Iowa and the road to the Whitehouse

[YAZMAN]

Originally Posted by Mr Crunchy

the dems need to decide if theyre going to back the most hated bitch since tokyo rose

I would have said Yoko Ono.

Nonetheless, well played.

[One Red Seat]

As a politician, his decision to stay in that church makes no sense. How did he think this wouldn't blow up in his face? I guess he hasn't been paying attention to American politics for his entire adult life.

And it's not like his, "I couldn't quit him, he's my buddy", nonsense is going to fly. He's on record stating how he wants to protect his daughters from bigotry when Imus put his foot in his mouth. Really? Why have them attend that church for their entire lives then? It just doesn't add up.

He's really between a rock and a hard place. Either he buys into that tripe, and if he does he's done, or he lacked the courage to stand up and leave, which doesn't give me a warm fuzzy about his ability to lead anything. Personally, I think it's the former. His wife has said some questionable things, both recently and in her past (school records), in regards to her view of America. Combine that with him allowing his children to come up in that church, and I get the sense that he's A-OK with what Wright said (if you got him to be honest).

[Mr Crunchy]

sorry
i feel like i have a bond with yoko ono
i too like to bitch about possessions from a 750.00 a night suite

what do the people in conn think?
when i hear my wife who was raised by a highly decorated marine who was a prison guard at concord then billerica and a disabled vet at 22 years old and farther to the right than attila the hun, tell me she likes obama??
then says ""i am sick of his act"" 2 months later
i feel she speaks for the undecided people who were leaning Obama but now have doubts all because white wright has issues with society?

then i hear sean hannity
""WE MAY BE ELECTING AN ANTI SEMITE AND A RACIST TO THE WHITE HOUSE""

whoa
not that,wow that would be a 1st....
anyone else feel compelled to commit jihad in fox studios holding Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity in a tight grip?

Jesus Christ
we may elect a racist and an anti semite?

anyone ever hear nixon speak behind closed doors about his good friend henry kissinger or the black power movement?

[Mr Crunchy]

you can do a lot of things in this nation and still be elected president
case in point...
little corkey bush
or bubba""i dont want her you can have her shes too fat for me"" clinton
or ronnie""i took a seeing eye dog to my induction"" raygun

but we are treading on new grass here
we had a vibrant, youthful voice of hope whoopin hillarys ass and bringing out a phenomenon of mixed voters into the election game and now it seems the teflon is off and what america is now viewing is not a black man who is really white inside but rather a black man who is ....black thinking....

allow me to share my running dialogue with my best friend who is blacker than dick cheneys heart....


heres vincent to me

Today Barack Obama delivered what many are calling the most compelling, and inspirational speech on race relations in modern history. While neither being divisive nor dishonest, he honestly addressed the concerns that face every American on a day to day bases. Reflecting on his own interacial upbringing, he could identify with prejudice from both sides of the issue. That being said, I STILL DON'T LIKE YOU WHITE PEOPLE.

ALWAYS V

heres me to him

Well V
Based on the complexion of the Reverend Wright, I am beginning to wonder what his beef with is with whitey seeing as my Sicilian mother, courtesy of Hannibal 2000 years ago, is 4 shades darker than the good Reverend is.

A question for you.
Why would a black man from Chicago feel compelled to answer racism charges seeing as over 100 felony convictions have been overturned by police brutality and death row abolished by a pro death Governor because the stink was so bad on these convictions?
Vin.
He should’ve gone on the attack and hard at that.
He should’ve mentioned the Catholic Church hiding child rapists and in some cases promoting said offenders.
He should’ve mentioned Bob Jones University, where every legitimate GOP candidate goes when campaigning in South Carolina and it is the common thought is that Jews Catholics and Episcopalians are hell bound.
He should’ve mentioned Pat Robertson declaring America deserved 9-11 because we are now supporting gay rights.

