On The Importance Of Being Unprincipled, Or A Whore

[+ stevenkesslar]

Steven, I did not read the Time article. Thank you for quoting from it. There's a limit to how many internet rabbit holes I can go down even on threads on which I want to comment, especially when I've already read other discussions about it.

 

Sorry to drag it back to race, but ......

 

I wanted these thoughts on Selma to have a thread of their own. Here's the part of the TIME article that I think captures the biggest flaw, or at least ambiguity, in Selma:

 

Beginning in the late 1960s a very different view began to take hold: that white people were hopelessly infected by racism and that black people could and should depend only on themselves. Selma contributes to that view. It not only leaves out much of the story of how the Voting Rights Act was passed, but also fails to illuminate how further progress might be made in the future. We still have serious racial problems in this nation.

 

Spoiler alert! I am disclosing the fact that I am white, so what you are about to read comes out of the mouth of a white older-than-I-wish-I-was-ish something. (Actually, I'll happily check the "older and wiser" box).

 

Part of what was so emotionally jarring about Selma to me is that I have to guess it was DuVernay's intent to contrast images of black men like Rep. John Lewis being clubbed almost to death on the Edmund Pettis bridge, simply because they wanted to vote, with the debate today about what to do about black men being shot to death by white cops. The song, "Glory," which won the Best Song Oscar, explicitly links the two.

 

I feel adamant on this one: the best course is to focus the debate on illuminating facts, not ignorance, and to focus on shared values, which is what LBJ and MLK were geniuses at.

 

Now I'm going to say something white-centric and possibly inflammatory. I don't put a black man who is shot to death by a white cop after he allegedly robbed a grocery store and allegedly said, “You’re too much of a pussy to shoot me” to a cop in the same category as what happened on the Edmund Pettis bridge. Rep. John Lewis epitomized high and moral, which is why cops beating him and others unified the nation. Sorry, but Michael Brown in that moment, if he did and said what is alleged, which we will never really know, epitomized low and thug, which is why Ferguson divided the nation. Having said that, we also know as a fact the cop [Wilson] said this about Brown. “The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked.” I'll take that as an indication that we tragically had a white cop that on a subconscious level probably demonizes black men, which was not helpful to either man when Wilson confronted Brown.

 

Let's also get this out of the way. There are whites I've talked with that feel we are being held to a double standard, because most blacks are killed by blacks, and some blacks kill whites and get away with it. You can scan this website, and you'll learn there is enough data to lend validity to their perspective:

 

http://theinjusticefile.blogspot.com/2013/08/blacks-who-got-away-with-murder-white.html

 

It's a depressing topic, but as far as I can tell, most blacks are killed by blacks, and most whites are killed by whites:

 

http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2013/jul/17/tweets/look-statistic-blacks-and-murder/

 

The good news is I don't buy that race relations are moving backward, or even that we are at an impasse.

 

Check out this set of polls:

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/08/usa-today-pew-poll-eric-garner-michael-brown/20098781/

 

Americans discriminate, I think fairly, between Michael Brown and Eric Garner, two black men killed by white cops. On average, they would have let the cop that shot Michael Brown off the hook. On average, they would NOT have let the cop that killed Eric Garner off the hook. My guess is the the main difference is the video.

 

The best news in the poll to me is that by an overwhelming majority - 90 % - Americans say it would be a good idea for more police officers to wear body cameras to record their interactions.

 

There is a big difference between how people view what happened to Brown and Garner, based on race: "In both cases, blacks overwhelmingly say the grand juries erred in not bringing charges – 80% in the Michael Brown case, 90% in the Eric Garner case. But among whites, views changed between the cases: Two-thirds say the grand jury made the right decision on Michael Brown. By 47%-28%, they say the grand jury made the wrong decision on Eric Garner."

 

On this one, I'll check the "white" box and plead guilty. Michael Brown should not have died, but I would have let the cop that shot him to death off the hook, based on what I know. As I recounted in a different thread, twice I've had cops staring me down at the front door in the middle of the night. Once, to the best of my recollection, they had their hands on their holsters and said "Put the knife down." I bent over in submission and said, "It's a screwdriver, officer, and I'm putting it down." Someone had called the cops thinking I was a burglar. The house was a rental, and I then explained I was getting the floors ready for a contractor coming to lay new hardwood at 7 am. To me, in a moment like that, the right word to describe the appropriate behavior to cops is this: "patronizing." Nothing I've heard or seen suggests that Michael Brown got that. If so, it cost him his life. Eric Garner used exactly the right words, and we know it with 100 % certainty because they are on videotape.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvATEjsf41g

 

"I can't breathe." He said it again and again.

