Angry White People

[tapitsbo]

I would like to see way more support here for a culture of resistance against very real, documented assaults happening in towns across America and a swelling tide of racist, violent rhetoric..

This is how Trump supporters see themselves though, right? As a "culture of resistance against documented assaults" (There may be several reasons for the belief to be misguided but...)

Hyperbole about "Soros" is a synecdoche for professional activists providing intellectual labour to grassroots movements (not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that)

[Luther Blissett]

I would like to see way more support here for a culture of resistance against very real, documented assaults happening in towns across America and a swelling tide of racist, violent rhetoric..

This is how Trump supporters see themselves though, right? As a "culture of resistance against documented assaults" (There may be several reasons for the belief to be misguided but...)

Hyperbole about "Soros" is a synecdoche for professional activists providing intellectual labour to grassroots movements (not that there's necessarily anything wrong with that)

Well except that in the real scenario, large swaths on the oppressed side live in deep poverty, are broadly incarcerated, abused and murdered by law enforcement, denied access to education, denied from employment, denied fair housing rights, etc.

In the fantasy scenario, there's an epidemic of murder of police (the opposite is true, and when police are killed it is done so a majority of the time by whites) and roving gangs of crack-addicted (the crack epidemic has been on a two-decade decline) black and brown people are I guess organizing (?) to overthrow rightful whites.

If all this rigor is supposed to be some kind of Kantian critical thinking exercise, then I'm all for it.

So I'm suggesting that rigorous intuition could be a place where ideas can be pitched back and forth, information can be gathered, new ideas can be formulated, issues can be philosophically hashed out, and tactics can be rigorously discussed on the question of Trumpism. Much like how the forum functioned on the Wall Street Problem circa 2007-2010 in incubating some of the foundations for Occupy Wall Street (and in my mind, some of the great thinkers here went imaginatively well beyond what wound up really happening in Zuccotti).

[tapitsbo]

Is that the fantasy scenario?

I've picked up much more on resentment of the media for a perceived asymmetry in how violence is reported (this perception may be backed up at times). Certainly political violence is interpreted as terrorism when one group is involved, protest when another group is involved. Then again there may be people concerned about such things whose horizons extend beyond Trump...

Of course this topic area is a minefield where things like the practice of statistics itself is often interpreted as an instance of white supremacy. So it's difficult to see how dialogue could hypothetically begin.

Why would hypothetical Trumpists be concerned about crack? I'm not sure real ones are. Then again I'm no Trumpist so I'm not sure how committed I am to gauging his supporters' collective consensus.

Personally I don't doubt that populations like blacks are indeed targeted in various ways by the government. That doesn't invalidate a set of issues that some see as an "antithesis" to this...

[backtoiam]

To further address Alice's comment about how confused our youth are these days...

Alice wrote:
Using the "youth" as a front. I guess young people lack the knowledge, the wisdom and the experience to see these professionally-engineered manipulations for what they are. So they keep falling for the same tricks, the same slogans, the same logos, in one country after another, never stopping to learn from those who came before.

What is going with the disconnect between attacking Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the same election? WTF is that about? Bernie marched with Martin Luther King Jr.

Why? Are these people being guided to do this by some other force? Or, are they just so confused and ignorant that they are biting anything that moves?

This is well worth watching. If anybody has an explanation for this I would like to hear it.

[tapitsbo]

The riggies already tackled that, btia, and they seem to have deduced that it was a cointelpro job in that case.

[Wombaticus Rex]

What is going with the disconnect between attacking Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump in the same election? WTF is that about? Bernie marched with Martin Luther King.

Why? Are these people being guided to do this by some other force? Or, are they just so confused and ignorant that they are biting anything that moves?

We cohabitate with around eight billion other biped primates, few of whom agree with you on much of anything. Accordingly, the fact that Bernie was doing volunteer work in the 1960's doesn't mean very much to a generation that was born long after MLK was killed by the US government. In fact, a lot of the kids on the front lines of Black Lines Matter protests -- none of whom have received much from George Soros -- have parents who were born after MLK got assassinated.

They see Bernie Sanders as an old white man who is arrogant for glibly assuming his past credentials earn him some kind of street cred today. Especially since his civil rights activism has decreased in proportion to the growth of his personal power. Most especially since he focuses on economic equality and believes that to be more important than racial inequality. This is a point of fundamental disagreement with a lot of current activist communities, despite the fact they share a lot (A LOT) of strategic goals with the Sanders campaign platform. Their core issue is something that Sanders will not adopt as his own.

Then again, I have to wonder why you're asking us for explanations when the activists in question have been using social media to tell this to anyone who would listen. I'm not sharing some keen analytical insights with you, here: this is just what they say.

[tapitsbo]

Backtoiam has been telling us for some time that he can't get a coherent message from activists on social media and myriad other contemporary voices (if I understand him right).

[backtoiam]

Then again, I have to wonder why you're asking us for explanations when the activists in question have been using social media to tell this to anyone who would listen. I'm not sharing some keen analytical insights with you, here: this is just what they say.

Because I don't spend much time with my nose buried in these racial issues but since I am a news aggregator hound I cannot avoid them. If you have noticed I typically stay far far away from these threads because it is not my focus. It just stood out to me in a glaring way. My question was genuine. I figured Luther or somebody would respond.

