| WIKI | FAQ | Tech FAQ | |
 http://csua.com/feed/ | |
| ||||||
| 7/8 |
| 2005/9/20-22 [Politics/Domestic/President/Reagan, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:39761 Activity:low |
`9/20 Dubya is incompetent not racist
http://csua.org/u/dfp (Wash Post columnist)
\_ Maybe he is not, but that doesn't change the fact that his
party leads racists. "...There was more than a little truth to
this at one time. The GOP, after all, became a safe haven for
Southern bigots who fled the Democratic Party in the civil rights
era."
\_ I'd also go with: "Dubya's incompetence fucked poor blacks.
He let them down." (my own words)
\_ when push comes to shove, there's probably a lot more racists
in america then people are willing to admit
\_ "than", not "then", you stupid immigrant!
\_ Fun story on NPR where they went with Astrodome refugees
offered 6 months free housing in Houston. Most rejected
one spot because there were too many Mexicans. They wanted
someplace where they felt "more comfortable."
http://thislife.org
\_ Are the ones rejecting the spot white?
\_ Nope.
\_ The president who freed the slaves was a Republican. The first
African American Secretary of State is a Republican. The second
African American Secretary of State is a Republican.
\_ And more Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Act than
Democrats.
\_ These two comments are so abysmally stupid it makes me want
to cry.
\_ Care to elaborate?
\_ When did you stop beating your wife?
\_ I agree with that. Bush/Republicans don't really care about your
skin color as long as you're rich and/or powerful, preferably
both. If it happens to be that the poor people aren't white, then
it just looks like racism when he screws them over.
\_ That's just plain stupid. Bush/Republicans /do/ care about you
irrespective of color/income. From the article: "in his first
presidential campaign, I traveled with him and tried, as he might
say, to look into his heart. Conveniently enough, he sometimes
wears it on his sleeve -- never more so, as I discovered, than
when he talks about poor kids and racial and ethnic minorities.
His feelings for them -- especially for poor kids -- are
genuine." Of course, I'm no longer a Republican so I guess
you're not talking about me, right? -emarkp
\_ When did you shift and why?
\_ When did you shit and why?
\_ Bush/Republicans believe the best way to help the poor is
by making the rich richer. This will grow the economy and
give everyone a job and then everyone will be happy. They
screw the poor over not because they don't like the poor
but because this doesn't work.
\_ Sure it worked. It worked from the glorious days of
Reaganomics when the super tax cut for the super rich
shifted our economy into 6th gear and saw the housing
and economic boom we have never seen since the 50s and
ultimately caused the demise of the evil Soviet
Union. Why do you hate Reagan?
\_ "Yoda, why you gotta be a playa hatuh?"
\_ We'll see how an economy built on suburban sprawl
and financed by equity cash-out loans deals with the
end of the era of cheap energy.
\_ Reagan didn't cause the suburban sprawl and the
rising cost of energy. Why do you hate the man?
\_ Recently I reregistered as "no party affiliation" because
the party system is as broken as unions. Basically the R's
as a group are selling out the country instead of solving
problems. Then again, so are the D's. -emarkp
\_ Join the Green Party. We recycle, buy hybrids, and
try to bike as often as we can. I just got a scooter
last year. It's really cool.
\_ you know scooter pollutes more than a car, right?
\_ The main problem I have with Greens is that they tend
to be very myopic and almost obsessively focused on
a dangerously narrow set of issues. While I count
myself as an environmentalist, I think there's a much
bigger picture to be considered that doesn't jibe
very well with the narrow Green body politic. -mice
\_ I agree with some of the goals of the Greens, but I
think too many are just nuts. -emarkp
\_ I used to be a Democrat and now I feel exactly the same
way you do. I hate both R and D. But there is nothing
else left.
\_ If all the decent rational people leave the two major
parties, only winguts are left to vote in both
major party primaries. It's self-perpetuating.