 

Like Michael Brown, he should not have died. Hopefully his death taught us something, and he will not have died in vain. The cops who ignored his clear and repeated words should not have gotten off the hook.

 

Whatever you think about the interplay between MLK and LBJ, what makes all the difference in the world is that in 2015 we don't need MLK to be the black man agitating from the outside. Now we have a black man in the Oval Office. Whatever you think of Obama, on this one, it's a no-brainer. Body cameras have 90 % support, Obama is pushing it as the best and most pragmatic solution, and it will make a huge difference. At least I hope.

 

Here's more good news:

 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/175088/gallup-review-black-white-attitudes-toward-police.aspx

 

Even on what is arguably the most provocative and polarizing issue facing us today, we agree more than we disagree. A few examples:

 

1) Most whites (88 %) have "some" to "a great deal" of confidence in the police. So do most blacks. (75 %).

2) Most whites (12 %) have only "very little or no" confidence in police. So do most blacks (25 %).

3) The percentage of blacks who feel they have been treated unfairly by cops in the last 30 days is declining, from 25 % in 2007 to 17 % in 2013.

 

There's still big differences. 80 % of whites think more blacks end up in jail not because of discrimination, but because of "something else." Blacks are actually split almost 50/50 on that. There is a racial divide. It's not the Grand Canyon.

 

Ignorance is not bliss. And perceptions like what one white cop saw in Michael Brown - "The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon" - can change with experience. What I feel strongly about, and why I am pushing this so hard, is that reaching out to people of another race is the best way to get over whatever ignorance we ALL might still have. For some, it can literally be a matter of life and death. The really good news is that there is every reason to think that, however imperfect they were, what worked for LBJ and MLK can work for us today: shared values.

 

A case in point. I posted this on another thread, but happy ending stories about good cops of any race like this one can't be told enough:

 

https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/moms-facebook-photo-of-hero-cop-strikes-a-chord-119449508142.html

 

 

If you want to get rid of ghosts, you call Ghostbusters.

 

If you want to get rid of racism, and you are John Stewart, you call Common. If you haven't watched this 5 minute video already in another thread I posted, it's worth seeing:

 

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/x3bz0k/common

 

The interview raises a fascinating question: Can America really be healed by incense, candles, lowering the lights, Barry White music, and getting it on?

 

Speaking as a white, I think it helps to do what this white cop did - go out of our way to reach out to other races. MLK is gone, Obama is taken, and I don't have Ava DuVernay's phone number. And I kinda like Common's idea. Hmmm, wonder who I can call?

 

http://home.comcast.net/~tomschraw/pwpimages/JD.jpg

[JDXXX]

Sorry to drag it back to race, but ......

 

I wanted these thoughts on Selma to have a thread of their own. Here's the part of the TIME article that I think captures the biggest flaw, or at least ambiguity, in Selma:

 

Beginning in the late 1960s a very different view began to take hold: that white people were hopelessly infected by racism and that black people could and should depend only on themselves. Selma contributes to that view. It not only leaves out much of the story of how the Voting Rights Act was passed, but also fails to illuminate how further progress might be made in the future. We still have serious racial problems in this nation.

 

Spoiler alert! I am disclosing the fact that I am white, so what you are about to read comes out of the mouth of a white older-than-I-wish-I-was-ish something. (Actually, I'll happily check the "older and wiser" box).

 

Part of what was so emotionally jarring about Selma to me is that I have to guess it was DuVernay's intent to contrast images of black men like Rep. John Lewis being clubbed almost to death on the Edmund Pettis bridge, simply because they wanted to vote, with the debate today about what to do about black men being shot to death by white cops. The song, "Glory," which won the Best Song Oscar, explicitly links the two.

 

I feel adamant on this one: the best course is to focus the debate on illuminating facts, not ignorance, and to focus on shared values, which is what LBJ and MLK were geniuses at.

 

Now I'm going to say something white-centric and possibly inflammatory. I don't put a black man who is shot to death by a white cop after he allegedly robbed a grocery store and allegedly said, “You’re too much of a pussy to shoot me” to a cop in the same category as what happened on the Edmund Pettis bridge. Rep. John Lewis epitomized high and moral, which is why cops beating him and others unified the nation. Sorry, but Michael Brown in that moment, if he did and said what is alleged, which we will never really know, epitomized low and thug, which is why Ferguson divided the nation. Having said that, we also know as a fact the cop [Wilson] said this about Brown. “The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon, that’s how angry he looked.” I'll take that as an indication that we tragically had a white cop that on a subconscious level probably demonizes black men, which was not helpful to either man when Wilson confronted Brown.

