As Nikki Haley well knows — the Confederacy rose up not simply to preserve slavery and the Southern oligarchy, but to extend that oligarchy to the rest of the United States…
I roll my eyes reading mainstream media reports that Haley will lose moderate Democrat support in the primaries unless she mentions slavery. As if moderate Democrats would support her other policies such as dismantling social security, environmental protection, progressive taxes, and voting rights. She's an oligarch in oligarch's clothing.
This is the kind of thing I, as a proud descendant of Southern 'scalawags', have been saying for decades! Such as the fact that it was NO accident that NO Southern state had ANY public education for anyone of ANY shade of skin until Reconstruction! Today's oligarchs are political descendants of that same Slave Power!
Someone else has observed, I forget who, that the same man invented a machine (the cotton gin) that made a civil war certain, also invented interchangeable parts--which ensured the North, and the forces of freedom, would win that civil war. History is full of such remarkable coincidences.
Plato said that "the beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms." For instance, a firearm is defined as any device that expels a projectile through explosion or combustion. While all guns (sans toys) are firearms, not all firearms are guns. Bombs are firearms as are grenades, etc.
Ergo, when the pigmented Klanswoman known as Nikki Haley utilizes rhetorical ingratiation by hollering "as a woman of color" she does so as a political pimp knowing that the public are linguistically challenged, ignorant political whores. She is not the only person guilty of this type pandering. The whole "people of color" moniker is linguistic and societal subterfuge. Because, like the aforementioned firearm definition, all Black People in the United States are so-called "people of color" but all so-called "people of color" ain't Black.
When I was a young boy visiting my grandparents each summer in Kansas, my grandmother and relatives referred to "that little colored boy" or "that little colored gal". Back home, in Los Angeles, we were "Black." Now, the same society that says "people of color" would not dare call a Black Person in the United States "colored." Yet, if I am a "person of color" aren't I, by definition, "colored?" The linguistic contortions that this society goes through trying to say "nigger" would be amusing were it not so goddamned insulting to the intelligence.
I was going to agree with you, but after reading your response to Boris. I realized that you really do harbor hatred for white America, Biden and Democracy.
What is it you really desire Rohn?
Do you really think that you and black Americans will get a better deal from the neo fascist racist who parade under the Republican label, and their fountain head the wannabe dictator for life Trump.
Or is it that you want to pull the whole thing down with a race war like Timothy Veigh and his ilk?
What is that you want Rohn? We know your anger, we know how you feel, but damn we don't know what you want, nor have you considered the unintended consequence of your crusade against Biden, the same with your friend Boris?
And by "what do you want" I mean specifically not some euphemism like peace and understanding, or equal rights.
You have a blueprint in mind, for an outcome what is it Rohn.?
Couple of IMO unfair speculations. It is strange that you can imagine Kenyatta stooping to cheap euphemisms. Fundamentally non-responsive to his paean to saying what is really meant. As for his responses to "Boris:" (how are we doing saying who we really mean!?) I challenge you back: what is your vision about how the horror show in ("the Levant?") should turn out, if Farrar was the boss of things?
There is no solution, at least an acceptable one to Muslims or Jews as regards Israel/Palestine.
Religion is the problem, And there are no solutions to problems caused by religion, just as there is no solution to the problems caused by Evangelicals.
The solution to the excesses and power of the cult of Rome was protestantism, and what was the result of that, the 100 years war, Henry VIII, the subsequent persecution and death of both Anglicans and Catholics. Until in the latter end of the 18th Century there was a detente Made possible because the two are compatible, in many regards, the difference between ritual, and figure head.
Not so with Jews and Muslims, especially when Islamic ideology and HAMAS call for the genocide of Jews. and Jewish ideology seeks a home of their own, where they ae safe from pogroms, persecutions and genocide.
A one state solution, will mean the end of a Jewish state, as Arabs reproduce like Rabbits, and Jews don't, And Arabs outnumber Jews to start with
A two state solution, well there is the example of HAMAS and Fatah, in essence there is already two states. The Jews are already surrounded on three sides (the fourth being the sea, by a religious enemy that seeks only their obliteration, and always will be, even if the Palestinians disappear.
