DonCoquixote
DonCoquixote's JournalThe Greatest generation
To be fair, those folks grew up in the great depression, the crisis so severe that the rest of America had to realize that yes, there IS such a thing as common welfare, and that yes, Wall Street tycoons like Jeb's grandpa would have gladly sold it to Germany if Washington did not put a tight leash around their little necks. They wanted security and institutions because they, like few other generations in history, knew the want of such. When the started to pack their kids into Levitt town and the other suburbs made of ticky tacky they really did think they were giving their kids the world; little did they understand that those kids saw the facade behind all the plastic and ticky tacky, and that some wanted to move beyond it.
I say some, because while there were and are fighting the good fight, who do indeed deserve praise, there were many that were simply indulging yet one more appetite and following the crowd. These often morphed into the "Reagan Democrats" the folks that talk about being liberal, but want to make damned sure society knows they are the favorite children, and that the tax man better not try to take any of their toys and candy. It is one thing to say "well those GG types voted in Raygun" Yes, but they did, and still do, have the muscle to have choked out any Republican since then, especially the two bushes.
As far as X and the Millennials, well, I can only speak for X, but the fact is nop other generation since has had the simple demographic might, and the ways to indulge it. The only reason Xers got their music played was with a new medium, MTV, and that alone changed the nature of music. By the time MTV got to the Millennials, the execs had eaten off all the meat, which is why folks like Lady Gaga had to go to social media. As David Bowie, perhaps one of the more honest voices of the Boomers put it:
"these children that you spit on, they're quite aware of what they're going through." They know that we will be footing all the IOU's for the late 20th century, whether they be financial or otherwise. The Millennials will live to see the efforts being made to keep water out of NYC, and they can already hear China, Russia and India warm up as they prepare to become the new divas on the stage to amuse the oligarchs. X and the Millennials KNOW that our old age will not be like Grandpa riding around on a Golf Cart; hell, we will be lucky if we manage to protect social security from being taken.
I know many Boomers did and still do fight the good fight, and I offer you praise. It must sadden you to see so many of your fellows, who still pat themselves on the back for chanting "AUM" a few times back in the 60's , become outright defenders of the Status Quo. How could they forget what you and they saw together;the fact that for a while, there was a window to change society, what Dr. Hunter S. Thompson described as a great wave that left a watermark when it receded? The fact is, people like you kept their eyes open, and did not look at the shiny toys Wall Street offered, and those of us do thank you for that. However, OUR waves will not be receding anytime soon, the problem is that our watermark will be stained with blood, much like the ones that are still all over New Orleans.
An Open letter: Hillary, fire Debbie.
I know that in 2008, you were angry at mark Penn. You had all the money, all the connections, and somehow, Mark Penn and your husband managed to not only take your momentum away from you, but you lost. That was a prime example of the Democratic establishment not knowing how to sell you.
I hate to say it Hillary, your friends are killing you again. This time, it is Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She will not curry favor with Florida Democrats, namely because knees are still sore from the way she capped Alan Grayson, Tom Morgan, and Kendrick Meek, and the way she foisted on the return of Charlie "Chang gang" Crist. What is worse is the ham handed, utter not slick way she is limiting your debates.
Look, I will admit I will never be one of your rah rah fans, but even I know that you would DESTROY most opponents in debates. It would be one thing if you were running against a known orator, but you are not. O Malley, ask him about Baltimore, Sanders, ask him about BLM You could also protect yourself in case Biden runs because you will have made a fresh debut.
Of course you will not, because you like Debbie, even though, if you fail, she will be just fine, as she always is when the GOP is in control. When she does her bestselling book, she will backstab you justr like Penn did, blaming you for everything, even when THEY did all the decisions and spent all of YOUR money.
FIRE HER. Howard Dean or even James Carville could do a better job than Debbie even if they purposefully gave themselves a lobotomy with hand tools.
What Katrina still reveals about Dixie.
Every election, there are the old "why don;t we saw off Dixie" posts, usually done by some pundit safe and warm in California or a New York coffee house. However, as Bush and Obama both land in new Orleans, I offer you something to think about.
In the South, there has been, and will be, an adversarial relationship between the rural (who are GOP) and the cities, which are now mostly Democrat. When you check every electoral map, you will find the cities are SOLID blue. Name any city in the South, from Miami, to Houston, to Charleston, to New Orleans, to Atlanta, and you will find solid, solid blue. However, in all the states, the power is based in the rural areas, and part of the rural areas job is to denigrate cities as much as possible.
