Post by nighttimer on Jul 5, 2019 14:59:38 GMT -5
So, apparently for all her bluster the other night, Harris is actually a hypocrite when it comes to busing: apnews.com/586b1e81cb684654b0cf689b9074c1cb
If she didn't have my vote before, she sure as fuck doesn't have it now.
Is that right, though? My understanding of Biden's position was that he thought the federal govt should leave it to local school districts and state govts to make decisions on busing. Harris seems to be saying the same, but for the fed govt to step in if necessary. Local first, federal second. Am I wrong on that? Entirely possible, but if not I don't think she's being inconsistent.
While in today's context I would definitely disagree with that position, given the cultural thinking at the time (where nearly 50% of black Americans were AGAINST mandated busing), I can't necessarily fault him for voting against something (within that historical context and zeitgeist) that nearly half of the people it would affect didn't actually want.
Her response seems like intentionally vague and slippery doublespeak in that she's saying that federally mandated busing should be a "tool in the toolbox" but that whether it is used should be left up to the school boards (Harris: "I believe that any tool that is in the toolbox should be considered by a school district").
In other words, according to her, busing shouldn't be mandated, it should be "considered." Which is indistinct from Biden's given reason for voting against federally mandated busing. Her bullshit response suggests that she either doesn't understand what "federally mandated" means (which I seriously doubt) or her attack on Biden was as disingenuous as it was pre-planned and when put on the spot, she has to resort to speaking out of both sides of her ass to weasel out of clearly/directly answering the question.
From the previously quoted AP article:
To be sure, Biden’s record on busing is complicated.
Biden has insisted he only opposed busing ordered by the federal Education Department, and said allowing local governments and school districts to implement busing was “one of the things I argued for” at the time.
During an appearance at a conference last week in Chicago, Biden told the audience he “never, never, never, ever opposed voluntary busing.”
But Biden was an outspoken opponent of federally mandated busing in the 1970s and ’80s, sponsoring a congressional measure that would have limited funding for federal busing efforts.
Biden has insisted he only opposed busing ordered by the federal Education Department, and said allowing local governments and school districts to implement busing was “one of the things I argued for” at the time.
During an appearance at a conference last week in Chicago, Biden told the audience he “never, never, never, ever opposed voluntary busing.”
But Biden was an outspoken opponent of federally mandated busing in the 1970s and ’80s, sponsoring a congressional measure that would have limited funding for federal busing efforts.
Yeah, that's kind of messy for Good Ol' Joe.
By her own words, she essentially agrees with the stance that Biden took, but it's seems she can't admit that, I'm guessing because her playing the race card worked so well on the low-information voters in the base she was trying to get applause from.
First off, it's Opty's insistence anyone who agreed with Kamala Harris is a "low-information voter" which is just a nice way to say they are uneducated and stupid voters. Which is patently untrue as I agreed with Kamala Harris and am neither uneducated or stupid. If anything, I am a high-information voter. I just don't strut around bragging about it like it makes me a big fucking deal or something.
Now about that now antiquated phrase "playing the race card..."
So it is playing the race card when a Black woman nails Biden for his slurping of two dead segregationist assholes. It is playing the race card when a Black woman smacks Biden around for opposing federally mandated busing because not every community was willing to do it voluntarily.
But it's not playing the race card when Biden gets owned by a Black woman and his defenders rush to proclaim since he was Barack Obama's veep for eight years he can't possibly have any bigoted thoughts.
Okay. That might just fly. If you could only forget about how worthless Biden was in opposing Clarence Thomas and how shitty he treated Anita Hill and how he refused to allow other women who wanted to speak to the Senate Judiciary Committee on how Thomas had sexually harassed them.
If you could only forget Biden hasn't always been on the side of the angels in matters of race or how Black people were disproportionately targeted by legislation Biden's fingerprints are all over.
Joe Biden was for desegregating America’s schools, until his constituents were against it. When the Delaware Democrat launched his first campaign for the Senate in 1972, the Supreme Court had just ruled that the Constitution required policymakers to pursue “the greatest possible degree of actual desegregation” — and that forcing white students to attend schools in black neighborhoods, and vice versa, was a legitimate means of doing so. Being an enlightened liberal, Biden began his candidacy as an advocate for such policies. He accused Republicans of demagoguing the busing issue, and appealing to white voters’ ugliest instincts.