This was the time to separate the men from the boys
unfortunately Barak Obama took the politically correct route and looked wishy washy in the process. as far as I am concerned.
The local clergy and national black leadership were impressed with his healing but he doesn’t need to impress them
He needs to impress me, the disenfranchised cracker who won’t vote for Hillary but needs another option than the GOP this year.
He fucked up
He forgot to target the proper audience.

and now him back at me

Sean, Sean, Sean

My brother, Barack could not have attacked. If he did he would have been viewed as reactionary rather than proactive. Everyone knows about the Catholic Church, Pat Robertson, Bill O'rielly, and that prick Tucker Carlson. They don't want to be reminded of it. Police brutality is real, but if he mentioned it, Bubba's in Utah, South Carolina, Alabama, and every other state full of interbred moron's would just figure he is defending people who got out on a technicality. Don't get me wrong I respect John Mccain. Alot of what he sez actually makes sense. If he had the balls to cross the line and become an Independant or a Democrat he would have been president 4 years ago. As for your Sicilian ancestry I knew there was a real reason we are friends.

END OF BLACK V'S DIALOGUE

reading thru the lines as i like to do vincent is surrendering.
he is looking down the road to 2012 or has another agenda but essentially feels that its lost
and i agree with him
its over for obama,maybe not in the democratic primary but in november he will be toast

[YAZMAN]

The Independents will determine CT, there are more registered Indies at this point than Dems or Republicans. And from talking to people locally, it looks like the state will vote red for president. Remember, during the last fed election, the state overwhelmingly put Lieberman back in the Senate as an Independent after the Dems nominated Ned Lamont. It appears the Washington Dems are just as stupid as the CT Dems and are in the process of throwing away what should have been a cakewalk for them into the White House.

The question remains - does McCain run with Condie Rice as VP and trump both Dem candidates real appeal to their supporters? Foreign policy and diplomacy will be as important as ever during the next 4 years. She is bright, experienced, and already has a working dialog with many of the world's leaders overseas. I think it would be a home run for McCain, and we really haven't heard too much from Huckabee et al lately.

[rician blast]

Regarding potential mcCain running mates:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/27936.html

[example1]

Really, the end of Obama? He sold out the memorial colessium here in Portland in about 5 minutes yesterday morning. He has the delegate lead by a lot, and Michigan and Florida will not be in play.

Meanwhile, McCain is relying on Joe Leiberman to remind him--during public appearances, mind you--that there is a difference between "insurgents" and "al qaeda" and that he cannot refer to them without differentiating them.

One candidate makes perhaps the most thorough, candid speech on race since "I have a Dream" the other conflates insurgents and al qaeda, and yet the discussion is about whether nor not giving that speech and not backing down from his pastor was politically savvy?

It sounds to me like a lot of people are looking for reasons to dislike Obama, and are blind to reasons why McCain would not be a good choice for President. That's fine, but to paint it as some huge loss of momentum or a "blood letting" is a little extreme.

Honestly, though, I have a very hard time reading Mr. Crunchy's posts simply because of the sonnet style of formatting he chooses to use. What I do read I really like, but it sounds like some sort of private conversation with someone else and I have a hard time following it.

Anyway, alarmists claimed a few months ago that rumors about his being muslim would be his downfall, but that clearly wasn't the case, as now people are arguing about his PASTOR, not his Islamic influences.

Instead of talking about his validity as a president being based on how well he can parry these baseless attacks, why not discuss why he is actually talking about? It was his PASTOR folks, his PASTOR.

Why is it okay for everyone's PASTOR to say that evolution is wrong and that those who believe in it are going against the word of God, but its not okay for Obama's pastor to proffer the idea that perhaps 9/11 was due to our foreign policy influence? It doesn't make any sense and is merely fishing-bait meant to attract the various idiots that make up a good portion of this country--NOT the intelligent posters here. I understand not politicizing from the pulpet, and frankly I would be happy if there was no such thing as churches at all, but they exist and many people draw a whole lot of solace from them.

In answer to your question ORS (or statement, I forget which it was), my guess is that Obama would prefer to not have to be affiliated with a church at all, and that he chose that church BECAUSE of its social activism. My guess is that Obama is either agnostic or atheist, based on his book, his experience and his self-sufficiency. He loves the IDEA of the community church that does a lot of good, but my guess is he preferrs the idea of people just doing that without the need for all this Genesis, Mark, Luke and Paul hogwash. Just like Thomas Jefferson embraced the bible, insofar as he cut out all of the mystical stuff and kept what was, in theory, factual and at least based on emperical thoughts, not those of people 2000+ years ago who believed that crop cycles lived or died based on the moral strength of those who benefited from their growth.

We're far beyond all of that.

[TheKilo]

Obama really in a no-win situation. Can't drop the guy who's been a mentor to him completely but has to distance himself.