That is why when New Orleans was washed away, you had people cheer that god had done what they wished to do.
https://solidarity-us.org/node/1324
And as the page above describes, what little public housing was left was often replaced by condos, meant to attract people less like the original residents, in other words, social engineering.
That is also why, to this VERY day, the Bobby Jindals and others try to hinder rebuilding, hoping eminent domain will let them remake the city in their image. Right now, the second oldest hospital in America, Charity Hospital, is condemned, because LSU (aka Baton Rogue, aka Bobby's playground) wants to rebuild a huge medical center over it, and oddly enough, away from the inner city. HMM MM.
Of course, some Northern readers will go "OK, if they liberals down there don't like it, why don't they riot. That is where I point them towards Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston, and a few other cities that sadly have been way too numerous to mention. People do protest, and get shot, and have the full force of the militia (yes, they are not just cops anymore) turned, and yes, the best we get from this big Democratic party that supposedly wants to win in the South is whatever milquetoast, winking at GOP friends, half hearted crap that Debbie Wasserman Schultz and those you know she is trying to help offer.
To sum, the South is not a monolith, and in many , many ways, the Civil War is still ablaze here, Appomattox be damned!
Decision bearing, Biden games out mechanics of a 2016 run
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/decision-nearing-biden-games-out-mechanics-of-a-2016-run/ar-BBlZitW?ocid=spartandhpI sincerely hope this does not happen, even though I admire Biden. He is the one that should get the credit for LGBT rights, and for highlighting that the ACA, for all it's flaws, was a big fucking deal.
However, this will place Obama in a position where he has top choose between Biden or Hillary. If he rejects Biden, he rejects his own legacy. He might as well say "yeah, you should picked Hillary in 2008" which will suit a certain wing of the voters just fine, but will also serve as a slap in the face to Blacks as Obama screws over his own VP for Hillary. If he rejects Hillary, then the PUMA wing will go ALL OUT, until Obama is the most racist sexist anti-Semite Muslim not even 100 percent black insert insult here that we all remember from 2008. The Media, of course, will act holy, all the while pouring blood in the water and encouraging a feeding frenzy that would make the Sharknado series look like afternoon tea at Buckingham Palace.
And the people that will laugh will be Koch brothers, as the most reliable suicide squad in world politics once again loads the circular firing squad, snatching defeat from the jaw of victory.
Jury deadlocked, mistrial declared in Charlotte police shooting case
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mistrial-in-police-shooting-case-in-charlotte/ar-BBlZaJY?ocid=spartandhpOK, this has LONG since gotten predictable, and it never should have been.
We have no way of knowing if the 8-4 was 8 wanting to convict, or four wanting to convict. We have no way of knowing if the ones who did not want to convict were earnest, or bigots.
But there is one thing we do know, in our courts, black live do not matter as much as white ones, and that is why, for all of their zany antics and flaws, I hope BLM makes the sort of big international stink needed to wake this nation out of it's moral coma.
to all the defenders of the confederacy
And yes, I include the liberal ones who give the standard "The civil war was about state rights, yadda yadda" or "it's heritage note hate, yadda yadda."People like this fellow are EXACTLY why the Confederacy HAD to lose. We may not think there are people who would caryy it on to 2015, or perhaps we like to tell ourselves that whatever version of the CSA that survived would be more gentle, subtle, perhaps even less bigoted. The fact is, slavery, especially of browns and blacks, but by NO means limited to them, is a part of our culture, that we have only beaten back with the sort of effort it takes a heroin addict to not have that one more relapse. There are plenty, and not just the designated class clowns like Ann Coulter, that would gladly and completely pull this country back to where the only amendments respected are the first and second, and the first only because it allows churches. Yes, there may have indeed been many CSA fighting to get rid of slavery, but there would also be people, backed by the rich (like all radio jocks are) that would always say "well what about because of this?" which, to revisit the heroin analogy, is that sad same voice many "recovered addicts" hear before they did that "just one more time"and then become fodder for silent DU threads in memory of..
