Thursday, June 16, 2016

Goldberg on Obama's Relationship with Islam

Based on the extensive interviews he has made with Obama over the years, Geoffrey Goldberg counters Trump's insinuation that Obama has some kind of sympathy with Muslim terrorists:
Obama, in my reading, does not—contra his right-leaning critics—suffer illusions about the pathologies afflicting the broader Muslim world. If anything, his pessimism on matters related to the dysfunctions of Muslim states, and to the inability of the umma—the worldwide community of Muslims—to contain and ultimately neutralize the extremist elements in its midst, has, at times, an almost-paralyzing effect on him. The president has come to the conclusion that the underlying problems afflicting Islam are too deep, and too resistant to American intervention, to warrant implementation of the sort of policies that his critics, including his critics in foreign-policy think tanks, demand. . . .

Again and again in our conversations, Obama spoke about the Arab and Muslim worlds in ways that ran counter—dramatically counter—to the caricature of his views as advanced by critics. At one point, he suggested, to my surprise (I’m not immune to the power of these caricatures) that far too many Arab Muslims, in particular, have given themselves over to hatred and violence. He contrasted these Middle Easterners with young people in East and Southeast Asia (and in Africa and Latin America as well), by saying, “They are not thinking about how to kill Americans. What they’re thinking about is How do I get a better education? How do I create something of value?” Obama went on to say that if America is not engaging these young Asians “because if the only thing we’re doing is figuring out how to destroy or cordon off or control the malicious, nihilistic, violent parts of humanity, then we’re missing the boat.” . . .

Privately, Obama expresses the deepest loathing for ISIS and other radical Islamist groups. ISIS, he has noted, stands for—quite literally—everything he opposes.
To Goldberg the problem is that Obama, after being perhaps too naive about the possibility of rapid progress in the Arab world early in his term (remember the Cairo speech), has become too pessimistic about the possibility of change. These days he is very reluctant to get more involved in Syria or Iraq because he does not believe a good outcome is likely. Given the limitations on his time, he prefers to spend it working on issues related to East Asia or Cuba where he thinks he might make a difference. I understand what Goldberg is saying, but since I share Obama's pessimism about Iraq, Syria and sundry other places I understand where he is coming from.

Previous thoughts on Goldberg and Obama here.

25 comments:

G. Verloren said...

"What would he express? Sympathy? Obama knows better than Erdogan about PR."

But you clearly don't know the first thing about PR, because what you say in private by definition doesn't factor into public relations.

"(a bunch of stuff that is flatly incorrect)"

...okay, and now we've gone full blown conspiracy theory absurdity.

How often do people tell you that your views are completely divorced from reality? Because if it's happening with any real frequency, you should stop and reflect on that fact.

Which is more likely? That lots of other people around you are crazy / puppets of a conspiracy? Or that maybe only a single person (yourself) has somehow gotten confused somewhere down the line?

That hundreds, even thousands of different sources - news agencies, private companies, government departments, separate nations, multinational bodies, religious orders, et cetera - are all secretly hiding the truth by coordinating to an insane degree in order to create unified lies and cover stories that stand up to all but the most dedicated scrutinies for some nefarious purpose? Or that maybe the very small handful of sources you get most of your information from might not be the most reliable or clearthinking people in the world?

The world is a screwed up place in a lot of ways, but the problems we face are the product of our leaders (and by extension, the voters who support them) being incompetent and ignorant - not the product of their being somehow absurdly capable to the point that they're not only able to manipulate world events to an incredible degree, but also keep it all hidden from literally billions of people.

The earth is not flat. There is no Antacrtic ice wall. Aliens have not visited earth. Obama is not a Kenyan, a Muslim, a Reptilian, or the Anti-Christ. Cell phones neither give you cancer nor control your brain. Neither the Jews, the Germans, the Russians, nor the Chinese, are out to get you. The Illuminati, the Freemasons, and other secret societies were real, but they were simply glorified private clubs for well-to-do armchair philosophers, and their reputations as evil organizations were the direct product of the Roman Catholic Church freaking out about their progressive Enlightenment notions, even well after they ceased to exist. (And remember, the Church has freaked out about a lot of things - among them rock and roll music, and the notion that the earth is not the center of the universe.)

G. Verloren said...

...and it appears, the comment I was responding to has disappeared. That's what I get for stopping halfway to eat a late lunch and reflect on what I want to write.

pithom said...

Don't worry, I'm still around. It seems the proprietor of this blog does not want the public to know the truth. All the stuff I said was perfectly correct.

Nothing is truly private.

"How often do people tell you that your views are completely divorced from reality?"

-They're not.

Your entire response is completely irrelevant. Look at a map. Of course NATO's behind the Islamic State and migrant crisis.

pithom said...

G. Verloren, have you ever considered I am almost certainly far more aware of the world, and especially of the rise of the Islamic State, than you?

What is Tell Abyad? When did the IS take control of it? When did it lose control of it?

