Author Topic: This is what it is all about.  (Read 3259 times)

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Xavier_Onassis

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This is what it is all about.
« on: November 06, 2016, 08:20:45 AM »


BY LEONARD PITTS, JR.

lpitts@miamiherald.com

       
       A black man was elected president, and white people lost their minds.

Not all of them, no. Not even most of them. But not a piddling few, either.
Pitts

That, in a nutshell, is the story of America’s hateful and obstructionist politics over the last eight years — and of the nasty, arduous excuse for a presidential campaign that finally ends on Tuesday. Granted, many pundits have chosen to explain those things in terms of “economic anxiety,” the fiscal insecurity of the undereducated white working class. But here on election eve can we, for once, be honest with ourselves about ourselves?

Not to say that sluggish economic growth isn’t a valid concern. But that world where men like Archie Bunker could, with a high school education or less, find factory work that would allow them to buy a house and raise a family, did not suddenly disappear when the black guy took over at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. It’s been gone for quite awhile.

And the white guy who preceded the black guy spent a $128 billion surplus into an over $400 billion deficit, presided over a cratering stock market and anemic job creation. Yet for all the grief he was given, nobody ever called him a “subhuman mongrel.”

Lawmakers from the other party did not declare their refusal to work with him on even the most routine matters of governance.

People did not take to showing up at his events carrying rifles. Nobody shouted, “I want my country back!”

So as much as or more than it is a referendum on the economy — or foreign policy, or terrorism — this election is a referendum on demographic change. A nation that elected a black guy president and enshrined the right of same sex marriage into law, a nation where Muslims, transgender people and Spanish speakers are more visible and rising higher than ever before, will now tell us how it feels about all that, whether it is ready to plunge ahead into the unknowable future or whether it will seek refuge in a sepia-toned past that never was.

The Republican Party’s preference is no mystery. To succeed the first black president, it put forth a racist enthusiastically supported by the Ku Klux Klan. To oppose the first woman to be a major party candidate, it offered a misogynist trailing accusations of sexual assault. “Make America great again,” indeed.

Every four years, pundits solemnly intone the same cliche: “This is an important election.” Fact is, they’re all important elections. Choosing a leader for the economic and military giant of the planet is by definition consequential.

That said, this country finds itself facing an electoral decision starker and more portentous than any in modern memory. We don’t just choose new policies on Tuesday, or even a new vision. No, we choose identity. We decide who and what we are.

Are we a backward-looking nation defined by those who lost their minds because a black guy was elected president? Or are we a forward facing people, challenged by change but never shying from it, never so terrified by it as to betray our fundamental selves?

The thing is, change doesn’t care what we decide. It comes regardless, and you can no more question it than you can gravity. The toothpaste won’t go back into the tube, the gay people back into the closet, the women back into the kitchen nor the African Americans back to the rear of the bus.

The past will not be restored. So the only question here is how we will respond to the future. With fear or faith? With cowardice or courage?

It’s time for us all to take a deep breath.

And decide.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/leonard-pitts-jr/article112632598.html#storylink=cpy
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Christians4LessGvt

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Re: This is what it is all about.
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2016, 12:41:25 PM »
utterly ridiculous

as if those that claim this non-sense really believe that if it had been a white president pushing Obamacare it would have been cheered?....lol.....if it had been a white president sending #1 terror state Iran billions it would have been cheered?....as if it had been a white president apologizing all over the world for United States it would have been cheered?

As if a Black President like Dr. Ben Carson appointing conservative Supreme Court Justices would be fought tooth and nail because the appointer of conservative Justices was black?....Ha Ha Laughable!
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" - Ronald Reagan - June 12, 1987

Plane

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Re: This is what it is all about.
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2016, 02:18:35 PM »
Quote
"...nobody ever called him a “subhuman mongrel.”"

Yes they did.

Each and every point made in this little essay is either wrong, backwards or exaggerated.


