[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'T')his thread does NOT belong in "Peak oil studies, reports & models", rather it should be in the Americas thread.

Before anybody goes too far down the road on the "racial hatred" vehicle, note that:

1) Both racial intolerance and gun violence are way down in all statistics. The only thing that is up is the reporting of such incidents. The take-away message is things are improving. Before the Civil Rights movement, these things happened more and were reported a lot less.

2) The recent election of a black man as POTUS has poured oil on the flames or racial intolerance. It seems that everything that Barack Obama does makes things worse than they were before. I have long understood what many simply refuse to accept: the social policies of the US Democratic Party deliberately and definitely promote racial strife. This happens because there exist a great many race baiters within the Democratic Party, and racial strife enables their personal political power.

[PrestonSturges]

There are always stupid people, and a lot of them will have schizophrenic tendencies. But if you tune into the right wing media you will here all sorts of classic paranoid schizophrenic delusions, particularly from Alex Jones and Glenn beck. Sure Jared Laughner was spouting paranoid schizophrenic ideas about hypnotism and the almost supernatural properties of the things strangers said, but that is also mainstream militia dogma. This includes a large militia group in his home town with theories about hypnotism and mind control. Now we have a culture that says "Hey are you schizophrenic? You know what will make you feel better? A lot of guns! They'll protect you from the voices in your head!"

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')2) The recent election of a black man as POTUS has poured oil on the flames or racial intolerance. It seems that everything that Barack Obama does makes things worse than they were before. I have long understood what many simply refuse to accept: the social policies of the US Democratic Party deliberately and definitely promote racial strife. This happens because there exist a great many race baiters within the Democratic Party, and racial strife enables their personal political power.

[KaiserJeep]

These are two prime race baiters:



....I don't know about the rest of you, but I see them all the time on the news.

Here is the reality of crime statistics:




Crime is down. Violence is down. Actual racial incidents are down. Hate crimes are down.

Racial demagoguery is UP, and it's an all Democrat show, so they must realize some political gain from it.

[PrestonSturges]

What is "race baiting" and why are you permanently traumatized every time you see a black person on tv?

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'W')hat is "race baiting" and why are you permanently traumatized every time you see a black person on tv?

[PrestonSturges]

Yes, "race baiting" is an example of RWNJs living in a propaganda bubble of made up words.

See, "Jew baiting" means acts of antisemitism. It does not mean that a Jew is complaining about antisemitism or that if a Jew complains about antisemitism that Christians are entitled to start talking about killing Jews and having another Holocaust.

But if one black person complains about racism, that's "race baiting" and thousands of conservatives all tell each other that they are this close to going on a killing spree and that some day there will be another civil war because of this unbearable "race baiting." Because dammit racism is over, and nothing proves it like a bunch white guys that fantasize about killing black people.

[KaiserJeep]

Race baiters are all about creating furor and controversy where none existed. Whether justified or not. It has nothing at all to do with anybody complaining about race. It is all about publicising a small and rapidly dwindling problem as if it were a growing issue.

I lived through the civil rights era, in NOLA where men in white sheets burned crosses on lawns, and in Manassas VA when MLK was marching in nearby DC. That was then, not now. We are in the post civil rights era now, but some don't seem to notice.

Such as the "OMG" moment when everyone discovered that George Zimmerman (who shot Trayvon) was Latino not White. Change the spin, dial back the demagoguery, wind down the protests.

Such as the fact that you seldom if ever find the major party affiliation of a mass shooting "suspect" published, because they are almost all Democrats. I know NOTHING about the Charleston suspect Roof, but I suggest one thing that got him upset was the number of minorities found today in his former political party of white bigots. Which is actually pretty ironic when you realize that he has a lot in common with his black victims, including an attitude of racial intolerance.

I mean, I UNDERSTAND why some blacks are so frustrated. You can overcome poverty by working. You can overcome ignorance by acquiring education. You can shed intolerance or prejudice or just about anything else. But black is always black. The part I don't understand is why that has to matter to them, because it sure doesn't matter to me.

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'R')ace baiters are all about creating furor and controversy where none existed. Whether justified or not. It has nothing at all to do with anybody complaining about race. It is all about publicising a small and rapidly dwindling problem as if it were a growing issue.

[KaiserJeep]

You certainly have a peculiar and entirely mistaken concept of reality, Mr. PrestonSturges. It seems that some of my remarks were a little too close to home and rang true in your consciousness, and you are upset.

Well, get over it. What if you actually went to http://www.votesmart.org , and discovered that the things I said about the CBC were true. What if you came to the mature and grown-up understanding that people say and do different things. What if you pulled down their socks, and discovered that Democrats really do have feet of clay.

By and large, Republicans don't care about race. However they are the only party to ever put civil rights in a political platform. Look it up. Now investigate the history of the ERA, and how the Democratic party submarined women's rights repeatedly between 1923 and 1985 when they dealt it the last defeat. Reality, what a concept.

[hvacman]

I don't know what else positive will come out of the tragedy, but I do believe one BIG thing will happen.