I have my own ideas...the fact that they were able to get that close to Bernie Sanders in the first place indicates a "stand down" mode, at least to me. Why were these people not snatched up by security? Where was security? Looks scripted to me.

I flee from this thread now. Not really my bag...

[tapitsbo]

Optics? Snatching by security means literally Trump means literally Hitler. Unless you're Hillary, or something.

[Wombaticus Rex]

Backtoiam has been telling us for some time that he can't get a coherent message from activists on social media and myriad other contemporary voices (if I understand him right).

Probably a matter of how questions are getting framed. Expecting coherent messages from people with different backgrounds, beliefs and goals is a recipe for constant confusion & frequent frustration, innit?

Deray ain't Shaun King, Netta isn't comparing notes with Melissa Harris Perry, Eric Dyson isn't taking marching orders from Cornel West, none of them have ever interrupted Bernie Sanders.

[Luther Blissett]

Is that the fantasy scenario?

I've picked up much more on resentment of the media for a perceived asymmetry in how violence is reported (this perception may be backed up at times). Certainly political violence is interpreted as terrorism when one group is involved, protest when another group is involved. Then again there may be people concerned about such things whose horizons extend beyond Trump...

Of course this topic area is a minefield where things like the practice of statistics itself is often interpreted as an instance of white supremacy. So it's difficult to see how dialogue could hypothetically begin.

Why would hypothetical Trumpists be concerned about crack? I'm not sure real ones are. Then again I'm no Trumpist so I'm not sure how committed I am to gauging his supporters' collective consensus.

Personally I don't doubt that populations like blacks are indeed targeted in various ways by the government. That doesn't invalidate a set of issues that some see as an "antithesis" to this...

Because in the real scenario, those seeking justice are doing so for all (or 99% if speaking in near-future terms). I would say this is the case amongst most of the participants. To struggle not competitively but for a better future.

"Crack" is just one of many dog whistles still used. Even on this board. But that could've been replaced with any of about two dozen falsehoods or fantasies. Welfare queens, Mexican rapists, dancing Muslims in New Jersey, black Marxists, etc.

[Wombaticus Rex]

"Crack" is just one of many dog whistles still used. Even on this board. But that could've been replaced with any of about two dozen falsehoods or fantasies. Welfare queens, Mexican rapists, dancing Muslims in New Jersey, black Marxists, etc.

Crack is definitely on par with "culture of lawlessness" and good old thug as a Neon Signifier.

I actually know a black Marxist but he's a couple dozen parsecs away from the caricatures I've read about. Just as LOL as any other Marxist, though. (I only mention this as an overt bid to establish that I'm cool, and Not Like That At All. Did you know I own many rap records?)

[tapitsbo]

Well I'm familiar with real scenarios from real life and they are more complicated than what Luther describes. Collaboration seems discouraged when the majority of the population is actively excluded... large swathes of the 99% want forms of agency that professional activists are loath to allow them (see: AD's posting career).

It's getting harder for experts to have a monopoly on reality, after all.

It's easy to talk about outdated dog-whistles, harder to understand how we're supposed to have a discussion about violence when we reject statistics, etc.

The lack of honesty around violence is a way bigger source or resentment in 2016 than any of the itemized tropes listed in above posts.

Angry white people who have been paying attention are going to have a way bigger hate boner for the scummy end of media/social science/NGO castes than for blacks living in poverty, or whatever.

Pointing out the factual inaccuracy of pointing and yelling "Soros" is doing said angry white people a favour. It's not always time to paint in broad brush strokes, you know?

[backtoiam]

kool maudit wrote:
Once we makes some moderation changes, Alice, you'll be singing a different tune.

Alice replied:
Thank you, kool maudit, for giving me my first laugh out loud of the day..

Alice, you must get a hold on yourself!!!

[Joe Hillshoist]

I'm just saying that the people-powered anarcho-punk flavor of anti-fascism has always been a part of this place, so I've been finding the recent backlash against Crass-style aesthetics (in addition to the writing) here kinda funny. If you want to talk about the mindset of the founder of this website, you have an answer right there. His focus for months has been the proto-fascistic pageantry of Trump and the quasi-paramilitaristic violence of his followers.

I don't care the least about purity and would prefer a discourse on both the Casual American Caste System and Angry White People, but I'm sensing a lot more thought policing against anti-fascism than the inverse.

We have a weird dystopian Trumpism that is being manufactured in the United States right now and the sheetrock is going up fast. You're going to go visit your sister in Bloomington for the weekend and when you get back, there's going to be a Trump Casino on your block. I'm a pacifist but I'd like to think I never would have stood in the way of dissidents at Little Bighorn or the Warsaw Ghetto. Perhaps I would have joined them. Who's to say?

Staying on that 'thought policing against anti-fascism', this can hardly be the case if it is, as you describe, a recent backlash. 'Thought policing' describes a well entrenched and complex system.
'Backlash' in itself seems to cut it though

Regarding how this place used to be, and how Jeff might think, both of these seem pretty abstract to me and don't seem to be looking towards the here and now.(there is a lot of this here though)