US Geekhackers, remember to VOTE today!!

[clickclack]

It's like you read my mind man. Whoa!

[TheQsanity]

The solution to all of your problems is here! The solution lies at the point where any of you believed what a came out of a politician's mouth.

[TexasFlood]

I voted absentee long before yesterday. I thought Romney was more likable in his concession speech than I can remember.  With the nature of his party and the primary competition he had moved far to the right over his previous positions and flip flopped so much it wasn't clear what he would really be like in office. He was a good soldier for the Republican part but I bet he and his wife are glad it's over, althought I'm sure it hurts like hell to lose, especially as they seemed to really think it was going to be different. In the end the electorial map looked almost identical to the last election although Romney did pick up a couple. Florida, of course, is off in it's own twilight zone, thank goodness the election didn't come down to Florida or it would be 2000 all over again. As the % of white vote continues to diminish, the Republicans might have some hard times ahead if they can't change with the times as minorities haven't been their strong suite, with the exception of George W to a degree with hispanic voters. 88% of Romney votes were reported to be cast by white voters vs 56% for Obama. I was surprised how many presidential candidates were on the ballot besides Obama and Romney. Most of them I'd never heard of. Rosanne Barr was there, would have been a good protest vote, hah.

[MMB]

Well said, Texas. It just shows how out of touch the GOP is with the times, and people.

[sth]

I voted absentee long before yesterday. I thought Romney was more likable in his concession speech than I can remember. 

I noticed this too. He seemed like a real person.

Also Roseanne Barr is a certified badass.

[laffindude]

The point is, this hypothetical discussion is not really helpful. We can and should discuss real problems. God knows we have enough of those without introducing hypotheticals.

Nor is the racist witch hunt, but I agree with the point.

Now with republican majority in House, we'll just get more of nothing gets done and crap snuck into bills. Our political system is broken, and I definitely agree that a little rebellion wouldn't hurt

*I had more here about what Obama is going to do about the current issues. But since nothing would get done, I just deleted them. **** ain't happening. I am not in the doom and gloom crowd, but it sure doesn't look like a bright 4 years incoming.

[mickd]

Oh I just saw this thread. Is it too late to vote?

O wait, wrong tone for this thread..

[sth]

Racist witches O_O

[mkawa]

TIME WIZARD!!

for the record, this is absolutely the most bizarre behavior we've ever seen out of SMF thus far. i'm completely boggled by it.

[sth]

That or CC deleted his post and reposted it?

[laffindude]

Racist witches O_O

Grab your pitch forks.

[sth]

i can't risk being turned into a newt. i might have to become the speaker of the house if that happens and i really just don't have time for that.

[laffindude]

I lolled. 10 internets for you.

[hashbaz]

I try to be a nice person to everybody. I give people the benefit of the doubt whenever possible. But if you do something that overtly supports the perpetuation of racism then the gloves are off and I will be an ass. It's the least I can do. Marginalizing racists is not the same as marginalizing people based on race. I would rather come across as an ass to people who support racism (is that better than calling them racists? because I really don't see a worthwhile difference) than play nice with people who want to support racists.

If I offended anyone with my views, that's your right to be offended, but don't conflate personal offense with institutional racism. One is a much bigger deal. I have no patience for apologists anymore.

Nobody conflated those two things.  I'm not offended, but I do think you're wrong both in substance and in being a jerk about your opinion.

Calling literally everyone who supports Romney a racist is meaningless apart from its rhetorical shock value.  It can't be anything other than vitriolic hyperbole or an overly simplistic view of the world.  What about people who voted for Romney because they disliked the president's policies, or because they believed he would be better at economic policy than the president?  Calling them racists is worse than useless -- it dilutes the meaning of the word.  It also paints them in simple, black/white terms, and ends up classifying them, as a group, as "the enemy".  That is the same sin that at the root of racism itself.

The worst blanket statement you should make about Romney supporters is that they are complicit with Romney's racist policies.  That is _very_ different than calling them racists.  Even calling Romney a racist is not fair since you don't know him personally.  I understand that you define racism by result rather than intention, but most people don't understand it that way.  I've already explained why I think it's incoherent and harmful.

[TexasFlood]

I think that is insulting to those who voted Romney on religious beliefs. I am not a religious man myself, but it is appalling to hear such insinuation.

Romney's policies benefits the rich? Sure. It is top down economics and it has worked in the past. Short term it may look like the rich are the only ones benefiting, but the rich are the ones who will create new jobs, either by spending more money or direct investment into new businesses. Calling those policies racist shows your own bias. Only white man are successful business owners? Oh? persons of color can't/aren't? You may need reflect on your own beliefs some more.

