ForJustUsThunderThighs speaks....
forjusticethunders (985 posts)
White progressives's analysis of politics is fundamentally broken.
Bill Clinton was wrong - it was only "the economy, stupid" because he took race out of the discussion as much as possible. Sista Soulja, Ricky Ray Rector.
In reality, "it's racism, stupid", just like it has been since the founding of the Republic (also sexism, but that exists in a broader civilizational context). The racial caste system nearly destroyed America multiple times prior to the end of slavery. Racism crippled the power of the working class movement as white workers found that the psychological wage was better than the material wage. Racism engendered the right wing backlash to both economic and social progress under Democrats. Racism empowered Reagan as well.
Socialists from Marx to DuBois to King recognized racism as the LYNCHpin of American capitalist oppression. FDR realized he couldn't pass his New Deal without kowtowing to the DixieKKKrats. LBJ realized the white man will empty his pockets for the bosses as long as he gets to be above the black man. Yet modern progressives try to handwave it away as "identity politics", or to try to defend the Trump vote as "economic anxiety". Who are they trying to fool? And for what purpose? Trump voters are FAR more agitated about BLM and "SJWs" than they are about jobs going overseas (which itself is more about jobs going to THOSE people than actual job loss)
Remember the words of Atwater - Republican "free market" politics are an elaborate way to scream "n**** n****". It is the cry of "n**** n***** that keeps the system going. But instead of centering the racial struggle in the fight for progressive change (as well as the social justice movements that flow directly, both spiritually and tactically, from the racial struggle), a lot of progressives focus on "neoliberalism" without a real understanding of the term, let alone a sense of how to apply it correctly to current politics. I don't think the modern Democratic Party is propping up United Fruit or invading countries to enforce IMF payments (and even if you cite NAFTA, they then fail in drawing comparisons to the TPP, which is closer to a global union protection act like Wagner than NAFTA)
At the end of the day, people on the left need to organize based on real threats and real issues, and must adopt an objective view of political realities because by chasing shadows, it inhibits our ability to organize against creeping fascism and authoritarianism.
"I think I just figured out why I lost.
"These are the idiots running my campaign."TexasBushwhacker (8,067 posts)
1. And don't forget the "war on drugs"
Shorthand for "lock up n*****s" and gun rights advocacy, shorthand for "shoot some n*****s".
Lithium works wonders.
Have you tried it?
forjusticethunders (985 posts)
9. The problem is that this analysis is "right" but it's also tactically useless.
For one thing, most anti-racist activists are on the political Left; most right-wingers, if not hard racists, are soft racists in the "racism is over"/"blacks need to fix their own communities"/etc variety. So where are the anti-racists who are not advocating for uplifting the working class as a whole?
Also racism frames how government spending and transfer payments are seen. For example, the home mortgage interest deduction is one of, if not THE biggest government handout there is, and a handout going almost entirely to wealthier people, actually scaling with one's personal wealth held in housing.
That's such a third rail nobody will even CONSIDER touching that, despite how ridiculous it is. But the same upper-middle class Whites who are getting this MASSIVE handout that essentially equates to 4 or 5 TANF (even the more generous AFDC would equate to half of the HMID at its peak) programs, will cry about minorities on "welfare". Why do you think that is? Because massive handouts are just fine as long as they're not going to THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSE PEEEEEEEEEEEEOPPPPPPPPPPPPLE
People keeping more of their own money is a government hand-out that 4 or 5 welfare families deserve more than the wage earner.
Run with that in 2018.
By the way -- YOU'RE LINKING BLACKS WITH WELFARE, YOU RACIST POS!
TexasBushwhacker (8,067 posts)
19. Of course, the mortgage interest deduction
is a handout to the banking and construction industries. When interest is deductible, people are willing to pay HIGHER interest. When interest and property taxes are deductible, people are willing to pay higher housing prices than they might otherwise. Sadly, there are plenty of people shopping for homes that really don't care about the price of the house as long as the payments are affordable.
Yes.
Savings on taxes allows for more consumer spending.
Thank-you for admitting it.
But nobody says, "Go ahead and bump my rate 3/8ths because I have a tax deduction!"
bravenak (32,431 posts)
38. I think we should work together to find a new leader we both sides can get behind
Someone who can deliver this message that we both agree on to a wide audience. If a progressive politician said exactly what we just read, I would support them. It ties both sides together perfectly. It is what I wanted to express but could not figure out how to express.
Keith Ellison!
Do it or you're all pussies!
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NoGoodNamesLeft (1,538 posts)
13. Just what this site needs...another anti-white people thread
So sick of this bullshit.
If this garbage doesn't stop before the next midterms I'll vote for Independents and say to hell with both organized parties.
You must be a racist.
forjusticethunders (985 posts)
36. wew lad
I make a thread saying racism is the most important aspect of the leftist struggle (something that much more insightful socialist thinkers than me stated) and you call it an ANTI WHITE PEOPLE thread
i can't even.
Capitalism without racism is an emperor without clothes. It's racism that undermines the class solidarity needed for ANY leftist reform, whether social democratic, socialist, Marxist, etc. Notice that even in Europe, the far right is surging as Europe gets SLIGHTLY less homogeneously white.