But as his campaign progressed, and Biden discerned that the arc of history was bending toward white backlash, the young candidate bent with it. He became a caricature of a white northern liberal — arguing that forced busing was appropriate for the South (where segregation was the product of racist laws), but unnecessary for the North (where, Biden pretended, it merely reflected the preferences of the white and black communities).
Once in the Senate, Biden continued to triangulate, voting for most, though not all, f the anti-busing amendments that came before him. But for his overwhelmingly white constituents, nothing less than massive resistance to busing would suffice. The New Castle County Neighborhood Schools Association booed Biden off the stage at one event in 1974. One year later, the Delaware senator broke ranks with northern liberals— and joined his virulently racist North Carolina colleague Jesse Helms in voting to kneecap all federal efforts to integrate schools, anywhere in the country. Specifically, Biden voted to bar the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from requiring schools to provide information on the racial makeup of their student bodies — thereby making it nigh-impossible for Uncle Sam to withhold federal funds from school districts that refused to integrate.
The measure was rejected. Nevertheless, Biden persisted. And his cowardly example inspired other self-professed liberals to throw racial justice under the bus. As the historian Jason Sokol writes:
Immediately after the Helms amendment was tabled, Biden proposed his own amendment to the $36 billion education bill, stipulating that none of those federal funds could be used by school systems “to assign teachers or students to schools … for reasons of race.” His amendment would prevent “some faceless bureaucrat” from “deciding that any child, black or white, should fit in some predetermined ratio.”
… Like the Helms gambit, [Biden’s provision] would still gut Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. But this time, a number of liberal senators that had opposed Helms’s amendment now supported Biden: Warren Magnuson and Scoop Jackson of Washington, where Seattle faced impending integration orders; and Thomas Eagleton and Stuart Symington of Missouri, where Kansas City confronted a similar fate. Mike Mansfield, the majority leader from Montana, also jumped on board. Watching his liberal colleagues defect, Republican Jacob Javits of New York mused, “They’re scared to death on busing.” The Senate approved Biden’s amendment. Biden had managed to turn a 48-43 loss for the anti-busing forces into a 50-43 victory.
The NAACP called Biden’s proposal “an anti-black amendment.” The Senate’s sole African-American member, Ed Brooke, called it “the greatest symbolic defeat for civil rights since 1964.” But Biden helped his fellow liberals reconcile themselves to the wrong side of history by recasting integrationists as the real racists.
“The new integration plans being offered are really just quota systems to assure a certain number of blacks, Chicanos, or whatever in each school. That, to me, is the most racist concept you can come up with,” Biden said in a 1975 interview recently unearthed by the Washington Post. “What it says is, ‘In order for your child with curly black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin to be able to learn anything, he needs to sit next to my blond-haired, blue-eyed son.’ That’s racist!”
But as his campaign progressed, and Biden discerned that the arc of history was bending toward white backlash, the young candidate bent with it. He became a caricature of a white northern liberal — arguing that forced busing was appropriate for the South (where segregation was the product of racist laws), but unnecessary for the North (where, Biden pretended, it merely reflected the preferences of the white and black communities).
Once in the Senate, Biden continued to triangulate, voting for most, though not all, f the anti-busing amendments that came before him. But for his overwhelmingly white constituents, nothing less than massive resistance to busing would suffice. The New Castle County Neighborhood Schools Association booed Biden off the stage at one event in 1974. One year later, the Delaware senator broke ranks with northern liberals— and joined his virulently racist North Carolina colleague Jesse Helms in voting to kneecap all federal efforts to integrate schools, anywhere in the country. Specifically, Biden voted to bar the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare from requiring schools to provide information on the racial makeup of their student bodies — thereby making it nigh-impossible for Uncle Sam to withhold federal funds from school districts that refused to integrate.
