Black Republicans offer hope after Barack Obama's failures

[rdsrds2120]

why the quotations? 'saw' was correct in the context that i used it, you inbred.

42 million is still fairly sizeable. it's around 15%.

Please don't troll, btw

[hairy potter]

why the quotations? 'saw' was correct in the context that i used it, you inbred.

42 million is still fairly sizeable. it's around 15%.

Please don't troll, btw

he's the one who was mocking me first

[Phatscotty]

i recently saw somone on here bandying around the statistic that 40% of americans live on food stamps. if 40% of america voted for a marginal party that promised to address poverty, that party would probably become a fairly major political force.

then you should have immediately "saw" the correction. the reality is 40 million Americans get food stamps.

i think it's 42 million now...

why the quotations? 'saw' was correct in the context that i used it, you inbred.

42 million is still fairly sizeable. it's around 15%.

you are then inbred for not reading the entire subject which you are bringing into this one....it's a moot point

[hairy potter]

oh well i'm sorry for not drawing on every point made in this thread - not to mention the entire world of literature surrounding black voting trends - when constructing my post. i was under the impression that i was just responding to squishy's comment about ditching the two-party system.

does your response have anything to do with my post whatsoever? did it add any value to the discussion? if you want to make yourself useful, attempt to refute the point i made. or make me a cup of tea.

[Phatscotty]

oh well i'm sorry for not drawing on every point made in this thread - not to mention the entire world of literature surrounding black voting trends - when constructing my post. i was under the impression that i was just responding to squishy's comment about ditching the two-party system.

does your response have anything to do with my post whatsoever? did it add any value to the discussion? if you want to make yourself useful, attempt to refute the point i made. or make me a cup of tea.

no thanks

[hairy potter]

ok fine, you want a more in-depth response to your original post (bearing in mind that i already did so earlier, and you ignored it)?

can you imagine white voters lining up 9 out of 10 to stand in "racial solidarity" with an elected official who was the equivalent of a wrecking ball slamming through their lives

well no, but then people are used to white presidents. barack obama is the first black president ever, and his election is more of a statement than it is an attempt to instantly solve inequality. plus, as i mentioned earlier (the post that you ignored), people are far more attracted to the imagery surrounding a politician than they are the in-depth structural impact that said leader and his party have on a country.

these figures show that blacks, who account for only 13 percent of the population, make up 22.6 percent of the now 40.5 million Americans receiving benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Food Stamps)

is this supposed to be a new development? i was under the impression that all social research since the beginning of time was in agreement on the fact that, in countries such as the US and UK, black people are (and always have been) disproportionately disadvantaged. that statistic is in no way relevant to the discussion.

after a year-long debate and an endless barrage of promises from the Obama White House that there would be no federal funding of abortions in the healthcare bill, we now know that tax dollars for abortions are being provided through high-risk insurance programs

is that relevant to a race debate? is his office the only one to have ever made a mistake?

When political parties know that they no longer have to work for your vote, and that support from any voting bloc is automatic regardless of performance, those voters have relegated themselves to playing the role of perpetual dupe.

i refer you to my earlier point about people not being swayed by the in-depth structural work of a party. people choose a political party and stick with it, pretty much regardless. see any study into voting behaviour for reinforcement of my point.

Or that in just four days, more black children die at the hands of the abortion clinic then the KKK killed in its entire history?

very clever, emoting the KKK and abortion in the same sentence as the phrase 'black children' in the hope that people will be tricked into thinking that obama is somehow killing black babies. it isn't working.

When 91 percent of any racial group votes one way, it’s either out of racism or blind groupthink.

well i think we can discount racism, since racism would be refusing to vote for mccain because he's white. so therefore it's blind groupthink. not really a surprise, as i already stated.



there, now i have directly responded to your original article. at least now when you completely avoid trying to engage with anything i say, all you will be doing is demonstrating your inability to engage with any of the issues at hand at a deeper level than copy-pasting anti-establishment propaganda.

[Ray Rider]

Dammit, I already typed this post once, but then the site went down, so I have to do this a second time around.

Thank you for pointing this out to me, VOL. I have learned something new. I actually went to that page on Wikipedia, and checked out the sources. I plan on checking more fully into them tomorrow before class, so that I can take them into my government teacher and confront her on this. Mainly because I simply do not like her. She is a crappy teacher. And not because of this, she just genuinely sucks at teaching.