The Arab states don't want the Palestinian Arabs, Jordan doesn't want them, Saudi Arabia does't want them, Egypt doesn't want them, Lebanon doesn't want any more, Syria doesn't want them.
I see no solution, as long as the leadership of the Jewish state, HAMAS and Fatah maintain their present ideology and posture. This shit has been going on since 1948, when the Arab neighbors of the new state of Israel, sought to obliterate the Jews
It wasn't the Jews that attacked the Arabs, it was the Arabs that attacked the Jews and tried to drive them off, land which they had bought from Arabs.
As for Kenyatta, I tire of his bigoted rants. He is sore pissed about the social injustices done his race. And I don't blame him, but he too has no solution, except the destruction of democracy, the same with "Boris", he takes every opportunity to defame Biden,and democracy, both he and Rohn complain about genocide, yet are totally numb to the genocide inflicted on Ukraine by Putin, and the two play back up for each other.
As if they are trying to spread an anti democratic and anti Democrat meme, and if successful, the result will be a Trumpian dictatorship for life. and guess who Trumps BFFs are? Putin and Kim Jong Un.
It would help MMerose if you used your critical reasoning skills, and thought the whole thing through to consequences, and not react based on misguided emotions.
And I aplogize for any insult you perceive, as I do happen to like you, and most of the time agree.
I am me,and I see through charades, false fronts, bigotry and misplaced anger.
Most arguments arise from a persons perception of history, facts and ideology.
George Santyana said it, basically he who controls history, controls the present and the future.
And there is the rub. The Abrahamic religions have commodicized victim hood and martrydom, and deftly use them to dominate the political environment, thus gain an advantage in propaganda, and the purpose of propaganda is victory and consequently control of society, nations, and ultimately the world.
That is ultimately what is at the core of these rants, arguments, battles and wars.
I will have none of it, and see, or try, to see through all of it, like drawing aside the curtain or veil.
For me their are no sacred cows. I see the flaws,scars,pimples and feces on everyone's face.
The source of all social disorder refines down to power, dominance, control by one person or group over the all, the other.
Take yer pick! Where'd you get that one? Hercule Poirot? I was just getting interested in the say what you mean theme, and you go all metaphorical on me! Here's to many great conversations! Happy New Year!
Laughing out loud really loudly. And, the best to you as we enter the next year. It will be the most significant in modern history for many, many reasons.
When I was brought up, (white kid) I was taught that the world "Negro" was respectful. "Colored" was also considered valid but for some reason I never liked it that much and didn't use it. I definitely didn't use the "big N."
But I also remember Black Power, and Stokely Carmichael (later, Kwame Ture) and my friend in the Air Force Bobby Adams, my philosophical guru at the time, who introduced me to Carmichael's speeches. It was Bobby who said he no longer wanted to be called "Negro" but wanted to be called "Black" (which is just mispronounced Spanish for "black" - pronounced as NAY-grrrow). That was 1969 or 1970.
Then a few years later "Colored" apparently had baggage and formerly "Colored" people wanted to be called "People of Color." Okay, I thought, even though I thought POC was a rather unfortunate acronym (pock?). And "of Color," as a prepositional phrase amounts to a little blip or detour when talking.
But I can remember when this occurred and it sure as heck was not a white people insult. Black people insisted on this.
Yes, as far as linguistic distortions, there are tons of them. Just look at "queer" - meaning odd, to being the "n" word for gays, to returning as the proud word for gays (head spinning because I still remember how much hurt that produced for friends I knew years ago).
It's too late at night for me to figure out exactly what "tub" stands for, but sure worked as the last word on the subject for me. Clear winner. BadaBoom. ps isn't "Language is always changing" consanguineous with "All lives matter?"
As for the statement it, essentially, is a variation on " 'tis better to remain silent and be thought an idiot, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." Thusly, the comment referenced spoke for itself and its progenitor. There was nothing I could add.