 

Let's also get this out of the way. There are whites I've talked with that feel we are being held to a double standard, because most blacks are killed by blacks, and some blacks kill whites and get away with it. You can scan this website, and you'll learn there is enough data to lend validity to their perspective:

 

http://theinjusticefile.blogspot.com/2013/08/blacks-who-got-away-with-murder-white.html

 

It's a depressing topic, but as far as I can tell, most blacks are killed by blacks, and most whites are killed by whites:

 

http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2013/jul/17/tweets/look-statistic-blacks-and-murder/

 

The good news is I don't buy that race relations are moving backward, or even that we are at an impasse.

 

Check out this set of polls:

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/08/usa-today-pew-poll-eric-garner-michael-brown/20098781/

 

Americans discriminate, I think fairly, between Michael Brown and Eric Garner, two black men killed by white cops. On average, they would have let the cop that shot Michael Brown off the hook. On average, they would NOT have let the cop that killed Eric Garner off the hook. My guess is the the main difference is the video.

 

The best news in the poll to me is that by an overwhelming majority - 90 % - Americans say it would be a good idea for more police officers to wear body cameras to record their interactions.

 

There is a big difference between how people view what happened to Brown and Garner, based on race: "In both cases, blacks overwhelmingly say the grand juries erred in not bringing charges – 80% in the Michael Brown case, 90% in the Eric Garner case. But among whites, views changed between the cases: Two-thirds say the grand jury made the right decision on Michael Brown. By 47%-28%, they say the grand jury made the wrong decision on Eric Garner."

 

On this one, I'll check the "white" box and plead guilty. Michael Brown should not have died, but I would have let the cop that shot him to death off the hook, based on what I know. As I recounted in a different thread, twice I've had cops staring me down at the front door in the middle of the night. Once, to the best of my recollection, they had their hands on their holsters and said "Put the knife down." I bent over in submission and said, "It's a screwdriver, officer, and I'm putting it down." Someone had called the cops thinking I was a burglar. The house was a rental, and I then explained I was getting the floors ready for a contractor coming to lay new hardwood at 7 am. To me, in a moment like that, the right word to describe the appropriate behavior to cops is this: "patronizing." Nothing I've heard or seen suggests that Michael Brown got that. If so, it cost him his life. Eric Garner used exactly the right words, and we know it with 100 % certainty because they are on videotape.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvATEjsf41g

 

"I can't breathe." He said it again and again.

 

Like Michael Brown, he should not have died. Hopefully his death taught us something, and he will not have died in vain. The cops who ignored his clear and repeated words should not have gotten off the hook.

 

Whatever you think about the interplay between MLK and LBJ, what makes all the difference in the world is that in 2015 we don't need MLK to be the black man agitating from the outside. Now we have a black man in the Oval Office. Whatever you think of Obama, on this one, it's a no-brainer. Body cameras have 90 % support, Obama is pushing it as the best and most pragmatic solution, and it will make a huge difference. At least I hope.

 

Here's more good news:

 

http://www.gallup.com/poll/175088/gallup-review-black-white-attitudes-toward-police.aspx

 

Even on what is arguably the most provocative and polarizing issue facing us today, we agree more than we disagree. A few examples:

 

1) Most whites (88 %) have "some" to "a great deal" of confidence in the police. So do most blacks. (75 %).

2) Most whites (12 %) have only "very little or no" confidence in police. So do most blacks (25 %).

3) The percentage of blacks who feel they have been treated unfairly by cops in the last 30 days is declining, from 25 % in 2007 to 17 % in 2013.

 

There's still big differences. 80 % of whites think more blacks end up in jail not because of discrimination, but because of "something else." Blacks are actually split almost 50/50 on that. There is a racial divide. It's not the Grand Canyon.

 

Ignorance is not bliss. And perceptions like what one white cop saw in Michael Brown - "The only way I can describe it, it looks like a demon" - can change with experience. What I feel strongly about, and why I am pushing this so hard, is that reaching out to people of another race is the best way to get over whatever ignorance we ALL might still have. For some, it can literally be a matter of life and death. The really good news is that there is every reason to think that, however imperfect they were, what worked for LBJ and MLK can work for us today: shared values.