But anyway, I guess this is what I get for blindly regurgitating something I learned in a college class without any actual research into its authenticity on my part. As to me going to a "university", I don't. I go to Austin Community College for now. I plan on transferring to UT once I get my associate's. So, I guess this is something I shouldn't be surprised to discover since it came from an adjunct teacher at a community college. I guess she shouldn't be expected to know what she is talking about, eh? (this is sarcasm, to be clear.)

Anyway, thanks for pointing out my mistake VOL. I would rather learn the truth then to keep thinking that I already know the truth.

I'm curious if you've confronted your teacher about this yet or what her response was?

[bradleybadly]

barack obama is the first black president ever, and his election is more of a statement than it is an attempt to instantly solve inequality. plus, as i mentioned earlier (the post that you ignored), people are far more attracted to the imagery surrounding a politician than they are the in-depth structural impact that said leader and his party have on a country.

[saxitoxin]

does america honestly only have two political parties?

we only have two major political parties. and neither addresses poverty.

Not to dive too fully into this, and making this statement only with an abundance of goodwill, the United States - functionally speaking - only has one political party: the Institutional Democrat-Republican Party. Said party has organizationally divided itself into two branches - one designed to appeal to centre-left voters and one to centre-right voters.

• - On many occasions in the 2008 election, the two branches of the Institutional Democrat-Republican Party presented a unified front in court challenges to block candidates from other political parties gaining ballot access: Texas versus the Libertarian Party, New Hampshire versus the Libertarian Party, Louisiana versus the Socialist Party, etc. In the case of Texas, the Democrat branch even joined the Republican branch to keep John McCain on the Texas ballot after the Libertarian Party discovered he'd missed the filing deadline and the Texas statutes allowed no goodwill accommodation for candidates in that circumstance. In private industry this is called "collusion" ... in American politics it is "bi-partisanship."
  
  - The so-called "Commission on Presidential Debates", despite the presence of the word "Commission" in its name, is a private corporation organized as a partnership, the two partners being the Democrat National Committee and the Republican National Committee.
  
  - Roughly half of the Top 30 overall institutional political donors in 2010 have given to both the Republicans and Democrats either equally or within 10-percentage points, including: AT&T, Honeywell Corporation, National Beer Wholesalers Association, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, National Association of Realtors, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, New York Life, Raytheon, Goldman Sachs and the Credit Union National Association.
  
  - Eighty-one percent of all bills in the last year passed by the U.S. Senate were passed by acclamation! (meaning there is unanimous consent and no vote even occurs) (This excludes naming and honorary bills which, if included, would put the number over ninety-five percent.)

[Phatscotty]

commission on presidential debates.....thanks for the 1996 thesis flashback

[saxitoxin]

commission on presidential debates.....thanks for the 1996 thesis flashback

I always thought Jesse Ventura's brief guest appearance in this episode of the Ralph Nader & Obama Girl Show did the best job of bullet-pointing the dictatorship of the Commission on Presidential Debates -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4nIpvhlgpo

[Phatscotty]

commission on presidential debates.....thanks for the 1996 thesis flashback

I always thought Jesse Ventura's brief guest appearance in this episode of the Ralph Nader & Obama Girl Show did the best job of bullet-pointing the dictatorship of the Commission on Presidential Debates -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4nIpvhlgpo

Should have left it with the League of Women Voters

[GabonX]

commission on presidential debates.....thanks for the 1996 thesis flashback

I always thought Jesse Ventura's brief guest appearance in this episode of the Ralph Nader & Obama Girl Show did the best job of bullet-pointing the dictatorship of the Commission on Presidential Debates -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4nIpvhlgpo

I love Jesse Ventura just as much as the next crazy, but that shit was fucking retarded..

[Phatscotty]

yes that was quite limp. Here is a much better example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAjvF1XEa3w#t=1m40s (The first Tea Party)

Jesse is the best. I got to vote for him. When he headlines Ron Paul's rally for the republic in 2008 that was huge for Minnesota.

I just drove by his house on Friday. He only lives a couple cities over. Huge "support the troops" sign and a huge "guard dog on site" sign as well

[saxitoxin]

commission on presidential debates.....thanks for the 1996 thesis flashback

I always thought Jesse Ventura's brief guest appearance in this episode of the Ralph Nader & Obama Girl Show did the best job of bullet-pointing the dictatorship of the Commission on Presidential Debates -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4nIpvhlgpo

I love Jesse Ventura just as much as the next crazy, but that shit was fucking retarded..

