Category: Racism

Podcast : US media “forgets” that governing is for everyone

~ jlpagano

Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia says one thing, US media spins it as another – and not just the right wing media either.

An article on what Stacey Abrams actually said > Georgia GOP attacks Stacey Abrams … for speaking the truth (msnbc.com)

How Fox News covered the same speech > Stacey Abrams calls Georgia ‘worst state in the country to live’ | Fox News Video

The True Centre Podcast 011 – "The Cost Of Living Coalition March" – The True Centre Podcast

My thoughts on the Irish Left in general and a march/rally in Dublin on Saturday in particular. Learn more about the Cost of Living Coalition here > https://www.facebook.com/COLCIreland — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thetruecentre/message
  1. The True Centre Podcast 011 – "The Cost Of Living Coalition March"
  2. The True Centre Podcast 010 – "Beware The Thirty Odd Percent"
  3. The True Centre Podcast 009 – US media "forgets" that governing is for everyone
  4. The True Centre Podcast 008 – Elon Musk helps me define 'true centre'
  5. The True Centre Podcast 007 – Happy 20th birthday TYT

Elon Musk graphic proves “left/right” depiction of politics is arbitrary

~ jlpagano

“Elon Musk is buying Twitter, blah, blah, yaddya yaddya.” I lead with this paragraph in case you think this article has anything to do with that.

For now I’m much more interested in this graphic that he posted on his soon-to-be playtoy…

I don’t care what point he’s trying to make here, especially given he named one of his children “X Æ A-12” and chose to put a car into orbit. For me, this actually highlights two points he may not have intended.

  1. He clearly believes, like most uber rich probably do, that the world revolves around him. The entire human race is represented by three stick figures on each line and he is one of them.
  2. More importantly for this web page, these varying depictions of the “left/right” nature of political thought are completely different each time, which to me proves that it is completely arbitrary. If Elon is proclaiming that they have these definitions for these particular years, why can’t we attribute our own?

Which leads me conveniently back to the most important point I want to get across in this blog, and you will see me repeat it in several posts. If you come across FPP and don’t leave it at least knowing that I firmly believe this, then I will have failed.

In my humble opinion, no matter what year it is, the true centre of a line representing political ideology is one that contains people who want a democratically elected government to provide equal opportunities for all of its citizens. As you go to the right, you have people who are supporting increasing amounts of inequality. As you move to the left, you have people who are more interested in fighting/punishing those on the right than actually working to establish/maintain that equality. Any other depiction of what is defined by “left” and “right” is an attempt to distort, usually from the “right” because they represent a minority of people but currently have a lot of power which they use to influence the masses.

THIS is what I’d like to talk about when it comes to Elon Musk, not whether or not he wants to add an edit button,. JLP

The True Centre Podcast 011 – "The Cost Of Living Coalition March" – The True Centre Podcast

My thoughts on the Irish Left in general and a march/rally in Dublin on Saturday in particular. Learn more about the Cost of Living Coalition here > https://www.facebook.com/COLCIreland — Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thetruecentre/message
  1. The True Centre Podcast 011 – "The Cost Of Living Coalition March"
  2. The True Centre Podcast 010 – "Beware The Thirty Odd Percent"
  3. The True Centre Podcast 009 – US media "forgets" that governing is for everyone
  4. The True Centre Podcast 008 – Elon Musk helps me define 'true centre'
  5. The True Centre Podcast 007 – Happy 20th birthday TYT

PS : It seems The Young Turks agree in this video and of course they put their own spin on it which is worth a listen. But sure what do we know, we’re just “woke progressives” right????

Breitbart ticks every right-wing fury-inducing box it can find in YouTube shooting headline

~ jlpagano

Breitbart trigger.png

Iranian.  Azeri.  Vegan.  Activist. Muslim-sounding name.  Clearly the good folks at Breitbart are trying to prove a point?

If anything they missed a trick – according to the Telegraph, she was also an animal rights protester.

