Wow, I'm getting blamed for something other people said. Why shouldn't I point out misdirected anger? The sum of my criticisms of that politician is not the sum of all people's criticisms for that politician.
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
Sure; the rightwing rage machine has painted Pelosi as some kind of left wing extremist for so long that I'm sure many do consider her to be too far to the left.
What about you? What has she actually done that is "off the page"? Surely pushing through Obamacare can't be considered all that far left?
I think you're misunderstanding what I was trying to point out. The old guard would say that Pelosi has long been a champion for things like racial equality for 30 years. That even as somebody as far to the Left as she can be challenged is a sign of the times. Now this Squad comes through which, in a way, is a product of the Left's own rage they've been pumping into kids heads. Well, now the chickens have come home to roost... and this image of constant injustice and oppression has boiled over to where nobody is safe from its scorn. Might as well nuclear waste. Its toxic. Nancy Pelosi, of all people, can be accused of racist tendencies. Bernie Sanders, of all people, can get shouted down and hijacked from his own campaign and charged with the same.
Who do you think stands to benefit from that in-fighting? Democrats often get upset by the phrase The Left is eating itself, but its totally true. And if you want to know what my view of it is, I think the foundation comes back to liberal indoctrination where a worldview of never-ending racism, sexism, homophobia, so on and so forth has been pumped into kid's heads for the last 50 years... to where they invariably see everything as a threat and that everyone is the enemy.
This, of course, does a disservice to good people and their good and honest fight. I don't agree with much of Bernie Sanders politics. But I think he is genuinely a good man with genuine intentions. But all this in-fighting only serves people on the Right who also are edging towards the fringes instead of edging towards the Center. I know most of you guys are convinced that I'm a prototypical Republican. And in a lot of respects I unapologetically am. But I don't want Trump to win... okay? He's dangerous. And I don't agree with the direction the RNC or the DNC is going. I need sane voices from the Left to present a legitimate opposition to Donald Trump. For me, thus far, that's Tulsi Gabbard. And somebody like her is getting drowned out by "The Squad," who has nothing useful to say and who seems to want all the attention for themselves.
Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
Because you replied to the message where I raised the point even quoting relevant text. If you join a conversation the preceding posts don’t just go away.
I'm not Sarah... I'm not Faith... I have my own mind and my own beliefs. My objections were written for my post. They're adults and can defend their own positions. I'll defend my own.
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
Trump's characterization of Cummings' district as a rat-infested hellhole is nothing new; Krugman points out that racists have long used the problems of US inner cities to claim that there's something wrong with non-white people.
The tone of the president is certainly un-presidential and this kind of rhetoric only creates the pretense to question what his underlying message was. He lacks a tact that has always been an assumed quality of every sitting president that preceded him. Having said that, Cummings' district is a rat-infested hellhole. It just is and has been for a very, very long time. I've been been to a lot of ghettos in my time, but Baltimore took the cake. Literally looked like a goddamn war zone and like looking at pictures of post-war Poland ravaged by the Nazi's and Soviet's. Clearly whatever they are doing there is not working and to point that out isn't de facto "racist." While not agreeing with Trump's tenor or delivery, his ultimate jab was at Cummings, not "black people." He's saying, in effect, "How the hell are you gonna criticize me when you can't even get your own community in order?"
'Course non-racists point out that racists never can get cause-and-effect straight, and claim that most of the problems with the inner cities are due more to the lack of educational and economic opportunities.
This is what the ravages of generational poverty and dysfunction look like. Dysfunction, more often than not, begets more dysfunction; passed down from generation to generation. If its normal for you to walk outside your home and see crackheads milling about aimlessly, it can't be understated how damaging that must be to little children steeped in that environment.
How it got that way and how to correct it is highly nuanced and highly complicated. There's no magic bullet.
And sure enough, even as the conditions of American cities have improved, the conditions of rural, white people areas - you know, Trump country - have deteriorated due to... wait for it... declining educational and economic opportunities.
Damn right... because a lack of employment opportunities knows no color. But that's kind of the point... Progressives immediately jumped to racism as their go-to explanation for his comment. Look, I'm sure Trump harbors racist beliefs... to the degree that it is used though is excessive. So if he referred to Billings, Montana as a "rat-infested hellhole" would his words have immediately been associated with racism? No. They would probably just criticize that its a mean-spirited thing to say about a city in a country that you run!
quote:What the changing face of American social problems shows is that people are pretty much the same, whatever the color of their skin. Give them reasonable opportunities for economic and personal advancement, and they will thrive; deprive them of those opportunities, and they won’t.
We see the Rust Belt, a rat-infested hellhole, that is reeling from an opioid epidemic where race is an after-thought. There's no jobs, low education, and they have nothing better to do than jam needles into their arm to drown out the pain. And that very much is "Trump country." Those were the people desperate enough to vote for him because he made a promise that he's yet to deliver on.
Edited by Hyroglyphx, : No reason given.
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
Where are the counseling clinicts, where are the housing facilities or even at a minium where are the toilets and showers? Those billions could have bought some of that, even all of it. Not to mention the wealthy "compassionate" liberal residents of the city who live a mile or so from the horrors and offer no help.
In my city there is this multi-million dollar center called the ARCH (Austin Resource Center for the Homeless) and most of the homeless population refuses to live there because it is, among other things, rampant with violence, inundated by drug use, rapes are routine, and infested with parasites. It has not moved the needle one iota with their give them a fish for the day rather than teaching them to fish mentality. In fact, the homeless population has increased ten-fold. We have a lot of hard talk from the political elites that live in far-removed, opulent areas while expecting you and I to foot the bill. And how many do you think would actually open their doors to help? Not a soul. If they're gonna be sanctimonious about homelessness, then the least they can do is live up to the virtues they signal. Its always generous when its other people's money footing the bill.
