US Election Returns 2010

[Josquin des Prez]

It is curious that JdP feels that whites in society are uninterested in (or incapable of) political entities based on justice and fairness for all . . . .

Not as interesting as the fact Susan Sontag actually died from cancer. Whitey got her in the end.

[Philoctetes]

Not as interesting as the fact Susan Sontag actually died from cancer. Whitey got her in the end.

Well she was a bourgeoise pig.

[karlhenning]

Republicans vow to block Obama agenda

There's a bulletin.

[karlhenning]

David Broder's analysis:

The message to President Obama from Tuesday's election could not have been plainer: Don't abandon your goals. Change your way of operating.

[Josquin des Prez]

Liberals have already abandoned Obama anyway. They are rallying behind Jon Steward now.

[DavidW]

David Broder's analysis:

Well at least the post has good formatting and a large, readable font.

[karlhenning]

Liberals have already abandoned Obama anyway. They are rallying behind Jon Steward now.

That wafting flakiness is part of Obama's difficulties, of course.

[karlhenning]

Well at least the post has good formatting and a large, readable font.

: )

[Philoctetes]

All elections ever prove, generally, is the fickleness of the mass, and their overall shortsightedness and their overarching desire for immediate gratification, and seemingly no notion of the idea of unintended consequences, or even consequences.

[Bulldog]

I think that yesterday's elections showed that "the people" are very unhappy and frustrated with how poorly the country is being run by the President and Congress.  The next two years should be quite interesting.

[karlhenning]

David Broder's analysis:

Nice curtain line:

Obama tried governing on the model preferred by congressional Democrats and the result was the loss of Democratic seats and his own reputation. Now he should try governing his own way. It cannot work worse, and it might yield much better results.

[jowcol]

You guys don't understand. The only way to fix all our problems, is to reduce whites to a minority:

http://principles-of-progressive-politics.blogspot.com/2009/07/principle-of-progressive-politics-white.html

Its the progressive way. Once whites are out of the picture, people of color will be free to create political entities based on justice and fairness for all!

Proud to say that I'm doing my part!  I am responsible, through marriage, and adoption (since our attempts at direct miscegenation were not successful), for three non-Caucasians becoming US Citizens!

[Josquin des Prez]

Proud to say that I'm doing my part!  I am responsible, through marriage, and adoption (since our attempts at direct miscegenation were not successful), for three non-Caucasians becoming US Citizens!

That's great jowcol, i'm sure the gods of multiculturalism are now smiling upon you!

[karlhenning]

What are they smoking in the Tea Party? I just read Matt Kibbe from FreedomWorks speak of "yesterday's Tea Party mandate."

[jowcol]

That's great jowcol, i'm sure the gods of multiculturalism are now smiling upon you!

Ahh, but I've probably polluted the rich cultural heritage that all white people are genetically born with...

[Josquin des Prez]

Tim Wise chimps out at the white right:

http://www.timwise.org/2010/11/an-open-letter-to-the-white-right-on-the-occasion-of-your-recent-successful-temper-tantrum/

For all y'all rich folks, enjoy that champagne, or whatever fancy ass Scotch you drink.

And for y'all a bit lower on the economic scale, enjoy your Pabst Blue Ribbon, or whatever shitty ass beer you favor.

Whatever the case, and whatever your economic station, know this...

You need to drink up.

And quickly.

And heavily.

Because your time is limited.

Real damned limited.

So party while you can, but mind the increasingly loud clock ticking away in the corners of your consciousness.

The clock that reminds you how little time you and yours have left.

Not much more now.

Tick, tock.

Tick, tock.

Tick.

Tock.

I know, you think you've taken "your country back" with this election — and of course you have always thought it was yours for the taking, cuz that's what we white folks are bred to believe, that it's ours, and how dare anyone else say otherwise — but you are wrong.

You have won a small battle in a larger war the meaning of which you do not remotely understand.

'Cuz there is nothing even slightly original about you.

There have always been those who wanted to take the country back.

There were those who, in past years, wanted to take the country back to a time of enslavement and indentured servitude.

But they lost.

There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when children could be made to work in mines and factories, when workers had no legal rights to speak of, when the skies in every major city were heavy with industrial soot that would gather on sidewalks and windowsills like volcanic ash.

But they lost.

There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when women could not vote, or attend any but a few colleges, or get loans in their own names, or start their own businesses.

