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[W:197] White Riot

Alizia Tyler said:
What is *interesting* to me in your 'sociological approach' is in the realization that you really have no sympathy nor genuine concern for those who have, through deliberate machinations, been dispossessed of what was in truth 'theirs'. It is highly interesting to me that the function therefore of these high-toned sociological expositions is really just to trace and explain the process of loss and, at the same time, to indicate who and what you yourself serve. You serve the dispossession of the dominant demographic of the US. You are thus part of the process of loss and harm that has been perpetrated in the American Postwar.

And you wonder why you are understood to be a traitor?! See, I suggest that that is what you are. And to the degree that you align yourself with a political and élite class that sponsors this dispossession process, to that exact degree you are really and truly an enemy. Your righteous tones ring false when closely examined.

The author (Thomas Edsall) of that opinion article asks the questions:


But the better question is: Is it morally and ethically defensible that a people in the process of being so dispossessed is seen and understood as having a right to act against it? This 'sociological distance', as if he is studying a foreign people, is deeply suspect to me. The process of dispossession is in itself an evil and a destructive enterprise. And it requires a profoundly compromised ethics to see that such is going on and not to oppose it.

He gets one answer by Bart Bonikowski:


OK so what this means, I take it, is that it is morally wrong for those 'white men' (itself a deprecating term) to question or resent what had been done to them. The part about women who knew their place frames the former statement as a backward and retrograde sentiment that, what, must be overcome by proper ethical introspection?

Can you see how these *narratives* are designed to function? Their function is to undermine the legitimate possibility of opposing what has been slated for this entire class of 'white men'. It is really transparent.

[cont. next]
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White folks in America haven’t had anything “taken” from them. When you own all levers of power, demands of equality can be seen as oppression.
 
beefheart said:
You sad that your cult leader lost?

Class envy is not a good look. Instead of obsessing on what other people earn, you should work on making money for yourself.
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Dodge the question. It’s a simple one and you should be proud of your choice. Come on, don’t be shy.
 
Aunt Antifa said:
Republicans called unemployed Americans lazy this past summer when discussing the extra unemployment UI for people laid off due to the China virus. You voted for people that think unemployed Americans are scumbags.

Even your failed whataboutisms underline how disingenuous your argument is.
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Deflection.
 
Overitall said:
Deflection.
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It was speaking to your silly attempt at a whataboutism. You agree with me because you just dropped the whole thing.

You’re welcome.

Also you didn’t deny it. Sooooo
 
calamity said:
White grievance propelled Trump to the White House after the Black guy served eight. But, I do like that Trump only served four, and they were a mess.

Black guy did a much better job than the Great White Hope.
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You mean this black guy?
 
Alizia Tyler said:
What is *interesting* to me in your 'sociological approach' is in the realization that you really have no sympathy nor genuine concern for those who have, through deliberate machinations, been dispossessed of what was in truth 'theirs'. It is highly interesting to me that the function therefore of these high-toned sociological expositions is really just to trace and explain the process of loss and, at the same time, to indicate who and what you yourself serve. You serve the dispossession of the dominant demographic of the US. You are thus part of the process of loss and harm that has been perpetrated in the American Postwar.

And you wonder why you are understood to be a traitor?! See, I suggest that that is what you are. And to the degree that you align yourself with a political and élite class that sponsors this dispossession process, to that exact degree you are really and truly an enemy. Your righteous tones ring false when closely examined.

The author (Thomas Edsall) of that opinion article asks the questions:


But the better question is: Is it morally and ethically defensible that a people in the process of being so dispossessed is seen and understood as having a right to act against it? This 'sociological distance', as if he is studying a foreign people, is deeply suspect to me. The process of dispossession is in itself an evil and a destructive enterprise. And it requires a profoundly compromised ethics to see that such is going on and not to oppose it.

He gets one answer by Bart Bonikowski:


OK so what this means, I take it, is that it is morally wrong for those 'white men' (itself a deprecating term) to question or resent what had been done to them. The part about women who knew their place frames the former statement as a backward and retrograde sentiment that, what, must be overcome by proper ethical introspection?

Can you see how these *narratives* are designed to function? Their function is to undermine the legitimate possibility of opposing what has been slated for this entire class of 'white men'. It is really transparent.

[cont. next]
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Racist take of the day?
 
