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Troy
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 170
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, November 15, 2004 - 10:34 pm: | 
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Why are we (black people, in the major, north eastern, midwestern and west coast urban centers) such strong Kerry supporters?
- Is it that we hate Bush so much
- Is it that we lover Kerry so much
- Are we just against the conservative policies
- Are we against Chenny-Powell-Rice trinity
Why do we think either of these two fantasically weathy and powerful men are the start and finish of all of our social ills. Why do we give these cats so much power over our lives?
I remember when Reagan elected and people felt he was the Anti-Christ -- literally. People lost sleep, comitted suicide and believed Armageddon was upon us (I'm not exaggerating). I also recall the joy expressed by Black people when William Jefferson was elected. People danced in the streets (seriously). Black folks even went as far as to claim Bill was out first Black president. It was sad the assoication to blackness came after he got blown in the oval office and revealed his talent for the sax.
What was the deal with this "Vote or Die" campaign what was that all about? Why does everything have to be so danm extreme? Whatever happened to learn about the issues and the candidates postions then cast and informed vote.
When Hillary or Obama is in the white house, Black people are going to be in for a rude awakening when they discover that the president/goverment can not solve your problems -- we still have far to much freedom for this to be the for it too be otherwise.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 1816
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 12:00 am: |
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Well, Troy I'll repeat my mantra about people settling for simplistic solutions for complex problems. To black people, Bush's enemy was their friend. They didn't like Bush because they thought he was going to undo black progress and spend money on the war that was needed for domestic problems, so they settled on Kerry. True, this mind-set played itself out in greater numbers among urban blacks in the north who are more cynical than God-fearing southern ones. Apparently, the average voter doesn't need a complicated rationale to determine who he'll vote for.
As for P Diddy and his silliness, the entertainment industry is one that thrives on hype and sound bytes. Give the in-crowd a popular cause and they'll be foolish enough to think that they can jump on the band wagon and influence the votes of others. Michael Moore is another one. It never occurred to him that Farenheit/911 would turn off the blind patriots who make up the majority of this country. As these flag-wavers used to say in the 60s: "My country, right or wrong, my country." And of course we protesters had to add what I cited in a previous post: "my country right or wrong; if right to be kept right, if wrong to be put right." |
Kola_boof
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Kola_boof
Post Number: 510
Registered: 07-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 12:12 am: |
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If blacks in this country had any damned sense, they'd form their own political party....and make the others "barter" and "deal" IN WRITING....for their 15 million votes.
Our group has now become too splintered (down to 6% in California) and insignificant (with the growing latino group so strong and vibrant) to wield any real power without a concerted, unified presence on our part--based on blackness.
But.....see if the Black Americans get a clue. They think the latins are their brothers and that the Democrats give a french roll about their interests.
AND...
they're inherently not used to being unified as a people--because that make White People.........UNCOMFORTABLE.
Heavens forbid we should do that.
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Abm
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Abm
Post Number: 2096
Registered: 04-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 04:32 am: |
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A friend of mine recently said the reason why Blacks (who are otherwise socially conservative) are afraid to vote for the GOP is that we Blacks don't love/trust each other enough for us to effectively adopt the Republican agenda, which alleges to require more self-reliance, business prosperity, less regulation, etc. My friend thinks if Blacks worked together towards our individual/communal benefit, we wouldn't feel the need to gravitate to the Democratic's more pro-government focus.
I think he may at least be partly right.
But I also think the Republicans have done some things that should give Blacks pause. In particular, the GOP has often quite actively stoked the fires of White racism, especially in the South, to win elections.
A lot of the doom/gloom and exultations that surround politics is just the hype of the moment. And some of it is people using the moment to promote their own (often economic) interests.
Because the truth is, when the electoral dust settles, most of us usually survive, some even thrive, no matter who resides in DC, our state capitols and our city councils. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 806
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 10:38 am: |
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Troy:
Are you really serious?
The Republican party is full of Democrats who fled there to get away from black people. Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Ronald Reagan--all your worst and most virulent racists.
In this part of the country and further South Republican officeholders regulary speak before and seek the support of the CCC--Council of Conservative Citizens--the renamed White Citizens Council.
You are the one always talking about these people don't mean anything anymore--the rest of the country ain't New York City!