Remember – if the shooter was ‘American. White. Meat-Eating. Christian.’ then the headline would read something like this : ‘YouTube shooting highlights the need to focus on mental health issues’.  JLP

#IANWAE

Trump has done nothing but shut down key parts of government since he took office but you wouldn’t know it listening to Democrats and media

~ jlpagano

THE ISSUE

Whether it’s through stupidity, unwillingness or incompetence, the Democrat leadership cannot get across the simple message that Donald Trump’s agenda of racism, misogyny and pro-corporatism is bad for the American people, and the mainstream media isn’t much better.

THE MEDIA

YouTube clip by Dan Rather on The Young Turks on January 22, 2018

‘The Government Shutdown Ends With a ‘Promise’ For DACA Vote From the GOP – The News With Dan Rather‘

“…if most of the media ignore the year-long slow-motion shut down and if Democrats don’t raise enough stink about it, maybe it’s because too many of us have signalled that we’re on board”

THE COMMENT

Shortcomings with relief efforts in Puerto Rico.  Throwing millions off their medical insurance by hacking away at Obamacare.  Going after Medicare and Social Security.  Gutting the staff at the State Department.  Rescinding regulations for the sake of it.

Those are just some of the actions Donald Trump has taken since being sworn in just over a year ago, yet in recent days he has been able to frame the word ‘shutdown’ as meaning something that is only harmful to the US military, which already receives more funding than any other nation by a long, long way.

At first I was annoyed at myself for not realising that what the President has done since taking office is effectively a massive shutdown in itself, but I’m not involved with politics and government on a daily basis – the point is so simple and obvious that we have to wonder why his primary opposition, namely the Democrats and, as he calls them, ‘The Fake News Media’, haven’t been highlighting it all weekend?

Thankfully we have people like the legendary Dan Rather to get the message out there.  And as he points out, it’s possible that the general public is also complicit to an extent.

As I recently pointed out here on FPP, the likes of Chuck Schumer with his ‘bowl of Jello’ and Nancy Pelosi with her ‘poop Sundae’ simply don’t have the charisma necessary to deliver the kind of soundbites needed to combat Trump’s twitter tirades.  Meanwhile we have Dick Durbin gleefully using the word ‘bipartisanship’ as if it also necessarily means ‘fairness for the American people’.

Besides…if anything should have clinched the message battle for the Democrats re the latest shutdown it should have been that absolutely disgusting ad which suggested they would be responsible for any future murders by illegal immigrants.  That was nothing short of Hitler-esque propaganda [script most likely written by Stephen Miller] which speaks volumes for the intelligence levels of the demographic at which it was aimed.

The party badly needs new leadership.  Whether or not Mitch McConnell keeps to his word on DACA by February 8, the Democrats have left themselves wide open for negative press between now and then for having caved far too easily over the spending bill.

And there I was, very close to writing a post here praising them for finally showing a bit of fight.  Why do I allow myself to get so deluded?  JLP

#IANWAE

PS – As I’m about to publish, Trump has tweeted this :

I rest my case.

 

US Democrats have an open goal yet no strikers on the pitch to put it away

~ jlpagano

THE ISSUE

At the time of posting, the US government is within hours of shutting down because the two main parties are engaged in a blaming war with each other, and one that the Republicans are being allowed to win.

THE MEDIA

Podcast by ‘Pod Save America’ on January 18, 2018

‘‘The Shithole Shutdown’‘

“If this government shuts down it’s not because of the Dreamers, it is because of what Donald Trump and Tom Cotton and Stephen Miller want to demand in exchange for doing something that they have promised that they would do, which is protect the Dreamers.”

THE COMMENT

It was a good line; all Nancy Pelosi had to do was deliver it.  

The Minority Leader of the US House of Representatives was trying to describe the Republican offer to put off the government shutdown for another month in a deal which had absolutely nothing in it to protect those on the DACA programme who are currently living in fear of deportation.