The author of the article White Riot further states:

White supremacy and frank racism are prime motivators, and they combined with other elements to fuel the insurrection: a groundswell of anger directed specifically at elites and an addictive lust for revenge against those they see as the agents of their disempowerment.
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The article quoted there in a journal of law, medicine and ethics:

Data from multiple sources point to the desire for revenge in response to grievances or perceived injustices as a root cause of violence, including firearm violence. Neuroscience and behavioral studies are beginning to reveal that the desire for revenge in response to grievances activates the same neural reward-processing circuitry as that of substance addiction, suggesting that grievances trigger powerful cravings for revenge in anticipation of experiencing pleasure. Based on this evidence, the authors argue that a behavioral addiction framework may be appropriate for understanding and addressing violent behavior. Such an approach could yield significant benefits by leveraging scientific and public health-oriented drug abuse prevention and treatment strategies that target drug cravings to spur development of scientific and public-health-oriented “gun abuse” prevention and treatment strategies targeting the revenge cravings that lead to violence. An example of one such “motive control” strategy is discussed. Approaching revenge-seeking, violence, and gun abuse from the perspective of compulsion and addiction would have the added benefit of avoiding the stigmatization as violent of individuals with mental illness while also acknowledging the systemic, social, and cultural factors contributing to grievances that lead to violent acts.
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Now this to me is incredible. An entire class of people in the United States has been slated for dispossession of what was theirs: the very ground under their feet is taken from them, essentially, through displacement processes. And the response here is medico-ethical-legal? This is very telling when you think it through. In another sense it is diabolically sick. The implication is that those who are undergoing dispossession as a cultural and historical process need some type of medical intervention. Perhaps some new medicine that will help them to accept their cultural and also their biological fate.

You see, you-people as a class receive this sort of narrative and you do not even question it. These are part of large cultural tactic (cultural engineering processes) to keep you from seeing and understanding, in fact, what is being perpetrated.

You are given no other option but to nod your head -- "Yes, yes, that's right".

What I suggest? That you completely and absolutely turn these narratives around! They are evil in and of themselves and I do not use this word lightly. They have to be seen as such and you must see that this is so. And then you must choose, because it is ethical to do so, to totally resist and oppose this sort of machination.

I'll give you till next Tuesday. (I'm in a bit of a hurry . . .) 😂
 
reflechissez said:
History suggests otherwise. Millions of white people have been voting against their economic best interest for decades.
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What were the perceptions of those voters? Were they knowingly voting against their economic interests or were they voting what they believed to be their economic interests? I'd argue it's very much the latter.
 
Aunt Antifa said:
A twice elected Potus believed by the country? No wonder you’re having trouble recognizing such a creature.
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You either are ignorant to the point or ignoring it. I lean towards the latter being the case.
 
Overitall said:
You either are ignorant to the point or ignoring it. I lean towards the latter being the case.
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That you can’t recognize such a creature? Yup, got it.
 
calamity said:
Racist take of the day?
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I know it is hard -- it is likely impossible at this point -- for you to *see* but the fact of the matter is not at all that what I am pointing to and writing about is a 'racist' perspective, but quite the opposite: the élite groups and power-concentrations that have brought about this displacement and dispossession are profoundly implicated in an extremely active and extremely damaging form of racism. And that can be explained when one can grasp and *see* how these processes of dispossession have been devised and set in motion.

The amazing thing is in how you have been trained to see things backwards.

I do acknowledge of course how your comment is designed to function. It is designed to render everything that I think, see and say as completely morally suspect. But what I talk about, and the reason I talk about it, is because I am linked to a higher ethical principle! I say that a people -- any people! anywhere! -- being deliberately dispossessed of what is theirs has a right to resist the process.

It is a very simple and a very intuitively obvious statement. Once it is expressed in clear term, one can then begin the process of dismantling the entire destructive narrative based in lies and emotional coercion.

I am thoroughly committed to carrying this forward. That is, in explaining what I see and understand. If you ever did come out onto the field of upstanding argumentation I would literally cut you to ribbons. You have no defense at all against the solidity of my argument.

Juro que digo la verdad!
 
Gaius46 said:
Like it or not the blue collar white men who in large part gave Trump the Presidency have legitimate economic concerns that need to be addressed.
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Talk to the republicans they have been killing the middle class since reagan and blaming the dems. You finally noticed trickle down economics doesn't work, good for you.
 