By the way, please think of people like this the next time people wonder why the BLM people put politeness aside. It's bad enough that high-tech lynchings (aka homicide by cop) has become routine, just like school shootings in general have become routine, and a thousand other horrors are now routine, but progress is fragile at best, and illusion at worst, and people like this will always be ready to roll back progress in favor of some golden age that, to paraphrase Tariq Ali "thankfully never was."
as I have said
I do not care if our party names a ham sandwich as the nominee, because I truly know, not believe, know that a ham sandwich would do less damage than ANYONE from the GOP. This is NOT humor, but a hard fact proven by the events of the past 15 years. I will gladly chant "Go Team sandwich" come November.
That being said, I will reserve the right to criticize if Hillary runs well worn paths tro failure, the sort that sadly, our Democratic leadership has proven itself very good at, and yes, that include DWS. I will not let her run this into the rocks so that she can enjoy her long working relationships with Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio.
I was asked to post this here
I posted this reply to general discussion.
Skinner, now hear this
It's one thing to feed the trolls on DI who blatantly brag about attacking people on here, but it is another to allow the Jury system to be so abused that even the people that DU are supposed to provide a haven for have none. This hide was a blatant bit of abuse. To compare to another high profile event, this is not like a certain poster for New York City that admittedly tried to be too "cunning" to insult Hillary using the gender equivalent of the "n" word. Even people like me who are not too fond of Hillary could see "come on skipp, you did the crime, now you do the time." The only thing this guy did was say "I am not so and so."
Now, HOW is that some TOS violation? Are Black people not even allowed to say that are not someone else? Is the very identity subject to jury mobs? It would be one thing if we heard from Mirt that he was someone, because we know you can look under the hood and go "ok, it's him." But this was a jury mob. Are you saying that you do not have the power to look and at least see the true identity, or , are you simply wiling to let the lynch mobs have fun because you are scared of them? If the latter, than batten down the hatches, because this inch you are giving will soon become a mile, especially as the bigots on here have gotten very comfortable on the internet. What is worse is, in the short term, you may keep your books in balance, but just like PBS, whenever you allow the right wing to get a little bit of land, they start overgrowing everything like Kudzu.
If I may humbly add a few points to this, when folk like Seabeyond, 1strongblackman, bravenak get the hammer, there is so small amount of cheers, even outright grave dancing. However, I still remember the wailing and poetic odes when the said "cunning" poster got banned. You would think they shot JFK and his puppies. Heaven knows MLK's quotes have been used and abused, but there is still some truth to the line that "the silence of our friends" is loud. Yes, there are some people like me that have raised hell, but when I read someone try to whitesplain or mansplain to me that these people brought it on themselves, or worse, when some self described working class hero threatened to "straighten me out", it makes it very clear who the favorite children are. What is worse is that WE, those NOT the centre-right majority, have been the most loyal soldiers, we are not the ones that put up posts that say "you know, so and so libertarian has a point" which is often just their way of saying they can play coy on election day. Yet, because they have money, we seem to be counted as less valuable than them, perhaps only 3/5 ( historical reference put in to show a point.)
Well Skinner, if you want to chase the people who dangle birds in their hand rather than protect those of us in your tree, than we can play coy too. I am the sort of person that, poor as I am, would probably buy a star. However, this Jury system needs surgery, stat, even if it is some temp first aid measure to slow down the bleeding during the election. Until I see some of this, I will not feel good feeding the fire, especially when the main value of DU is to give a voice to the voiceless, instead of enabling and helping those who want to give them another beating for their jollies.
what adds salt to the wound is
There are people who post bigoted crap who get caught by MIRT (aka, they who can lift the hood of the machinery and see stuff we cannot) and yet, when they get caught, there is no shortage of paladins and shieldmaidens coming to praise them, defend them, and make damned sure they are greeted with Palms and Roses thrown at their feet when they come back, even if they are dressed in a sock puppet shroud.
Regardless of whether you agree with the AA posters, they way they are treated here is sickening. I am going to use strong language here, but if fits like a tailor made suit.
There were place where AA's had some haven, but there could also be people, be they vigilantes, slumming brats, and just all around creeps can go there, knowing they could act like they ran the place, mistreat any of the local;s, and then ride off to their areas, which were often "sundown" towns, as in place where if an AA went to, they could end up jailed or killed. Call it Jim Crow, call it apartheid.