YOU'RE FUCKING RETARDED

*tickle tickle*

*Saxi tickles Gabby*

I just drove by his house on Friday. He only lives a couple cities over.

I thought the court said you had to keep a 1000 foot distance?

[Phatscotty]

haha. yeah I know. I just wrapped some tinfoil covered in vasoline around my gaydar like ankle bracelet to deflect the signals, as per standard operating procedure.

[MarshalNey]

Not to dive too fully into this, and making this statement only with an abundance of goodwill, the United States - functionally speaking - only has one political party: the Institutional Democrat-Republican Party. Said party has organizationally divided itself into two branches - one designed to appeal to centre-left voters and one to centre-right voters.

• - On many occasions in the 2008 election, the two branches of the Institutional Democrat-Republican Party presented a unified front in court challenges to block candidates from other political parties gaining ballot access: Texas versus the Libertarian Party, New Hampshire versus the Libertarian Party, Louisiana versus the Socialist Party, etc. In the case of Texas, the Democrat branch even joined the Republican branch to keep John McCain on the Texas ballot after the Libertarian Party discovered he'd missed the filing deadline and the Texas statutes allowed no goodwill accommodation for candidates in that circumstance. In private industry this is called "collusion" ... in American politics it is "bi-partisanship."
  
  - The so-called "Commission on Presidential Debates", despite the presence of the word "Commission" in its name, is a private corporation organized as a partnership, the two partners being the Democrat National Committee and the Republican National Committee.
  
  - Roughly half of the Top 30 overall institutional political donors in 2010 have given to both the Republicans and Democrats either equally or within 10-percentage points, including: AT&T, Honeywell Corporation, National Beer Wholesalers Association, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, National Association of Realtors, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, New York Life, Raytheon, Goldman Sachs and the Credit Union National Association.
  
  - Eighty-one percent of all bills in the last year passed by the U.S. Senate were passed by acclamation! (meaning there is unanimous consent and no vote even occurs) (This excludes naming and honorary bills which, if included, would put the number over ninety-five percent.)

Saxi might not give sources, but this is not one of those "internet junk jibberjabber" lists of "facts".

What Saxi has said about collusion between the Democratic and Republican Parties to block competition is the truth, as near as I could divine when I spent some usefully unemployed time in Seattle researching state election laws across the nation. And yes, the work was every bit as tedious as it sounds, but as it was a paradigm-shifting experience for me philosophically, it was worth every legalese-parsing, eye-bleeding, mind-numbing moment.

The conclusions I drew from the data were a bit surprising, even given my relative disenchantment with political parties in general and the Dems and Reps in particular. Admittedly the data I gathered was based upon painstaking and frustrating navigation of state election codes posted online in conjuction with a search of the websites hosted by the Secretaries of State (or other pertinent official), and some states had much better websites and documentation than others. I did not get a 100% clear read on the election codes for all 50 states, but I got enough to prove that there are a myriad of anti-third party laws on the books. Here are some of the highlights:

• The states (in order of census population) of California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Maryland, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Delaware have high-barrier population percentage-based requirements, unreasonably short/odd gathering and filing times for petitions and fiscal fees that make independent candidacy absolutely prohibitive without first being independently wealthy or having unprecedented grassroots funding.
  
  The states of Pennsylvania (21 Electoral Votes), Georgia (15), Arizona (10), and West Virginia (5) require more than 2,000 petition signatures per Electoral Vote to get on a statewide ballot. Some also have odd or ridiculously short filing times and significant filing fees.
  
  The states of Illinois (21), Michigan (17), South Carolina (8), Oregon (7), Connecticut (7), Arkansas (6), Nevada (5), New Hampshire (4), Idaho (4), Maine (4), Rhode Island (4), DC (3), Montana (3), N. Dakota (3), S. Dakota (3) and Colorado (3) have election laws that require more than 1,000 but less than 2,000 petition signature per Electoral Vote. In the case of the larger states, this is daunting but not impossible.
  
  All of the other states (with the exception of Alaska and Hawaii) required less than 1,000 signatures at the time of my research in 2006. However, Washington has recently passed some unfortunate election 'reform' along with several others, so this is probably no longer completely accurate.
  