Come here to Missouri and see what you would have to support if you were a Republican. John Ashcroft was from here.
At one time we all DID vote Republican--up to 1932--years of them taking us for granted and not pushing for anti lynching laws or sticking up for their most loyal constituency (sound familiar?) led blacks to the Democrats.
You want to blame black people because white folks don't like them--Oh yeah, I'm gonna say it. If we went to the Republicans, they'd go back to the Democrats or form another party.
Didn't you see anything with this election? The Republicans you meet up in NYC even--how would they deal with regular working class blacks from Brooklyn?
Here and in most of red America they don't want to be with you if you have diamond toenails and ruby eyeballs. Look at J.C. Watts. Look how they treat Allen Keyes.
They don't WANT us, baby. Then how would they serve their racist constituents? |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 808
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 10:45 am: |
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And it was NOT that we are Kerry supporters. It is that George W. Bush is a disaster for this country and I would have voted for almost anybody else than him
We have awarded him for one of the most inept, corrupt performances in history. Everything that happens after this we deserve.
The man got us into a war on false pretenses and has run up ruinous deficits--ah,but you are an American and if it doesn't seem to affect you personally you are oblivious. Well, you might not be for long.
--the Fallujah Massacre Xmas present is just the first installment of the payoff--Osama Bin Laden just got religious dispensation to use a nuclear weapon on U.S. civilians if he is able (he was criticized across much of the Muslim world for supposedly conducting Jihad but attacking the WTC and civilians without an opinion or whatever from a cleric. He got it.)
Might he attack us if Kerry was in there? I think he would if Kerry was doing the same thing as Bush.
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Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 811
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, November 16, 2004 - 11:11 am: |
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Just in case you think voting against Bush was all about Black (Jeez sometimes I can't believe you Troy!)
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0445/barrett.php
features
Cast Away
by Wayne Barrett with special reporting by Anna LeMond
The November Surprises
After a year-long campaign, America now discovers what the election was really about
November 9th, 2004 12:20 PM
In Focus: Election 2004 Sutton Impact: One State, Two State, Red State, Blue State
Mark Fiore: The Depressed Democrats' Guide to Recovery
Sutton Imapct: Mandate My Ass
Cast Away: Time for Plan B New tactics for the same pressing issues
Cast Away: It's the Wealth, Stupid Right-wing class warfare swung the 2004 election
See More ...
ess than an hour after George W. Bush's victory speech Wednesday, U.S. fighter planes launched major air strikes against Falluja, a prelude to a post-election incursion that a marine surgeon told The Miami Herald could involve casualties "at levels not seen since Vietnam."
Yet the transparently self-serving timing of the biggest Bush military offensive since 2003 is passing unchallenged. Life and death are apparently now mere entries on some Karl Rove political calendar, a campaign calculus only the naive would question. War commanders take their orders from the same BlackBerry as election-district captains. Presumably if the Ohio provisional ballots were still being counted, 21-year-old marines from Columbus, or new army recruits from Baghdad, might have another 10 days to live.
After months of waiting for an October surprise that never happened, America has begun its season of November, December, and 2005 surprises. Once the body bags are collected at Falluja and the rest of the triangle, the January election, should it happen, will begin the Shiite transformation of Iraq, leading eventually to another Ayatollah, closer to Iran than the U.S. The White House political director is hardly done unleashing waves of electoral evangelicals; they will soon be in power in Iraq too. Wait 'til you get a look at their faith-based initiatives.
Just as Bush Senior helped postpone the October release of American hostages in 1980, putting himself and Ronald Reagan in the White House on virtually the day of their release, Bush II has stockpiled crises, equating democracy with delay. As quiet as it is kept, John Ashcroft has been sitting for months now on the final chapter of The 9/11 Commission Report, a 70-page examination of everything from the Federal Aviation Commission's missteps that morning to the orders issued by Bush and Cheney. Similarly, Ashcroft's appointee Patrick Fitzgerald is now in the 14th month of a grand jury probe of who in the White House leaked the name of a covert CIA agent married to a Bush critic. Fitzgerald's pre-election targets have, conveniently enough, only been reporters.
