Identity Politics.

The problem with identity politics is not class but divisiveness. If Black Lives Matter were Marginalized Lives Matter they would have a much more saleable product. As soon as any group no matter how important their grievance is, puts that grievance against the rest of the world as special for their group the rest of the world will identify a similar grievance for a group and create an us vs. them situation. 

How about Victims of Law Enforcement Discrimination Matter?  Anyone jailed by a corrupt judge, stopped and frisked by a cop, was a victim of civil forfeiture, women stopped and propositioned by a cop, or a bunch of other things that disproportionately affect blacks and hispanics now have a common cause. Sure the most affected will lead the way but not draw attention to their group for discrimination.

Advocacy politics has a place but only when they make common cause with all in the same situation. If the Hispanic Caucus, and the Black Caucus and the poor feminists caucus were working with Warren, Sanders and others to break the banksters that prey on them all they would have a much stronger political story to tell. One of the reasons Black Lives do not matter is that for decades they have been redlined out of the middle class by the banksters. The enemy is not the white male supremacists or even the white supremacist cops, it is the banksters who kept blacks and to a lesser extent Hispanics and single women locked in the ghetto even when it is a nicer ghetto.

The Jefferson Republic

The Unanimous Declaration of the City States of the Jefferson Republic.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these communities and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the party of the President  of the United States of America is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

They have limited the voting rights of all people by gerrymanders, voter ID laws, apportioning polling places to favored populations, and outright voter intimidation.

They have suppressed peaceful demonstrations of dissent with the improper use of military and police powers.

They have refused entry to the country based on religion and country of origin and have coerced legal immigrants to rescind their right of entry.  

They have abetted foreign interference in the election process of the country by foreign entities known to be enemies.  

They have given preference to nations in which the POTUS has existing business interests in violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution.   

They have failed in their constitutional duties to fill vacancies in necessary judicial offices.

They have imposed religious law on secular citizens.

They have encouraged assault against women and minorities.

They have discriminated against minorities in law enforcement including but not limited to stop and frisk laws, escalating minor violations through unwarranted use of deadly force and draconian sentences to private prisons for minor infractions.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the Jefferson Republic as a result of an affirmative plebiscite by three fifths of all adult human residents of the individual states on the 18th, 19th, and 20th day of February in the year 2017 appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these States solemnly publish and declare, That these United States are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the Former United States of America and that all political connection between them and the Former United States of America, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

With Honor and respect to the Late Thomas Jefferson of the Virginia Colony.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pursuant to This Declaration

The Jefferson Republic will be governed according to the Constitution of the United States of America as interpreted by SCOTUS as of the 31st Day of August in the year 2005.  The Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission SCOTUS decision of the 21st day of January in the year 2010 is by this declaration null and void.  

All officials duly elected to State and Local offices shall continue in their duty to their constituents or resign their office.  Officials duly elected to National offices of the United States of America will transfer their allegiance to the Jefferson Republic or resign as their conscience dictates. 

An election will be scheduled in the Jefferson Republic on November 11-12, 2017 with all human residents over the age of 18 years eligible to vote.  Voting will be preferential among all individual candidates for office.  Slates of officials pledged to specific candidates are specifically prohibited.  Election districts will be contiguous and boundaries will conform to natural geographic divisions and/or historical city and village boundaries.

Other states, and/or major metropolitan areas may elect to join the Jefferson Republic by an affirmative vote of three fifths of all residents over the age of 18 to abide by the currently existing laws of the Jefferson Republic at the time of the vote.     

 

Poe's Law

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

Poe's law is an Internet adage which states that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, parodies of extreme views will be mistaken by some readers or viewers for sincere expressions of the parodied views.^[1][2][3]

History[edit]

"Poe's law" was originally written by Nathan Poe in 2005, in a post on christianforums.com, an Internet forum about Christianity. The post was written in the context of a debate about creationism, where a previous poster had remarked to another user "Good thing you included the winky. Otherwise people might think you are serious."^[4] Poe then replied, "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is uttrerly [sic] impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won't mistake for the genuine article."^[1] The original statement of Poe's law referred specifically to creationism, but it has since been generalized to apply to any kind of fundamentalism or extremism.^[3]  


Corollary I:
Parodies of extreme views of belief systems will always be accepted as TRUTH™ by adherents to the belief system.
Corollary II:
Any fundamentalist preaching on a belief system political or religious is indistinguishable from parody.