The Confederate flag will soon disappear from any official governmental presence anywhere in America. Defenders claimed it (the Civil War and the Confederate battle flag) wasn't about slavery, but about states' rights and honoring those states' fallen soldiers. Yes, they died fighting for the right of their individual states to continue the legal practice of the institution of slavery - the right to deny certain citizens of their most basic inalienable rights.

2nd Amendment issues are more controversial and will not be resolved anytime soon, but at least one shameful legacy of the Civil War and "the peculiar institution" of the south for which it was fought may soon be laid to rest. I"m so sorry it also will required laying to rest yet nine more innocent casualties 150 years after the official conclusion of that war.

[KaiserJeep]

Well said. I absolutely cannot stand it when modern revisionists tell me that the Civil War was not about slavery. I have been a member of the Nantucket Historical Association for 38 years, and I am intimately familiar with the birth of the Abolitionist Movement amongst the New England Quakers. But a huge number of people including my Arkansas relatives want to tell you "The South Will Rise Again ". It's never gonna happen, and it should not happen.

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'Y')ou certainly have a peculiar and entirely mistaken concept of reality, Mr. PrestonSturges. It seems that some of my remarks were a little too close to home and rang true in your consciousness, and you are upset.

[KaiserJeep]

I see you have cooled down, are spelling correctly, making correct edits to message quotes, and using proper grammar.

I really am sorry if I upset you before. But YES I really do assert that Democratic party is controlled by racists. There is considerable objective evidence of this.

That does not of course mean that all Democrats are racists, or even a majority of them. It only means that those that control the Democratic Party from the shadows, simply do not care enough about racial issues to have changed much of anything since Andrew Jackson founded the party on a platform of support for slavery and the forcible relocation of Indians to Reservations. These folks only care about Power, and there is a similar group controlling the Republicans, with slightly different obsessions.

Things are less overt today, but really no different - and I told you exactly where you can find the evidence of what I say. You have to do the research yourself to be convinced of the truth of my words, I have found.

Now if you don't mind a couple of personal questions, may I enquire if you yourself are a registered Democrat, or simply lean Democratic, and are you a member of a minority group?

[Pops]

Not sure what our "collective blindness" is, unless it is that there is no racism. But I think most Americans understand that the legacy of our "peculiar institution" is still alive and well, albeit declining somewhat in influence as the old bigotry slowly dies away and America becomes browner due to our requirements for cheap labor that will leave the immigration doors ajar.

No doubt the main feature of modern US politics is the shift in rural, working class, anti-banking, fundamentalists, southern planters and racists - of course whites, from the former party of the southern planter and small farmer, working class, and slaveholder; to the Party of Lincoln (and bankers) on or about the period of the civil rights movement. It is a truly fundamental shift and I'm afraid it is a shaky coalition formed mainly to reject the Civil Rights and environmental laws of the 1960s that became associated with the Democrats.

It really is a conundrum for those whose former party was built around rural white people to be forced to vote against their best interests and align with the traditional party of the educated, professional, banking and ownership class who are least inclined toward workers and civil rights and protection of the environment.


A pretty good story on race religion & politics

On the gun thing, I'm kind of in the middle. I think citizens should have guns, even to the point of mandatory reservist status such as in the Netherlands not so long ago, where all adult men were by definition reservists with issued weapons after serve a short but required active duty period. On the extremes, I'd rather everyone be forced by the government to learn and have a gun than everyone be prevented by the government from owning one. I'm sure that would not be a popular policy tho, LOL

--
I only read in english so I don't know what fiction elsewhere looks like but much of popular male oriented fiction is about a man, put upon by society, hobbled by laws that coddle criminals, who is finally pushed beyond his limits and forced to take "matters" into his own hands.

Another opinion (I have thousands) is that our collective mythology is upward mobility and so the fascination with our Trumps and Kardashians. But the reality these last several decades is the chance s for moving on up are less in the US than elsewhere and folks are casting around for a scapegoat, no surprise that race is still a thing. Pretty sure it is elsewhere as well, no?

[hvacman]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'W')ell said. I absolutely cannot stand it when modern revisionists tell me that the Civil War was not about slavery. I have been a member of the Nantucket Historical Association for 38 years, and I am intimately familiar with the birth of the Abolitionist Movement amongst the New England Quakers. But a huge number of people including my Arkansas relatives want to tell you "The South Will Rise Again ". It's never gonna happen, and it should not happen.

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'I') see you have cooled down, are spelling correctly, making correct edits to message quotes, and using proper grammar.

I really am sorry if I upset you before.

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('hvacman', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'W')ell said. I absolutely cannot stand it when modern revisionists tell me that the Civil War was not about slavery. I have been a member of the Nantucket Historical Association for 38 years, and I am intimately familiar with the birth of the Abolitionist Movement amongst the New England Quakers. But a huge number of people including my Arkansas relatives want to tell you "The South Will Rise Again ". It's never gonna happen, and it should not happen.

[KaiserJeep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', 'I') see you have cooled down, are spelling correctly, making correct edits to message quotes, and using proper grammar.

I really am sorry if I upset you before.

[PrestonSturges]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('KaiserJeep', '
')I really am not following your response. I understand you are p!ssed, of course.