White House has settled in

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bearister
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"We are, to put it simply, the most destabilizing force in the world today," former CIA director Michael Hayden says, describing the "erratic and unpredictable policy of the United States" as the greatest risk to global security.
Between the lines: Hayden isn't alone. Several intelligence experts cited threats coming from within the United States as among the most dangerous we face.
Michael Morell, former acting CIA director:
"What has worried me for some time, even before the 2016 election, is the inability of our political leadership to resolve their differences and to come together and compromise in making decisions that advance our economy and society. Why is this my biggest worry? Because, at the end of the day, the most important determinant of a nation's national security is the health of its economy and its society. Period. End of story." Axios
NYCGOBEARS
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Typical niceties. "How are you?" A smile. A thoughtful "excuse me" then moved aside. "Have a nice day", etc. The thing that surprised me is how genuine, kind and soft his manner was. He came off as charming. I did not expect that.

He must be getting ready to flip.
mikecohen
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bearister said:

Ex-GOP strategist and outspoken #NeverTrumper Steve Schmidt sounded the alarms on Real Time with Bill Maher on the current state of the Trump presidency.

On the subject of President Donald Trump's repeated attacks on the media, Schmidt insisted that it "isn't a question about media bias."

"We're seeing somebody go to mass rallies, constantly lie to incite fervor in a cult of personality base, we are seeing him make victimization honorable- they're all victims, right? We are seeing the allegation of conspiracy, the 'Deep State,' hidden, nefarious movements that only the leader can see. We see the scapegoating of minority populations, vulnerable populations, and lastly, the assertion that 'I need to exercise these powers that no president has ever claimed to have,'" Schmidt told the Real Time panel. "This is deliberate. This is an assault on objective truth. And once you get people to surrender their sovereignty, what is true is what the leader says is true, what is true is what the leader believes is true, even though what's true is staring you in the face. when that happens, you are no longer living in a democratic republic. 35% of this country has checked out. They have joined a cult.They are obedient. They are obedient to the leader."

Later on, Schmidt accused the GOP leadership on Capitol Hill of "being complicit" of Russia's attacks on our democracy.

"They are not defending this country," Schmidt said to Bill Maher." And they are unfaithful to their oaths of office and to the Constitution of the United States." JOSEPH A. WULFSOHN , Media ite

https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/94evwy/the_call_to_investigate_republicans_for_colluding/?st=JKFGAGN3&sh=00f62fed
At some point during that show, Charles Blow, forcefully and as clearly as I've ever heard it, made the strong point that this monster (not just Trump, but his mindless base - remember:at least a third of the population) is really what the whole Republican Party has been living off of since the Southern Strategy, thinking they could just continue to feed off it while keeping it out of sight, chained up in the basement. I've been particularly wondering what Steve Schmidt (who is a great fighter whom I am very happy to have on our side, but who, as a Republican operative for years was of course living off that chained-up monster until it got loose), as well as Nicolle Wallace (a graduate of our beloved institution) would say to that point, but Mr. Schmidt did not take up the point. I'm hoping that it is a hopeful point that the ascension of such an unmitigated evil would de-legitimize the Republican Party for ever (or for years); but the big money and the massive voter suppression which it has also bought will not go away; and I am really tired of listening to brain-dead Republican politicians (Devin Nunes for example) not even having to care if they make any sense whatsoever.
B.A. Bearacus
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Thank you for sharing, NYC. "The most interesting Bear in NYC" moniker continues to apply.

ps. Cohen just texted his friend: "Just bumped into NYCGOBEARS in the elevator. He was more pleasant to me than I expected, and dressed as sharply I had expected."
NYCGOBEARS
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Lol. You're too kind.
AunBear89
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Video/photos or it didn't happen...
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." -- (maybe) Benjamin Disraeli, popularized by Mark Twain
NYCGOBEARS
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Darn! I knew I should've asked for a selfie.
Another Bear
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The GOP has a few more years...but it's base isn't keeping up with modern demographics. Basically they're dying off and not producing more little Nazis and white supremacists. It will be another 20 years but the death watch of the GOP has begun. I think their self-destruct mode of bald-faced lies and inane Q-anon fantasy will do them in before then, but those two things (demographics and lying and chaos as policy) are just too much.
B.A. Bearacus
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bearister
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B.A. Bearacus said:

Thank you for sharing, NYC. "The most interesting Bear in NYC" moniker continues to apply.

ps. Cohen just texted his friend: "Just bumped into NYCGOBEARS in the elevator. He was more pleasant to me than I expected, and dressed as sharply I had expected."