Winning Is Not the Only Thing

For white dudes winning is the only thing. Winning is a zero sum game by definition. If you are not a winner you are a loser. It is possible to opt out, even for white dudes, but their culture makes it hard to do. White dudes from little leagues, to presidential candidates are taught that those who do not win are losers. Doing whatever it takes to win is not only acceptable it is exemplary. Destroy your body and life with drugs? If that is what it takes to win -- go for it. Destroying your family and friends to take the next step to the win, no problem, they will be destroyed anyway if you lose. Winners can buy new families and friends. Ersatz families and friends flock to winners. It is all part of the game. If you can't win by the rules, simply change the rules. If winning is the only thing, rules like taxes are for the ordinary people. (AlphaGo is a white dude machine. If it can't win it seems to stoop to insults in losing.)

There are other ways of living your life. White dudes rigging the rules so that heads I win, tails you lose means opting out of the game is the only rational solution for most people especially those that are not white dudes. Trying to play by white dude rules means accepting the heads white guys win, tails you rules that are provided by the white dudes. Those challenging the white dudes at their game are never going to win. The only option is to opt out of the white guy zero sum game. This is frequently done by white guys, you just never hear about them. You see, they are failures. No matter what they have done for themselves, their families, or humanity, they didn't win and therefore are failures.

Opting out at one point in US history was a respectable and adequately compensated choice for most men and some women willing to work. In the post WWII consumer driven economy unemployment was low and temporary for most willing and able workers, and even marginal workers were able to provide necessities for their families. That all changed by design when the white guys invented Voodoo Economics and found an unemployed actor to sell it for them. The bigoted white guys were already in congress and once voodoo economics and right to work laws made opting out difficult if not impossible; the winners were fewer and fewer and took all the winnings. This works for a while, but sooner or later those that can no longer opt out and still survive reclaim their lives, traditionally in America by electing a progressive, but with pitchforks if that fails. In the words of Kris Kristofferson/Fred Foster made famous by the iconic failure Janis Joplin "Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose."

The only way to prevent this is to provide a way for people to opt out comfortably if not necessarily successfully. Providing basic needs for those who opt out, see Scandinavian socialism and post war unions, makes it possible for people to opt out of the zero sum game and still be human. In a modern society where mass production is essentially labor free, the consumption driver for the economy is gone. Some countries are recognizing this and providing a basic stipend that is liveable if not comfortable. Those who wish to contribute to society, and most reasonable people do, will find ways to contribute with artisanship, sale of intangibles on crowd funding sites, and innovation. None of which is possible for a person struggling to feed a family or even hermself.

I was brought up by a famous athlete who opted out of the winning game, probably because he was too nice a guy and nice guys are losers, and found a niche for himself in what is now called Human Relations Management. There are no winners in that field, pay is not commensurate with the responsibility of not only providing the necessary support for those who might become winners, but not incidentally those who are not winners but still contribute to the enterprise. One of the earliest admonitions from dad was a 1908 quote from Grantland Rice

For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name
He writes—not that you won or lost—but how you played the Game.

recycled in a poem Alumnus Football, which I just read for the first time in researching the quote, which is a poem about life after being a super star athlete, in a game where the rules are the white guy rules of winners and losers. My impression from dad and from others was that originally at least for the athlete the game was more important than the W. Perhaps the loss of that attitude is what is wrong with the American culture and economy today. 

From a very limited exposure to Chinese culture, it seems that this attitude of playing well at whatever level you are at is the most important thing. Western culture has intruded a bit, but even Apple is finding that exploitation, that is creating losers, is a losing game in the East. There is an adage among Asian weiqi players, "If your life is troubled; look to your weiqi game. Perhaps Google should learn from that.

Reparations and Politics

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/bernie-sanders-reparations/424602/   In which At-Nehisi Coates takes Bernie Sanders to task for not feeling guilty enough about white supremecy to insist on reparations.