Lisa said:
Trump has made economic conditions worse. He doesn't do anything except what personally benefits him, so why would blue-collar white Americans think that he is their savior when he refuses to pay the same blue-collar workers that he hires on his own projects?

Trump was elected because white Christian conservatives saw someone who supported their views on race and bigotry. He will always be the Klan/Neo-Nazi president.
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I think it comes down to a few things. Trump is a symbol to them of "the American Dream", he's a rich dude that doesn't appear to do any actual work.
They also like how he speaks, because it is in a familiar vernacular, the ultimate idea of "I'd like to have a beer with that guy" mentality. But good governance is more than just saying stuff other people won't. There is usually a good reason
other people don't speak the way that he does.
I personally don't get it, but many, many others do.
 
Overitall said:
Dodge the question. It’s a simple one and you should be proud of your choice. Come on, don’t be shy.
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I am incredibly proud of my choice. Trump is a cancer, and his cultists are exponentially worse.

I am not the one that voted for mentally ill narcissist fascist.

Be better.
 
Aunt Antifa said:
White folks in America haven’t had anything “taken” from them. When you own all levers of power, demands of equality can be seen as oppression.
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In the larger framework of what has gone on over decades -- essentially beginning in the Postwar but accelerating in the Sixties -- it can certainly and fairly be described as a 'dispossession'. It is quite simple and completely obvious once it is pointed out. You can concoct no argument against it, try though you may.

Even those who favor the dispossession, and who look forward to the day when the formerly dominant white majority is reduced to a minority, are very clear that they relish the thought. It is described and talked about constantly. Anti-Whiteness and the ideology that stands behind it beyond any doubt and when seen honestly is a destructive and also a violent movement. How this came about, and why, needs to be seen and understood.

I think that Wilmot Robinson has encapsulated here what is going on, and also why it is going on. I have mulled this all over for some years now. That is, as an ethical question, a legitimate ethical question, and I believe that he is indeed right. So, I commit myself as a moral and as an ethical decision to advocating that this *dispossession* be seen and understood. I recognize that by saying what I just said that you-plural will implicate me in a 'moral evil', but this has no effect. It is not a moral evil. It is precisely the opposite.
Is it not incredible that the largest American population group, the group with the deepest roots, the most orderly and most technically proficient group, the nuclear population group of American culture and of the American gene pool, should have lost its preeminence to weaker, less established, less numerous, culturally heterogeneous, and often mutually hostile minorities?

With all due allowance for minority dynamism ... this miraculous shift of power could never have taken place without a Majority "split in the ranks" - without the active assistance and participation of Majority members themselves. It has already been pointed out that race consciousness is one of mankind's greatest binding forces. From this it follows that when the racial gravitational pull slackens people tend to spin off from the group nucleus. Some drift aimlessly through life as human isolates. Others look for a substitute nucleus in an intensified religious or political life, or in an expanded class consciousness. Still others, out of idealism, romanticism, inertia, or perversity, attach themselves to another race in an attempt to find the solidarity they miss in their own.
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Antiwar said:
I highly doubt that formal education is a big factor.
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Really? Interesting. I think it plays a huge part.
Street smarts are a necessity too, but people who have education past high-school usually earn more.
Which is part of the grievance for those who do blue-collar type work, a lot of which is disappearing at a rapid clip.
Harnessing that fear and anger is what got Trump into the Whitehouse.
 
eohrnberger said:
Do you really believe that UBI is going to make things 'better'? Or is it more realistic that UBI is only further going to antagonize and worsen things?
I'm more of the view that it would antagonize and worsen things because one of the fundamentals presently is the perception that those that do not earn their way through life are leaching off of those who are.

Realistic or not, factual or not, doesn't matter as this is people's perception. Once that perception takes hold, there's little that will alter it, and it appears to still be very much a prevalent one.