To: Michael Strong. This discussion has stuck with me. I want to respond seriously and respectfully. I am 70, and can certainly relate to your frustration/confusion over time. I get that you have been trying to say the right thing. The thing is, you are not the victim, and Kenyatta's opening salvo about the importance of labels and, heck, maybe folks who think of somebody as a nigger ought to just go ahead! IMO, is brilliant. "Linguistic distortions" are evidence of attempts to modify culture, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Here's a truism: humans are fallible. Beyond the truism, that "language is always changing" is the farthest thing from rendering those changes trivial. That Trump has called certain people "vermin" is hardly trivial. But I nominate as the most insidious and spurious euphemism of my lifetime the label "pro-life." The world is currently learning that, at one level, "pro-life" means the claimant is perfectly comfortable with any given pregnant woman dying. But thanks to my Mom, a master-degreed college teacher of young women, I am now going to tell you what "pro-life" really, truly means. It means "sluts deserve to die."
When WWII ended, allied troops moved through Germany and destroyed every remnant of the symbol of Nazi fascism--the swastica. It became illegal to possess one in any form, and is still illegal in Germany and other European nations today. Such a trenchant understanding of the power of a single symbol proved crucial in helping kill all that is encased in that fascist symbol. Psychologists confirm the psychological potency of symbols--think of what conclusive, comprehensive effect on the psyche the cross has to it's religion, the dollar sign, scull and bones ,etc. One symbol can represent the totality of a movement, and it's UNIFYING effect is unmatched by books of explanation. Possibly the largest mistake America made after the Civil War was not to completely erase its fascist symbol--the "dixie flag." It allowed connection to it's philosophy, thus denying its destruction, and a link, a thread to connect all its confederate members, thus denying its needed surmise. Used by KKK and other white nationalist groups since and today as a tool for TERRORIST threat, it warns the majority of the South against disloyalty. More crosses were burned in front yards of whites than blacks, keeping whites duly warned. Note that the burning cross is an adjunct to the Dixie flag which continues today. Many Southerners today march in cadence out of fear, much like today's republicans afraid of a minority of fascist thugism. I was born and reared in Wyoming. Back as a child, I was surrounded by rednecks. But there were no dixie flags. The redneck there, boisterous, happy-go-lucky, friendly was a different hombre from the seething, quietly calculating hateful cause-burdened redneck of the South. Today, the hate has melded into growing tumors, spreading, infecting the whole country.
Their motivation was evil then as it is evil now .
Our job is to oppose their evil agenda so that it becomes clear that we will not allow or stand for the wealthiest to take us hostage as they wish .
They want to decree and elevate their religious agenda, their financial agenda their racial agenda and suppress any needs , but their own , for money and power.
The need to generate progressive tv & radio owners and programs continues to be the most needed part of movement politics. Like radio deejays they help the people know where the good stuff is.
...old times there are not forgotten....extend that oligarchy to the rest of us.
Florida, similarly was a slave state, and our state flag is a reminder.
In the north, "Copperheads" may not actually been slaveholders, but supported the Confederacy. Yesterday we addressed education and segregation. The Nixon administration's Southern Strategy split the old time FDR coalition by using busing and I was involved in litigation that caused racial strife and "white flight". We didn't have many Blacks, but we were forced to close a school in a diverse neighborhood to disperse them. We didn't have a history of slavery or racism, but today ethnics that used to be reliably Democratic are 100% racist.
May not be the plantation that is missed, but oligarchs in steel and mining used Blacks as strikebreakers.
DeSantis and the Florida legislature. promoted bills designed to emasculate and diminish and humiliate Blacks and yet they failed to show up to vote for a Black candidate.
By the thousands. The Republicans also cut hundreds if not thousands from the voter rolls indiscriminately last year. I report it to the DNC, to the state's attorney, put it out on Facebook, etc. Crickets. Last time, Blacks did not show up to vote although Val Demings was on the ballot. We have 3 Republican MAGAT members of Congress representing majority Democratic districts.
I just waited about a half hour for a Zoom with the DNC over Florida that never came to pass. They obviously are disorganized. I send emails, etc. More crickets.