The measure was rejected. Nevertheless, Biden persisted. And his cowardly example inspired other self-professed liberals to throw racial justice under the bus. As the historian Jason Sokol writes:
Immediately after the Helms amendment was tabled, Biden proposed his own amendment to the $36 billion education bill, stipulating that none of those federal funds could be used by school systems “to assign teachers or students to schools … for reasons of race.” His amendment would prevent “some faceless bureaucrat” from “deciding that any child, black or white, should fit in some predetermined ratio.”
… Like the Helms gambit, [Biden’s provision] would still gut Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. But this time, a number of liberal senators that had opposed Helms’s amendment now supported Biden: Warren Magnuson and Scoop Jackson of Washington, where Seattle faced impending integration orders; and Thomas Eagleton and Stuart Symington of Missouri, where Kansas City confronted a similar fate. Mike Mansfield, the majority leader from Montana, also jumped on board. Watching his liberal colleagues defect, Republican Jacob Javits of New York mused, “They’re scared to death on busing.” The Senate approved Biden’s amendment. Biden had managed to turn a 48-43 loss for the anti-busing forces into a 50-43 victory.
The NAACP called Biden’s proposal “an anti-black amendment.” The Senate’s sole African-American member, Ed Brooke, called it “the greatest symbolic defeat for civil rights since 1964.” But Biden helped his fellow liberals reconcile themselves to the wrong side of history by recasting integrationists as the real racists.
“The new integration plans being offered are really just quota systems to assure a certain number of blacks, Chicanos, or whatever in each school. That, to me, is the most racist concept you can come up with,” Biden said in a 1975 interview recently unearthed by the Washington Post. “What it says is, ‘In order for your child with curly black hair, brown eyes, and dark skin to be able to learn anything, he needs to sit next to my blond-haired, blue-eyed son.’ That’s racist!”
What does "liberal racism" look like? It looks a lot like Joe Biden's tenure in the Senate.
It is hard to name an infamously unjust feature of America’s criminal-justice system that Joe Biden didn’t help to bring about. Mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders, the sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine, civil asset forfeiture, and extensive use of the death penalty — the Delaware senator was involved in establishing them all.
Biden is famous for his lead role in crafting the 1994 crime bill, or, as the senator preferred to call it (as recently as 2015), the “1994 Biden Crime Bill.” Some aspects of that legislation remain popular within the Democratic Party — among them, the Violence Against Women Act, a federal assault-weapons ban, and funds for “community oriented” policing. But in 2019 America — a place where our nation’s violent crime rate is near historic lows, while its incarceration rate hovers around world-historic highs — the bill’s broader legacy is ignominious. The Brennan Center succinctly summarized that legacy on the 20th anniversary of the bill’s passage:
It expanded the death penalty, creating 60 new death penalty offenses under 41 federal capital statutes. It eliminated education funding for incarcerated students, effectively gutting prison education programs. Despite a wealth of research showing education increases post-release employment, reduces recidivism, and improves outcomes for the formerly incarcerated and their families, this change has not been reversed.
And the bill created a wave of change toward harsher state sentencing policy. That change was driven by funding incentives: the bill’s $9.7 billion in federal funding for prison construction went only to states that adopted truth-in-sentencing (TIS) laws, which lead to defendants serving far longer prison terms. Within 5 years, 29 states had TIS laws on the books, 24 more than when the bill was signed. New York State received over $216 million by passing such laws. By 2000 the state had added over 12,000 prison beds and incarcerated 28 percent more people than a decade before.
As a result of these policies — and many others — the United States imprisons a higher proportion of its population today than any other developed country. This is not because Americans commit more crimes — victimization rates in the United States are comparable to those in Western Europe. Rather, it is because we impose harsher sentences on convicts than any other nation deems conscionable.
And for the bulk of his political career, Joe Biden made mandating such sentences one of his defining causes. As a high-ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden didn’t just craft the 1994 crime bill — he also ushered a variety of other draconian measures into law.