Romney does seem to be a very religious man capable of giving substantially of his money and time to others.

On the other hand, he also co-founded Ban capital which "harvests" (his words captured on video) companies at the expense of many workers and one might argue the country in a more general sense for great personal profit. Well to be fair He and Bain don't just do it in the USA. In 2000, they also acquired a phone company from the Italian government which they flipped for $1 billion dollars profit and avoided paying taxes to Italy leaving Italian taxpayers holding the bag.

As he debated Obama and talked about how he would take on China and how terrible it was that USA manufacturing jobs were moving to China, Bain was in the process of moving a company reporting record profits (Sensata From Freeport, Il) to China into a shiny new facility built for Bain by the Chinese Government. All the USA workers were fired after training their Chinese replacements. It is our government that pays unemployment to these workers, loss of tax revenue, and substantial retraining costs. While Bain gets tax breaks for this move and a free new building couresty of China and extremely cheap labor. And these products go into automotive, appliance, aircraft, industrial and HVAC products sold to you and I. Let's hope for the best.

Now I know Romney isn't with Bain any more. But he did create the beast and he has $8 million or more invested in this particular deal and stands to profit substantially as he has done many times in the past. And don't say blind trust cause his personal attorney has oversight so it's not really blind, nearsighted at best.

As for top down economics, I sort of thought that debate was over but I can be naive at times. When a middle class family gets at tax cut it tends to go back into the economy. At least some %, and I cynically suspect a high %, of those 1%ers tax breaks don't trickle down to anyone in the USA because they end up parked in offshore tax shelters - you know like everyone suspects is the case with Ronmey but don't really know since he never released the bulk of his tax returns. The 1% folks survived Clinton taxing them a bit more and the budget was balanced, seems unlikely it will kill them now.

[sth]

@hashbaz
I, too, understand but disagree with your view. Guess we gotta fight  now.

The whole point of representative democracy is to choose politicians that represent your views.
With a two-party system, there's no way to have 100% accurate representation, but Romney was clearly a candidate with a platform founded in the perpetuation of institutional racism.
The definition I use for racism is not an uncommon one.
I still don't see why there needs to be a distinction between 'supporter/proponent of racism' and 'racist' though. If you believe that I was a jerk about it, compare the harmful effects of pointing out that somebody is a racist to the actual effects of racism. It's not on the same level at all, and that difference is precisely the reason that I have no sympathy for supporters of racism.

[mkawa]

That or CC deleted his post and reposted it?

i blame alaric

[hashbaz]

@hashbaz
I, too, understand but disagree with your view. Guess we gotta fight  now.

...Romney was clearly a candidate with a platform founded in the perpetuation of institutional racism.

That is a really strong statement.  Care to explain?

[sth]

I mean... pick a republican policy and I will let you know what I think of it?
Typical positions include the war on drugs (massively applied to people of color compared to whites) and immigration (that's too easy). We can expand on racism to include other forms of bigotry (reproductive rights, gay marriage, trickle-down economics [blatantly classist at the expense of those without economic power]).


can't argue with Dolph though.

[hashbaz]

Let's go with immigration policy.  What about Mitt's position is racist?

[Lanx]

Let's go with immigration policy.  What about Mitt's position is racist?

It begins with his fantasy religion Mormon, I will admit all I learned about Momonism I learned by watching south park, which as we all know is entirely humorly true. Plus I'm surrounded by Mormons and Amish all day, i live right in the middle of Lancaster, PA, i mean my credit union is Mormon! they made an exception to let me open an account.

I deal with Mormons on a daily basis, is that an issue? nope never met a bad one, I just loathe this religion vs. ALL others, yea i'm an atheist, but i just came from a honeymoon trip from Italy and even visited the vatican!, so i get a pass.

But i hate Mormonism, it is Mormonism that has taken the Boy Scouts of American, and made it such a super anti-gay organization, like the BBB, (even though it sounds all government like) it is a private club/company, that was open to whatever until the Mormons came in. They looked at the BSA and instilled those Mormon values into the organization, which pisses me off, now if i have a boy, i can't take him to the BSA, cuz of those whacky Mormon beliefs. At least the Girl scouts is un-tainted (bad pun, i didn't mean it!) so if i have a girl she can go there.

Maybe in 10 years, there will be Computer Scouts of America.

[sth]

the continued demonization of 'illegal' immigrants compared to legal immigrants when you consider how hard it is to become a legal citizen (sometimes up to ten years) means that people (very often of color) from poorer countries have a markedly harder time making it into this country to become contributors to the economy and society.

