Thursday, February 18, 2016
Saturday, February 13, 2016
Thursday, February 11, 2016
Friday, February 05, 2016
Wednesday, February 03, 2016
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Monday, January 25, 2016
Why the Ta-Nehisi Coates Desire for Reparations is Politically Silly. Short Verson: We lose all Reagan Democrats.
I wanted
to comment in full about some of the sillier implications of Ta Nehisi Coates
statements about the pipe dream of reparations but twitter's character limit
makes that impossible. Until then here's a long winded rebuttal (also in Pic form) that
explains the problems in under 600 words I hope. Yes I'm African American and
I'm a proud Bernie supporter, who I think is the closest I'll get to FDR in my
lifetime.
This is a
handy rebuttal to this article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/bernie-sanders-liberal-imagination/425022/
One: Demanding
reparations for black people is political suicide. One of the reasons we
have a tough time expanding New Deal/Great Society programs is that the GOP has
essentially blackfaced decent social programs or Reagan's welfare queen myth
still lives large. Imagine what would happen if a white presidential candidate
openly supported"giving away" things to black folks, even it was
justified and I've read your work and I think it is. Politically, though, its
not feasible and isn't a standard applied to black presidents or any other
white candidate in the race. We would lose all white working class votes.
Two: The
short term goal of African Americans should be retaking both the house and
senate. The GOP is our biggest
enemy. The GOP is as an openly racist, even openly fascist party. They have to be defeated
everywhere not just for black folks but for everyone. The best programs for
Blacks came with the New Deal/Great Society programs that help every older
African American I know, for example: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
These bills were only passed when Democrats had all the three branches: house,
senate and executive. Bernie Sanders is the only person who has openly embraced
the winning 50 state strategy and retaking the house, which will be really hard
because of very effective GOP gerrymandering. It needs to be pointed out that
Hillary's weaker proposals won't pass either through a republican house. Also,
you can't get to two if you embrace race dividing reparations.
Three: Class
trumps race when you're a minority. When you're a minority and you remember
that -- losing three presidential elections in a row reminds you -- class is
the only way to go. Let's raise the min wage for everyone. 2 to 4 trillion in infrastructure jobs for
everyone. A public healthcare option for everyone. Free post secondary
education for everyone, etc. These are all winners politically and this is why
Bernie is surging. Or what would you prefer to be discussed if Bernie were to
win the presidency and take back both chambers? Basic income for everyone that
would meet basic needs or reparations? Both would help black people quite a bit
but only one is politically feasible. I would go with Basic Income proposals. Better
to win with class than lose on race. Hey maybe the citizens of Wakanda can do
that, if they ever get to vote for their benevolent Saudi Arabia like Black
Panther kings. Please keep your policy proposals limited to comics....
Four: You've
missed the point of superior European living standards. Yes, since you've
been to France Europe . However, I can also assume that
its nothing like where black towns are poisoned by lead or there's a whole
prison industrial complex dedicated to putting people of color in jail or where black people are killed every other
day by the cops under questionable circumstances and a whole list of other
terrible things that you've written in depth about. I assume that blacks in Norway Western
Europe ,
then that would benefit black people as much or more than reparations,
especially if it included basic income. These aren't bandages. These are
bootstraps.
A Philip
Shropshire Meme PIC
www.threeriversonline.com
http://worldtv.com/the_acid_jazz_channel/
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Monday, January 18, 2016
"Puppies and Rainbows" #philsbandnames
Taken from a bad critique of the Sanders healthcare plan by Ezra Klein. And sort of already rebutted by a physicians group that favors single payer.
Sunday, January 10, 2016
#TheGoodWife Hiring someone who has filed a complaint against you for not hiring them is valid.
That is a valid defense. That no one has ever offered me.
#TheGoodWife I'm calling BS on the overactive state EEOC. The feds have been very aggressive but the state anti discrim groups: worthless.
I've used two state EEOC services, one for Indiana and one for Pennsylvania. They were both worthless. You can find my encounter with Catherine Leete here. I later got a settlement there in a case I can't talk about. Where the federal EEOC has negotiated settlements for me over the last 20 years totaling 27 grand, also in cases I can't talk about, at least not for a few years yet. The federal EEOC is way better. In fact, companies have sued the federal EEOC for being too aggressive with their settlement demands.
Thursday, December 31, 2015
#MMA Full vid. Gabi Garcia almost loses in her debut and why the UFC doesn't have a lady's heavyweight division
That was surprisingly competitive. The other lady, or Lei D Tata, put up a better fight than I thought she would. Gabi gets tagged and goes down early. But she got back up and proceeded to fight. Both ladies looked awful technically. Still, that's the complaint against the men as well. The heavier you get the less the skill. I actually think that's why the UFC doesn't have bigger divisions for the ladies. Who would fill those positions?
Lei, a pro wrestler, fought pretty much like you would think a pro wrestler would fight. When she got tagged she went down and stayed down. I don't blame her. Plus I think it probably hurt. Quite a bit.
