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Brisketexan

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Posts posted by Brisketexan

  1. Fair point.  But I think the point still stands that trying to remove prejudice and the effects of prejudice from society is really in everyone's interest, not only in the sense of equality and basic fairness, but you kind of never know when the tables are going to turn, whoever you are.

    Well, all that takes is faith in humanity, and believing that they will engage in long-term thinking.

    Good luck with that. I had three whiskey sours tonight. My time was better spent than a second spent hoping that will happen.
  2. Just now, BrickHorn said:

    All of those are good tactics.  I would categorize my approach as part of (4).

    And good luck to you.

    I fucking loathe them too much to even try.  I think they are a lost cause.  But go for it.

    • Like 1
  3. Just now, BrickHorn said:

    Yeah, yeah.  You gave up hope long ago.  Stay curled up on the floor.  Some of us are trying to prevent the civil war you think is inevitable.  

    Oh, we should try to prevent it.  I just think our efforts are better spent on 1) doing all we can to increase turnout among folks who oppose Trump, 2) fighting voter suppression and disenfranchisement efforts, 3) lobbying the handful of undecided voters out there, and 4) doing all we can to diminish the enthusiasm of Trump voters, so some of them stay home on election day.

    • Like 1
  4. 1 minute ago, BrickHorn said:

    You’re clearly a better person than any Trump voter.  You should let them know that.  I’m sure that will inspire them to be more like you.

    The challenging aspect here is that Trump supporters have demonstrated themselves to be not just resistance to facts, but repelled by them.

    Telling us to reason with Trump supporters is like telling us to communicate with Sentinalese tribesmen by continuing to speak English to them, but this time, YELL IT.  Facts and reason only piss them off.  It's pretty damned difficult to get over that hump.

    • Like 5
  5. 12 minutes ago, 'stache said:

    The umpire/balls/strikes analogy is nonsense. If there is an analogy there, pretend that some pitchers have to stand further away from the plate than others. That might be a start on a discussion of people whose parents or grandparents were literally denied the right to attend college or who were denied jobs and promotions because of skin color. You really think that doesn't have generational effects when compared to families who never faced that? It's fun to pretend that it was ancient history, but plenty of folks are alive today who had to drink from different water fountains.

    Start the conversation after reading this:

    https://www.brookings.edu/research/following-the-success-sequence-success-is-more-likely-if-youre-white/

    It has some simple and easy to understand facts in there.

    Quote

    Lowry suggests that black Americans would be better served if Coates made his readers aware of a “little secret” set out in previous research by our colleagues, Isabel Sawhill and Ron Haskins, which assesses the likelihood of economic success conditional on achieving three middle class “norms,” which they call the “success sequence.” Lowry correctly reports that about three-quarters of Americans reach the middle class provided that they:

    Graduate from high school;

    Maintain a full-time job or have a partner who does; and

    Have children while married and after age 21, should they choose to become parents.

    Unlike Lowry, we are able to further breakdown the number of people who reach the middle class or follow the norms by race using the dataset from in the original paper by Sawhill and Haskins, updated for 2013. The bottom line is that even when black Americans do follow all three norms, their economic prospects are worse than whites.

    .......

    What happens to those who do follow the norms? If Lowry is right, and black Americans simply need to take responsibility and follow middle class norms, it should be the case that blacks and whites who follow all the norms reach the middle class at similar rates. The data suggest otherwise.

    Among those who follow all three norms, blacks are significantly less likely to reach the middle class than whites who do the same. About 73 percent of whites who follow all three norms find themselves with income above 300 percent of the federal poverty line for their family size, while only 59 percent of blacks who adhere to all three norms fare equally well:

    reeves-86002.png?w=768&crop=0,0px,100,99

     

  6. 2 minutes ago, Pancho said:

     

    I mean, if we're being accurate, I need to report a U.S. government property that's infested with vermin.  It's the property at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C.  It's pretty bad.  

  7. 4 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

    Do they decry it?  They still use it to excuse abhorrent behavior regularly.  Remember when Abu Ghraib happened and Republicans shouted down criticism of our troops' behavior because Al Qaeda treated prisoners worse?  As if the standard for the USA should be "at least we are better than Al Qaeda."

    Or like now, when Ilhan Omar is shouted down for criticizing our shitty President's policies by people saying that she shouldn't complain because the USA is better than Somalia.

    Call me crazy, but the USA should strive to be infinitely better than Somalia, not simply Somalia +1.

    Dude, we're barely holding onto that Somalia+1 score, don't get cocky.

    • Like 1
  8. 7 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

    Her shitty campaign and taking voters for granted made her way more vulnerable than her personality.

    Well, I think that the shitty campaign and taking voters for granted went hand-in-hand with her personality -- it did for me, at least.  It all folded into her raging sense of entitlement (seriously, "it's her turn" STILL pisses me off).  She felt we OWED it to her.  Sorry, it's a position of public service, you serve ME.