Call it DU, because we have made the AA forum a place where AA's know they are not only second class citizens, but there has been relishing of it, whitewashing, white tears. Seriously, do you think the Hillary and Bernie forums would not unleash banhammers? Hell, do anything remotely critical, anything that resembles the same venom some show on a daily basis, and you get banned. The AA's trying to engage with the rest, get yelled at, hidestalked, banned.
You do not have to agree with BLM to note that this is not the way to treat one of the democrat's last true bastions. Granted, it's not like they would vote for a Dr. Ben Carson of Condi Rice out of spite; no, that sort of spite to cut off you nose despite you face is , yes, another bastion of White and CLASS Privilege, as most of your people who say "I will just write in whoever I want on Election Day" know that they will survive the GOP admin they help put in better than most of the black and brown people will. However, after helping put in both Clinton and Obama, keeping a John McCain and a Mitt Romney from getting their hands on THAT button, we could at least show some damned courtesy, or at least stop using that privilege to harass them into hiding.
Thank you for posting this
Because it makes Miss Johnson seem a lot more human. Like every human we can be heroes or fools depending on the moment, or sometimes at the same time.
As much as I like Sanders, the way his supporters acted on that tape was sickening and demands condemnation, full. stop. Sadly, as someone who was worked with Public Radio, I saw this is action when a bunch of "folkies" (who represented the wealthy baby boomer dynamic) put a "folkies only" sign on the door of the very small break area. Of course, these folks never needed to consider the night shift, who, you can guess was Latino and Afro-American. When people raised hell, there was a perfect example of the "fragility" described here. Granted, one of the Boomers did not like that, as he was a carpenter that responded by rehabbing the kitchen so that people could finally fit in there comfortably.
Now the standard narrative would say that the stupidity of the folkies would have been cancelled out by the heroism of the carpenter that decided to put literal blood, sweat and gold info fixing the problem. The problem is, it is not enough to admire individual heroism, as needed as it indeed is, because flawed group dynamics can undo even the best individual acts. Like it or not, not only are we a "we", but just as much as me focus on our own individual lives, we have to work at whatever "we" we want to be.
Now keep in mind, this is coming from an Asberger's sufferer whose body will literally wig out if they touch me the wrong way or keep insisting I make eye contact. I always have trouble connecting to the we's of this world, because I am a literal autist that can suffer while a bunch of people stare at me and say "why aren't you having fun?" Yet, I realize, I need my we's, as a democrat, as a Latino, as a Floridan, all the we's are also a part of what ->I<- am. The fragility of feelings is that the people yelling at Miss Johnson not only did not think of her as part of their we, but were so poor at dealing with movements they panicked instead of realizing that clashes are a part of it. Simply put, how the hell do you think you are going to make your man president if you wig out because a 24 year old college student rushes the stage?
No, black people, indeed, minorities in general, but especially black people, who are at the anvil end of America's hammer, do not need to appeal to the feelings of the majority. They can, and perhaps can learn to, but unfortunately, Our fine Anglo-Saxon culture interprets politeness as "something the weak do until they can sneak up on us", so people do not need to draw their weapon, they need to show that yes, they can shoot. MLK was great, but he needed Malcolm X to remind people that yes, if you want to bring guns to a fight, we will not bring knives.
However, this is where I do have to offer Marissa a critique, why is why I mentioned Malcolm X, someone who just as he was becoming Malik Shabazz, got killed, in part because Louis Farrakhan stoked the flames. Yes, people will try to accuse you of being a plant, but just because you know what you are does not mean there are no snakes. When you said "what we do against Sanders will pur pressure on Hillary", well I see why Common sense would say that, but this is ;oltics. Hillary, like it or not, just got a badly needed pressure release, so she can go back to the companies that build those prisons you slammed, and asked for a donation. If you are serious, you will need to put PRESSURE on HILLARY.
I offer some suggestions you can take or leave, of course. Now that you have the mic, you could ask her to meet you. I am sure that will give Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Ariana Huffington a heart attack, but frankly, if they cannot take the pressure, then Hillary needs to throw them out of her kitchen. Go ahead and say "If you do not want to end up like Bernie, there are people that will embarrass you despite security." Hell, if she refuses, demand to be on the new Daily show, somehwere where many of the same people who yelled at you will go "y'know, this african kid, I dunno what I dunno like about im, but he aint no jon Stewart." What? simply put, it will make the establishment panic.
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Member since: Thu Apr 17, 2008, 05:51 PMNumber of posts: 13,616