So far you and your fellow racists are the only ones agitating to keep people divided based on skin color.
Everybody else grew up.
I bet you think a corporate CEO looks at his quarterly earnings statements, sees a large uptick in profits then sets down the report, looks over the rim of his spectacles and asks, "But was any of this money earned for us by negroes? Because I wouldn't want to have to admit to our shareholders that our money is being made by negroes. It's bad enough we have to let them work here but I won't stand for them making us gross profits."
forjusticethunders (985 posts)
62. Understanding power is complex and takes deep analysis
Can't fit it on a bumper sticker.
The simplicity of truth only seems abhorrent to those who must hide behind ever more complex lies.
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MicaelS (6,502 posts)
81. If you don't want to be perceived as ...
Anti-White, then why did you make the title as "White Progressives" instead of "Many Progressives"?
forjusticethunders (985 posts)
82. Because PoC progressives don't have this issue?
Though that specific turn of phrase "anti-white" is an Alt-Right buzzword.
Alt-Right is a left-tard buzzword.
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JHan (1,639 posts)
95. It's unfortunate you think the post is a personal attack against all white people:
Race, Gender and Class impact us and sometimes they intersect.
Those who experience bigotry are more aware of it than those who don't. To draw an analogy: My experience of sexual harassment is a shock to the men I describe it to, some are compassionate and empathise but some deny it's a problem because they don't experience it,* are blind to it and they haven't walked in my shoes so to speak. The poor experience class discrimination more keenly than the affluent. Dark skinned people are more aware of racism than whites generally. And if dark skinned and poor, socio-economic deprivation is a daily reality.
Acknowledging these realities isn't a way to make you, a white person, feel bad. Similarly, when I point out sexual harassment issues to men I know, I am not trying to put them on a guilt trip, I am raising awareness.
It is important we pay attention to the way bigotry has infected our institutions, how it has shaped the allocation of resources, and how it is used as a tool to distract, divide and exploit the poor.
The point isn't to admonish or make anyone feel guilty. Those who engage in divide and rule rhetoric want guilt and anger to be the response, instead of thoughtful engagement.
The GOP succeeds because they have boldly pursued a political strategy appealing to people's irrational fears. It explains why so many Trump supporters believe "illegal immigrants" voted by the millions in California, that Obama is a Muslim Agent, and those Mexicans are stealing all the jobs, and the exit polling data confirms these fears. Those who prioritized the economy favored Clinton, those who prioritized terrorism and immigration favored Trump.
Frame the OP within those parameters, in the context of Trump's xenophobic campaign rhetoric - Trump appealed to the ID of resentment in the hearts of millions of Americans.
TRANSLATION: It's only racist when the GOP does it.
BTW -- the exit polls also said Hillary won.
So much for exit polls.
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jalan48 (4,915 posts)
15. So what's the plan to end racism? How do you make people non-racist?
Garrett78 (2,958 posts)
25. Building a multiracial alliance is not easy but it can be done with concerted effort.
Locally, I'm quite involved in a Racial Justice Organizing Committee, as well as the local chapter of the NAACP. Efforts are under way. In the bigger city to the north, numerous groups are at work.
Ending racism altogether (both the overt and the softer kind referred to in post #9) is not feasible, but building a much more substantial multiracial alliance is. And it's vital to addressing the economic conditions we rightly decry. It's vital to sustainable progress. Otherwise, we're stuck riding the power pendulum.
I tend to get along pretty well with people who don't scream "**** white people!" or side with racist anti-Semites and I'm neither white not Jewish.
I can't say as I know anyone who is anti-black. I've read about them but I've never met one.
forjusticethunders (985 posts)
51. You're not getting the point.
Nobody says you didn't struggle. Nobody says you can't be less economically secure than a person of color. But economic insecurity is not why most GOP voters vote for policies that will make them less economically secure. GOP voters "vote against their own interests" because racism and bigotry warps their view of "their own interests" into "keep resources away from minorities and other undesirables".
If GOP voters are so easily manipulated why can't the Dem party manipulate them into becoming Dem voters?
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bravenak (32,431 posts)
45. The only way to take down the oligarchy is to end the racism they invented to keep
the working class separated. Economic inequality will not end until we all come together. We cannot do so with racism in the way. We cannot ask some of the working class to stfu and deal with th racism of the rest of the working class. That is unfair to do. Therefore, in order for all racial demigraphics to come together, we need to end the artificial bullshit created to categorize us by race. We cannot ask minorities to ignore the race factor since it is a big part of their economic problems.
We cannot fight the power until we stop fighting each other. We cannot stop fighting each other until we effectively destroy racism. We wont end it completely, but with all of us working together rejecting it vigorously, it will subside enough for us to unite.
SO ****ING STOP, YOU IDIOT RACIST BITCH!
forjusticethunders (985 posts)
47. Labor in the white skin can never free itself as long as labor in the black skin is branded.
Marx in Das Kapital.
Capital only comes in 1 color: green
And it goes on like that...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12512677264