When did the Islamic State capture Menagh airbase? When did it lose it?

How many times did Syrian rebels fight the Islamic State within the city bounds of Raqqa?

Is the Islamic State on the Israeli border?

What was the IS's peak territorial extent?

I know the answers to all these questions, G. Verloren. Do you?

pithom said...

"Or that maybe the very small handful of sources you get most of your information from might not be the most reliable or clearthinking people in the world?"

-Man, you're a huge sufferer of Dunning-Kruger. This is my "very small handful of sources" I get "most of my information from":

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8ZCCfC0yMSOdDRvZTY3LXg0VUk/view

And most of my conclusions regarding Obama and the Islamic State were fully formed by May 2014, well before Obama ordered it to attack Nineveh.

Please. Enough strawmen.

pithom said...

BTW, author, what was wrong with my comment you deleted? It was perfectly on-topic, and all information on it can be substantiated via evidence and argument.

pithom said...

G. Verloren, can I see an OPML of your sources of information? Perhaps you are confusing the fact you get your info from a "very small handful of sources" with my very, very different experience. I don't know if this is true, but it's a good idea to check, especially given the laughable falsity of your charge.

pootrsox said...

Excuse me? Obama ordered ISIS to attack Nineveh?

What are you smoking? It seems to be causing you some deeply bizarre hallucinations.

pithom said...

I'm not smoking anything. Again, I already understood this as of April-May 2014. Obama could have stopped the IS offensive on Nineveh at any time, either via arming Kurdish Peshmerga, striking them with drones (as the Iraqi government repeatedly requested since August 2013) or quietly asking Turkey to cut off their supply routes to that state. Or he could have quietly threatened the IS leadership with total annihilation if they persisted in moving deeper into Iraq. Obama had lots of options. He chose to order the Islamic State into Nineveh. He is its true Caliph. Baghdadi is just a front.

Unknown said...

Okay, pithom, I'll bite. I see two flaws in your last post. The minor flaw is that you seem to think the United States could stop an IS military operation with drones. This sounds implausible to me. Stopping even an IS op would require a major commitment of manned aircraft, with a whole infrastructure of bases, observation planes, pilot rescue assets, etc.

That's really a minor point. The major flaw is that you seem to be saying that, since the president didn't stop an IS operation, he must have ordered it. Words fail me. That's . . . that makes no sense. It's a completely unwarranted leap. It's . . . well, weird. If I were as into rationalwiki as my son is, I could probably tell you what logical fallacy it is. It's like saying that because Jackie didn't stop Jack from having affairs, she must have ordered him to.

Also, why do you give such a key role to Nineveh? Nice town, lots of archaeology nearby. Hasn't been strategically important since the Byzantine-Sasanid wars. Mosul, Kirkuk, these are prizes. Nineveh?

Please reply with evidence and logic. Don't just tell me I'm blinded by the MSM or whatever.

pithom said...

"The minor flaw is that you seem to think the United States could stop an IS military operation with drones."

-They're trucks driving through the desert. They're fairly easy to see from the air. Why wouldn't they be easy to bomb from the air?

"Also, why do you give such a key role to Nineveh?"

-I meant the governatorate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineveh_Governorate

"Stopping even an IS op would require a major commitment of manned aircraft, with a whole infrastructure of bases, observation planes, pilot rescue assets, etc."

-Doesn't all that exist in Turkey?

"It's like saying that because Jackie didn't stop Jack from having affairs, she must have ordered him to."

-If Jackie was perfectly well aware of the affairs, what difference does it make? Causality is socially constructed:

http://www.themoneyillusion.com/?p=6413

Unknown said...

"Doesn't all that exist in Turkey?"

Yes and no; the Turks have bases, but the United States does not, as far as I know, have any permanent bases in Turkey. More important, the United States needs Turkish cooperation for any given use of bases in Turkey, and the Turks are in general reluctant to give this, and esp. in IS related matters because they believe US policy favors the Kurds.

"If Jackie was perfectly well aware of the affairs, what difference does it make? Causality is socially constructed."

I don't know what that first sentence means. If you mean that knowing something is going to happen and not preventing it is the same as ordering it to happen, well, in my universe that's just wrong. Not preventing something is a different thing from making it happen. And if in your second sentence you really mean that you can just say that the fact that the president didn't prevent something means that in fact he ordered that something, because causality is socially constructed and you can say whatever you like and believe it's true and that makes it true because social construction etc., then you and I really do live in different universes.

pithom said...

"Yes and no; the Turks have bases, but the United States does not, as far as I know, have any permanent bases in Turkey."

-Sure, but it has over a thousand troops even as early as 2010.

"and the Turks are in general reluctant to give this"

-Of course, they are, but, come on, the Turks have zero leverage against the United States. If America was serious, it could always threaten to kick Turkey out of NATO.

"because they believe US policy favors the Kurds."