 

A case in point. I posted this on another thread, but happy ending stories about good cops of any race like this one can't be told enough:

 

https://www.yahoo.com/parenting/moms-facebook-photo-of-hero-cop-strikes-a-chord-119449508142.html

 

 

If you want to get rid of ghosts, you call Ghostbusters.

 

If you want to get rid of racism, and you are John Stewart, you call Common. If you haven't watched this 5 minute video already in another thread I posted, it's worth seeing:

 

http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/x3bz0k/common

 

The interview raises a fascinating question: Can America really be healed by incense, candles, lowering the lights, Barry White music, and getting it on?

 

Speaking as a white, I think it helps to do what this white cop did - go out of our way to reach out to other races. MLK is gone, Obama is taken, and I don't have Ava DuVernay's phone number. And I kinda like Common's idea. Hmmm, wonder who I can call?

 

http://home.comcast.net/~tomschraw/pwpimages/JD.jpg

 

LOL. I love it!!! Right on, Steven, Baby. I just love you, man as your hitting some dead on points here. You're awesome. . This is the kind of "awareness" I want people to understand that's a problem in our everyday society that needs to be addressed of what complications Black people go through. It's terrible, and I too will do what I can to fight for what's right which is for social equality, and equal justice. Not just for me, but for all races, and age groups in America.

 

Be in Peace, and Harmony together, people. That's the only way were all overcome discrimination in America. Has to come to an end, and confindant it will one day in the future. The question is: When, my dear love ones - When?

 

Thank You, Steven(along with others here on the forum) in helping us bring this to people's attention more and more as me and Steven can't do alone as we need you all to help fight for this too. By joining together - we can make racism a thing of the past, and move forward as "One Nation" walking and joining hands "together" in today's world, a thing of the future. .

[mike carey]

IIRC it was closer to single-payer (which frankly is what makes more economic and policy sense, but which gores too many sacred cows)

I read an excellent illustration of this: in a single payer system the national health service goes to the manufacturer of, say, artificial hips and says they will be using 250,000 hips this year and we would like to negotiate a price. In the US at best each insurer, or at worst each patient does the negotiating.

 

To me, single payer isn't the government bullying the private sector, it's giving patients a fairer negotiating position with big near-monopoly medical manuacturers and pharmaceuticals companies. But still, sacred cows be here, as you said!

[+ WilliamM]

We tend to believe that political parties have eight years of the presidency, and then the other party takes power. But, Truman in 1948, G.H. Bush in 1988 and Gore in 2000 with a slightly different Supreme Court tell a different story. I agree that the single payer model is likely dead. But, one never knows in politics.

 

I

[+ quoththeraven]

I read an excellent illustration of this: in a single payer system the national health service goes to the manufacturer of, say, artificial hips and says they will be using 250,000 hips this year and we would like to negotiate a price. In the US at best each insurer, or at worst each patient does the negotiating.

 

To me, single payer isn't the government bullying the private sector, it's giving patients a fairer negotiating position with big near-monopoly medical manuacturers and pharmaceuticals companies. But still, sacred cows be here, as you said!

 

It's not even the economics of scale so much as how much more efficient it would be. There would likely be more uniform plan design across the country (same covered services, different tiers of deductibles). Processing forms would be standardized, a la Medicare and Medicaid.

 

The downside is less choice and no competition regarding premium except through the various tiers. The two biggest oxen to be gored would be the healthcare providers, who might fear lower fees per procedure because there's essentially a government monopoly, and insurers. The government doesn't have the stomach or expertise to administer such a system; they'd do it the way they do Medicare (this I'm sure of) and Medicaid, which is to contract with a private insurer to run the program in each state. (Medicare is the Social Security health program for the elderly and disabled; Medicaid is the healthcare component of welfare.) So there'd only be one insurer operating in a state at a time, but in order to avoid a monopoly on the other side, such contracts would have to be spread among at least three insurers.

 

IDK, I see some real problems, as insurers could pick up their marbles and go home, leaving the government holding the bag. The other would only be an extension of what kind and cost of service is covered, which could become a very barebones type of thing.

[adannyboy]

I just found this, but I thought it would be good on this thread.

It's a really good TEDx presentation about "Sex Work".

 

[mike carey]

I just found this, but I thought it would be good on this thread.

It's a really good TEDx presentation about "Sex Work".

Great TED talk, Danny. Thanks for posting it!