The line was something like ‘They offered us a bowl of poop with a cherry on top and tried to tell us it was a chocolate Sundae’.  She hesitated drastically just before saying the word ‘poop’ – she clearly didn’t want to say it.  But she did anyway, and she made what could have been a great soundbite into an even bigger poop Sundae.

I have absolutely no doubt that she was talked into using those words by her staff, and that her hesitation came from a reluctance to resort to that kind of talk.

Well I’m sorry Nancy but if you’re not prepared to get into the fight, maybe it’s time you stood aside and let in someone who is.

And while I do believe that the likes of Pelosi and Schumer and Feinstein are too old for what’s required to take on this particular White House and Republican congress, I don’t necessarily mean ‘old’ in the sense of a numerical age.  There are people close to my age who have a similar mindset.

But if issues like the Dreamers and the CHIP programme are being held hostage by the Republicans and the government gets shut down because of it, it’s up to the Democrats to fight tooth and nail to get their side of the story into the public domain, and it really shouldn’t be that difficult.  Look how easily the lads from Pod Save America [former staffers for Barack Obama] make it sound.

The Democrats, and indeed everyone living in the real world outside Utrumpia, badly need spokespeople who can properly deliver this simple message.  And it shouldn’t take TV personalities like Donald Trump and Oprah Winfrey to do it either. JLP

#IANWAE

The Young Turks’ Cenk Ungur lets loose on corporate Democrats as time runs out to secure DACA deal

~ jlpagano

THE ISSUE

The Republicans and Democrats need to agree on a budget before Friday otherwise the government will ‘shut down’, ie there will be no money to pay federal employees.  As the Senate must have at least 60 votes to pass a spending bill, even though the Democrats are in a minority their cotes are needed and thus they have some leverage and they are hoping to use this to finally secure a deal for the so-called ‘Dreamers’ or children of illegal immigrants who have proven themselves to be productive members of American society.

THE MEDIA

YouTube clip by The Young Turks on January 15, 2018

“…you’re weak, you’re losers, you’re pathetic.  How do you expect us to get excited, to show up to the polls, for these loser Democrats who can’t figure out a way to fight against fucking Trump???”

THE COMMENT

The reason we are outraged by Trump’s recent ‘shithole’ remark [not even going to bother with the word ‘alleged’…we all know he said it] is not because such words that shouldn’t ever be used in politics…in his case, it was all about the fact that he was referring to entire nations of people.

Of course there are times when the use of ‘salty’ language is absolutely necessary, and in this clip of the Young Turks, host Cenk Ungur rightly calls out the corporate Democrats for their meagre attempts to use their leverage in the government spending bill to secure proper legislation for the Dreamers.

It’s not often that Ungur gets this animated – though to be clear, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing because if he went on a tirade for every clip he’d be no better than Alex Jones.  This is definitely the kind of time-sensitive issue where a verbal kick up the backside is exactly what it required.  Whether it will do any good remains to be seen – I’m not so sure Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi know how to use YouTube, let alone subscribe to the Young Turks.

#IANWAE

The story is that Roy Moore lost, not that the other guy won…what’s his name again?

~ jlpagano

THE ISSUE

In one of the most widely reported elections in US Senate history, in the heavily-Republican state of Alabama which Trump won in 2016 by 28 percentage points, accused paedophile Roy Moore was defeated by his Democratic challenger Don James.  No, sorry, it was Dan Jenkins.  Or was it Doug Jones.  Nah, I was right the first time.  I think.

THE MEDIA

Article by CNN.com on Wednesday, December 13, 2017

‘Roy Moore won’t concede‘

“You know, part of the thing — part of the problem with this campaign is we’ve been painted in an unfavorable and unfaithful light.”

THE COMMENT

I think I can safely say that I’ve never been this happy about the results from an Alabama Senate race.

You might think this is ‘Fake News’ but when I opened half an eyelid at 4:30am Irish time this morning and looked at my phone, the banner on the CNN notification read : ‘Roy Moore loses’.   Surely in pretty much any other race the headline would refer to the guy who won?  Well, this wasn’t any other race.