Also the guy wanted to take a constitutional right (citizenship by birthright) and enforce military service to obtain citizenship. This disproportionately affects poorer immigrants who don't have a means of deferring military service by standard accepted reasons (being a student, having a family or a full time job).

i know that one could argue that just because the majority of victims of such policies HAPPEN to be people of color or poor or what have you, that doesn't make the policy itself racist. But I think that's a really limited view of what racism is and how it actually affects people in this country. in pretty much every science of repetition, patterns are looked for and meaning extrapolated from patterns. when it comes to racism, people want to pass that off as the tired old 'correlation not causation' as if the two are mutually exclusive.

[hashbaz]

Let's go with immigration policy.  What about Mitt's position is racist?

It begins with his fantasy religion Mormon, I will admit all I learned about Momonism I learned by watching south park, which as we all know is entirely humorly true. Plus I'm surrounded by Mormons and Amish all day, i live right in the middle of Lancaster, PA, i mean my credit union is Mormon! they made an exception to let me open an account.

I deal with Mormons on a daily basis, is that an issue? nope never met a bad one, I just loathe this religion vs. ALL others, yea i'm an atheist, but i just came from a honeymoon trip from Italy and even visited the vatican!, so i get a pass.

But i hate Mormonism, it is Mormonism that has taken the Boy Scouts of American, and made it such a super anti-gay organization, like the BBB, (even though it sounds all government like) it is a private club/company, that was open to whatever until the Mormons came in. They looked at the BSA and instilled those Mormon values into the organization, which pisses me off, now if i have a boy, i can't take him to the BSA, cuz of those whacky Mormon beliefs. At least the Girl scouts is un-tainted (bad pun, i didn't mean it!) so if i have a girl she can go there.

Maybe in 10 years, there will be Computer Scouts of America.

lolwut?

[sth]

i'll just leave this here.

http://whitepeoplemourningromney.tumblr.com/

[Lanx]

Let's go with immigration policy.  What about Mitt's position is racist?

It begins with his fantasy religion Mormon, I will admit all I learned about Momonism I learned by watching south park, which as we all know is entirely humorly true. Plus I'm surrounded by Mormons and Amish all day, i live right in the middle of Lancaster, PA, i mean my credit union is Mormon! they made an exception to let me open an account.

I deal with Mormons on a daily basis, is that an issue? nope never met a bad one, I just loathe this religion vs. ALL others, yea i'm an atheist, but i just came from a honeymoon trip from Italy and even visited the vatican!, so i get a pass.

But i hate Mormonism, it is Mormonism that has taken the Boy Scouts of American, and made it such a super anti-gay organization, like the BBB, (even though it sounds all government like) it is a private club/company, that was open to whatever until the Mormons came in. They looked at the BSA and instilled those Mormon values into the organization, which pisses me off, now if i have a boy, i can't take him to the BSA, cuz of those whacky Mormon beliefs. At least the Girl scouts is un-tainted (bad pun, i didn't mean it!) so if i have a girl she can go there.

Maybe in 10 years, there will be Computer Scouts of America.

lolwut?

isn't this how they debate politics, with a de-rail?

[TexasFlood]

The party of Lincoln has shown quite a bit of racism around the fringes recently but I didn't really notice it on Romney. There is a lot of Obama crazy hate out there and racist comments have bubbled up a number of times recently. If you haven't noticed just google it, it's not hard to find.

[Malphas]

can anyone enlighten me on why anyone would vote for romney

not all racists voted for romney
but only racists voted for romney

only racists voted for romney ==> no non-racists voted for romney ==> everyone who voted for romney is a racist

Not the same as "Romney's policies favor rich, white people".

The latter is a defensible position.  The former is being an ass.

Romney's policies would have favored rich white people at the expense of people of color, women, queer people and pretty much every other minority representation.

You can be a racist 'unintentionally'. Voting for Romney for reasons not related to his social and economic policies... well I won't get into that, but you have to take the 'good' with the bad, and at the end of the day the guy is effectively as racist as is necessary. Which is at all, and in any sense whatsoever. If you chose for the man, then you either explicitly or implicitly accept his racism and give him power to exercise that racism. How is that not racist?

Like I said it's not about name calling or hurting peoples' feelings. It's about the quantifiable systemic affects of racist policies and institutions.

lol great spaz logic.

[TexasFlood]

You really think Romney cares more about non-rich white folks than any other color? He's about the very upper income folk of any color. Now that is likely more white folk than not. But it's their green not the color of their skin. Most of us only exist for him to "harvest". So if he's racist it's for the color green, not white.