Because the voters of Florida voted strongly to restore voting rights to felons who had SERVED THEIR TIME, even completing probation, the creeps had to reach deep into their evil creativity to disenfranchise for unpaid court fees, fines or restitution. It was calculated voter suppression/intimidation, but also propaganda footage to feed "the base," who salivated over seeing black "criminals" handcuffed. Some of these people had been expressly informed by vote officials that they were eligible to vote. Just horrible.
Who Haley was catering to with that response was obvious. Republicans equate addressing racism and acknowledging slavery to hating the country. That being said, Biden has arguably done as much or more damage to the black community than Republicans during his tenure in office, what with his Crime Bill of 1994 and his support of The Hyde Amendment for decades (to name a couple). In addition, while Haley's response is as perverse as it is predictable, I am far less concerned with rhetoric as I am with Biden's grotesquely xenophobic dismissal of Palestinian casualties and his aiding and abetting the genocide in Palestine. This is the worst of racism in real time, a damning statement on the state of our politics and how relativism has extinguished our moral integrity.
Your ignorance is palpable. Unlike you and all tRumpers, real President Biden has evolved as he has learned and become more educated.
You’re so busy whining over things that happened 30 years ago that you can’t see the current vermin staring you right in the face.
Biden is personally opposed to abortion but clearly supports women being able to make their own choices regarding their own bodies, unlike you fascists and your Chinese buds.
Biden was not president when the 1994 crime bill was passed, nor was he president when the Hyde Amendment was crammed down our throats.
The fact that you are too illiterate to capitalize “Black” could easily lead a thinking person to surmise that you are either tRump vermin, a Russian bot-or both. #Sad
Genocide in Palestine? Let's talk of the real intention of Genocide.
HAMAS. From their charter, the Preamble: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory)." Now that is genocide, so is "Free Palestine from the River to the Sea"
Not to mention Islamic intentions from para 7 of the HAMAS Covenant: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem)."
That is not only HAMAS but sacred Islamic text and intention.
There is nothing comparable in Israel or among the Jews.
So what do you want the Jews to do? Commit suicide, migrate en masse to Russia, America, Europe?
No Boris the HAMAS Israeli conflict is just a tool for you to use in your Putinesqe performance.
I know that you really don't care about the "poor innocents" or anything else, except degrading America for Putin's benefit.
Do NOt be intimidated, keep telling the truth for the most dangerous and deadly war that the warmongering "nation" known as the United States has engaged in is the war on critical thought. Refuse to be a casualty.
Nikki Nikki Nikki---Well that exchange was fascinating. I had hoped she was a little smarter than that. I'm always rooting for the women's team to elevate the conversation. It prompted me to read a Forbes article about how she made her money. It's been all about expensive houses, businesses, lectures, and books. There is the element of using your government experience not to make the actual money, but to sell their image. She could explain exactly how the Clintons, Obamas, and Bidens got rich. Add in an accounting degree, and maybe you have a person who thinks about money first. The freedom to make money, she gets that part!
We should not have anyone in office that doesn't understand the Civil War, Jim Crow, and the slavery this country was built on. It's about stolen lives and futures. We have to own our history in order to do the right thing now. Thanks for the history lessons, Thom.
I hope someone offers Nikki a big glass of lead-contaminated water to clear her throat before proving she is both a racist and an anti-environmental candidate.
I roll my eyes reading mainstream media reports that Haley will lose moderate Democrat support in the primaries unless she mentions slavery. As if moderate Democrats would support her other policies such as dismantling social security, environmental protection, progressive taxes, and voting rights. She's an oligarch in oligarch's clothing.
Right.
But these are Republicans. Issues mean nothing. All she needs to do to win the primary is campaign with a puppy and remind voters Trump hates dogs.
Headline: "Puppy Bites Candidate!" Oh, lordy, you have something there: "This is what distinguishes me from Trump!"
This is the kind of thing I, as a proud descendant of Southern 'scalawags', have been saying for decades! Such as the fact that it was NO accident that NO Southern state had ANY public education for anyone of ANY shade of skin until Reconstruction! Today's oligarchs are political descendants of that same Slave Power!