This was an amazing win for the Democrats, albeit with a perfect storm of controversy on the other side, but they still had to pick the right guy and run the right campaign to get him over the line, so bravo.

What interests me right now is how the President will react, and more importantly, how his inner circle will react.  Do they sit down with him and come up with a proper spin to present to the media?  Or do they sit down WITHOUT him first and come up with a spin to present to HIM?  I think we all know it’s the latter.

No doubt the spin will be something like ‘Roy would have lost by even more [Moore?] were it not for the President’s endorsement’.  Sure.

#IANWAE

Of course there is racism in Ireland

~ jlpagano

Like many articles on TheJournal.ie, the real reading is not in the actual text, rather below in the comments section.

Take this one titled “‘People throw bananas at you or tell you to go back to your country just for asking to see a ticket’“.  The inspiration for the article is a campaign run by the Immigrant Council of Ireland, Transport for Ireland and Dublin City Council to promote “a message of zero tolerance” towards racism in Ireland.

Of course this debate is particularly timely what with President #DoubleDownDonald having one of his classic press conference meltdowns where he tried to suggest that not all those who protested the statue in Charlottesville were neo-Nazis.  By the way, in that tirade, the president alluded to something he called the “alt-left” which proved the very point I made a couple of days ago about false equivalency.

But returning to Ireland, the Journal article cites numerous experiences of racism by public transport drivers of various origins.  It’s not all violent, most of it isn’t.  But particularly in an area like this, ie racial hatred, the violence is the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and to understand where it comes from you first must acknowledge what lies beneath the water, and there are several examples in the comments section of this piece, much as we’d expect.

The first category, and the easiest to dismiss, is captured by this one…

Yawn!! The Journal is really laying it on today. Its endless. Are they being cynical and using it all for clickbait? Can you not see it just a quango justifying it’s continued existance (and big saleries) by portraying a subjective and selective number of allegations. Whether they are true or not doesn’t really matter as it is about the above. The Journal also love these type of press releases as they get a lot of comments.

Spelling atrocities aside, this is classic conspiracy theory nonsense…much easier to blame those calling out the racism than to acknowledge it.

Next we have the soft denier.

Sadly, we have racists in Ireland but I like to think that the racists are a minority. Of course, one would have to be of a different race to know the reality in everyday life. The actual lived experience is the most revealing.

Did I miss something?  Has anyone suggested that racists were in the majority?  But at least this person appreciates that they haven’t experienced this kind of racism personally, unlike this final genius of a commenter, a “hard” denier if you will…

The poor foreign taxi men will be on next telling us all how hard their life is and what a bunch of racists us Irish are… Give me strength… If your gonna work dealing with the public especially on crammed public transport your gonna have to listen to a bit of crap every now and again whether your black, white, orange, Irish, Polish, Russian or whatever.. That’s the nature of human interaction, mostly good but sometimes bad, that’s never gonna change no matter how many posters you put up so either accept that your in a foreign land and a minority of people aren’t going to like you, either get used to that fact or get a job in an office…

There is racism all over the world.  But it’s not a bloody competition.  We can’t justify what happens on our own shores because of what happens elsewhere.  We stand up and call it what it is whenever we see it.  And like I said earlier, it’s not just the violent incidents we need to call out.

Ever been on a bus when a driver was verbally abused?  Or in a shop when it was an employee?  Or in a taxi when an Irish driver was telling you stories about scary activities by black drivers?  Or at a family gathering when an elder relative used the ‘n word’?  I have.  And I’m ashamed to say that too often I failed to speak out.  I’m actually part of the problem, I freely admit.

Of course I’m not saying we should put ourselves in any danger when out and about but the simple fact is that if we do nothing at all, it will continue.

But one thing we can definitely do is accept that it’s happening, and that will cost us nothing.  JLP

#IANWAE