate myself that my generation succeeded where ohers failed, though I do think we are less racist than we were in the 1960s and 1970s.

In the end it is mostly about jobs, and the dignity of work. The geographic shifts in the US economy since the 1970s-80s, whose roots may be in the 1960s, has left generations bereft of that dignity, and unless massive investment -but in what?- takes place, I see no solutions, as Capitalism continuously modernizes and requires less and less human labour to produce the things we consume. If the trend now is for Cities to lose their workers, only able to survive as zones of entertainment, then maybe jobs in the service sector will expand, or Cities go bust and become the war zones they threatened to become in the 1970s, with a population living on its wits fighting each other for the crumbs left on the sidewalk, ie Escape from New York as a documentary, not a feature film. But is MOMA going to re-locate to Yonkers? Will the New York Philharmonic and the Met re-locate to Woodstock?

Those are the broader issues. As for the everyday, I just hope Biden can create a sense of unity in his party, and have immediate rebuttals to what the Republicans say -and given the weird things the President is saying, I would have thought his inability to remain 'on message' and say crazy and offensive things is -or should be- a gift to Biden. So maybe in the end it is all about news management, rather than the news itself. Best of luck with that!

[Del06]

One thing missing from this thread is the possibility -- likelihood -- of a coup d'etat. Trump may well have a strategy to win votes, but his backup is a declaration of martial law, with support from his brownshirts (Patriot Boys and various other heavily armed white supremacists -- dare I say fascists?) and segments of the military. I don't see anyone seriously considering this possibility. I think it's more likely than not. And noone is talking about a response to it, or how to head it off.

BTW, Stavros, you're right, the "squad" and it's policies are not far left, except in the distorted lens of American corporate media. They are more like the "socialists" in Spain, socialist only in comparison with the PP and Vox. I.e., run of the mill social democrats, so not even really anti-capitalist.

Regarding racism, I think you've got it wrong. Change the power dynamic -- the laws and structures (e.g. red-lining real estate practices) supporting racist policies and people's attitude will change. Ibrim Kendi's got a good handle on this.

[Stavros]

One thing missing from this thread is the possibility -- likelihood -- of a coup d'etat. Trump may well have a strategy to win votes, but his backup is a declaration of martial law, with support from his brownshirts (Patriot Boys and various other heavily armed white supremacists -- dare I say fascists?) and segments of the military. I don't see anyone seriously considering this possibility. I think it's more likely than not. And noone is talking about a response to it, or how to head it off.

BTW, Stavros, you're right, the "squad" and it's policies are not far left, except in the distorted lens of American corporate media. They are more like the "socialists" in Spain, socialist only in comparison with the PP and Vox. I.e., run of the mill social democrats, so not even really anti-capitalist.

Regarding racism, I think you've got it wrong. Change the power dynamic -- the laws and structures (e.g. red-lining real estate practices) supporting racist policies and people's attitude will change. Ibrim Kendi's got a good handle on this.

I agree with your view of the Democrats 'left', and thanks for the reference to Ibrim Kendi whom I had not heard of before, I have just opened his website.

Patrick Cockburn in The Independent offers a depressing view of the Democrats election campaign -in effect, they need to match their rival's 'black ops' and go low if they want to be more effective-

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-biden-kenosha-protests-soldiers-patriotism-nationalism-a9705321.html

[Del06]

I agree with your view of the Democrats 'left', and thanks for the reference to Ibrim Kendi whom I had not heard of before, I have just opened his website.

Patrick Cockburn in The Independent offers a depressing view of the Democrats election campaign -in effect, they need to match their rival's 'black ops' and go low if they want to be more effective-

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-biden-kenosha-protests-soldiers-patriotism-nationalism-a9705321.html

The Kendi book I'm reading is "How to be an anti-racist". Very objective, identifying racism as primarily a social power construct, and only secondarily an ideology to support that power construct.

"Moral and educational suasion breathes the assumption that racist minds must be changed before racist policy, ignoring history that says otherwise. Look at the soaring White support for desegregated schools and neighborhoods decades after the policies changed in the 1950s and 1960s. Look at the soaring White support for interracial marriage decades after the policy changed in 1967. Look at the soaring support for Obamacare after its passage in 2010. Racist policymakers drum up fear of antiracist policies through racist ideas, knowing if the policies are implemented, the fears they circulate will never come to pass. Once the fears do not come to pass, people will let down their guards as they enjoy the benefits. Once they clearly benefit, most Americans will support and become the defenders of the antiracist policies they once feared. To fight for mental and moral changes after policy is changed means fighting alongside growing benefits and the dissipation of fears, making it possible for antiracist power to succeed. To fight for mental and moral change as a prerequisite for policy change is to fight against growing fears and apathy, making it almost impossible for antiracist power to succeed."

BTW, thanks for the Cockburn article.