[Jayhawk Bill]

example1, reread Barack Obama's speech substituting "white" for "black" throughout the entire text before you support it.

If a white man had said what Obama had said, with those words reversed, his political career would be finished.

One example:

Originally Posted by Senator Obama

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.

Substitute black for white.

[a700hitter]

Obama is done. There is no way that he can win a general election when his spiritual mentor is a hate mongering racist. The Dems will have no choice but to give the nomination to Hillary with the Super Delegate vote if they want a chance at winning in November. If they lose this time, they should just blow up the party.

[One Red Seat]

Oh, so McCain misspeaking during an impromptu speech is worse than a guy taking 20 years of spiritual advice from a race baiting idiot who claims HIV was created by the American government to unleash upon the black people. Glad we got that cleared up. Like I said, if my pencil was on the DNC ticket, it would get e1's vote. Faber-castell in '08!

[example1]

Originally Posted by Jayhawk Bill

example1, reread Barack Obama's speech substituting "white" for "black" throughout the entire text before you support it.

If a white man had said what Obama had said, with those words reversed, his political career would be finished.

Yes, because white racism drove slavery. Black racism did not drive slavery. All racism leads to trouble, but do you believe that racism is somehow resolved or that African Americans tell themselves that all is resolved? I doubt you do.

Are welfare-moms and gang-bangers things that are easy to transpose to white people? Not really. They are stereotypes that are so connected with the African American, inner city experience that to simply convert them to "white" without an accompanying multi-century history of oppression and blatently accepted racism would be naive. It's apples and oranges.

Do you really not understand the underlying resentment of the historically dominated toward the historically dominant?

How, then, are we ever to understand things like Shia and Sunni history, or the complex interrelations between hispanics and african americans in this country? Are we left to simply look at it without paying attention to the beliefs of the various combatants and the history that led to those beliefs? You and I both know that it is not as simple as that...

One example:...

Substitute black for white.

Are we really at the point in this country where a legitimate argument is "substitute black for white"? As if they are somehow equally grounded in their narrative about this country? Blacks were having dogs and water hoses turned on them, not during the 19th century, but during the 1960s!

The argument you make depends on the assumption that being white and being black in America is the same thing, as if there are no systematic and cultural differences. I will freely acknowledge--and take great pride in the fact that I am proud of the progress that has been made even since my parents' generation. Did your parents grow up telling you about how you decended from a slave-owner who raped their great-great grandmother and then sold her and kept her kids? Have any decendents who were killed for learning to read? Did your parents and grandparents talk about being forced to the back of the bus because of the color of their skin, in a country where "all men are created equal" is held up by the majority as some sort of moral pillar, but not actually followed?

Do you truly think Jackie Robinson was as naive about his history as his calm outward appearances (in his first few years, at least) may have made it seem? He was threatened, harassed, and insulted on a daily basis and told he could not fight back. Years and years and years this happened in our "great" country, and a black pastor gets thrown under the bus because he speaks of the common feelings of "god damn America" that are ACTUALLY shared across many tables in this country? The first legitimate african american candidate for president is suddenly untennable because of something his pastor said... something that is a real part of the shared history of african americans in this country?

A lack of tolerance for this type of mixed emotion is nothing but an attempt to sweep understandable views under the rug. I, for one, am MORE than willing to cut African Americans some slack for venting in a church and I would hope you would be too.

Originally Posted by a700hitter

Obama is done. There is no way that he can win a general election when his spiritual mentor is a hate mongering racist. The Dems will have no choice but to give the nomination to Hillary with the Super Delegate vote if they want a chance at winning in November. If they lose this time, they should just blow up the party.

Obama is in no danger of losing this nomination. I'd be willing to bet just about anything I have that, barring some cataclysmic disaster like assasination or nuclear war, he will be the candidate.

It will be Kennedy-Nixon all over again, as McCain is a bumbling speaker and--though it doesn't matter to ORS--does not understand the facts about the middle east. How come Leiberman corrects him multiple times this week, on very important issues? Is that what 'experience' gets him? More tolerance for being ignorant? Jesus, that's a low, LOW bar to jump over.

Originally Posted by One Red Seat

Oh, so McCain misspeaking during an impromptu speech is worse than a guy taking 20 years of spiritual advice from a race baiting idiot who claims HIV was created by the American government to unleash upon the black people.