The elevator camera got a picture of NYCGOBEARS. It looks like he was wearing one of those $3000 sport coats Cohen fancies.

mikecohen
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Another Bear said:

The GOP has a few more years...but it's base isn't keeping up with modern demographics. Basically they're dying off and not producing more little Nazis and white supremacists. It will be another 20 years but the death watch of the GOP has begun. I think their self-destruct mode of bald-faced lies and inane Q-anon fantasy will do them in before then, but those two things (demographics and lying and chaos as policy) are just too much.
As my mother used to say: From your lips to God's ears"; but I've seen these monsters written off too many times. Keep in mind that, after Bobby Kennedy was murdered, the Rooseveltian Catholic-European working class constituency, having risen by that time to middle-class status, became the most vigorous part of the anti-civil rights backlash; and I have the sneaking suspicion that, to the extent the American economic system (public and private sectors working together to protect the marketplace) is allowed to "re-distribute" wealth and opportunity sufficiently to allow formerly oppressed minorities (or in some cases majorities) to similarly rise, that the natural conservativeness of many of those cultures will drive them into that evil part of our polity.
Yogi58
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Another Bear said:

It will be another 20 years but the death watch of the GOP has begun.
People thought the GOP was on its death knells in 2008 as well. They were very wrong.
B.A. Bearacus
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NYCGOBEARS
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bearister said:

B.A. Bearacus said:

Thank you for sharing, NYC. "The most interesting Bear in NYC" moniker continues to apply.

ps. Cohen just texted his friend: "Just bumped into NYCGOBEARS in the elevator. He was more pleasant to me than I expected, and dressed as sharply I had expected."

The elevator camera got a picture of NYCGOBEARS. It looks like he was wearing one of those $3000 sport coats Cohen fancies.



Actually, I am wearing an Isaia sport coat today. Same brand as the one he was wearing in the photo. Good guess bearister.
Another Bear
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mikecohen said:

Another Bear said:

As my mother used to say: From your lips to God's ears"; but I've seen these monsters written off too many times. Keep in mind that, after Bobby Kennedy was murdered, the Rooseveltian Catholic-European working class constituency, having risen by that time to middle-class status, became the most vigorous part of the anti-civil rights backlash; and I have the sneaking suspicion that, to the extent the American economic system (public and private sectors working together to protect the marketplace) is allowed to "re-distribute" wealth and opportunity sufficiently to allow formerly oppressed minorities (or in some cases majorities) to similarly rise, that the natural conservativeness of many of those cultures will drive them into that evil part of our polity.

This time it's different.

I get your drift and if you look at history, you are correct about how the Euro-American working class became part of the GOP middle class...some of them. There are still demographic hold outs on both coasts.

The difference this time is race/ethnicity and gender. Europeans, many like Italians and Irish who when arrived were crapped upon, made the jump to "full whiteness" in the eyes of the WASP power structure. Race over took immigration order and weird "other" cultures...as long as you looked the part.

The modern GOP however has pushed away diversity of any kind, in particular race, ethnicity and gender, as well as class. (For god sake, Nazis are literally working in the WH, driving policy.) In the past they could do this and their base was large enough to compensate.

This isn't going to be the case into the future. I think the projection date is 2040 when the US becomes a majority minority population. Both Asians and Latinos have strong conservative cultural instincts that line up with some GOP values (business ownership)...but they lost both with immigration. (see Prop 187) Furthermore, the biggest political development hasn't been the Blue Wave...but the PINK WAVE. Women are getting into politics like never before, and the vast majority are democrats and they're YOUNG. As long as the GOP is anti-woman, this trend increases.

