The Coronavirus

[Eric the Green]

(05-31-2020, 02:09 AM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(05-29-2020, 01:20 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:

(05-29-2020, 01:10 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: I don't have to guess.  I know why they are Democrat controlled.  Democrats are racist, and can come up with a story that "protects" white Democrats from blacks, while allowing said whites to feel good about it.

Despite their spoken good intentions, the white Democrats who rule cities cannot seem to get a handle on the racism and brutality that is built into police departments. I don't see why reform can't occur; can you?

Yes, I can.  It's because of the racial prejudice of the Democratic electorate.  The same racism that causes Democrats to think the blacks can't succeed without affirmative action also causes them to think they need adversarial police departments to protect themselves against blacks.

It amazes me that you can still fall back on Reaganomics/free-market ideology to label those who don't agree with it as racists.

But, residual racism probably does exist among white Democrats in suburbs and city outskirts. I can't really deny that. I say, they'd better get with it though, or they will lose support among blacks as they did in 2016. Efforts have been made in some places to train police differently, but there are still too many bad apples. I just don't think this is acceptable behavior by police, and I don't see why white Democrats would not agree, even if they look down on blacks in some ways. They are still entitled to the same rights as other Americans. Police murders are a clear violation.

There is no connection between this possibly-racist condition among Democrats to their support for affirmative action. Opposition to affirmative action is part of the general neo-liberal reaganomics ideology of self-reliance. But I would think those afraid of blacks would also oppose affirmative action.

Quote:Successful reform would have to tear down the whole edifice - affirmative action, the Democratic welfare plantation, all of it - and replace it with true equality of opportunity and a system of rewarding personal responsibility.  For the Democratic politicians, that would be political suicide.

Democrats don't really believe that strongly in this neo-liberal ideological complex. So this is not part of the reform that would happen, nor should it be. Blacks will need more government support to improve their position in society. That includes whites paying more in taxes. That is not racist, as you claim. It is just recognizing the impact of 400 years of slavery and exclusion.

In any case, none of us is immune from the results of capricious and unfair behavior by oligarchs and other bosses, even in non-profit organizations. I myself from my experience have no confidence in the fairness of bosses. Although other ethnic groups are more disadvantaged today, many whites are also fired from jobs for no reason, or given wages too low to live on, or have their jobs taken away by computers, robots and cheap foreign labor. A social program of safety nets is needed for all of us. That is why blaming black poverty on the "Democratic welfare plantation" does not fly at all. Many poor whites are brainwashed to blame blacks as their rivals. Welfare practically doesn't exist anymore anyway, and hasn't for 40 years. And self-reliance is not a viable ideology as long as greedy people take power over others and the strong oppress the weak. Individualism is false; we are all interdependent on each other. "We are all in this together." Human life is not a Darwinian struggle for survival of the fittest. Darwin was not even correct about how Nature evolves, let alone how human society evolves. A just society for all requires junking this ideology for millennia into the future from now on.

One problem is the higher crime rate in the black community, which makes police more fearful and stressful. Police are still not often members of the community they serve, and do not respect or interact with the people there. Also, neo-liberal free-market self-reliance ideology has shut down social work, so the police are the only social workers available, and they are not trained to do this, and so family and social conditions are naturally in poor shape. I admit this higher crime rate may be partly due to black youth culture, in which education and scholarly behavior in school is disdained among some young blacks. It may be that rap hip-hop culture expresses anger and foments violence, but does not encourage respect for study in school. Perhaps it could in the future, as it gets more sophisticated and less angry, but I'm not sure it's happening yet, although it affords some income for lucky artists.

This crime rate is also due to endemic poverty in those communities in a society that no longer affords much upward mobility for anyone of any race or ethnic group. This in turn is due to the same neo-liberal libertarian free-market anti-welfare ideology that you say needs to be applied for successful reform. This trickle-down economics ideology has created the oligarchy over the last 40 years, which has reduced the economic and social mobility among youth of all ethnic groups in the USA and UK to almost zero. The drug war encourages illegal drug traffic, which is often a tempting route to riches in poor communities. More treatment and less law enforcement of the drug problem, and better criminal justice practices, would help lower the crime rate. Conservatives also blame the breakdown in family values and one-parent households, and many also blame welfare for this, although this has always seemed ridiculous to me since welfare provides so little money.

Quote:  And as you say, most Republican politicians don't understand that cities benefit from more shared infrastructure that requires more government spending, so they can't govern cities effectively for reasons unrelated to racial prejudice.

Right, and a major aspect of infrastructure is a more equal education system. Busing does not work because whites don't want to be bused to the ghettos, so what's needed is extra money given to schools in low-income neighborhoods, rather than funding from local property taxes alone. Poor educational opportunity is not going to create equality among the races.

Quote:

Quote: No wonder some blacks feel they have to be violent. Nothing has been done after decades and decades of police murders and unjust violence.

Absolutely.  Some people ask why they are rioting and destroying their own neighborhoods.  Certainly there are some agent provocateurs - from other blue cities, by the way - but the reason they can be provoked is that they don't feel empowered by the system.  Stores are seen as part of the system just as much as police stations are, so some are willing to lash out to destroy them.

Right. I'm glad to see that you get it to some degree. I know you want to hang on to the Reagan legacy, but I don't think it is going to be around much longer. A better mix of ideas will be needed.