  The bottom line is that the more populated the state, in general, the harsher and higher the barriers to independent candidates. Some required over 100,000 signatures to be gathered in a period of only three weeks! The major political parties, on the other hand, had to gather exactly zero signatures- they got a free pass based upon getting at least some small percentage of the popular vote in the last election.
  
  Futhermore, the campaign funding laws actually hurt the small guys and help the big guys by requiring expensive, time-consuming and of course publicly certified accounting. "But Marshal, what about those public campaign funding assistance laws?" you ask. Smoke and mirrors, for the most part. A common tactic in these laws is to promise public recompense after the election and only if the independent candidate got enough votes to qualify for financial assistance. Basically, it's a chicken-vs.-egg paradox- in order to get votes, you've got to have money, and in order to get the money, you have to have the votes.
  
  The least fair laws regarding the number of signatures seemed to revolve around a percentage-based equation with no limit. Texas, for instance, makes the requirement astoundingly high. When taken to these extremes, the numbers no longer can palm themselves off as a barrier to 'frivolous' candidates but rather to all but the richest candidates. Surely, 5 or even 10 thousand valid signatures would be enough to deter those who were not serious about the undertaking? Why require 50, 75 or 100,000 signatures unless the goal is to keep the candidacy out of the reach of individuals and put it into the hands of political parties?
  
  The most fair laws, by contrast, required a set number- usually low- to qualify or a percentage-based equation with a semi-reasonable cap (as in the case of Missouri, where the requirement is never more than 10,000 signatures).

If any reform is to occur using the current system, it will have to be done at the local level. Those are the only areas that are even remotely untouched by the established Democratic and Republican national political machines. And to think that such things as 'rogue' members of the major parties exist, much less thrive, is sheer nonsense from the standpoint of history and common sense.

No corporation or other organization pays money without expecting a return on its investment. And as Saxi pointed out, most invest heavily in both political parties, which means that they hedge their bets to make sure that their preferred policies are carried out no matter who is in office. Given the behavior of the Dems and Reps, this seems to be an easy read if one ignores the rhetoric and looks at the facts of their behavior.

To use a recent example, if the Democrats were such liberals and the Republicans such fascists, why is the War on Terror still in full swing? And if the Republicans were so small-government and the Democrats so big-government, why has Social Security and budgets for other government programs consistently increased for the last 150 years of 'bipartisan' rule?

Flowery rhetoric is used so that the political machines can take the American voter for granted, by presenting them with the illusion of choice (often couched as dramatic, society-changing alternatives to each other). The only real point to this battle is which pigs get to eat from the trough- regardless, they will all demand more slops from the people whilst doing just as their lobbyist puppet-masters dictate.

[hairy potter]

your post was too long for me to bother reading the whole thing, but:

Futhermore, the campaign funding laws actually hurt the small guys and help the big guys by requiring expensive, time-consuming and of course publicly certified accounting. "But Marshal, what about those public campaign funding assistance laws?" you ask. Smoke and mirrors, for the most part. A common tactic in these laws is to promise public recompense after the election and only if the independent candidate got enough votes to qualify for financial assistance. Basically, it's a chicken-vs.-egg paradox- in order to get votes, you've got to have money, and in order to get the money, you have to have the votes.

you're assuming that the government is the only source of funding for a political campaign. there are numerous political parties in england, and outside the main three there are eight which hold seats in Parliament. there are also several at the forefront of political media coverage - such as the BNP and UKIP - who have yet to find seats in Parliament, yet continue to campaign in a reasonably high-profile manner year after year. many of these - such as the Greens and SNP - do so because they get enough votes to qualify for government help, and many - such as the Monster Raving Loony Party - continue to exist solely on private funding. where there's a will there's a way.

the point of laws such as the above is to prevent people creating frivolous, tax-payer funded campaigns and wasting everyone's time.

[saxitoxin]

Ney, as usual, is spot-on.

Oklahoma doesn't even have the illusion of access. The IDRP is - for all intents - written into law as the sole legal political party. Not surprisingly, there are no political parties in Oklahoma other than the IDRP and 50% of all races to the Oklahoma legislature have only 1 candidate running - either a Democrat or a Republican ... by convention they don't run against each other.

In 2007, three conservative Oklahoman political activists (Paul Jacob and two others whose names escape me) tried a political reform petition drive that was turning to be successful when the Oklahoma Attorney-General ordered them arrested on charges of Conspiracy Against the State. These three middle aged fellows with no criminal record were paraded into a court in leg-irons (literally - they were restrained in a way that is generally reserved for serial killers). Even Steve Forbes denounced it. They were acquitted, on appeal, by the 10th Circuit CoA, earlier this year -- though they're all now bankrupt as a result of defending themselves against the fictionalized charges.** IDRP victory.