The demographic changes and increased political participation of women will do in the GOP. The current GOP have no counters and no plan. It's a lot like the prop 187 moment in California. The GOP fccked themselves for ever in California by bucking diversity. The same will happen nationally.

The past lies of the GOP (deficit, trickle down, big tent, compassionate conservativism) are being replaced with lies that can't be sustained...a GOP POTUS who lies on average 5 times a day and Q-anon followers.
Anarchistbear
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Whites were 72% of voters in 2016. They also constitute 60% of the Democratic Party. This coming demographic tide is pretty useless if they don't vote..

The Democratic Party is now the marginal party all over the country- the exact opposite of what was predicted in 2008. Right now the Democrats are a regional party. The Republicans enjoy more power since they have since the 1920's
bearister
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NYCGOBEARS said:

bearister said:

B.A. Bearacus said:

Thank you for sharing, NYC. "The most interesting Bear in NYC" moniker continues to apply.

ps. Cohen just texted his friend: "Just bumped into NYCGOBEARS in the elevator. He was more pleasant to me than I expected, and dressed as sharply I had expected."

The elevator camera got a picture of NYCGOBEARS. It looks like he was wearing one of those $3000 sport coats Cohen fancies.



Actually, I am wearing an Isaia sport coat today. Same brand as the one he was wearing in the photo. Good guess bearister.

I would have been in my meat coat.

NYCGOBEARS
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bearister said:

NYCGOBEARS said:

bearister said:

B.A. Bearacus said:

Thank you for sharing, NYC. "The most interesting Bear in NYC" moniker continues to apply.

ps. Cohen just texted his friend: "Just bumped into NYCGOBEARS in the elevator. He was more pleasant to me than I expected, and dressed as sharply I had expected."

The elevator camera got a picture of NYCGOBEARS. It looks like he was wearing one of those $3000 sport coats Cohen fancies.



Actually, I am wearing an Isaia sport coat today. Same brand as the one he was wearing in the photo. Good guess bearister.

I would have been in my meat coat.



Meat coat with a whiskey back... pack. Undoubtably.
bearister
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....and my Bobby Sands t

Another Bear
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Anarchistbear said:

Whites were 72% of voters in 2016. They also constitute 60% of the Democratic Party. This coming demographic tide is pretty useless if they don't vote..

The Democratic Party is now the marginal party all over the country- the exact opposite of what was predicted in 2008. Right now the Democrats are a regional party. The Republicans enjoy more power since they have since the 1920's
I'm talking about 20+ years in the future. Also the 2016 election was an anomaly given the Russian hacking.
NYCGOBEARS
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Did you ever hang out at the Blarney Stone in the Inner Richmond? I used to met more than a few IRA blokes at that pub back in the day.
mikecohen
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Another Bear said:

mikecohen said:

Another Bear said:

As my mother used to say: From your lips to God's ears"; but I've seen these monsters written off too many times. Keep in mind that, after Bobby Kennedy was murdered, the Rooseveltian Catholic-European working class constituency, having risen by that time to middle-class status, became the most vigorous part of the anti-civil rights backlash; and I have the sneaking suspicion that, to the extent the American economic system (public and private sectors working together to protect the marketplace) is allowed to "re-distribute" wealth and opportunity sufficiently to allow formerly oppressed minorities (or in some cases majorities) to similarly rise, that the natural conservativeness of many of those cultures will drive them into that evil part of our polity.

This time it's different.

I get your drift and if you look at history, you are correct about how the Euro-American working class became part of the GOP middle class...some of them. There are still demographic hold outs on both coasts.

The difference this time is race/ethnicity and gender. Europeans, many like Italians and Irish who when arrived were crapped upon, made the jump to "full whiteness" in the eyes of the WASP power structure. Race over took immigration order and weird "other" cultures...as long as you looked the part.

The modern GOP however has pushed away diversity of any kind, in particular race, ethnicity and gender, as well as class. (For god sake, Nazis are literally working in the WH, driving policy.) In the past they could do this and their base was large enough to compensate.