Yes. We are currently in a war that is costing us thousands of lives, $12 BILLION a month, started on mis-information based on a PUBLIC CONFLATING of various far-away "brown people" (my quote) who are angry at the West and have explosive weapons (i.e., Iraqi insurgents/Hamas/Iran/Bathists/Hezbollah/PLO = Al Qaeda).

Therefore, it is more important that our next president understand how the world works than that everyone he's ever befriended have the moral perfection of Jesus (or One Red Seat) himself.

What harm has that spiritual advice done, One Red Seat? Seriously. Go ahead and list how this has impacted his character, his resume or his stated and practiced views.

Has he secretly been killing whites in dark allys?

Has he been supporting a black-coup movement that has worked its way deep into the inner-workings of American society that is coming to kill your kids?

Do you feel like African Americans that you meet are secretly plotting your death, or that this particular church is trying to take over Chicago?

Stop being scared and start looking at this situation the way that ORS would look at a baseball situation--clearly. You are a smart guy, so why do you keep coming up with this absurd shit about how important his religious influences are to his decision making? You are a fucking agnostic, so do you feel like someone controls YOUR moral worldview? Or are you influenced by a number of different people and belief systems?

I'd be willing to bet that most people you know who DO attend church would not live and die by each and every word their pastor states. They would probably also refer to their pastor as a 'spiritual influence' or 'spiritual mentor', even though they disagree that pre-marital sex is a 'sin' or that someone should be stoned for taking god's name in vain?

You do realize that millions of white people--including just about every president we've had--hold up the Bible as the most morally pure explaination we have about the world, right? And that in the bible people are told to do all sorts of horrible things, from slavery to stoning sinners to death, right? Did George W Bush get automatically banished from the presidential race because the book he claims to have learned the most from involves some of the most grievous acts imaginable and ends with the son of God returning to kill all of the non believers? Is it different if your spiritual guide is a book read by billions rather than a man who preeches a common social story to thousands?

Why do you hold Obama to a higher standard than you would hold your friends, grandparents and/or neighbors in terms of his ability to navigate the moral world?

If your argument is that reactionary idiots are going to get up in arms about it and not vote for him, that's fine. Of course, those folks weren't going to vote for him in the first place. You're also enabling such idiocy by pretending that the argument is legitimate.

The most important thing here to me is that this type of worldview DOES exist. Barack Obama has articulated his worldview in many places, and it is patently different from the view of Reverand Wright. He's been a VERY public person in VERY prominent positions and nobody legitimately believes he believes in what Wright talks about when he's feeling angry.

I'm not going to respond to the 'ex1 would vote for a pencil' comment. Just know I have about as much respect for your political world view (from Obama being muslum to your "free market" wet dream about how much better the average American is doing since Reagan) as you have for mine. Mine are backed up by numbers and history, yours are backed up more by knee-jerk reactions based on the Republican-Democrat (sorry, free market-socialist ) divide than on the lived experiences of ACTUAL people in this country.

I'm proud that I support Obama, and I'm not alone. I think is ability to articulate difficult issues clearly is unparallelled, and even many conservatives agree that he represents something new.

Perhaps its not your cup of tea, that's fine. I'm assured that tens of millions of people will vote against him in a few months, I just think a few million more will vote for him.

[a700hitter]

Originally Posted by example1

Obama is in no danger of losing this nomination. I'd be willing to bet just about anything I have that, barring some cataclysmic disaster like assasination or nuclear war, he will be the candidate.

The Clinton's are breaking him down systematically. He will be brutalized and we will be inundated with more rants from his bigoted friends, mentors, and supporters undermining his candidacy. Hillary will run the table the rest of the way making it evident that B.O. is unelectable.

BTW it was a disgrace how he threw his grandmother under the bus to defend the hate mongering, anti-American preacher. His granny may have uttered a racially pejorative term from time to time, but she didn't hold herself out as a moral authority and preach hatred to throngs of followers. Equating her with the preacher was a shameful attempt at political manipulation. He revealed himself as being no different from the other politicians who will say anything for political expediency. He's as slimy as all the rest.

[example1]

Originally Posted by a700hitter

The Clinton's are breaking him down systematically. He will be brutalized and we will be inundated with more rants from his bigoted friends, mentors, and supporters undermining his candidacy. Hillary will run the table the rest of the way making it evident that B.O. is unelectable.