Someone else has observed, I forget who, that the same man invented a machine (the cotton gin) that made a civil war certain, also invented interchangeable parts--which ensured the North, and the forces of freedom, would win that civil war. History is full of such remarkable coincidences.
Plato said that "the beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms." For instance, a firearm is defined as any device that expels a projectile through explosion or combustion. While all guns (sans toys) are firearms, not all firearms are guns. Bombs are firearms as are grenades, etc.
Ergo, when the pigmented Klanswoman known as Nikki Haley utilizes rhetorical ingratiation by hollering "as a woman of color" she does so as a political pimp knowing that the public are linguistically challenged, ignorant political whores. She is not the only person guilty of this type pandering. The whole "people of color" moniker is linguistic and societal subterfuge. Because, like the aforementioned firearm definition, all Black People in the United States are so-called "people of color" but all so-called "people of color" ain't Black.
When I was a young boy visiting my grandparents each summer in Kansas, my grandmother and relatives referred to "that little colored boy" or "that little colored gal". Back home, in Los Angeles, we were "Black." Now, the same society that says "people of color" would not dare call a Black Person in the United States "colored." Yet, if I am a "person of color" aren't I, by definition, "colored?" The linguistic contortions that this society goes through trying to say "nigger" would be amusing were it not so goddamned insulting to the intelligence.
There you have it.
I was going to agree with you, but after reading your response to Boris. I realized that you really do harbor hatred for white America, Biden and Democracy.
What is it you really desire Rohn?
Do you really think that you and black Americans will get a better deal from the neo fascist racist who parade under the Republican label, and their fountain head the wannabe dictator for life Trump.
Or is it that you want to pull the whole thing down with a race war like Timothy Veigh and his ilk?
What is that you want Rohn? We know your anger, we know how you feel, but damn we don't know what you want, nor have you considered the unintended consequence of your crusade against Biden, the same with your friend Boris?
And by "what do you want" I mean specifically not some euphemism like peace and understanding, or equal rights.
You have a blueprint in mind, for an outcome what is it Rohn.?
Couple of IMO unfair speculations. It is strange that you can imagine Kenyatta stooping to cheap euphemisms. Fundamentally non-responsive to his paean to saying what is really meant. As for his responses to "Boris:" (how are we doing saying who we really mean!?) I challenge you back: what is your vision about how the horror show in ("the Levant?") should turn out, if Farrar was the boss of things?
There is no solution, at least an acceptable one to Muslims or Jews as regards Israel/Palestine.
Religion is the problem, And there are no solutions to problems caused by religion, just as there is no solution to the problems caused by Evangelicals.
The solution to the excesses and power of the cult of Rome was protestantism, and what was the result of that, the 100 years war, Henry VIII, the subsequent persecution and death of both Anglicans and Catholics. Until in the latter end of the 18th Century there was a detente Made possible because the two are compatible, in many regards, the difference between ritual, and figure head.
Not so with Jews and Muslims, especially when Islamic ideology and HAMAS call for the genocide of Jews. and Jewish ideology seeks a home of their own, where they ae safe from pogroms, persecutions and genocide.
A one state solution, will mean the end of a Jewish state, as Arabs reproduce like Rabbits, and Jews don't, And Arabs outnumber Jews to start with
A two state solution, well there is the example of HAMAS and Fatah, in essence there is already two states. The Jews are already surrounded on three sides (the fourth being the sea, by a religious enemy that seeks only their obliteration, and always will be, even if the Palestinians disappear.
The Arab states don't want the Palestinian Arabs, Jordan doesn't want them, Saudi Arabia does't want them, Egypt doesn't want them, Lebanon doesn't want any more, Syria doesn't want them.
I see no solution, as long as the leadership of the Jewish state, HAMAS and Fatah maintain their present ideology and posture. This shit has been going on since 1948, when the Arab neighbors of the new state of Israel, sought to obliterate the Jews
It wasn't the Jews that attacked the Arabs, it was the Arabs that attacked the Jews and tried to drive them off, land which they had bought from Arabs.