This isn't going to be the case into the future. I think the projection date is 2040 when the US becomes a majority minority population. Both Asians and Latinos have strong conservative cultural instincts that line up with some GOP values (business ownership)...but they lost both with immigration. (see Prop 187) Furthermore, the biggest political development hasn't been the Blue Wave...but the PINK WAVE. Women are getting into politics like never before, and the vast majority are democrats and they're YOUNG. As long as the GOP is anti-woman, this trend increases.

The demographic changes and increased political participation of women will do in the GOP. The current GOP have no counters and no plan. It's a lot like the prop 187 moment in California. The GOP fccked themselves for ever in California by bucking diversity. The same will happen nationally.

The past lies of the GOP (deficit, trickle down, big tent, compassionate conservativism) are being replaced with lies that can't be sustained...a GOP POTUS who lies on average 5 times a day and Q-anon followers.
A few provisos:

1. The Trumpian GOP is full of Irish (e..g, Hannity), Italian (Giuliani), Jewish (Miller), etc.,, Nazis
2. 52% of white women and even 25% of Hispanic women voted for Trump
3. African-Americans ALSO have currently strong conservative cultural tendencies (for really good reasons: (a) for the family, because of the out-and-out destruction of the African-American family by slavery and the most serious economic and political oppression in the 100 years that followed before the civil rights movement finally began to be effective in pushing back (also thereby creating the largest backlash with the ugliest political consequences one can imagine); and
(b) for the church, the one cultural institution allowed the community throughout, and which, in African-Amerian communities, often is the center of the local community
4. In a certain way, women have the natural conservative inclination that comes with the strong natural inclination to bear children and the consequent need for stability in order to raise children, which stability tends to be threatened by social and cultural changes.
5. I'm almost inclined to believe that the American social system is one giant Stockholm Syndrome in which the trajectory of the oppressed groups is to come to identify with the oppressors.
6. Racial and Supremacist politics are totally based on lies - the biggest one of course being the actual scientific existence of what is called race, that word being nothing more to begin with than a handy way to describe (and therefore justify) discrimination and oppression (starting with slavery).
mikecohen
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Another Bear said:

Anarchistbear said:

Whites were 72% of voters in 2016. They also constitute 60% of the Democratic Party. This coming demographic tide is pretty useless if they don't vote..

The Democratic Party is now the marginal party all over the country- the exact opposite of what was predicted in 2008. Right now the Democrats are a regional party. The Republicans enjoy more power since they have since the 1920's
I'm talking about 20+ years in the future. Also the 2016 election was an anomaly given the Russian hacking.
I'm coming to think of the Rooseveltian political structure [which brought together the whole body politic that was not favored in the post-civil war (and post-civil-war-serial-economic-recessions), previous 99%/1% Gilded Age economy (the 1920s economic correction to which was decimated by the 1929 Stock Market Crash), and which political structure institutionalized social mobility through economic opportunity] as the anomaly in American politics.
Anarchistbear
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Clinton and Comey were the two big anomalies.
mikecohen
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Anarchistbear said:

Clinton and Comey were the two big anomalies.
Leftovers: Clinton from Yellow Dog Democracy (which was the South's reaction to the fact that the original Radical Republican Party was the one that smashed slavery); and Comey (from the leftover tradition of those Radical Republicans)
bearister
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NYCGOBEARS said:

Did you ever hang out at the Blarney Stone in the Inner Richmond? I used to met more than a few IRA blokes at that pub back in the day.


The Plough and the Stars on Clement. Never a Provos supporter though. They killed innocents.
Anarchistbear
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The US has no dominant culture- this is the mistake both parties always make. Until the 1980's there was a political federation of Democrats- minorities and labor and intellectuals - until both parties declared capital the winner. The shift to return on capital and globalization without any countervailing ideology gutted large parts of the country. The results after a few decades are many angry orphans.

