All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[Tami]

I didn't think Trump would win the first time....

Don't underestimate people's short term thinking process brother

I don't think Trump will survive, politically, til 2020. Good chance he'll be out by 2019.

[Mister Mets]

Except racism and discrimination doesn't only affect "black" people: it affects Latinos, Muslims, Arabs, Indians, Jews, Asians, and nearly every other "non-white race" as well in various degrees. It could be argued that racism against black people is the most obvious symptom of this bias, but other "non-white" individuals often face ethnically-based discrimination as well -- examples of this is how Arpaio singled out Hispanic drivers for racial profiling or how Arabs are often viewed as "terrorists" despite the fact that only a minuscule percentage of Muslims actually engage in "terrorist" behavior.

Meanwhile, "white" people rarely have to deal with such assumptions -- even when they are responsible for quite a few "terrorist" acts in this country.

The fact that you can even try to limit it to "blacks" just shows that the concept of "white privilege" isn't even fully understood by many of it's critics -- which is why I reiterate that it's kind of useless to have a discussion about something when there isn't a full understanding of the subject at hand.



If that's the case, then maybe you should stop claiming that said "white privilege" is an "economic issue" or making similarly incorrect arguments in defense of "white voters" -- even if your claim is only that certain "white people" see it as such, there's still no point in basing said arguments on untruths.

To be blunt -- it's not up to non-whites to not "offend" white people when speaking the truth about racism: in fact, it's a lot more offensive that so many people (like yourself) are so dismissive of it's effects on our society just because they don't have to deal with it directly, and often benefit from it.

It would be one thing if Trump hadn't been elected to office -- but pretending that racism against non-whites isn't a serious issue in America when the President of the United States made his way to the top of the Republican party by making racist statements (and taking racist actions) against Arab-Americans, African-Americans, and Mexicans and Mexican-Americans is just ridiculous.

I completely understand not liking the term "white privilege" but that doesn't mean the topic itself is invalid.

I looked up my name, and "economic issue" or "economic issues" in the search function for the thread.

http://community.comicbookresources....archid=5807315

http://community.comicbookresources....archid=5807395

Most results are times "economic" and "issue" or "issues" are in the same post, although usually not in the same sentence (sometimes I'm quoting a post with one of the two words.)

The only times I used the phrase was in a reference to a Republican primary debate, and in a more recent comment about how to define whether someone is far left.

I generally have a variety of places I get my news.

Plenty of centrist/ left-wing sources were critical of CNBC.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/..._was_cnbc.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...ential-debate/

While anything written even a few hours after the debate is tainted by Priebus' statements, the initial responses on twitter and live blogs didn't suggest CNBC handled themselves well.

And if the CNBC hosts did an awesome job, there'd be pushback against Preiebus' view.

There were certainly other factors.

CNBC has a reputation for snark that doesn't play well in this kind of debate format. The moderators weren't all ready for this kind of exposure. The main point of a CNBC debate was to have a discussion that focuses on economic issues, but the moderators often went outside that wheelhouse.

The impossible ideal way to determine what's far left would be to imagine that you've ranked everyone from left to right (this isn't as simple, as some topics don't really fall perfectly on this scale.) The pool of people you're considering would also matter. Is it elected officeholders? Is it everyone in America? Is it everyone in the United States, with sufficient understanding of political issues (it's theoretically possible that there are some people on an extreme who aren't well-versed in the issues, and that this would skew the results?) Is it American voters (which excludes young liberal teenagers, and recent immigrants)?

If on that ranking, about 80 percent can be said to be on your right (the combination of left-wing, centrist, right-wing and far-right), then you would count as far-left.

From a practical standpoint, the term would probably mean who wants to make massive abrupt changes in a left-wing direction on social and economic issues in ways that are expensive, and would require major structural changes.

[aja_christopher]

This is kind of the point I was getting at, not entirely (most white people don't dislike anyone, a significant chunk do, but you'll find a racist segment in every group). Black people have a huge bias against them. And unfortunately, it's not just white people, you dress a black man in a police uniform and all of a sudden they are stopping other black people.

I get your point and acknowledge that there is truth to it -- it wasn't my goal to ridicule or otherwise dismiss it.

I just wanted to make it clear that "white privilege" is not the same thing as "discrimination against black people" -- just as it isn't solely a matter of economics or "wealth".

Understandable if that's the most common understanding of the term, but that's not what it is by definition.

The focus on white privilege in the media is rather flawed.

White privilege is a bit complicated as a topic as it conflates the majority with a successful minority within it.

We're living in a time of increased stratification in which college graduates are more likely to marry college graduates, and have children who go on to become college graduates themselves. So there is an elite that is disproportionately white. However, that path is closed off to other segments of the White population, who would get pissed off at solutions that imply that they're part of the problem.

A problem with it is that the guy who is shown as a typical white person is more of an elite (upper middle class parents, an education in a top-tier university, family friends in the management class.) It's a New Zealand comic so there may be a category error in its use in an American context, but the typical white person in the US doesn't have that experience.

The elites are a very small part of the population. It could be from about 250,000 people to "the one percent." Meanwhile, white people are seventy percent of Americans (although the percentage is lower in younger demographics.)

When you point out that a college education is the key to joining the "elites" in society -- and equate much of said elite status with wealth and economic status (upper middle class, management class, "the one percent") then the obvious conclusion is that much of your argument is based on an "economic" -- or "similarly incorrect" -- basis, while selectively disregarding the element of "race" and the role that it plays in our society.