Biden is famous for his lead role in crafting the 1994 crime bill, or, as the senator preferred to call it (as recently as 2015), the “1994 Biden Crime Bill.” Some aspects of that legislation remain popular within the Democratic Party — among them, the Violence Against Women Act, a federal assault-weapons ban, and funds for “community oriented” policing. But in 2019 America — a place where our nation’s violent crime rate is near historic lows, while its incarceration rate hovers around world-historic highs — the bill’s broader legacy is ignominious. The Brennan Center succinctly summarized that legacy on the 20th anniversary of the bill’s passage:
It expanded the death penalty, creating 60 new death penalty offenses under 41 federal capital statutes. It eliminated education funding for incarcerated students, effectively gutting prison education programs. Despite a wealth of research showing education increases post-release employment, reduces recidivism, and improves outcomes for the formerly incarcerated and their families, this change has not been reversed.
And the bill created a wave of change toward harsher state sentencing policy. That change was driven by funding incentives: the bill’s $9.7 billion in federal funding for prison construction went only to states that adopted truth-in-sentencing (TIS) laws, which lead to defendants serving far longer prison terms. Within 5 years, 29 states had TIS laws on the books, 24 more than when the bill was signed. New York State received over $216 million by passing such laws. By 2000 the state had added over 12,000 prison beds and incarcerated 28 percent more people than a decade before.
As a result of these policies — and many others — the United States imprisons a higher proportion of its population today than any other developed country. This is not because Americans commit more crimes — victimization rates in the United States are comparable to those in Western Europe. Rather, it is because we impose harsher sentences on convicts than any other nation deems conscionable.
And for the bulk of his political career, Joe Biden made mandating such sentences one of his defining causes. As a high-ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Biden didn’t just craft the 1994 crime bill — he also ushered a variety of other draconian measures into law.
When it comes to playing the race card and not merely to get some cheap applause, Biden has done more of his fair share of dealing for the bottom of deck while making life harder for countless numbers of Black Americans. That's the kind of playing of the race card with far more harmful results and a long-term detrimental and crippling effect on a group of Americans who were deliberately excluded from this nation's Constitutional protections and rights. Go read some Frederick Douglass, "What To the Slave is the Fourth of July" if you can't figure that part out for yourself.
Now I understand why Biden is the Great White Hope of Democratic moderates. They believe he is the guy who can win back states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Ohio and woo White voters back to the Democrats. The problem is there aren't enough White voters to take from Trump to get Biden elected because the majority of White voters don't vote for Democratic presidential candidates and haven't for decades.
In the past 30 years, no Democrat has ever won the white vote, no matter how moderate they were. In his 2012 victory, Barack Obama essentially won the same percentage of white voters (39 percent) as Hillary Clinton in 2016 (37 percent), John Kerry in 2004 (41 percent) and Al Gore in 2000 (42 percent), Bill Clinton in 1992 (39 percent) and Michael Dukakis in 1988 (40 percent). White voters are never going to vote for a Democratic candidate. Even though he was a moderate, Obama was successful because he got the highest black voter turnout in recent history.
As the demographics of America’s electorate changes, white voters become less important and other voters become more crucial to victory. According to Pew Research, white people made up 83 percent of all registered voters in 1997. Twenty years later, the number has dipped to 69 percent. And every other demographic group—black, Hispanic and Asian—overwhelmingly lean Democratic.
The most recent midterm elections showed that progressive and non-white candidates could win in places that are majority white. Ayanna Pressley won a Congressional district with mostly white voters. If not for a few voter suppression tricks, Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum may have won governorships in traditionally red Georgia and swing state Florida. Black voters in Alabama propelled Doug Jones to a Senate seat in one of the reddest states in the country.
Yet, in their pragmatism, black voters and other Democrats reflexively support candidates like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden partly because of this myth of electability that is based on the idea that white voters will only support fence-riding, old, white establishment politicians who drink Budweiser and dance offbeat. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Yet, in their pragmatism, black voters and other Democrats reflexively support candidates like Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden partly because of this myth of electability that is based on the idea that white voters will only support fence-riding, old, white establishment politicians who drink Budweiser and dance offbeat. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Therefore, when a so-called "liberal" like Opty says he sure as fuck isn't voting for Kamala Harris, the proper response from Harris should be, "I wasn't counting on you anyway, boo."
The "low information voters" of The Colline Gate preen and posture about their vast intellectual superiority over the unthinking masses, yet time and again are no more in possession of the facts than they are.
The key difference between the two is only one group of low-information voters has an online sounding board to demonstrate their ignorance.