But it was pretty entertaining. I wish the UFC would create new lady divisions. Maybe one just for Gabi and certainly lightweight. Really, what they have to do, is take the best lady fighters -- I would look at Olympic caliber fighters like Rousey -- and expand it to Olympic level karate, boxing, wresting (or what's left of it...greco?), judo and Tae Kwan do. I'm sure you could find 10 or 20. I mean what else can you do with those skills. And that's your division. Coach em up. Their skills will develop just as we've seen the skills develop in the lady's division.
(Hey UFC: recruit reigning Olymic Taekwando Gold Medal Champ Milica Mandic.)
Or American boxing gold champion Claressa Shields.
Here's the full vid of the fight. Don't know how long this will be up. Look at Gabi's upper body compared to Big John the ref. Jeez what a freak.
Lei, a pro wrestler, fought pretty much like you would think a pro wrestler would fight. When she got tagged she went down and stayed down. I don't blame her. Plus I think it probably hurt. Quite a bit.
But it was pretty entertaining. I wish the UFC would create new lady divisions. Maybe one just for Gabi and certainly lightweight. Really, what they have to do, is take the best lady fighters -- I would look at Olympic caliber fighters like Rousey -- and expand it to Olympic level karate, boxing, wresting (or what's left of it...greco?), judo and Tae Kwan do. I'm sure you could find 10 or 20. I mean what else can you do with those skills. And that's your division. Coach em up. Their skills will develop just as we've seen the skills develop in the lady's division.
(Hey UFC: recruit reigning Olymic Taekwando Gold Medal Champ Milica Mandic.)
Or American boxing gold champion Claressa Shields.
Here's the full vid of the fight. Don't know how long this will be up. Look at Gabi's upper body compared to Big John the ref. Jeez what a freak.
Friday, December 18, 2015
#TheIntercept Why Pierre Omidyar Needs a Super Pac and an Online TV News Channel @pierre
(I wrote this in the comments section for this Intercept article. )
Boy I sure hope Pierre is mad about that, even though technically he’s from France its hard to see how he would pass Trump’s Muslim affiliation test. I’m guessing that will be a very racist test. Now he can start a First Look Media online television station. This would include the Young Turks, Democracy Now, the Real News, Abby Martin, people fired by MSNBC. Lots of contenders. Or just buy one. I’d buy something like the Esquire channel and just add news blocks if I had 1 billion to burn.
Boy I sure hope Pierre is mad about that, even though technically he’s from France its hard to see how he would pass Trump’s Muslim affiliation test. I’m guessing that will be a very racist test. Now he can start a First Look Media online television station. This would include the Young Turks, Democracy Now, the Real News, Abby Martin, people fired by MSNBC. Lots of contenders. Or just buy one. I’d buy something like the Esquire channel and just add news blocks if I had 1 billion to burn.
Of course, as I mentioned on twitter: why doesn’t Pierre have a political pac? I have one, which is a bit underfunded, as in not funded, called the Greater Good Coalition.
Here’s two things we could do with money.
1. We could fully adopt the Ben Jealous Plan which would turn states like Georgia and Texas blue simply be registering unregistered black and Latino voters. He’s estimated a cost of $60 million. I’ve crunched the numbers as a longtime doorknocker and canvass director (knocked on more than 30000 doors.) and I’m pretty sure you could do it for $20 million dollars. I think you could also do it before November 2016 if you start in the next month or so.
What are the implications of achieving the Ben Jealous plan? It would mean that the Democrats would have electoral lock in for the presidency and probably gain enough house seats to retake the US house, even though the gerrymandering done by the GOP is at a high level.
2. You could spend another 25 million by yourself or in coalition with the Tom Steyers and Nick Hanaurs of this world, and retake the US house. This would put anywhere from 30 to 50 field canvasses in at least 40 races so that could retake the US house. Nothing decent gets done without Dem majorities in the US House and US Senate. Bernie Sanders could win the presidency and you would still get the same awful policies.
If Omidyvar , and the left coalition of left big spenders, were to spend 50 million on just those two campaigns, then you could beat the 1 billion or so being spent by the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson.
But Phil, Pierre is saying as he’s writing the check because I’m optimistic, why can’t the DNC do that? Because, and you make the check out to the Greater Good Coalition, its not entirely clear that the Dems want to retake the House or the Senate. Notice how little Hillary talks about retaking congress. Sanders at least hints at it because he can’t get anything done without retaking the house and the senate. I think the dems made a deal to not contest congressional control to their big donors. I can’t prove this its just a gut feeling. The only group that’s tried to influence congressional or state house races in my state of PA is Working Families. And they’be been inactive for three years. Labor has completely failed to move the needle or they’re happy with pro labor republicans, which is a very foohardy relationship. Or just ask the right to work state of Indiana.
So if Mr. Omidyar is really mad and wants to do something about it here’s his chance.
PS: Here are some links about this:
Monday, December 14, 2015
#ChildhoodsEnd So far they do seem like nice Overloards. They're not lizard people like in V...Of course that's how it started.
The V aliens being all friendly and stuff.
Sunday, December 06, 2015
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