I think the reality is that everyone must earn their own way through life to whatever ends they can achieve (good decisions or bad decisions they make for themselves), and that it would be best for leadership to not only recognize this, but encourage this, it also being one of the fundamental American values, i.e. 'earn you own way in life'. Sure, a 'hand up' but not a 'hand out'. UBI being tainted with a 'hand out'.
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I agree with you assuming people have a realistic way to care for themselves. We're not talking here about our economy today but one, probably not in the too far distant future, where the economy can no longer provide jobs for a sizeable fraction of the populace due to automation. If we reach a point where 50% of people who want to work can't because machines do most of the work what are we to do? It's not the people are lazy or want a handout. It's that jobs simply aren't there. At that point I'd suspect that any stigma attached to "hand outs" goes away.

And that affects white collar as well as blue collar workers. When machines can self diagnose and self repair for 90% of the problems that crop up you don't need nearly as many service technicians. When software automates 90% of the fixes for problems that go to support people you don't need as many support people. When building software itself is largely automated via productivity tools you don't need as many trained software engineers and so on.

The main function of an economy is to provide a means for the people who participate in it to live their lives: feed and shelter themselves, educate their kids, do the things that make life meaningful. When an economy stops doing that for a large number of people it is effectively broken and something needs to be done about it.

Whether that's UBI or something else I don't know.
 
TurtleDude said:
the niece who is on the outs with the family and wanted to sell a book? BFD. What do the Jews in his family say?
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Don't remember this eh? https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/12/donald-trump-anti-semitic-remarks

Speaking at the Israeli American Council in Hollywood, Florida, on Saturday night, Trump hit all of his favorite anti-Semitic tropes before a room full of Jewish people. He started off by once again invoking the age-old cliché about “dual loyalty,” saying there are Jews who “don’t love Israel enough.” After that warm-up he dove right into the stereotype about Jews and money, telling the group: “A lot of you are in the real estate business, because I know you very well. You’re brutal killers, not nice people at all,” he said. “But you have to vote for me—you have no choice. You’re not gonna vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. You’re not gonna vote for the wealth tax. Yeah, let’s take 100% of your wealth away!” (It feels beside the point that neither Elizabeth Warren nor any other Democratic candidate has proposed a 100% wealth tax.) He continued: “Some of you don’t like me. Some of you I don’t like at all, actually. And you’re going to be my biggest supporters because you’re going to be out of business in about 15 minutes if they get it. So I don’t have to spend a lot of time on that.”

Not surprisingly, the remarks by the self-described “King of Israel” were swiftly condemned by Jewish organizations. “Dear @POTUS,” the American Jewish Committee tweeted Sunday afternoon, “Much as we appreciate your unwavering support for Israel, surely there must be a better way to appeal to American Jewish voters, as you just did in Florida, than by money references that feed age-old and ugly stereotypes. Let’s stay off that mine-infested road.” Calling the comments “deeply offensive” and “unconscionable,” the Jewish Democratic Council of America said in a statement, “We strongly denounce these vile and bigoted remarks in which the president—once again—used anti-Semitic stereotypes to characterize Jews as driven by money and insufficiently loyal to Israel. He even had the audacity to suggest that Jews ‘have no choice’ but to support him. American Jews do have a choice, and they’re not choosing President Trump or the Republican Party, which has been complicit in enacting his hateful agenda.” The group’s executive director added: “Jewish support for the GOP has been halved since Trump has been in office, from 33 percent in 2014 to 17 percent in 2018, because Trump’s policies and rhetoric are completely antithetical to Jewish values.”

www.businessinsider.com

'Textbook anti-Semitism': American Jews condemn Trump for repeatedly telling them that Israel is 'your country'

"Dual-loyalty" accusations have been used for "centuries to demonize Jewish people" and justify violence and even genocide, they said.
www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com
 
beefheart said:
I am incredibly proud of my choice. Trump is a cancer, and his cultists are exponentially worse.

I am not the one that voted for mentally ill narcissist fascist.

Be better.
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Great! I like that you’re honest about favoring socialism. I don’t know why people are so afraid to admit it. Now, can I get a few thousand dollars from both you and your spouse. Or are you gonna make me wait until the idiots in D.C. get their act together.
 
Overitall said:
Great! I like that you’re honest about favoring socialism. I don’t know why people are so afraid to admit it. Now, can I get a few thousand dollars from both you and your spouse. Or are you gonna make me wait until the idiots in D.C. get their act together.
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Not socialism, its about having a grown up in the white house, someone who isn't mentally deranged. You want a few thousand dollars? Try working as hard at your job as you work at class envy, you could be fabulously wealthy.
 
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