Maybe that's not what you meant, but the majority of your posts referred to "working-class whites" vs. "the successful elites" which is a primarily economic difference -- just because you didn't use the word "economic" in the majority of your posts doesn't mean that wasn't a key element of your initial argument.

To further clarify -- if you're trying to take the "white" out of "white privilege" then you are missing the point completely.

[Mister Mets]

I’m curious how Sessions is going to handle the PR fallout from that, cause that’s quite the red flag (for me anyways).

I'm guessing he's got enough plausible deniability in saying that the comments were about the British roots of the American legal system, rather than meant to imply that a particular type of white person is superior to all others.

In the same speech, he mentioned obvious non-racist stuff about the origins of the Civil War which also gives him a bit of cover.

Though many Southerners try to say otherwise—and I love my people—slavery was the cause of the war. It was not states’ rights or tariffs or agrarian versus industrial economies. Those issues were all solvable and would have been solved. The cloud, the stain of human bondage—the buying and selling of human beings—was the unsolvable problem and was omnipresent from the beginning of the country.

I don't think Trump will survive, politically, til 2020. Good chance he'll be out by 2019.

If he lasts until January 2019, Mike Pence might end up being our second longest serving President.

His 2020 Campaign Message: The Robots Are Coming


Sounds crazy at first, but in theory the universal base income idea sounds like something worth considering. Assumning a way could be found to do it without exploding the defict or reverse-Robin Hooding the poor.

A friend of mine's making a documentary about Universal Basic Income. It's an interesting concept.

http://time.com/money/4786371/univer...tary-250-week/

Charles Murray, a libertarian political scientist, is in favor of it as a policy, seeing it as more cost-effective than alternatives.

https://www.aei.org/publication/a-gu...very-american/

On the topic of driverless cars, there was an argument that it shouldn't be too deleterious to jobs since truckers do more than just drive from Point A to Point B. They secure the equipment, possess local knowledge, etc.

[Tami]

Mike Pence is not immune from impeachment, his hands aren't squeaky clean.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Mike Pence is not immune from impeachment, his hands aren't squeaky clean.

What did Red Grant know, and when did he know it?

[aja_christopher]

I'm guessing he's got enough plausible deniability in saying that the comments were about the British roots of the American legal system, rather than meant to imply that a particular type of white person is superior to all others.

I look forward to the day when you just condemn this kind of Republican behavior, rather than discussing the ways in which said behavior can be "plausibly denied".

Not holding my breath or anything, but looking forward to it.

With regards to the issue of "universal basic income" it's an almost inevitable necessity given the future of automation (robots, AI, etc) but I doubt America will embrace it anytime soon no matter how cost-effective it is -- and almost certainly not until after Europe has done so first.

[worstblogever]

I look forward to the day when you just condemn this kind of Republican behavior, rather than discussing the ways in which said behavior can be "plausibly denied".

The "Party of Responsibility" has transformed into the "Party of Can I Deny it Ever Happened and If I Can't, Why It's Okay that I'm an ***hole" over the past decade, honestly.

[aja_christopher]

The "Party of Responsibility" has transformed into the "Party of Why It's Okay that I'm an ***hole" over the past decade, honestly.

And then came Trump.

[Gray Lensman]

Feel free to disagree -- doesn't make you right.

Again -- if you don't understand the concept itself, then there's no point in wasting time on this conversation.

That said -- I'm moving on.

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"White privilege (or white skin privilege) is a term for societal privileges that benefit people identified as white in some countries, beyond what is commonly experienced by non-white people under the same social, political, or economic circumstances."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_privilege

This isn't the best film to choose for whitewashing. The closest thing to a hero in the main cast was replaced by a black actor. Ghost in the Shell is a much better choice to illustrate whitewashing, since they kept the location and names - Netflix's Death Note moved everything to the U.S.

[mojotastic]

And then came Trump.

The perspective of that is awful.

[BeastieRunner]

The perspective of that is awful.

That's party of the joke.

[mojotastic]

That's party of the joke.

*ba dum tsss*

[aja_christopher]

This isn't the best film to choose for whitewashing. The closest thing to a hero in the main cast was replaced by a black actor. Ghost in the Shell is a much better choice to illustrate whitewashing, since they kept the location and names - Netflix's Death Note moved everything to the U.S.

I've never made the argument that every complaint is justified -- just that we should be having this discussion, instead of always deflecting from it, or pretending that the problem doesn't exist.

For us as viewers, maybe other films (like "The Last Airbender") serve as better examples, but for the Asian-American actor who dreamed of starring in "Death Note", this is a uniquely personal example of the issue at hand.

Regardless, arguing "levels" or whitewashing is redundant -- the point here is that Asian-Americans have to deal with issues of discrimination as well, especially in the entertainment industry.

[JackDaw]

Once again, many poor white people don't see white privilege because it's invisible. If you can walk through a convenience store without a clerk following you to make sure you don't shoplift, that's white privilege. If you don't have to worry about your kid's teacher expecting him to fail, that's white privilege, too. As I said, it's things we white people take for granted, but Black people never can.

Er..actually..it’s not..those are two examples of direct discrimation against non white people, without any unearnt benefit to the white majority...if the discrimination against others had not taken place the white person would be completely unaffected.

“White privilege” used in correct technical sense refers to cases where white people benefit indirectly from the discrimination against other races. An example, might be a person benefitting from better schools in predominantly white area where s/he lives...because spending less in schools in other areas has left more in budget to spend on the “white” schools.