jwirr
jwirr's JournalBut Bernie has not ignored the issues and he has been the first to speak out on many of them. He
was speaking out on them at NN.
The issues BLM are trying to keep front and center since Ferguson MO are critical to change. If they are left to stagnate they will be forgotten. That justified what they are doing.
And I actually think they accomplished what they set out to accomplish. They brought attention back to the issue.
Now I am going to say something I know I am going to get slammed for: If this is going to happen at every point in the primary - how are we going to get a candidate elected for the Democratic Party as a nominee for president? If this is going to be the method of protest then it needs to be applied to all candidates not just these two. And if it is applied to all candidates - that is screaming them down so that they cannot even answer - what am I to base my vote on?
Many POC on this site are totally correct that the issue most be an issue in this campaign. They are also right to protest to keep the issue alive.
But please answer the question I am asking. We have one candidate who is well known and others who are working to get their message out there. How do the unknown candidates get known if we cannot hear their message? How do we make sure we get the best candidate as the nominee if we have nothing other than how they reacted to being protested to go on? How do the unknown candidates compete with the front runner if they are not allowed to speak? Are we even going to get to see the debates?
Here on DU that is not much of a problem because we know about the candidates already. Even in Iowa and New Hampshire this is not going to be the problem. But what about in other primaries? Do we really want a election where the candidate won because of who they are rather than what they think?
That is very true but I pity the candidates - we have a system in which we exhaust our candidates
already. If they take on regular meetings with each individual group that wants to hear their own message as the primary message then I don't know how anyone is going to have the time. Especially when the economic message does refer to all of us. Candidates get their message to people through public speaking. The speech is the message. As we saw with W all too often that is to selected audiences who are supporters. I would rather see the candidates hire staff than take on specific group meetings. But that takes money from donors which is another problem.
That said - it seems to me that the message BLM is sending SHOULD refer to all of us not as a black issue but as an issue of conscience. No one in the nation should feel like the killing of unarmed people is ever okay. We should all be clamoring to end this as soon as we can. We should all be making it clear we do not support police violence in any way.
If meeting with this group regularly can do that then that is what we should be doing. But there are things that cannot be done by any one candidate for federal office. It will not help one little bit to get a president in office if what really needs to be done is elect better officials at that state level. And a lot of what we saw in Ferguson MO was controlled at the state or community level. A totally corrupt system of white supremacists controlling the police force and the courts and who knows what else they control. We have a black president and he had only a limited way of controlling any of it.
The Constitution dealt with the issue of states control vs federal control a long time ago. That the solution is not adequate in this situation is very clear. But at this point the problem is what are we going to do about the communities all over the US that have used the political system to virtually control POC as they do in Ferguson MO. One solution is to make sure that all the victims of this be involved in that political system. GOTV. Stop voter suppression. Kick the supremacists out of office. And the federal government should use the power to back up this change.
Don't get why BLM is angry? So now we are all the enemy? I have no problem understanding
why they are angry. Many of us here on DU both black and white were here watching and commenting on the protests in Ferguson MO and on every incident of police brutality and murder since then. And we are angry.
Yet suddenly last night we are told that our support and anger does not count.
That is not a good strategy. If you have a war it is not a good idea to alienate your supporters. To tell your friends that it does not matter what they think - they are white and cannot possibly care about others. That is no more true than all the garbage that is thrown at POC.
For God's sake we are on your side and so are many white politicians. There is not a single Democratic candidate this year that is not on your side. But they are candidates - they are not in a position to make the changes that are needed. And neither are we here on DU.
All the talk in the world is not going to change the racism that allows black lives to be lost in such a horrible way with no real cause whatsoever. We often see the phrase "follow the money" here but I think there is a new phrase we need for this situation "follow the power". The current president may have some kind of power that can be used to do something about this. It is that power all of us need to address about this situation. When either Hillary or Bernie become president then they will have the power.
The only protest that will change anything is one addressed to power. In Ferguson MO that is what was happening - unarmed people standing up to corrupt police with tanks and other weapons of war. Standing up to power. The world - people of all colors - supported the protestors. It was like that picture of the single youth that stood in front of the tank. It was a powerful message. As the protests continued more people joined in including white youth.
That is what I remember happening in the Civil Rights movement in the 60s - after the world started to see what was happening others joined in. There are still many others who will join in. But not if they are not wanted.
To assume that Bernie Sanders would not care and is not interested because he does not talk about it all the time is really a stretch. The man is Jewish and his grandparents were killed in the holocaust. Do any of you really think he would not see the similarities? What do you think he was doing in the Civil Rights movement all those years ago?
Yes, I read this OP. Everything in it is true. It is not right and it needs to be changed. But it will not change any of it if the supporters are turned into the enemies by the very people they are trying to help. Show us the way you want to go but do not treat us as if we are the enemy. We are not.
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Name: JudyGender: Female
Hometown: NE Minnesota
Home country: USA
Member since: Fri Jul 23, 2004, 11:19 PM
Number of posts: 39,215