The day after the election, the Times reported that Bush's new CIA director, the politically programmed Porter Goss, was moving to undercut and alter an 800-page report by the supposedly independent CIA Inspector General. The IG was asked by Congress in 2002 to determine "whether and to what extent personnel at all levels should be held accountable" for any mistakes that might've contributed to the failure to stop the attacks. The report was finished in July but was never turned over to the intelligence committees that mandated it, and now Goss wants it whitewashed of names. Goss even spurned 9-11 family members who met with him in September to seek its release, as well as the Republican chair of the House committee. Of course, two other Iraq CIA studies—one in Congress and one by a new Bush commission—have also been mothballed.
Leading the list of domestic December surprises, of course, is the sudden emergence of a Bush plan to dump the remnants of the progressive income tax. Not far behind are the new FCC rules that will inevitably enrich the media conglomerates that just covered the campaign, from Sinclair to Fox and beyond. When the courts struck down Bush's latest grab bag of goodies for the industry that contributed $1.8 million, and often its airwaves, to him, the decisions were as much a resale opportunity as they were a policy defeat. Everyone from the beef association to logging and mining moguls are happily awaiting postponed decisions on animal feed and national forest development, aware no doubt that the best time for a special interest to prosper is after the public interest has had its quadrennial say.
But nothing's more disturbing than the pre-election burial of the gravest issue of our time: global warming. Though neither Michigan-mesmerized Democrats nor the SUV-subsidized media noticed, the president's closest international ally, Tony Blair, has been sounding a warming alarm for months, egged on at the end of October by none other than Queen Elizabeth. The queen, who is busily planning a hydro-powered Windsor Castle and already drives only in liquefied-gas cars, decided to sponsor her own multi-nation conference on warming in Berlin, which started, guess when, the day after the election. The British press reported that in her private sessions with Blair she's been begging him to get his buddy Bush to wake up. Blair's top science adviser has been saying—to American yawns—that warming is a far worse threat than terrorism.
The other national leader on Bush's chummy side, Vladimir Putin, also waited until two days after the election to, guess what, make Bush's America and Australia the only developed nations who refuse to sign the Kyoto accords. In fact, Russia, Britain, the U.S., and five other nations just completed a four-year study of Arctic warming that documents the sharp retreat of sea ice that signals a threat so profound that Blair warns it will "radically alter human existence" in his lifetime, not his children's. But the report, conducted by 300 scientists, was withheld for release until November 9, putting planetary life-and-death issues on the same Rove calendar as Falluja. Somehow the Times got "portions" of this report from "European participants" and reported it three days before the election, but the rest of the media ignored it, ostensibly silenced by the fear of any too-close-to-the-election tilting and their own cosmic indifference to the cosmos.
One giant did step forward before election day, but he, too, may have waited too long. Dr. James Hansen, a physicist who's director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and has twice spoken to the Bush cabinet on climate change, gave a speech in Iowa on October 27 that was both an act of courage and prophetic judgment. The Times wrote about it the day before, but only the Associated Press actually covered it. Though all of us who live on the coasts may need very swift boats to escape a near future of catastrophically rising sea levels, Hansen's warnings got no attention from the cable networks consumed by the boats of three decades ago. At the possible cost of a federal job he's held for three decades, Hansen castigated the "interference with and misuse of the scientific process" that he said was "occurring now to a degree unprecedented in my scientific lifetime.
"I speak from a position of having tried hard to work with and advise the current administration on matters relating to climate change. I find a willingness to listen only to those portions of scientific results that fit predetermined inflexible positions. This, I believe, is a recipe for environmental disasters." Told by his NASA boss not to talk about "dangerous" human interference with climate, Hansen nonetheless concluded, "consistent with thousands" of U.N. scientists," that "we in the U.S. are on a dangerous course in our climate and energy policies" and that the disintegration of the Arctic ice sheet could be "explosively rapid."
You can almost hear the pre-Iraq whispers of nonpartisan intelligence and military experts in Hansen's description of the Bush administration's hidebound inflexibility, especially since Hansen had face-to-face meetings with Cheney himself. How is it that men capable of masterminding so stunning a campaign triumph are so willfully resistant to fact when facing life-threatening policy choices? While there is much to mourn about Tuesday's loss, America can survive most of the inevitably callous choices of the next Bush term, even internationally. What the world can't survive is an America that is irreversibly poisoning the planet at a record pace, and refuses to hear the pro-life voice of undisputed science.
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