[Stavros]

Thanks for this reference -I like this article too, from The Atlantic by Adam Serwer, with this extract-

"Even after Obama was elected, conservative pundits argued that Obama wasn’t “really popular” (https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2009/05/byron-york-is-not-a-racist/16975/) because he maintained sky-high support among black voters—who, they implied, should count less. The underlying argument behind the claim, no matter how mundane or outlandish, was that being black confers unearned benefits rather than systemic obstacles to be overcome. Obama became the living, breathing symbol of the narrative that undeserving people of color were being elevated even as hardworking white people were being left behind. In a country where most wealthy CEOs, legislators, governors, presidents, justices, and judges are white Christian men, Republicans believe whites and Christians face more discrimination than anyone else (https://www.prri.org/spotlight/republicans-white-black-reverse-discrimination/).
What this narrative is meant to obscure is the reality that American policy making has not created some nightmare inversion of power between white people and ethnic minorities, but a landscape of harrowing inequality where people are forced to beg strangers for money on the internet to pay their medical bills (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/01/go-fund-yourself-health-care-popularity-contest/). Upward mobility is stagnant (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01/11/raj-chetty-in-14-charts-big-findings-on-opportunity-and-mobility-we-should-know/); those who are born rich, die rich, and those who are born poor, die poor. Real wages have risen painfully slowly for decades (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/); housing, particularly in urban centers, is unaffordable (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/housing-crisis-inequality-harvard-report_us_5b27c1f1e4b056b2263c621e); and young people are saddled with skyrocketing student debt for educations (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-17/the-student-loan-debt-crisis-is-about-to-get-worse) that did not provide the opportunities they were supposed to."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/why-conservatives-cant-stop-talking-about-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/579901/

[broncofan]

I'm a resident of the state of Pennsylvania and just requested my mail in ballot today. This is an option they have in addition to the typical absentee ballot for people who are residents but will not be in state on election day. I will be in state but prefer to mail my ballot in. It was really straightforward and the election council for my county has approved the application and will be sending me my ballot soon.

It's that time of the election cycle when we might look at the electoral map and see what states could turn the election. Halfway down the wiki I link below you can see the states Trump won in 2016. The states he won in 2016 but is behind in include at least Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin. He has a slight lead in Ohio and a slight deficit in Florida. If he takes Ohio, Florida, and Arizona (which he's behind in by about 4%) but loses Michigan, Wisconsin, and PA he would lose. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan are 20, 10, and 16 electoral votes respectively.

Anyhow, since I think there's a decent chance he takes Florida and Ohio which are both pretty close right now, I think Pennsylvania is crucially important for Biden.

So much time between now and the election though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidential_election
https://fivethirtyeight.com/

[MrFanti]

Interesting article but it again, categorizes Black Americans as being monolithic and that is simply not true - although the majority of the media portrays Black Americans as monolithic.
Dig in the weeds within the Black community and you will see that we are not monolithic.

Case in point (which goes against the popular "Defund The Police") that is being broadcast by mainstream media.

81 Percent of Black Americans Want the Same Level, or More, of Police Presence: Gallup
https://reason.com/2020/08/06/81-percent-of-black-americans-want-the-same-level-or-more-of-police-presence-gallup/


Thanks for this reference -I like this article too, from The Atlantic by Adam Serwer, with this extract-

"Even after Obama was elected, conservative pundits argued that Obama wasn’t “really popular” (https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2009/05/byron-york-is-not-a-racist/16975/) because he maintained sky-high support among black voters—who, they implied, should count less. The underlying argument behind the claim, no matter how mundane or outlandish, was that being black confers unearned benefits rather than systemic obstacles to be overcome. Obama became the living, breathing symbol of the narrative that undeserving people of color were being elevated even as hardworking white people were being left behind. In a country where most wealthy CEOs, legislators, governors, presidents, justices, and judges are white Christian men, Republicans believe whites and Christians face more discrimination than anyone else (https://www.prri.org/spotlight/republicans-white-black-reverse-discrimination/).
What this narrative is meant to obscure is the reality that American policy making has not created some nightmare inversion of power between white people and ethnic minorities, but a landscape of harrowing inequality where people are forced to beg strangers for money on the internet to pay their medical bills (https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/01/go-fund-yourself-health-care-popularity-contest/). Upward mobility is stagnant (https://www.brookings.edu/blog/social-mobility-memos/2018/01/11/raj-chetty-in-14-charts-big-findings-on-opportunity-and-mobility-we-should-know/); those who are born rich, die rich, and those who are born poor, die poor. Real wages have risen painfully slowly for decades (http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/); housing, particularly in urban centers, is unaffordable (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/housing-crisis-inequality-harvard-report_us_5b27c1f1e4b056b2263c621e); and young people are saddled with skyrocketing student debt for educations (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-10-17/the-student-loan-debt-crisis-is-about-to-get-worse) that did not provide the opportunities they were supposed to."
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/why-conservatives-cant-stop-talking-about-alexandria-ocasio-cortez/579901/

[Stavros]

I'm a resident of the state of Pennsylvania and just requested my mail in ballot today. This is an option they have in addition to the typical absentee ballot for people who are residents but will not be in state on election day. I will be in state but prefer to mail my ballot in. It was really straightforward and the election council for my county has approved the application and will be sending me my ballot soon.