As for Kenyatta, I tire of his bigoted rants. He is sore pissed about the social injustices done his race. And I don't blame him, but he too has no solution, except the destruction of democracy, the same with "Boris", he takes every opportunity to defame Biden,and democracy, both he and Rohn complain about genocide, yet are totally numb to the genocide inflicted on Ukraine by Putin, and the two play back up for each other.
As if they are trying to spread an anti democratic and anti Democrat meme, and if successful, the result will be a Trumpian dictatorship for life. and guess who Trumps BFFs are? Putin and Kim Jong Un.
It would help MMerose if you used your critical reasoning skills, and thought the whole thing through to consequences, and not react based on misguided emotions.
And I aplogize for any insult you perceive, as I do happen to like you, and most of the time agree.
I am me,and I see through charades, false fronts, bigotry and misplaced anger.
Most arguments arise from a persons perception of history, facts and ideology.
George Santyana said it, basically he who controls history, controls the present and the future.
And there is the rub. The Abrahamic religions have commodicized victim hood and martrydom, and deftly use them to dominate the political environment, thus gain an advantage in propaganda, and the purpose of propaganda is victory and consequently control of society, nations, and ultimately the world.
That is ultimately what is at the core of these rants, arguments, battles and wars.
I will have none of it, and see, or try, to see through all of it, like drawing aside the curtain or veil.
For me their are no sacred cows. I see the flaws,scars,pimples and feces on everyone's face.
The source of all social disorder refines down to power, dominance, control by one person or group over the all, the other.
Social disorder includes war, death, destruction.
"If you enjoy the fragrance of a rose, you must accept the thorns which it bears."
A word to the wise; or the profoundly stupid.
Take yer pick! Where'd you get that one? Hercule Poirot? I was just getting interested in the say what you mean theme, and you go all metaphorical on me! Here's to many great conversations! Happy New Year!
Touche'!
Laughing out loud really loudly. And, the best to you as we enter the next year. It will be the most significant in modern history for many, many reasons.
Oh fer Pete's Sake.
How could you get this so reversed?
When I was brought up, (white kid) I was taught that the world "Negro" was respectful. "Colored" was also considered valid but for some reason I never liked it that much and didn't use it. I definitely didn't use the "big N."
But I also remember Black Power, and Stokely Carmichael (later, Kwame Ture) and my friend in the Air Force Bobby Adams, my philosophical guru at the time, who introduced me to Carmichael's speeches. It was Bobby who said he no longer wanted to be called "Negro" but wanted to be called "Black" (which is just mispronounced Spanish for "black" - pronounced as NAY-grrrow). That was 1969 or 1970.
Then a few years later "Colored" apparently had baggage and formerly "Colored" people wanted to be called "People of Color." Okay, I thought, even though I thought POC was a rather unfortunate acronym (pock?). And "of Color," as a prepositional phrase amounts to a little blip or detour when talking.
But I can remember when this occurred and it sure as heck was not a white people insult. Black people insisted on this.
Yes, as far as linguistic distortions, there are tons of them. Just look at "queer" - meaning odd, to being the "n" word for gays, to returning as the proud word for gays (head spinning because I still remember how much hurt that produced for friends I knew years ago).
Language is always changing.
I shall let that tub stand on its own.
It's too late at night for me to figure out exactly what "tub" stands for, but sure worked as the last word on the subject for me. Clear winner. BadaBoom. ps isn't "Language is always changing" consanguineous with "All lives matter?"
Sublime mate, sublime.
As for the statement it, essentially, is a variation on " 'tis better to remain silent and be thought an idiot, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." Thusly, the comment referenced spoke for itself and its progenitor. There was nothing I could add.
Please re-check the thread. Jeese, I need to see what's on "LookingNWords," don't I!
Are you encountering problems with the site?