Recently the Democrats became a coalition of coastal professionals, minorities and whatever whites in the heartland they could still grab. Obama succeeded pretty well with all three groups. Clinton I would argue succeeded with one- the poor minority turn out helped doom her as did the poor turn out of young people and particularly the disaffected working class whites. The interesting thing is that there is a rising labor movement-notably teachers in red states- which are now there for the taking. Capitalism can't help itself in creating more misery even In "so called" good times.
Another Bear
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Quote:

A few provisos:

1. The Trumpian GOP is full of Irish (e..g, Hannity), Italian (Giuliani), Jewish (Miller), etc.,, Nazis
2. 52% of white women and even 25% of Hispanic women voted for Trump
3. African-Americans ALSO have currently strong conservative cultural tendencies (for really good reasons: (a) for the family, because of the out-and-out destruction of the African-American family by slavery and the most serious economic and political oppression in the 100 years that followed before the civil rights movement finally began to be effective in pushing back (also thereby creating the largest backlash with the ugliest political consequences one can imagine); and
(b) for the church, the one cultural institution allowed the community throughout, and which, in African-Amerian communities, often is the center of the local community
4. In a certain way, women have the natural conservative inclination that comes with the strong natural inclination to bear children and the consequent need for stability in order to raise children, which stability tends to be threatened by social and cultural changes.
5. I'm almost inclined to believe that the American social system is one giant Stockholm Syndrome in which the trajectory of the oppressed groups is to come to identify with the oppressors.
6. Racial and Supremacist politics are totally based on lies - the biggest one of course being the actual scientific existence of what is called race, that word being nothing more to begin with than a handy way to describe (and therefore justify) discrimination and oppression (starting with slavery).
1. Latinos, Asians, African Americans and Mixed-race people will replace the Irish, Italians and Jews. They already started if you look at California and NY politicians and media. The difference is they can't pass for white and simply can't drop their background because it's tied to the visuals of skin tone. I see integration but I don't see leaving behind the color line.
2. 52% will be difficult to retain as the demographics shift. The Latino vote is very fickle but 25% doesn't seem crazy if the other side of that is 75% not voting for Trump.
3. Agree the the central institaution in the AfAm community seems to be church/religion. And yes I see some of those conservative Christian values...but the vote was totally mobilized by Obama, while generally NOT voting GOP. I think if the right candidate shows up, the vote is there. It was for Clinton and Obama. I think it will be there for anyone who connects. Elizabeth Warren just stated that the criminal justice system in the U.S. is racist. (like duh...but you still have to say it)
4. I believe the new generation of women voters will support choice, and as long as the GOP is anti-choice, they won't get the vote. I believe the 52% was driven in part by Russkie smears. In an un-hacked elections, HRC should do better...but yes, she messed up bigly in the rust belt.
5. Can't argue against that.
6. While race is an artificial construct scientifically...race is still very much a real thing in modern America. The civil war (and Southern longing for the past), immigration and a few others things will continue to make "race" as we know it, an issue in America because the deportable won't be dead completely and white privledge isn't going away.
Another Bear
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Anarchistbear said:

The US has no dominant culture- this is the mistake both parties always make. Until the 1980's there was a political federation of Democrats- minorities and labor and intellectuals - until both parties declared capital the winner. The shift to return on capital and globalization without any countervailing ideology gutted large parts of the country. The results after a few decades are many angry orphans.

Recently the Democrats became a coalition of coastal professionals, minorities and whatever whites in the heartland they could still grab. Obama succeeded pretty well with all three groups. Clinton I would argue succeeded with one- the poor minority turn out helped doom her as did the poor turn out of young people and particularly the disaffected working class whites. The interesting thing is that there is a rising labor movement-notably teachers in red states- which are now there for the taking. Capitalism can't help itself in creating more misery even In "so called" good times.
The U.S. does have a dominate culture, whether you believe so or not. That culture is first Puritan/manifest destiny and white and second corporate, which intertwine (industrial revolution) if you look closely if you look at the CEOs, BODs and most shareholders. The U.S. also has a consumer culture...and that can be dangerous without growth or managed poorly. It has limitations.

That said, I agree the Dems have become coastal elites, and they are very much tied to corporations and the money.
mikecohen
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Anarchistbear said:

The US has no dominant culture- this is the mistake both parties always make. Until the 1980's there was a political federation of Democrats- minorities and labor and intellectuals - until both parties declared capital the winner. The shift to return on capital and globalization without any countervailing ideology gutted large parts of the country. The results after a few decades are many angry orphans.