May I ask why you are choosing a postal ballot over a vote in person on the day at your designated polling station? It used to be the case in the UK that postal votes were limited to those who could not vote in person, because they were not going to be in the country or the constituency on polling day, be in hospital, and other legitimate reasons. The Blair government changed the rules so make postal ballots an option -for what it's worth in this country I think postal voting should be restriicted as it was before Blair, lagely as a result of some of the questionable things I saw when I was in charge of an election campaign for the Labour Party in London, though I stress this did not involve postal ballots at that time.

[Stavros]

Interesting article but it again, categorizes Black Americans as being monolithic and that is simply not true - although the majority of the media portrays Black Americans as monolithic.
Dig in the weeds within the Black community and you will see that we are not monolithic.


But the Atlantic article that I linked concerns the way in which some Conservative and more extreme White Americans view Black Americans, rather than what Black Amercans think of themseves. I understand the GOP has had a solid 10% of the Black votee in recent years and I think we can agree that yes, it is wrong to lump all Black Americans together. But I do wonder if even that 10% truly agrees that the 45th President has done more for Black Americans than any President since Lincoln. I assume he has heard of Lyndon B. Johnson, but with this guy, you can't be sure.

[broncofan]

May I ask why you are choosing a postal ballot over a vote in person on the day at your designated polling station? It used to be the case in the UK that postal votes were limited to those who could not vote in person, because they were not going to be in the country or the constituency on polling day, be in hospital, and other legitimate reasons. The Blair government changed the rules so make postal ballots an option -for what it's worth in this country I think postal voting should be restriicted as it was before Blair, lagely as a result of some of the questionable things I saw when I was in charge of an election campaign for the Labour Party in London, though I stress this did not involve postal ballots at that time.
There are a few reasons. I always vote in person but I don't think it should be necessary when there's a pandemic even though I'm not super high risk. I think that requiring the vote to be in person is intended to suppress the vote rather than protect against fraud.

I was curious about the process as well. I am already registered to vote, but I had to go through the additional step of filling out an application for a ballot, which is then processed and if approved a ballot is sent to the address at which you're registered.

One ulterior motive I have is that I want to convince my parents who are in their late 70s to get a mail in application. My mother believes it is her responsibility to show up at the polls on election day and cast a ballot against Trump. I haven't been able to convince her that getting a mail in ballot is safer, is legal in Pennsylvania without the requirement that anyone have a reason. If I can give her a sense of how long it takes and how easy it is, then maybe I demystify it for them.

Finally, if my state has provided a process to vote by mail without any qualifying reason, I thought why not do it if I can get a ballot in advance and make sure I deliver it well in advance? I'm not certain I made the right choice here but a ballot is on the way and I will be sending it back well in advance of the deadline.

[broncofan]

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/08/voting-by-mail-in-the-swing-states/

I thought this was an interesting article about the process in a lot of the swing states, including the controversy over it. Initially I was only worried about a backlog or my ballot not being delivered but apparently my state gives me the option of dropping the ballot off as an alternative to mail as long as it's before 8 pm on election day.

[broncofan]

Stavros brings up an interesting point in my view about the real potential for fraud in mail-in ballots and also about civic engagement. Fred brought this point up earlier but what should our expectation be about the effort people make to vote?

I do think there's a greater potential for fraud in mail in ballots though I don't think it is a significant risk given how much of it would have to take place in a coordinated way to change the election. I think electoral districts should balance the risk of fraud against the unequal burdens people have in making it to the polls. In ordinary times I don't think it's unreasonable to require people to vote in person unless they are unable to.

In this pandemic, someone who is 80 years old or 70 years old might have a 15 or 20% chance of dying if they're infected with covid. We also don't have a great deal of epidemiological data about what someone's risk is standing in line in a crowded building but we do know that Trump has made mask wearing a cultural fault line and one's risk is correlated with other people's compliance.

I don't think voter turnout should be based on risk tolerance or health status. I think the net result of requiring the vote to be in person right now would be to have a greater suppressive effect on voter turnout than it would on fraud. Looking at the states that have mail in voting I do think Trump is going to be yelling fraud at the top of his lungs if he loses.

Just as an aside if anyone wants to talk about the electoral college or the way the math breaks down in that link above, I think Trump has to win Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania to win if the polls are even close to accurate right now. I didn't realize just how close it had been but he carried Michigan and Pennsylvania by tiny margins of like 11,000 and 45,000 respectively.

I wasn't able to link the section of the wiki with the state by state breakdown but you can find it in section 8.5 of the wiki I linked called "results by state". Hard to be optimistic, even with the polling, but I think Biden probably wins.