How indeed can the obstruction and vilification of President Bush be forgotten?

Wasn't there an encampment of press and protestors outside his Texas home?

Weren't there sculptors making urinals of his visage?

Obama gets off light in this abuse department, but if he is having trouble handling the heat , why is he in the kitchen?

Plane

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Re: This is what it is all about.
« Reply #3 on: November 06, 2016, 02:40:49 PM »
Quote
...spent a $128 billion surplus into an over $400 billion deficit....

If this is a failure , then what is deficit spending at a much higher rate?

sirs

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Re: This is what it is all about.
« Reply #4 on: November 06, 2016, 04:09:31 PM »
That's all the left has.....if you didn't support Obama, its because he was black.  If you don't support Clinton, it's because she's a woman....and a Clinton.  Can't possibly be about their policies, hard core liberal agenda, polarizing rhetoric, or "new normal".  Naaa, they have to make it about race and gender, as what its "all about".....that way, its intellectually easier to argue racism & misogyny, vs trying to defend the indefensible

Leftist debate tactic 101
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: This is what it is all about.
« Reply #5 on: November 06, 2016, 06:16:53 PM »
It is really simple. Trump claims that he will bring back the mythical Golden Days of Yesteryear, back before a Black person or a woman would even be considered for president and toasters were all made in the USA. Not that Trump could ever actually return us to the past. Or we can progress into the future.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

sirs

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Re: This is what it is all about.
« Reply #6 on: November 06, 2016, 07:01:38 PM »
No, that's not what he claims, or even infers.  He simply wants to take us back to a point where corruption wasn't so rampant in the Federal Government, that it functions like a 3rd world Latin Country's government.  Not one campaign pledge or even rhetoric that declares his intention on revoking an of the Civil Rights legislation, or ANY legislation, outside of the god-awful Obamacare

But that's what the left is left to try and scare people with.  Too intellectually devoid of trying to defend the indefensible, they have to try and scare the electorate in non-existent racist and gender issues
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: This is what it is all about.
« Reply #7 on: November 06, 2016, 07:48:04 PM »
What do you think "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" means?
Just like the entire year of birtherist garbage, it was planned to mean that because of Black President Obama, America is no longer great. We did not hear Trump saying this when Juniorbush failed to prevent 9-11, mongered wars and fought them incompetently and screwed up the economy.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Plane

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Re: This is what it is all about.
« Reply #8 on: November 06, 2016, 08:38:14 PM »
What do you think "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" means?


It is vague.

Much like candidate Obama kept the promises vague , so you can hear what you want to hear.

It seems clearly only as an appeal to American greatness and perhaps exceptionalism, but even for this it is kinda vague.

How do you get some specific and negative denotation ?

sirs

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Re: This is what it is all about.
« Reply #9 on: November 07, 2016, 02:42:50 AM »
What do you think "MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN" means?  Just like the entire year of birtherist garbage, it was planned to mean that because of Black President Obama, America is no longer great.

See?...everything HAS to be racist with you guys.  No, what it means, is that "it was planned to mean that because of President Obama's & the Democrat's POLICIES, America is no longer great.  Skin color has absolutely NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING.  But since you're side is intellectually devoid of defending the indefensible, you have to invent non-existent racist attributes, to try and scare off criticism


We did not hear Trump saying this when Juniorbush failed to prevent 9-11, mongered wars and fought them incompetently and screwed up the economy.

You're not listening then, since Trump has made it painfully clear of his critism of Bush and the Iraq war.  However the domestic POLICIES put in place by Bush and the GOP Congress were working, especially the across the board tax cuts.  But thanks to the Government, creating the housing bubble, that was sure to crash, our economy got screwed.  And thanks to Obama and the policies of the Democrats, we're dealing with a near non-existent recovery, and the ever famous "new normal" that the left has pulled out to explain the lack of a recovery
"The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal." -- Aristotle