    • Like 2
  9. 3 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

    Hillary's approval rating hit 66% not long before she resigned as Secretary of State, and was still at 64% when she left that post, after which it soon began an extended free fall.  The Benghazi hearings had already taken place.  Mounting disapproval was largely related to relentless political pressure exploiting the email scandal, and had very little to do with her personality, which we can all agree is not exactly magnetic, but was never the overriding issue in two prior decades.

    XO7plzL-nTjK4d4QrqxGg8dP-FRDhMjFh8S08Cyr

    Her "personality" -- a pretty broad category there, but let's acknowledge that it was a negative.  That meant that while folks may have "approved" of her, that approval was fragile.  Thus, when the hits to her reputation came, they broke right through that fragile approval.

    Whereas a candidate who is "likable" can better handle hits to his/her reputation.

    Her crappiness as a person made her vulnerable.  The other side exploited that vulnerability.  And then served us a shit sandwich.

    • Like 1
  10. 1 minute ago, Js1 said:

    Bookmark this one.  Because this isn't a sustainable economy for the next 16 months. 

    Emphasized quite strongly in the segment on NPR this morning.  Look at interest rates -- not just here, but globally.  They should be significantly higher....but the economy can't handle it.  Which helps us hold off a recession for a while longer....but puts us in a much more precarious position when it hits.  Lowering interest rates 3-4% is a good stimulating response to a recession.  That's hard to do when the rate is at 2.5% or so.

  11. 53 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

    Here's an idea.  White folks, or folks in general, best figure out how to minimize the effects of subconscious or systemic or institutional discrimination because they are about to be the minority.  That's not to say that former minorities are going to exact revenge, but because it's subconscious, systemic, or institutional and inevitable unless we figure out how to make it not inevitable.

    It would be nice if this could be discussed without so much invective, but rather with an acceptance that this is the human condition and we have to do better.

    Quite true.

    And....good luck with that.  See OP.  The strategy here is quite simple, from thoughts like the OP to active, coordinated, and relentless efforts to disenfranchise minority voters -- lay the foundation for an apartheid system, so that even when white folks are the minority, they are firmly in control and on top.  Because, you know, after hundreds of years of systematic oppression -- a good portion of which remains ONGOING -- which has ensured that (to go with the baseball analogy) some of those players are undersized, weak, and have little experience or knowledge of the game, NOW the plan is "hey, let's just all step on the field and play ball against each other, fair is fair!"

    Not only is their zero interest in minimizing systemic and institutional racism -- there is an active strategy to preserve it.  Reason # 6,985 why I have furnished my ledge with comfortable seating.

  12. Since we have shifted to shitty titters, the Crazy Lady has to be mentioned but The Landing Strip (or whatever it's called now) is by far the most repulsive in Austin. I stopped in for some Jameson after being picked up at the airport by a Surlster who shall not be named.

    After several drinks, it actually became comical. I had no interest in fat cholas, but Vic would have been in heaven.

    I am the reason there’s a titty bar where the Landing Strip is.

     

    See, back in the day, it was the relocated Red Rose. The old Red Rose was on Ben White, but got bought out by TXDOT when they expanded the road. They had the money from that, and wanted to relocate. I was a law clerk at a dinky little firm to make some extra cash while I was in school.

     

    They gave me a list of locations, and told me to look at the regs and restrictions on each location, and recommend one. So I did. And they followed my rec. A few years later, it changed owners and name.

     

    You’re welcome.

    • Like 4
    • Haha 1
  13. Unconscious racism happens with every single skin color. Figured we could ignore that since quite literally every color is just as racist as the next in that regard.  

    Oh, the “everyone’s racist, so racism doesn’t matter” argument....is there a shitty excuse for racism you WON’T trot out? I haven’t heard the “black people use the N-word, so why can’t I?” argument. You shouldn’t neglect that one, it’s a classic!
  14. How about another one from the "where the hell does this go" files?
    F15645180191286050_1.jpg
    I don't even want to see a picture of what this abomination looks like.

    That looks like the menu at the World’s End Pub in Edinburgh....and If you want to know how both those taste, I can tel you, because I’ve had them both. The nachos ain’t bad.
    I would eat the Haggis Tower in a heartbeat. That being said, not all haggis is great. Love black pudding for breakfast when I can get it. The nachos? Might have to see it before I would try that, but chances are I would try it.

    And I LOVE black pudding for breakfast. When we are in the UK last staying an an apartment with a kitchen, i went to Sainsbury’s and picked up he fixins for black pudding and eggs, which my daughter and I had each morning.
  15. How many people did Antifa murder in Charlottesville?
    By my count it's Fascists 1, Anti-fascists 0. 

    Don’t forget the synagogue shooter. Don’t forget Dylan Roof. Don’t forget an FBI official testifying just the other day that the bulk of their active terrorize cases are white supremacists. And we can keep going on.

    BUT....antifa threw some milkshakes, and punched Andy Ngo. So, it’s not even “both sides” here....obviously, antifa is the greatest threat to human life our country has ever seen.
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