But they lost.

There were those who wanted to take us back to a time when blacks "had no rights that the white man was bound to respect," – this being the official opinion of the Supreme Court before those awful days of judicial activism, now decried by the likes of you – and when people of color could legally be kept from voting solely because of race, or holding certain jobs, or living in certain neighborhoods, or run out of other towns altogether when the sun would go down, or be strung up from trees.

But they lost.

And you will lose.

So make a note of it.

Tweet it to yourself.

Put it on your Facebook wall and leave it there so you'll remember that I told you so.

It is coming, and soon.

This isn't hubris. It isn't ideology. It is not wishful thinking.

It is math.

Not even advanced math. Just simple, basic, like 3rd grade math.

The kind of math that proves how your kind — mostly older white folks beholden to an absurd, inaccurate, nostalgic fantasy of what America used to be like — are dying.

You're like the bad guy in every horror movie ever made, who gets shot five times, or stabbed ten, or blown up twice, and who will eventually pass — even if it takes four sequels to make it happen — but who in the meantime keeps coming back around, grabbing at our ankles as we walk by, we having been mistakenly convinced that you were finally dead this time.

Fair enough, and have at it. But remember how this movie ends.

Our ankles survive.

You do not.

Michael Meyers, Freddie Kreuger, Jason, and that asshole husband in that movie with Julia Roberts who tracks her down after she runs away and changes her identity–they are all done. Even that crazy fucker in Saw is about to be finished off for good. Granted, he's gonna be popping out in some 3-D shit to scare the kiddies, so he isn't going quietly. But he's going, as all bad guys eventually do.

And in the pantheon of American history, old white people have pretty much always been the bad guys, the keepers of the hegemonic and reactionary flame, the folks unwilling to share the category of American with others on equal terms.

Fine, keep it up. It doesn't matter.

Because you're on the endangered list.

And unlike, say, the bald eagle or some exotic species of muskrat, you are not worth saving.

In forty years or so, maybe fewer, there won't be any more white people around who actually remember that Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Opie-Taylor-Down-at-the-Fishing Hole cornpone bullshit that you hold so near and dear to your heart.

There won't be any more white folks around who think the 1950s were the good old days, because there won't be any more white folks around who actually remember them, and so therefore, we'll be able to teach about them accurately and honestly, without hurting your precious feelings, or those of the so-called "greatest generation" — a bunch whose white members were by and large a gaggle of miscreants who helped save the world from fascism only to return home and oppose the ending of it here, by doing nothing to lift a finger on behalf of the civil rights struggle.

So to hell with you and all who revere you.

By then, half the country will be black or brown. And there is nothing you can do about it.

Nothing, Senõr Tancredo.

Nothing, Senõra Angle, or Senõra Brewer, or Senõr Beck.

Loy tiene muy mal, hijo de Puta.

And by then you will have gone all in as a white nationalist movement — hell you've all but done that now — thus guaranteeing that the folks of color, and even a decent size minority of us white folks will be able to crush you, election after election, from the Presidency on down to the 8th grade student council.

Like I said, this shit is math, baby. And numbers don't lie.

Bottom line, this too shall pass.

So enjoy your tax cuts a while longer.

Go buy whatever you people buy when your taxes get cut: a new car or two, a bigger house, an island. Whatever.

Go back to trading your derivatives, engaging in rampant financial speculation that produces nothing of value, that turns the whole world into your personal casino. Whatever.

Play your hand, and for the love of God play it big. Real big. As in, shoot for the moon big. As in, try to privatize Social Security, and health care, and everything else. Whatever.

At least that way everyone will be able to see what you're really about.

We've been trying to tell them, but nothing beats seeing it with your own eyes, so "Go big or go home," Bubba.

"Git 'er Done."

"Cowboy up," or whatever other stupid-ass catch phrase strikes your fancy.

Just promise you'll do more than talk this time.

Please, or as one of your celluloid heroes might put it, "make my day."

Do whatever you gotta do, but remember that those who are the victims of your greed and indifference take the long view.

They know, but you do not, that justice is not for the sprinters, but rather for the long distance runners who will be hitting their second wind, right about the time that you collapse from exhaustion.

They are like the tortoise to your hare.

They are like the San Francisco Giants, to your New York Yankees: a bunch that loses year after year after year, until they finally win.