To: Michael Strong. This discussion has stuck with me. I want to respond seriously and respectfully. I am 70, and can certainly relate to your frustration/confusion over time. I get that you have been trying to say the right thing. The thing is, you are not the victim, and Kenyatta's opening salvo about the importance of labels and, heck, maybe folks who think of somebody as a nigger ought to just go ahead! IMO, is brilliant. "Linguistic distortions" are evidence of attempts to modify culture, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Here's a truism: humans are fallible. Beyond the truism, that "language is always changing" is the farthest thing from rendering those changes trivial. That Trump has called certain people "vermin" is hardly trivial. But I nominate as the most insidious and spurious euphemism of my lifetime the label "pro-life." The world is currently learning that, at one level, "pro-life" means the claimant is perfectly comfortable with any given pregnant woman dying. But thanks to my Mom, a master-degreed college teacher of young women, I am now going to tell you what "pro-life" really, truly means. It means "sluts deserve to die."
When WWII ended, allied troops moved through Germany and destroyed every remnant of the symbol of Nazi fascism--the swastica. It became illegal to possess one in any form, and is still illegal in Germany and other European nations today. Such a trenchant understanding of the power of a single symbol proved crucial in helping kill all that is encased in that fascist symbol. Psychologists confirm the psychological potency of symbols--think of what conclusive, comprehensive effect on the psyche the cross has to it's religion, the dollar sign, scull and bones ,etc. One symbol can represent the totality of a movement, and it's UNIFYING effect is unmatched by books of explanation. Possibly the largest mistake America made after the Civil War was not to completely erase its fascist symbol--the "dixie flag." It allowed connection to it's philosophy, thus denying its destruction, and a link, a thread to connect all its confederate members, thus denying its needed surmise. Used by KKK and other white nationalist groups since and today as a tool for TERRORIST threat, it warns the majority of the South against disloyalty. More crosses were burned in front yards of whites than blacks, keeping whites duly warned. Note that the burning cross is an adjunct to the Dixie flag which continues today. Many Southerners today march in cadence out of fear, much like today's republicans afraid of a minority of fascist thugism. I was born and reared in Wyoming. Back as a child, I was surrounded by rednecks. But there were no dixie flags. The redneck there, boisterous, happy-go-lucky, friendly was a different hombre from the seething, quietly calculating hateful cause-burdened redneck of the South. Today, the hate has melded into growing tumors, spreading, infecting the whole country.
Their motivation was evil then as it is evil now .
Our job is to oppose their evil agenda so that it becomes clear that we will not allow or stand for the wealthiest to take us hostage as they wish .
They want to decree and elevate their religious agenda, their financial agenda their racial agenda and suppress any needs , but their own , for money and power.
The need to generate progressive tv & radio owners and programs continues to be the most needed part of movement politics. Like radio deejays they help the people know where the good stuff is.
...old times there are not forgotten....extend that oligarchy to the rest of us.
Florida, similarly was a slave state, and our state flag is a reminder.
In the north, "Copperheads" may not actually been slaveholders, but supported the Confederacy. Yesterday we addressed education and segregation. The Nixon administration's Southern Strategy split the old time FDR coalition by using busing and I was involved in litigation that caused racial strife and "white flight". We didn't have many Blacks, but we were forced to close a school in a diverse neighborhood to disperse them. We didn't have a history of slavery or racism, but today ethnics that used to be reliably Democratic are 100% racist.
May not be the plantation that is missed, but oligarchs in steel and mining used Blacks as strikebreakers.
I previously reported how BLM lost the 2022 election in Florida. They picked the wrong team to support. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/black-lives-matter-faces-backlash-statement-cuba-protest-rcna1438
DeSantis and the Florida legislature. promoted bills designed to emasculate and diminish and humiliate Blacks and yet they failed to show up to vote for a Black candidate.
I saw Florida police on the news arrest a black man for voting. They claimed he was ineligible because he hadn't paid a fine from years earlier.
By the thousands. The Republicans also cut hundreds if not thousands from the voter rolls indiscriminately last year. I report it to the DNC, to the state's attorney, put it out on Facebook, etc. Crickets. Last time, Blacks did not show up to vote although Val Demings was on the ballot. We have 3 Republican MAGAT members of Congress representing majority Democratic districts.
I just waited about a half hour for a Zoom with the DNC over Florida that never came to pass. They obviously are disorganized. I send emails, etc. More crickets.