You can't unscramble an omelet. Reparations like affirmative action polarize society and are therefore political suicide. I notice that Coates has no suggestions on how to make reparations work. Just that they are his wet dream of something or another. And where do you begin with the reparations? Native Americans? Black men? Black women? White women? American Veterans? There have been enough atrocities in the USofA let alone the rest of the planet, that choosing one group for reparations would merely turn all of the equally deserving victims into enemies of both the recipient and the granter of the reparations.  Add to that the white supremacists who think they earned their supremacy and are entitled to the spoils.  Any attempt to redistribute those spoils is politically impossible, particularly if any single group is singled out as more deserving than the rest.  What is Coates' plan to attack white supremacy?

At least Bernie Sanders has a plan to redistribute wealth that has a chance of helping all disadvantaged citizens. 

• Single payer medicine treats all the same, the rich and the poor have equal rights to sleep under the hospital roof and receive the same care. While the comfortable may choose to pay a premium to heal in first class, they get to the same result at the same time.  
• Higher education for all at any college one can be accepted into at no cost is at least theoretically egalitarian.  Different preparation and support from parents and mentors will tip the playing field so that those with less preparation will be at a disadvantage, but so will the  lazy and stupid denizens of the privileged.  
• Rebuilding the infrastructure using local labor is ideally egalitarian although political reality is less so.  The best one can do politically is focusing your infrastructure on the disadvantaged areas and hire locally.
• Breaking up banks and making the local subsidiaries responsible for fraudulent activities by making restitution to those damaged paid for by punitive fines to the National banksters would help all equally but since the disadvantaged were the primary victims they would be primary beneficiaries.  As an example if Banks were required to return fraudulent foreclosed homes to the original mortgagee repaired to code compliance where known or to homeless families where the original mortgagee is unavailable homelessness would be a minor problem.   There are more foreclosed homes unoccupied today than there are homeless.  
• A living minimum wage is known to raise living standards for all as minimum wage earners spend essentially all of their earnings.  A living wage is a foundation that supports all wages as employers who require more than minimum skills will be forced to raise wages to attract the skills they need.  A living wage is also "fuck you" money against an exploitive employer as the employee is not a paycheck away from destitution.    
  

     Have you read "A Case for Reparations?" -  Coates

OK. I read it. I see a lot evidence that black people (Coates usage) have been treated badly and therefore deserve special consideration but I see no case for reparations as the only or even a desirable solution. In particular I see no case at all that reparations should be considered by Sanders or would be a better solution than Sanders' announced policies to mitigate the problems of all the disadvantaged. As black people are heavily over represented in the disadvantaged population, why commit political suicide by advocating reparations. Simply giving foreclosed housing back to the former owners and forcing the bank to pay for code compliance would overwhelmingly benefit the black population as Coates notes in the article.

I agree that the case for reparations for all I mentioned in my post is unassailable. So is the case for justice for unarmed blacks killed by police. And a thousand similar cases of injustice. But aside from "Look at what a good slactivist I am." what do the arguments accomplish.

     That's part of why affirmative action is still so essential.

Please compare for me affirmative action and "a truly blind admissions" policy on graduate success if the university is paid the same for all admissions. There will still be structural differences, but the stupid white guys wouldn't even get in the door. 

Pass

Most of the top tier private universities are "need blind" in admissions, but preferences are given to athletes, legacies, and rich kids. I suspect they consider ethnic balance and gender issues as well.  I know of one top University that first sorts applications on academic excellence, that is, those below these standards are not suitable for admission under any subcategory.  Once that threshold is passed department heads, coaches and development people are permitted to assign preferences: Superstar, preference, and desirable.  Once those preference tiers are considered, the admissions department applies demographic and gender preferences to the mix and admissions are issued. 

Many elite High Schools today have to discriminate against North and South Asian women to get a balanced student body. That is, give the white boys a chance.  Both Lowell and Lincoln HS are magnet schools in SF with a high Asian demographic. IIRC both tried to restrict Asian admissions by applying a higher academic standard for Asians. At least Lowell has resolved the issue by restricting academic admissions to 70% of the admissions.  The other 30% come from middle school recommendations based partly on academic excellence but considering other criteria including special preference for schools underrepresented in last year's admissions.   

Affirmative action like reparations in the absence of other indications of merit are simply causes for failure and resentment.  Lotteries are a good indication of rewards based on nothing but chance.  Most winners end up worse off eventually than they were before winning, victims of "advisors" and other scam artists that help them get rid of their windfall.  Perhaps I am simply lacking in imagination, but I can think of no way to administer reparations that would not cause resentment among those in the reparation class that missed out which inevitably would be a large majority if reparations are significant for any recipient.  

