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Reports of protests are overblown. A few incidents around the country, but nothing major.

5 (45.5%)

A few major incidents in capitals, but nothing much in DC.

5 (45.5%)

A major incident in DC, but nothing much around the country.

0 (0%)

More than 10 capitals have major upheavals, but nothing much in DC.

0 (0%)

A major incident in DC plus more than 10 capitals with significant upheavals.

1 (9.1%)

More than half the capitals around the country have problems with protesters, but DC is quiet.

0 (0%)

DC has major problems, while more than half the capitals around the country also have considerable trouble with protesters.

0 (0%)

Huge disruption to the day.

0 (0%)

Total Members Voted: 9

Voting closed: January 19, 2021, 10:49:21 PM

[facilitatorn]

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/13/running-against-the-devil-review-rick-wilson-anti-trump-missile

There’s one candidate so bad he will never actually win an election. For some reason he’s sitting in the White House lying his ass off, fumbling his words, and committing crime after crime as his few remaining aides try to prevent him from running the country into the ground.

[facilitatorn]

http://www.salon.com/2020/01/14/is-donald-trump-on-drugs-look-in-the-mirror-america/

[luee]

---Sen. Cory Booker plans to introduce slavery reparations bill to Senate---

Bill was not popular with both blacks and whites.

[barton]

Bo didnt want to go to the black guy's web page

All this talk of Republican racists - you have em on your side as well.

Troll much?

[bodiddley]

---Sen. Cory Booker plans to introduce slavery reparations bill to Senate---
Bill was not popular with both blacks and whites.

That's been my impression.  Booker had policies that appeal to blacks and New Jerseyans.  Maybe he just wanted to up his profile  to the national level, ensure he wouldn't face any threat to his Senate re-election, get a feel for running nationally, leave a general good impression, and be ready to try his luck in 4 or 8 years.  That's pretty much the only thing that explains, imo, Book's campaign and policies.

Otherwise I think slavery reparations is an idea whose time has past.  It's a very distant grievance, most whites and Hispanics and Asians trace their roots in America to the 20th C, well after slavery was ended.

I think a smarter strategy would be to call for reparations for segregation.  100 years or more of blacks being denied voting rights, decent education, jobs, equal salaries, loans, any kind of fair treatment. This involves much more recent events.  This gets to the heart of how and why blacks are generally impoverished in America.  Because they were illegally denied economic opportunities.  And you'd have plenty of folks who are alive who can talk about the discrimination they faced and harm done to them.  famous elder statesman and celebrities and such.  It'd be much more immediate, personal and powerful. 

If you want to go that route, I'd strongly suggest reparations for 100+ years of discrimination and humiliation.  Segregation and apartheid America was recent and harmful and could be remedied.

[barton]

The challenge is with the whole concept of race, which has mostly been discarded by anthropologists et al.  Very few people are now solely descended from American slaves.  Most people labeled as "black" are like Obama, with European and/or native and/or mesoamerican ancestry as well, and some have African ancestry but are descended from later immigrants from Africa or the Carribbean or C. America.  Also, how would we parse all the other groups, some from Europe, that were subjected to economic inequality (as some of my Irish ancestors were) or various shadowy kinds of wage slavery or indentured servitude?  So what about what you suggest, looking at familial history of living where there was segregation?  Is that something that can be feasibly done without creating mountains of paper to wade through?  Maybe. 

From my (limited) perspective, I would think you'd get more bang for your buck in looking at every personnel manager who disproportionately tosses resumes of people with names like "Chantelle" or "LaShondra" into the wastebasket without reading further.  Not that I have a good handle on how to monitor that - racism is at its most pernicious, IMO, when it is subtle and hard to quantify.  And, to be Captain Obvious here, start really investing in upgrading schools in poor neighborhoods and in after-school programs that stimulate young minds and engage with and expand their interests.  Have a system that looks at every "at-risk" child as important and individual and reaches out to them and their families.  That would cost money, but it would repay us all for millennia with a better nation, and one with far lower rates of incarceration, violent crime, drug abuse and addiction, early death, suicide, etc. 

[barton]

Wonder if the Lincoln Project (George Conway, et al.) is starting to have some effect...

With polling showing that the public overwhelmingly wants to hear from Bolton (two-thirds support it, including more than 70 percent of independents, according to a Quinnipiac poll released Monday...

If Parnas gets on the stand, that might be pretty interesting, too.

[bodiddley]

The challenge is with the whole concept of race, which has mostly been discarded by anthropologists et al.  Very few people are now solely descended from American slaves.  Most people labeled as "black" are like Obama, with European and/or native and/or mesoamerican ancestry as well, and some have African ancestry but are descended from later immigrants from Africa or the Carribbean or C. America.  Also, how would we parse all the other groups, some from Europe, that were subjected to economic inequality (as some of my Irish ancestors were) or various shadowy kinds of wage slavery or indentured servitude?  So what about what you suggest, looking at familial history of living where there was segregation?  Is that something that can be feasibly done without creating mountains of paper to wade through?  Maybe. 

I think you got completely sidetracked.  It's not that other groups didn't experience discrimination.  But Irish and Italians and Jews  were able to blend in as white, and get the benefits of belonging to the dominant race.  Sometimes a simple name change did the trick.  The extent and persistence of racism against blacks makes that discrimination categorically different, besides being much longer, more virulent and on-going.

Also, I don't think there has been that much African or other black immigration into America over the past 100 years, mostly due to racist policies which favored white immigrants.