Your hatred of Trump isn't helping either because he knows what is going on and tells it like it is while they tell lies about him and turn people against him for no good reason.
My distaste for Trump is an aside from my distaste for the Regressive Left. I am a moderate, so I like to hear from Moderate Republicans and Moderate Democrats about how to unify and make real change.
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
So let me make sure I'm clear... KOMO news is suspect but the SeattleTimes isn't? What is your metric? Because you agree with one but not the other?
Cherry picking one city does not support your claim. But lets see the data for Seattle to start. Remember bare links are not an argument. Present the data.
quote:Seattle is under siege. Over the past five years, the Emerald City has seen an explosion of homelessness, crime, and addiction. In its 2017 point-in-time count of the homeless, King County social-services agency All Home found 11,643 people sleeping in tents, cars, and emergency shelters. Property crime has risen to a rate two and a half times higher than Los Angeles’s and four times higher than New York City’s. Cleanup crews pick up tens of thousands of dirty needles from city streets and parks every year.
All crime in the US has been dropping everywhere since the 1980's, so your use of datasets from the 80's is misleading.
Every crime in Seattle is well above the national average, but for a metropolitan area that's not all that shocking. However, when comparing apples to apples, the homicide rate in 2017 was the highest since 2003. Sexual assault is astronomically higher than previous years. Assaults are one the rise with 2017 being its worst year.
Yes, Maryland's Seventh District includes parts of Baltimore. It also includes parts of Columbia, which has been rated as one of the safest communities in the US. The 7th rates above median for average income among Congressional districts, and rates 2nd among black majority districts for both average income and level of education. If the 7th was white majority, would Trump have described it as a rat-infested failure? In fact, if Cummings was a white Republican, he'd probably be praise for the awesome job he's doing.
Well, here's the real problem as I see it. If Trump calls it a "rat-infested hellhole," again, that is not the tone or tenor a sitting President needs to be making. But the implication is that it was deliberately said with the goal of making a jab against black people. Look, the DNC has to stop wielding their race-baiting agenda like a hammer. Every time an accusation like that is wielded inappropriately, it dilutes and water-downs legitimate racism and racist rhetoric. This controversial non-controversy is that its a cheap tactic that the DNC has been using in its playbook for a long, long time. Look at the DNC debates... what has garnered the largest attention? The spat between Biden and Harris concerning whether or not Biden is a racist. I mean, curiously he wasn't a racist for the 8 years he worked for a black president... did you hear anyone mention that? Interesting. But now that its an expedient towards defeating him, pull out the racist hammer and bash people over the head with it. I'm no fan of Biden, I think he's a train wreck... but the bigger issue is the way the DNC has weaponized racist accusations. And its the same thing with the border controversy... it must be about "brown people" and not droves of unvetted people streaming across the border. And then there's the obsession with neo-nazi's, which hilariously makes up such a tiny fraction of the population. But hear the way CNN talks about it like there's a large standing army of white nationalists. Lol, what? Its gotta stop... because these kinds of accusations are precisely is what feeding into racial animosity, not ameliorating it.
By strange coincidence, Trump doesn't call these areas rat infested hellholes.
Yeah, of course not... that's his base. He thinks of them as "hardworking Americans that got the shaft from the Obama Administration." Its all political bullshit. The Rust Belt sucks.... I wish it didn't. It used the be the envy of the world, but it has deteriorated into a rat-infested hellhole.
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
It's perfectly plausible that Trump sees a black person and instinctively thinks "rat-infested hell hole" and starts saying things without giving any thought to it.
I actually think perhaps it speaks more to what you think if you instinctively correlate a "rat-infested hell hole" to black people. Lets think about it objectively... anyone that drew a parallel to a rat-infested hellhole and equates that phrase alone to where black people live might be suspect of the very thing they find so odious.
I'm no Trump apologist and I'm not here to defend him in any manner. I'm fairly certain he harbors some racist tendencies... but I'd like to be clear that my comment was more of a reaction to this cultural of outrage and identity politics that we've been fostering as of late.
If that isn't ironic enough, consider that the constant harangue of maligning people as racist doesn't actually bear any edible fruit. It just pisses off and will actually have the very effect you want to avoid... which is drawing people towards Trump, not away from him.
I listened to Sam Harris' podcast a few days ago where he and his guests make some very salient points regarding it... couldn't agree more.
A non-racist would realize that they don't live in a world of constant small insults and indignities, and a non-racist would realize that what insults he is aware of aren't indications of missed opportunities due to unfair discrimination.
So when he was making fun of Rosie O'Donnell before his presidency, it was because he's a racist? He's an asshole -- a narcissistic, self-absorbed, self-deluded asshole. He wants to dominate everyone. His self-perception is wildly inflated and his perception of others is that they're stupid and inferior to himself and his capabilities. I think the problem with leftist ideology is that the worst thing in the world is racism, homophobia, etc... and because Trump is legitimately an asshole, every slur is reserved especially for him.
My question is why your woke mind immediately drew a connection to rat-infested hellhole with black people? Because to me he's saying, clean up your own trashy city before you come talk to me. Ah, but that's not sensationalistic enough...
"Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it" -- Thomas Paine
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