Thanks for the "shout-out" to Val Demings. Scary, if she wasn't "good enough," what does it take?
Because the voters of Florida voted strongly to restore voting rights to felons who had SERVED THEIR TIME, even completing probation, the creeps had to reach deep into their evil creativity to disenfranchise for unpaid court fees, fines or restitution. It was calculated voter suppression/intimidation, but also propaganda footage to feed "the base," who salivated over seeing black "criminals" handcuffed. Some of these people had been expressly informed by vote officials that they were eligible to vote. Just horrible.
What, they have given up on the State's Rights argument? Haven't heard that one in a long time, but it was a staple of my youth.
That's her argument. A/k/ "lost cause."
Who Haley was catering to with that response was obvious. Republicans equate addressing racism and acknowledging slavery to hating the country. That being said, Biden has arguably done as much or more damage to the black community than Republicans during his tenure in office, what with his Crime Bill of 1994 and his support of The Hyde Amendment for decades (to name a couple). In addition, while Haley's response is as perverse as it is predictable, I am far less concerned with rhetoric as I am with Biden's grotesquely xenophobic dismissal of Palestinian casualties and his aiding and abetting the genocide in Palestine. This is the worst of racism in real time, a damning statement on the state of our politics and how relativism has extinguished our moral integrity.
Your ignorance is palpable. Unlike you and all tRumpers, real President Biden has evolved as he has learned and become more educated.
You’re so busy whining over things that happened 30 years ago that you can’t see the current vermin staring you right in the face.
Biden is personally opposed to abortion but clearly supports women being able to make their own choices regarding their own bodies, unlike you fascists and your Chinese buds.
Biden was not president when the 1994 crime bill was passed, nor was he president when the Hyde Amendment was crammed down our throats.
The fact that you are too illiterate to capitalize “Black” could easily lead a thinking person to surmise that you are either tRump vermin, a Russian bot-or both. #Sad
Genocide in Palestine? Let's talk of the real intention of Genocide.
HAMAS. From their charter, the Preamble: "Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it" (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory)." Now that is genocide, so is "Free Palestine from the River to the Sea"
Not to mention Islamic intentions from para 7 of the HAMAS Covenant: "The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem)."
That is not only HAMAS but sacred Islamic text and intention.
There is nothing comparable in Israel or among the Jews.
So what do you want the Jews to do? Commit suicide, migrate en masse to Russia, America, Europe?
No Boris the HAMAS Israeli conflict is just a tool for you to use in your Putinesqe performance.
I know that you really don't care about the "poor innocents" or anything else, except degrading America for Putin's benefit.
Truer words, never spoken.
Two plus two is not twenty two. 2 choices Democracy (and civil rights) or Fascism (and slavery)?
Do NOT VOTE!
Thank you it is encouraging to find kindred spirits who do not place Trumpaphobia and McCarthyism above humanity.
Do NOt be intimidated, keep telling the truth for the most dangerous and deadly war that the warmongering "nation" known as the United States has engaged in is the war on critical thought. Refuse to be a casualty.
Kaufman supports Putin. Hamas...would kill him for his genealogy without asking any questions.
OK Boris What is it you really want? Get to the nitty gritty. Tell us what is your real agenda. What is your vision of the world order?
Nikki Nikki Nikki---Well that exchange was fascinating. I had hoped she was a little smarter than that. I'm always rooting for the women's team to elevate the conversation. It prompted me to read a Forbes article about how she made her money. It's been all about expensive houses, businesses, lectures, and books. There is the element of using your government experience not to make the actual money, but to sell their image. She could explain exactly how the Clintons, Obamas, and Bidens got rich. Add in an accounting degree, and maybe you have a person who thinks about money first. The freedom to make money, she gets that part!
We should not have anyone in office that doesn't understand the Civil War, Jim Crow, and the slavery this country was built on. It's about stolen lives and futures. We have to own our history in order to do the right thing now. Thanks for the history lessons, Thom.
I hope someone offers Nikki a big glass of lead-contaminated water to clear her throat before proving she is both a racist and an anti-environmental candidate.
We must stop them.