Of course, this is not unique to the United States. There is only the carefully maintained illusion of free speech in the nations of the filthy west. In Germany, if you form a political party that doesn't follow the establishment line the BfV (the Secret Police) simply raid your headquarters, seize your membership rolls*, arrest your leaders and then the "Constitutional Court" bans the whole group as "undemocratic." LOL

* BTW - these membership rolls are then dutifully/slavishly turned-over by the German Secret Police to the U.S. where they are cataloged in a U.S. National Security Agency division responsible for monitoring the loyalty of NATO governments. This process was detailed by Maj.-Gen. Gerd-Helmut Komossa, former commander of M.A.D. (German military intel - Der Militärische Abschirmdienst), in his '07 whistleblower book "Die deutsche Karte" ... though us from the left side of the tracks already knew it. http://www.amazon.de/Die-deutsche-Karte ... 244&sr=8-1

** Also, there are no Kohls in Oklahoma. ZXT199/979

[saxitoxin]

and a similar arrangement/process occurs in every NATO country except Norway and Iceland (and presumably France on the basis of the public fallout from Obama's dismissal of Adm. Dennis Blair as DNI), though I'm mostly familiar with Germany and Canada which I think are likely kept on the tightest leashes and their political institutions most fully infiltrated - usually by their own intelligence services which simply act as adjuncts to the U.S. ... in the DDR National People's Army we joke referred to the RCMP as RCIA (this was back before CSIS was created to take-over CAN intel gathering after the RCMP got caught planting bombs to frame left-wing political activists in the Samson scandal of the early '70's)

[hairy potter]

and a similar arrangement/process occurs in every NATO country except Norway and Iceland, though I'm mostly familiar with Germany and Canada which I think are likely kept on the tightest leashes and their political institutions most fully infiltrated - usually by their own intelligence services which simply act as adjuncts to the U.S. ... in the DDR National People's Army we joke referred to the RCMP as RCIA (this was back before CSIS was created to take-over CAN intel gathering after the RCMP got caught planting bombs to frame left-wing political activists in the Samson scandal of the early '70's)

in the UK we allow the BNP, who are right-wing extremists with a genuine following, to proceed unhindered. despite the fact that they are a party who often veer dangerously close to inciting racial hatred, two of their leaders are invited to garden parties with the Queen and their leader is taken credibly enough to appear on Question Time (a high-profile politics program that often includes members of the Cabinet on its panel). in the netherlands, a serious portion of their coalition government is an even more extreme version of the BNP. please don't tar all countries with your USA/1970s DDR brush.

if you want a true example of the state squashing all attemps to veer from the current political norm, go live in china, north korea, the old USSR (if we're using examples from all the way back in the 70s), any number of african countries, etc. then complain about the way the west is governed.

[saxitoxin]

in the UK we allow the BNP, who are right-wing extremists with a genuine following, to proceed unhindered.

agreed, the UK is one of the most endemically racist of America's client states

[hairy potter]

in the UK we allow the BNP, who are right-wing extremists with a genuine following, to proceed unhindered.

agreed, the UK is one of the most endemically racist nations in the world

no; the BNP are endemically racist. in allowing the BNP to shout and scream all they want, and not attempting to frame them for bomb plots, we are simply allowing them to exercise their free speech and their right to campaign for government.

or maybe we should repress them on account of their racism? squash anyone we don't agree with?

[saxitoxin]

in the UK we allow the BNP, who are right-wing extremists with a genuine following, to proceed unhindered.

agreed, the UK is one of the most endemically racist nations in the world

no; the BNP are endemically racist.

+

with a genuine following

=

[hairy potter]

in the UK we allow the BNP, who are right-wing extremists with a genuine following, to proceed unhindered.

agreed, the UK is one of the most endemically racist nations in the world

no; the BNP are endemically racist.

with a genuine following

the equivalent party in the USA/germany/france/italy/anywhere would also enjoy a following. there are nut jobs in every country. the fact that the BNP have yet to win a seat in Parliament speaks volumes about just how many people in the UK share their intolerances.

free speech means the freedom to say things that saxitoxin doesn't necessarily agree with.