But I'd keep it very simple, xxx amount of money to every black adult.  I didn't suggest looking into family history, just that you could get testimonials and a whole big social media outpouring of shared sufferings under segregation.  Which could garner public support.  it's not as abstract or old history as slavery, it's recent and affected people alive today.

Not saying I necessarily support the idea or think it's good politics, though in economic terms putting money into the hands of poor people is good as they are likely to spend and circulate that money pretty quickly.  I just think that slavery reparations has many flaws while while segregation reparations has the ability to connect and galvanize folks. 

[bambu.]

Any White people allowed to marry into Black High Society in America?
Any White people in the Black High Society debutante balls in America?

[bambu.]

This could really happen at the Black High Society debutante ball?
Or is it just movie fantasy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OwZD21zbqU

[barton]

 Bo,  I don't disagree that discrimination against African-American people was worse.   And,  for sure,  you couldn't dodge it with a name change as some ethnic groups did.   I guess I am grappling with how groups,  like the Lakota (the dominant ethnicity of my neighborhood), would handle the notion that the extent and persistence of racism was greater for blacks.   Lakota have turned down a billion dollars or more in reparations for the theft of the Black Hills because they don't feel that makes things right - the general feeling is that the Hills are still theirs and they had no interest in selling them.   That land is sacred to them.  I'm not saying that's analogous or even similar to slavery reparations, just trying to convey that issues get complex whenever someone hatches a simple plan to rectify past wrongs.   Would blacks have mixed feelings, as well,  about getting a check?   I just don't have a clear view of how this works.  I do like Booker's idea of a college fund for every child because it's a boost to every family facing economic disadvantages.

[LarryBnDC]

Bo didnt want to go to the black guy's web page
All this talk of Republican racists - you have em on your side as well.

  Sure, be a jerk.  It's what you do best.
I havent gone to any candidates website.  I did check out Hillary's 4 years ago.

The thing is a website can list all sorts of positions while a candidate needs to prioritize and make a case.  Booker failed to get his message through for whatever reason.  Seemed to me he was selling himself and his approach (positive, bipartisan) in a political climate that for the Dems was based on policies and specifics.  Maybe Book should have billed himself as a 3rd term Obama, which we was robbed of, and talked up all the good things the O Admin did.  Though that would have meant contrasting with Trumps chaos routine, and Book didn't want to be negative or critical for some reason.

Maybe if he sharpened what he was for and sharpened his elbows he could have made more impact. Instead he was a 2nd/3rd tier candidate the whole way.

Black voters preferred Biden for whatever reason.  Book never put a dent into that.  Mostly he was around 3%.  Too much Dem emphasis on skin color.  Policies are more important.  And hopefully votes are based more on policy and whats best for the country rather than pigmentation.

Too much emphasis on skin color?

So if the election goes south are we gonna blame the loss on low black turnout... AGAIN?

White people cannot keep expecting black folks to save them from themselves in order to only maintain status quo.

[LarryBnDC]

Here's the AP discussion of Booker's policies, fairly deep into a post-mortem article discussing his personality and approach:

Booker struggled to land on a message that would resonate with voters. He’s long been seen as a progressive Democrat in the Senate, pushing for criminal justice reform and marijuana legalization. And on the campaign trail, he proposed establishing a $1,000 savings account for every child born in the U.S. to help close the racial wealth gap.

He was among the first candidates to release a gun control plan, and at the time it was the most ambitious in the field, as it included a gun licensing program that would have been seen as political suicide just a decade before. He also released an early criminal justice reform plan that focused heavily on addressing sentencing disparities for drug crimes.

So Obamanian incremental steps.  I like the baby account, though it sounds like one of those ideas which will never be implemented.

Everyone is in on criminal justice reform, even a fair amount of Republicans.  I'd much rather see someone support decriminalization of all drugs.  MayorPete made some vague sounds in that vein.

Mayor Pete can’t straighten out the problems between HIS police and his constituents in South Bend.

[LarryBnDC]

---Sen. Cory Booker plans to introduce slavery reparations bill to Senate---
Bill was not popular with both blacks and whites.

That's been my impression.  Booker had policies that appeal to blacks and New Jerseyans.  Maybe he just wanted to up his profile  to the national level, ensure he wouldn't face any threat to his Senate re-election, get a feel for running nationally, leave a general good impression, and be ready to try his luck in 4 or 8 years.  That's pretty much the only thing that explains, imo, Book's campaign and policies.

Otherwise I think slavery reparations is an idea whose time has past.  It's a very distant grievance, most whites and Hispanics and Asians trace their roots in America to the 20th C, well after slavery was ended.

I think a smarter strategy would be to call for reparations for segregation.  100 years or more of blacks being denied voting rights, decent education, jobs, equal salaries, loans, any kind of fair treatment. This involves much more recent events.  This gets to the heart of how and why blacks are generally impoverished in America.  Because they were illegally denied economic opportunities.  And you'd have plenty of folks who are alive who can talk about the discrimination they faced and harm done to them.  famous elder statesman and celebrities and such.  It'd be much more immediate, personal and powerful. 

If you want to go that route, I'd strongly suggest reparations for 100+ years of discrimination and humiliation.  Segregation and apartheid America was recent and harmful and could be remedied.

Segregation and apartheid America is an evolution of enslavement.

But yeah, let’s MARKET fairness to the nation that replaced Barack Obama with Donald Trump.

To the nation that sees a cop kill a black man on camera and reacts by saying, “He should have complied.”

[bambu.]

I'll take it that the answers to my questions are;
. No
. No
. No
. Yes.