He's going to destroy her here in Oregon. I bet he wins North Carolina as well. He will also win Montana. All he needs to do is not lose 120 elected delegates. I guarantee you that his speech the other day won him a good number of superdelegates, which is all he has to do to wrap it up.

I have a pretty good idea about what specifically liberals find appealing in a person and in a leader. He's got it.

BTW it was a disgrace how he threw his grandmother under the bus to defend the hate mongering, anti-American preacher. His granny may have uttered a racially pejorative term from time to time, but she didn't hold herself out as a moral authority and preach hatred to throngs of followers.

Dude, whatever level of 'hatred' (I would call it 'resentment') you are talking about was PRE-EXISTANT in the church goers before going to church those days. Again, you're missing the forest for the trees:

Let the man speak for himself: (with my highlights)

"And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years...

"The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Did you not know that most African Americans likely harbor at least SOME resentment for the way that their ancestors were treated? Wasn't that obvious? Continuing...

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.

Pervasive poverty is about more than bootstraps and smart free market choices.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

Equating her with the preacher was a shameful attempt at political manipulation. He revealed himself as being no different from the other politicians who will say anything for political expediency. He's as slimy as all the rest.

His grandmother is a) an important part of who he is, and where he comes from and b) a white woman from the same generation that actively oppressed Reverand Wright's generation. He's from both camps.

Why does his grandmother get a pass from you for her racism toward blacks, but it isn't understandable that an elderly pastor shares similar views with people in his own congregation? Especially given that the history of white-on-black racism is incredibly one sided, even today?


The entire argument that Obama will be and should be punished for the views expressed by people with a similar skin color seems bordering on racism to me. If it were a mostly mixed race church you would be calling the preacher a liberal crackpot, but not a racist.

To imply that the anger of african americans in this country is not socially acceptable, in the form of WORDS IN CHURCH, demands that they entirely repress their own awareness of black history and oppression, and thus resort to the belief that blacks are overwhelming inferior to whites in terms of education, money, life expectancy, healthy births, etc., because they are lazy or stupid or any other number of excuses.

If you don't believe that historical and systemic racism has contributed to the current stratification in our country, then you just won't get his message and Reverand Wright's comments probably really hurt your overly pristine view of America's moral standing in the world.

If you do believe that historical systemic racism has contributed to the current economic stratification in our country, then his comments likely seemed overblown but you certainly would understand where the anger is coming from.

When it comes to minority representation and working for the rights of minorities on a federal level (federal = what makes us a 'country', remember), one party gets it, the other doesn't, so I'm not shocked we disagree.

--There have been 3 (THREE) African American Senators in the last 200 years or so. Currently there are 42 African Americans in the House, and 42 of them are Democrats. There is one African American Senator, he's running for President. (100% Democrat)

--There are 24 Hispanics in the House of Representatives, 19 are Democrats. 2 hispanic senators, 1 Democrat and 1 Republican. (77% Democrat)

--There are 4 Asian/Pacific Islanders in the House, 3 are Democrats. 2 Asian/Pacific Islander Senators, both democrat. (83% Democrat)

--There is 1 native american house member, a Republican from Oklahoma. (100% Republican)(note the attempt for transparency with this data still being included )

--Of the 68 Women in the house, 45 are Democrats and 23 are republicans; there are 14 women senators, 9 are Democrats and 5 are Republicans. (66% Democrat)

=============
To ignore the logical implication of these numbers--there are many more we could discuss--shows a complete lack of understanding about the ACTUAL status of our country in the 21st century. Republicans want to ignore it. They want to go about explaining everyone else's woes and frustration with us to be a factor of not pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. Women, minorities and people under the age of 45 tend to agree with the view that America is a wonderful nation, but it as some warts.

A good look at our history indicates pretty clearly that we have this amazing and enormous country now because of our reliance on slavery and colonialism in our earliest years. We have propped up governments for our own economic gain, and supplied contra forces wit weapons if we stood to benefit from an overthrow.

We are probably the best country the world has ever seen, in terms of global scientific and intellectual contributions, tolerance for difference (role-modeling), innovation, etc., but we are FAR from perfect, and quickly losing our standing in many of these important areas.

[One Red Seat]

Originally Posted by example1

Yes, because white racism drove slavery. Black racism did not drive slavery. All racism leads to trouble, but do you believe that racism is somehow resolved or that African Americans