I assume this is why Coates refuses to spell out how reparations would work for black people.  Just that reparations are like motherhood and apple pie. They are all great concepts until somebody has to decide who gets the child subsidy or the apple pie. 

Religious Politics in the US

 It is not a left vs. right issue; it is a fundamentalist vs. liberal religious issue. Fundamentalists of any Abrahamic faith are generally hate filled bigots intent on treating non-fundamentalists of their religion as less than human and therefore worthless as anything but dead and can barely be defended as humans let alone as Jews or Christians or Muslims or whatever. Another facet of these fundamentalists is Paternalism to be polite but generally sexism or misogyny is the better term.   By the way, this is my argument against the "New Atheists." They treat all religious people as fundamentalists treat others and sexism is part of the package.

 Many "liberals" in those religions are so wedded to "Traditional Values" that I find it hard to defend them as Jews or Christians or Muslims. I will defend them as humans with misguided values, as I will defend most decent humans with misguided values. But if they are hate filled bigots I will call them out on their bigotry not on their religion as I cannot distinguish one religious bigot from one of a different religion.

The Axes of American Politics

https://medium.com/@yonatanzunger/the-axes-of-american-politics-e04713b28f40

In this context, we can finally come back to where we started, and understand the roots of Sanders supporters’ opposition to Harris. Some of it, certainly, is based in sexism; but to reduce it to that is to ignore the fact that Sanders and Harris represent two completely different political movements in America, ones which are frequently at odds with one another. Harris, in particular, has actively allied with various policies in her earlier career (such as support for private prisons) which are actively at odds with core interests of the Social and Economic Justice wings, and so it should not be surprising that the same people who disliked Hillary Clinton would also dislike her.

Literacy Is a Political Disability

From  http://literacyprojectfoundation.org/community/statistics/
The Nation

• In a study of literacy among 20 ‘high income’ countries; US ranked 12th

• Illiteracy has become such a serious problem in our country that 44 million adults are now unable to read a simple story to their children

• 50% of adults cannot read a book written at an eighth grade level

• 45 million are functionally illiterate and read below a 5th grade level

• 44% of the American adults do not read a book in a year

• 6 out of 10 households do not buy a single book in a year

 Tweets and memes scrolling under the news are current political currency.  They are all that the voters can understand.

 Trying to articulate spell out a policy idea in words small enough for the votors is a lost cause.  Likewise trying to prove a meme or tweet is a lie in one meme or tweet.  Lies gather no moss.  The truth accretes moss of literacy until it is invisible to even mainstream media these days.  

Jefferson and Native Americans.

http://westgatehouse.com/art263.html

The only thing Indians needed, Jefferson insisted, was the civilizing influence of agriculture. (Like English theorists since John Locke, Jefferson willfully ignored extensive and highly productive Native farming which did not use European implements.) By abandoning hunting and adopting farming, he counseled, Indians would rise from "savagery" to "civilization" and eventually be absorbed into American society. As president, he extolled the virtues of agriculture in meetings with Native leaders, in correspondence and in speeches. "In leading [Indians] to agriculture," he told Congress in 1803, "I trust and believe that we are acting for their greatest good."
Mark Hirsch is an historian in the Research Unit of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. He has a Ph.D. in American history from Harvard University.
National Museum of the American Indian, Summer 2009, pages 54-58
© 2009, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of the American Indian

Another relatively "Fair and Balanced" attack on Jefferson for creating the slippery slope to Native American removal from the Colonial America and the Manifest Destiny.  

Assimilation was the British Colonial paradigm and eventually even the Colonials got restless.  But none could escape the "White man's Burden" of bringing "Civilization" to the differently civilized.  

Culturally Jefferson was a gentleman farmer in a slave economy.  More importantly he was skilled politician determined to bring his vision of an enlightenment society to America. Politics involves compromise even of ones own philosophical principles, to gather the consensus to make a nation.  That the native tribes and the atheists were victims of those compromises is not surprising.  I still like the way he snuck "Their Creator" into the Declaration of Independence, and "Freedom of Religion" into the Constitution.  What the rest of the bigoted Americans have done with it is not really his fault.  

Billary

She was a pretty good president while Bill unzipped his way into the history books.  She always was the brains of the outfit. He was the politi$ian and is still a good one.  It is time to give her a third term. 

