America is about to become a "minority-majority" nation. It means that collectively all the minorities (Black,Asian,Hispanic etc) will outnumber caucasians. Texas has recently joined Hawaii, New Mexico and California as a majority-minority state along with the District of Columbia This is very scary to a lot of people. I get it.
Most of my friends are in more liberal places like NYC, LA. Miami and here in Vegas. Even if they don't have liberal views- their views are more open on the topic. I spent a couple months in my home state of Michigan last year and attitudes are nuts about race still. That is a big reason I left the area. 1)warm weather and 2) diverse people to interact with. Ok, to be honest I'm not fond of most Haitians, but that is because I met a lot of them and found that 1) they use no deodorant and 2) they bitch about being in the U.S. saying Haiti is so much better. I'm talking hundreds of Haitians! Yes I know we did a military coup on Aristide after we put them in there but I'm running way OT.
I really think with the current financial crisis more of the same is NOT ok. We are losing in two wars. Our deficit is over a trillion. When GW came in office we had a huge surplus. ANYTHING is better. A trillion dollar buyout is NOT ok. WE aren't a socialist country. Remember free enterprise?
Yes- there should be regulations on mortgages ... BUT don't people read what they sign? Where is the sense of personal responsibility? Didn't people see the unemployment levels rising as a result of outsourcing? STILL I see a lot of Toyota's, Honda's, BMW's and other foreign cars. People are showing off that they do NOT support their own country. They are PROUD of it! It really irritates me that people can't grasp that fact.
Again OT.
Vote for whomever you're gonna vote for. I still believe in the process. Please assess your reasons. After my last blog I had no less that 15 people remark that Sarah Palin is hot and that is enough reason to vote for McCain (a lot of people read this blog when I bother. They usually don't comment in writing). A couple were joking. A couple weren't. Is this really something to joke about? People are losing everything because of 8 years of poorly run Republican executive branches. WTF is wrong with people?
Stephen Rebello
Presidential candidate McCain, the self-advertised "maverick" who voted has voted the Bush agenda 90% of the time, traveled the country with Bush in 2005 trying to sell Bush's plan to privatize Social Security -- that is, to invest our private savings in Wall Street. After the Wall Street meltdown of the past few days, guess where all our retirement money would be today?
WHITE PRIVILEGE, WHITE ENTITLEMENT AND THE 2008 ELECTION
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Tim Wise
For those who still canʼt grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a "fuckinʼ redneck," like Bristol Palinʼs boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their fuckin' ass," and talk about how you like to "shoot shit" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people donʼt all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means youʼre "untested."
White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, itʼs good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasnʼt added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you. White privilege is being able to ha ve a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fa ils to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think sheʼs being disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think youʼre being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--youʼre somehow being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who donʼt even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."
White privilege is being able to fire people who didnʼt support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing20your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks fro m the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.
White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is Godʼs punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think youʼre just a good church-going Christian, but if youʼre black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, youʼre an extremist who probably hates America.
White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill OʼReilly means youʼre dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.
White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it, a "light" burden.
And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters arenʼt sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, itʼs just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain.
White privilege is, in short, the problem.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Tim Wise is the author of White Like Me (Soft Skull, 2005, revised 2008), and of Speaking Treason Fluently, publishing this month, also by Soft Skull.
The sad part? I'm going to make a LOT of money off this. The stock market is crazy. This is fun in a sick sick way. 4 more years of the same? Hmmm.... financially for me it's a GODSEND.
About the yahoo email hack- I wonder if Sarah Palin knows about the Patriot Act and how violated that makes a lot of people feel? Why on earth would she have government communications in a yahoo account. EVERYONE knows that hot mail and yahoo are constantly hacked. Mine has been hacked at least 5 times over the last 10 yrs. and I had it easy! No one cares about that though.