You have had this confidence before, remember?

You thought you had secured your position permanently after the overthrow of reconstruction in the wake of the civil war, after the elimination of the New Deal, after the Reagan revolution, after the Republican electoral victory of 1994. And yet, they who refuse to die are still here.

Because those who have lived on the margins, who have been abused, maligned, targeted by austerity measures and budget cuts, subjected to racism, classism, sexism, straight supremacy and every other form of oppression always know more about their abusers than the abusers know about their victims.

They have to study you, to pay careful attention, to adjust their body armor accordingly, and to memorize your sleep patterns.

You, on the other hand, need know nothing whatsoever about them. And this, will surely prove fatal to you in the end. For it means you will not know their resolve. Will not fear it, as you should.

It means you will take their greatest strength — perseverance — and make of it a weakness, called losing.

But what you forget, or more to the point never knew, is that those who lose know how to lose, which is to say they know how to lose with dignity.

And those who suffer know how to suffer, which is to say they know how to survive: a skill that is in short supply amid the likes of you.

You, who could not survive the thought of minimal health care reform, or financial regulation, or a marginal tax rate equal to that which you paid just 10 years earlier, perhaps are under the illusion that everyone is as weak as you, as soft as you, as akin to petulant children as you are, as unable to cope with the smallest setback, the slightest challenge to the way you think your country should look and feel, and operate.

But, surprise...they are not.

And they know how to regroup, and plot, and plan, and they are planning even now — we are — your destruction.

And I do not mean by that your physical destruction. We don't play those games. We're not into the whole "Second Amendment remedies, militia, armed resistance" bullshit that your side fetishizes, cuz, see, we don't have to be. We don't need guns.

We just have to be patient.

And wait for your hearts to stop beating.

And stop they will.

And for some of you, real damned soon, truth be told.

Do you hear it?

The sound of your empire dying? Your nation, as you knew it, ending, permanently?

Because I do, and the sound of its demise is beautiful.

So know this.

If you thought this election was payback for 2008, remember...

Payback, thy name is...

Temporary.

Perhaps now, Karl, you may realize just what it is that the people of the tea-party are actually mad about, whether they themselves know it or not.

[karlhenning]

Ahh, but I've probably polluted the rich cultural heritage that all white people are genetically born with...

Like Bobby sang at Big Pink, When there's too much of nothin', nobody should look . . . .

[karlhenning]

Perhaps now, Karl, you may realize just what it is that the people of the tea-party are actually mad about it, whether they themselves know it or not.

I am pleased to report that, at a cursory glance through that rant, I did not understand the least bit.

[Josquin des Prez]

Ahh, but I've probably polluted the rich cultural heritage that all white people are genetically born with...

huh huh:

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparebar.jsp?ind=6&cat=1

http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank21.html#footnote3

[jowcol]

I am pleased to report that, at a cursory glance through that rant, I did not understand the least bit.

huh huh:

http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparebar.jsp?ind=6&cat=1

http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank21.html#footnote3

As someone who gets paid to analyze stuff like this for a living (particularly the health data)  , I'm curious about the point intended here.

Compare the demographics for Alaska, Delaware, and Louisiana , and you will find that the demographic (or "racial" if you prefer ) profiles for the states with the 5th, 6th, and 7th highest rates of violent crimes are quite different.    Tennessee, God love it, has 10% more of a White Population than the national average, and is number 2 on the list.   Is this proof that whites are more prone to violence?   

(FWIW-- I find this rather interesting as I've just been analyzing HRSA and Census data for the Tennessee and SW VA area for a government agency, particularly in terms of uninsured populations, and those living under the poverty level, as well as by different demographic factors.   )

Of course, if one was doing a REAL analysis, one would need to limit the number of variables or do some correlation of other likely contributing variables.   For example, it strikes me that not to include income and education into the picture is would be not be a competent approach.  It would not surprise me if either extreme of population density is also a factor (rural or urban).


Also, I probably should apologize for contributing in the previous post to the "redneck" stereotype.  I'm from the south, and have had experiences that both confirm and deny the existing of the stereotype.   I've know some very cultured, literate people, and others that make you wonder if we are all in the same Phylum.  The notion of preserving "white" as opposed to "classical" culture strikes me as throwing away the gift and keeping the paper it was wrapped in.   


YMMV....