She was the best since RR's voodoo economics started us down the avalanche slope to Oligarchy.  With any luck Warren will have defanged her bankster supporters before she has to deliver on her promises to them.  She will have good reasons to come down hard on the Koch suckers, and the Supreme Court will have to bash the bigots to stay in business, so she won't have to do anything for them either.  All that will be left is Eisenhower's MIC and she will have public support if not congressional support to rein that in as well.  With any luck and the continuous self destruction of the Religious Right, her apron strings may give her a congressional majority as well. 

I am still looking for a downside. 

California Climate Change

I suspect (maybe wishful thinking) that the West Coast will see Midwest type weather now that the jet stream left its north pole home for Greenland and Siberia.  The polar storms we used to see have gone to the east coast and left us with too much warm ground to suck storms off the ocean.  Maybe atmosphere rivers but we have seen thunderstorms here already.  That would not be different weather, but clear climate change for the West Coast where climate for hundreds of years has been winter storms that stop about April 1 and don't come back till late fall.  Those storms built snow pack clear to the Rockies.  Now that snow pack is Appalachian and east coast.  Maybe you guys could use that useless KXL pipe to send some of that snow out here. 

Ideologies that Involve Terrorism.

beliefnet

The ideology which creates terrorism is very simple: My ideology is so important that terrorism is useful promotion of my ideology. JCarlin

But what is "my ideology"?  Define what specific ideologies might lead to terrorism. Abrahamic believer

"My ideology" is an egocentric belief system that the cabal I lead or am one of the leaders of is the only correct view of the world, and that all must believe the same as the Glorious Leader no matter what the Glorious Leader is passionate about.  It may be race, it may be personal power, it may be nation, it may even be God (who talks only through the Glorious Leader).  I do not think it is an accident that they all consider themselves to be a Moses figure leading his (so far it has always been a male) people out of oppression.  The name doesn't matter, the M.O. is the same.  Me and my people are not on top and should be.  I will do whatever it takes to get them there, no matter how many die in the process even if they are my people. Terrorism is one of the tactics. 

I think most of us can agree on the ideological leaders in history through 1950, not all were political, some were pushing economic empires.  Three founded major religions.  Others were associated with nation states, Genghis Kahn as an example. 

Religious leaders: Moses, Constantine, Muhammad.
Empire Builders: Britain, Spain, Portugal, Post Civil War America. 

Politics and Morals

beliefnet

Politics, religions, cultures, views of reality all greatly differ, yet morals are largely consistent. Why is it just so naturally consistent in the arena of morals, but not these other areas?

Because humans are intelligent, tribal, social animals. The differences in behavior among all of the above are simply the size of the tribe and the power of the leaders. But even the strongest leaders are bound by the simple tribal morality of respect for tribe members, follow the leader, and ultimately do what mama tells you to do before you are six.

Apolitical Atheists?

beliefnet

Yet I also think that atheists would do well to steer clear of American politics. American politics is corrupt, the gamboling fields of the rich and the arrogant and those with delusions of grandeur, and is little more than an offshoot of American Christianity. In other words, I think that atheists would do well to reject both politics and religion and be not only atheistical but also apolitical.
costrel

I think this is actually the case at this point. Politics is simply involved in the distribution of useless money, that is money which doesn't produce anything. The producers of the world, the teachers, scientists, engineers and manufacturers, which according to my unscientific observations are largely atheistic and apolitical seem to be able to continue to find the working money to produce. They are happy to recycle useless money into creative ads and military hardware, but this is a minor part of the useless money equation.

The "unfortunate" part of all of this is that the useless money that used to be recycled to the religious poor is now reserved for the religious rich. But the religious poor may be figuring out that they are being abused by their religion's PACs and voting against religion if not God.

Is Politics Relevant to Anything?

Libertarian, Liberal, Trogloright - I have decided that politics at least in developed countries is irrelevant for the people who make the country and the world work. Politics is basically fooling most of the people most of the time which is not hard since most of the people want to be fooled most of the time. The people making things happen pay politicians to fool the people to keep them off their backs. Income inequality is always a problem, but notice that the people who make things happen realize it and will at least fix it politically and probably in actuality.

I always vote. If only to encourage the least awful. And write to and phone politicians doing the right thing for the same reason. I do not expect results.