Recently the Democrats became a coalition of coastal professionals, minorities and whatever whites in the heartland they could still grab. Obama succeeded pretty well with all three groups. Clinton I would argue succeeded with one- the poor minority turn out helped doom her as did the poor turn out of young people and particularly the disaffected working class whites. The interesting thing is that there is a rising labor movement-notably teachers in red states- which are now there for the taking. Capitalism can't help itself in creating more misery even In "so called" good times.
There is actually a dominant US Culture, in the form of music and (at least in the past) Hollywood movies, and, to a certain extent still, the primary values enshrined in the Constitution, (1) Freedom of Speech, (2) Freedom of Religion [which means two separate and distinct things: (a) whatever Religion you want (short of major crimes such as murder, mayhem and major theft), and (b) No religion shoved down your throat by any government], and (3) the Commerce Clause.

I've often thought that, when the Jews first arrived here and found that, they must have thought they'd died and gone to Heaven.

Also, these dominances still show themselves all over the world, in the strong inclination people have to want to be like Americans (despite the despicable ways in which Americans sometimes both conduct foreign policy and/or themselves individually in foreign countries), and in the continuing stream of refugees and migrants wanting to come here - despite all the ugly politics that have infected us, and still continue to infect us, which often greet them when they arrive [NB: On the other hand, it is often the most conservative parts of the culture which truly accept refugees into their communities and families, which, to a large extent, accounts for the extraordinarily swift assimilation of the masses of refugees of all kinds from all over the world, who have come here since the Second World War, the succeeding generations of whom instantly become the most typical Americans in the blink of an eye].

One of my favorite examples of this was a TV Interview conducted some decades ago of some young Palestinian militants, actually fighting the Israelis at the time, who, at the same time were saying: (1) Death to America, and (2) When this is over, I'm going to America, and be free, and get rich.

But, to end this post on the idea that perhaps the "purest", persistent, cultural dominance is of the music - perhaps because so much of it owes so much to the released energy and purely human aspiration of previously enslaved African-American culture truly dominating that music because of the purely human,and therefore universal, force of that aspiration.
Anarchistbear
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i'd argue that the Declaration of Independence is the only thing that unifies the country and "all men are created equal.". The rest is the endless war between state and federal between classes, between races. When you throw millions of random people together with little in common and little to unify them this is what happens. What also happens is that in an immigrant culture the culture always changes. Unfortunately, people still believe there is a dominant culture we need to return to -which is why we have a Trump and MAGA.

Music. The beauty is that it all coexists- jazz, blues, bluegrass country, rock Latino- but none dominates. And most was born in the South out of unbelievable violence and hardship which still makes the South- for all its faults- the richest culture in the US
Another Bear
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You are correct about U.S. media culture and how it dominates the world. I think it was during the GATT agreement, France had a specific tariff on Hollywood films...didn't want them. Culture, as in the AMERICAN WAY, you know "hearts and minds" stuff, is one of the U.S.'s chief exports. The problem is limited shelf life and it can take a big hit when someone like Trump is elected.
mikecohen
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Another Bear said:

Quote:

A few provisos:

1. The Trumpian GOP is full of Irish (e..g, Hannity), Italian (Giuliani), Jewish (Miller), etc.,, Nazis
2. 52% of white women and even 25% of Hispanic women voted for Trump
3. African-Americans ALSO have currently strong conservative cultural tendencies (for really good reasons: (a) for the family, because of the out-and-out destruction of the African-American family by slavery and the most serious economic and political oppression in the 100 years that followed before the civil rights movement finally began to be effective in pushing back (also thereby creating the largest backlash with the ugliest political consequences one can imagine); and
(b) for the church, the one cultural institution allowed the community throughout, and which, in African-Amerian communities, often is the center of the local community
4. In a certain way, women have the natural conservative inclination that comes with the strong natural inclination to bear children and the consequent need for stability in order to raise children, which stability tends to be threatened by social and cultural changes.
5. I'm almost inclined to believe that the American social system is one giant Stockholm Syndrome in which the trajectory of the oppressed groups is to come to identify with the oppressors.
6. Racial and Supremacist politics are totally based on lies - the biggest one of course being the actual scientific existence of what is called race, that word being nothing more to begin with than a handy way to describe (and therefore justify) discrimination and oppression (starting with slavery).
1. Latinos, Asians, African Americans and Mixed-race people will replace the Irish, Italians and Jews. They already started if you look at California and NY politicians and media. The difference is they can't pass for white and simply can't drop their background because it's tied to the visuals of skin tone. I see integration but I don't see leaving behind the color line.
2. 52% will be difficult to retain as the demographics shift. The Latino vote is very fickle but 25% doesn't seem crazy if the other side of that is 75% not voting for Trump.
3. Agree the the central institaution in the AfAm community seems to be church/religion. And yes I see some of those conservative Christian values...but the vote was totally mobilized by Obama, while generally NOT voting GOP. I think if the right candidate shows up, the vote is there. It was for Clinton and Obama. I think it will be there for anyone who connects. Elizabeth Warren just stated that the criminal justice system in the U.S. is racist. (like duh...but you still have to say it)
4. I believe the new generation of women voters will support choice, and as long as the GOP is anti-choice, they won't get the vote. I believe the 52% was driven in part by Russkie smears. In an un-hacked elections, HRC should do better...but yes, she messed up bigly in the rust belt.
5. Can't argue against that.
6. While race is an artificial construct scientifically...race is still very much a real thing in modern America. The civil war (and Southern longing for the past), immigration and a few others things will continue to make "race" as we know it, an issue in America because the deportable won't be dead completely and white privledge isn't going away.
OK
1. I can definitely see leaving behind the color line, because I have and continue to personally experienced it - first from a high school teacher (an older lady from New England, somehow transplanted into a majority Jewish public school in L.A.) who astounded the class by asserting that she couldn't tell the difference (certainly a bald-faced lie, told for effect, but it worked, and no one could either get her to admit it or come to fully believe that she didn't actually believe it) - but more just from having spent half my life as a jazz musician largely socializing with people on the other side of that line. I mean, it doesn't take much, once one begins actually to engage with people on the "other side of that line", to get to the point where not seeing people instead of members of a stereotyped group becomes certifiably insane.

2. Bearister recently posted an excellent article about the foundations of the Koch Brothers et al. essential plan to suppress the majority vote, by political and cultural means, which has been percolating since the late 1960s and which has flowered in effectiveness majorly in recent years - most especially in the 2016 Presidential Election, but in previous congressional, state and local elections for a lot of years now. Such suppression appears to be a lot easier to achieve than one might imagine.

3. and 5. If you agree with 5, you can't be so certain about 3.

4. A recent poll suggests greater support for Roe v. Wade; but, although the actual, historical basis for opposing abortion has been shown to be racist (since, as abortion was becoming widely accepted by middle and upper class women as one of the things that was helping them overcome their own oppressive conditions, the purveyors of those oppressive conditions began to fear a greater consequent birth rate among "the lower orders"), the cultural justification for abortion is still a very hard argument to make, because it is undeniably killing of human life, and the cosmically meaningful moral reasons for it require a lot of serious soul searching, and real, moral balancing, which are hard for humans to begin with, and maybe almost impossible to cram into a political slogan.

6. The Marxist analysis that got lost here, both in the overwhelming thicket of race, and in his own gross inability to (a) understand the truly organic nature of capitalism and therefore (b) even barely imagine a political system that had any real viability, was that of social class. So, what you miss here is that the privilege is not so much White (of which aspect there is still some appendage, with no real benefit to white people other than the lack of casual, daily oppression to African-Americans and other dis-favored minorities of the day - which is not so much a benefit to white people as it is a blindness of theirs), but, in terms of real power, a privilege of moneyed class, which class by now is absolutely riddled with not only people of all "colors" and other groups but, in truth, non-Americans of all kinds (keeping in mind that 38% of American stocks are owned by foreigners).
B.A. Bearacus
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B.A. Bearacus
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mikecohen said:

Another Bear said:

Quote:

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but more just from having spent half my life as a jazz musician largely socializing with people on the other side of that line.
Very cool, MC!

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