It's important to pick a party and vote in its
primary *especially* if you hate where the parties
are going and want to see them go in different
directions.
\_ My goal of leaving the party was to remove a bias
based on a letter. I want to work harder on focusing
on what people say and do rather than a letter next to
their names. -emarkp |
| 7/8 |
|
| csua.org/u/dfp -> www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/19/AR2005091901298.html Incompetence, Not Racism By Richard Cohen Tuesday, September 20, 2005; Page A23 If you told me that George W Bush is a dummy, I would argue with you but understand why you thought so: all those idiotic statements. But if you told me, as some have been implying, that Bush is a racist or that he d oesn't care about black people, I would not only say that you're wrong b ut add, "Not the George Bush I know." But in his first presiden tial campaign, I traveled with him and tried, as he might say, to look i nto his heart. Conveniently enough, he sometimes wears it on his sleeve -- never more so, as I discovered, than when he talks about poor kids an d racial and ethnic minorities. His feelings for them -- especially for poor kids -- are genuine. This is what I believed then and this -- his i ncompetent performance regarding Hurricane Katrina notwithstanding -- is what I believe now. The most non-nuanced statements came from the rapper Kanye West. Appearing on an NBC special to raise money for flood victims, West attributed the slow recovery effort not to ineptitude but to the fact that "most of the people are black." He followed that up a moment later with: "George Bush doesn't care about black people." NBC sn ipped that comment from its West Coast feed, but no matter: West was cle arly not speaking only for himself. National polls showed a racial divid e in appraising how the government did after Katrina. Blacks by and larg e thought race played a role in the laggard relief effort. Al Sharpton, functionally unemployed all these years, put it a b it differently. Appearing Sunday on local New York television, he didn't exactly say that Bush was indifferent to the plight of New Orleans's po or blacks, but he did say this about Bush: "One has to suspect why he ha d such delayed compassion." Sharpton did point out, as Bill Clinton did in his Sunday TV appearances, that in New Orleans, poor and black are la rgely synonymous, but still the damage was done: George Bush is no frien d of black people. The first is not just that it's unfair -- Bush, in this case, was an equal opportunity bungler -- but that it rests on a stereotype: Republicans tend to wear lime green pants in the summer and dislike black people all year round. There was more than a li ttle truth to this at one time. The GOP, after all, became a safe haven for Southern bigots who fled the Democratic Party (as Lyndon Johnson kne w they would) in the civil rights era. The fight for the rights of black s turned Dixie as Republican as it once was Democratic. To its everlasti ng shame, the GOP continues to benefit from raw bigotry. He is a contemporary Republican, a p erson of another generation who, you may have noticed, has a black woman as secretary of state and had a black man before her. Under him, the GO P began an outreach to black Americans, and unless the Democrats wake up it will ultimately succeed. As Karl Rove well knows, all he has to do i s pick up a small percentage of the black vote and he ends the current 5 0-50 electoral split. Bush, who won an impressive 27 percent of the blac k vote in his reelection bid for Texas governor, could have been the man to do this. My second problem is that yelling racism stops creative thinking. Questio ns about how reconstruction should be managed, about how relief money sh ould be used, about who will be resettled and where -- all of them fraug ht with racial issues -- will not be addressed. Instead, as we have alre ady seen, the feds will simply throw gobs and gobs of money at New Orlea ns and its poor -- never mind how it is spent. Bush has reacted like a c onservative's stereotype of a liberal -- just spend the damn money and h ope it does some good. This, more than anything, shows true contempt for the poor, regardless of race. We especially owe the black po or an appreciation of their plight and their dolorous history. But in ge neral it was incompetence, not racism, that slowed the relief effort -- incompetence on the local and state levels, too, and incompetence on the part of black as well as white public officials. This relief effort ought to start, abo ve all, with some clear thinking. |
| thislife.org FRAME: Main Menu FRAME: From WBEZ in Chicago | This American Life |