-It does. Even though they don't like the policy, they still agreed to allow Kurdish fighters into Kobani to save the city. Turks may be reluctant, but they will always obey the U.S. when push comes to shove.

"Not preventing something is a different thing from making it happen."

-How so? I don't see any difference at all. I'm a determinist.

"then you and I really do live in different universes."

-Did you read the post?

Unknown said...

Diplomacy: actually, relations between sovereign states don't much work in that crude, do-what-we-say-or-else way. Countries that conduct themselves like that tend to find themselves simply hated and deserted by everyone, as Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany found to their cost.

The Turks have plenty of leverage against the United States. They can cozy up to Iran, begin supporting the IS, carry out more aggressive operations against the Kurds (forcing the US to choose between Turkey and the Kurds, to our embarrassment), refuse basing rights for any of a myriad of operations, encourage disorder in the Caucasus, mess up trade negotiations, vote against us in matters that are important to us in the UN, etc., etc.

For the US to try to get the Turks to do something they don't want to do, we would have to decide it was worth it to risk the kinds of embarrassing diplomatic consequences I just outlined. The Obama admin finally decided it was worth that risk when IS began carrying out genocidal-type actions against the Yazidis. Kobani was an incident in the general process after that decision was made. At that point, the Turks could see this was important to the US, so they would give the Americans some of what they want, albeit on a more or less case-by-case basis and in return for concessions elsewhere.

So the Obama admin decided to fight IS after the latter started shooting and enslaving Yazidis. They didn't decide to do so when IS was attacking the Nineva Governorate, as far as I can tell largely because they a) were frustrated with the Iraqi government's anti-Sunni policies, and b) wanted to make the Iraqi government fight for itself, with all that expensive equipment we had left them.

"I don't see any difference at all."

Well, not preventing something and ordering it to happen are different actions, in the same way that eating something, putting it in the refrigerator, or throwing it at somebody are all different actions. They're different verbs with different meanings. I don't know how else to put it.

"I'm a determinist."

I don't know what that means, or how it would relate to this context.

"Did you read the post?"

I started reading it. It seemed to be a bunch of stuff about the money supply, the Federal Reserve, and suchlike. I found it mostly incomprehensible, and couldn't begin to say how it would relate to causality or our discussion. Why don't you put it for me simply, in your own words.

pithom said...

"Diplomacy: actually, relations between sovereign states don't much work in that crude, do-what-we-say-or-else way."

Yes, they do work exactly that way:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident

"begin supporting the IS"

-Begin? My argument was that the Turks (up until the YPG Shaddadi and Azaz pocket offensives a few months ago) were supporting the Islamic State with U.S. approval.

"They can cozy up to Iran"

-How? Turkey and Iran are hardly natural allies.

"carry out more aggressive operations against the Kurds"

-They've done a lot of this. Nevertheless, they still gave in to U.S. pressure when it came time to open the gates to Kobane in October 2014.

"refuse basing rights for any of a myriad of operations,"

-Which means the U.S. can successfully call for Turkey to be kicked out of NATO. Again, don't see how Turkey has any real ability to do this.

"encourage disorder in the Caucasus"

-This would be embarrassing for the U.S., but also bad for Turkey.

"mess up trade negotiations, vote against us in matters that are important to us in the UN, etc., etc."

-It's not a permanent UN Security Council member and U.S. trade with Turkey is tiny.

"The Obama admin finally decided it was worth that risk when IS began carrying out genocidal-type actions against the Yazidis."

-Later. Only in October 2014 did the U.S. put any real pressure on Turkey to do anything against IS.

"So the Obama admin decided to fight IS after the latter started shooting and enslaving Yazidis."

-The overthrow of al-Maliki the same month seems infinitely more relevant.

"b) wanted to make the Iraqi government fight for itself, with all that expensive equipment we had left them."

-The Iraqi government already largely fights for itself. However, the U.S. did nothing concrete to help it until after al-Maliki was overthrown. My hypothesis is that Obama ordered the IS into Nineveh gubernatorate specifically to cause a crisis in the Iraqi government so that al-Maliki could be overthrown. It then proceeded to do very little to help the Iraqi government to place the burden on Iran, to weaken that country. Today, the U.S. clearly plays a role in helping the Iraqi government (U.S. aid was vital in the offensive on Hit, for example), but it's still given sparingly.

"Why don't you put it for me simply, in your own words."

-Sumner's words are pretty brilliant, but fine. There's no legitimate philosophical distinction between inaction and action if one has total ability to control what's going on.

Unknown said...

Well, yes, the Evo Morales incident does indicate the power of the US to mess with the leaders of weaker countries in matters that are important to it, especially when those weaker countries are much, much weaker than us and not very important to us, which would describe Bolivia but not Turkey.

On Turkey, you make several good points, and I could quibble with others. I think a basic point we could agree on (maybe) is that the Turks would have to know that a particular matter was important to the US and that what the US was asking of them would not fatally compromise their sovereignty (most especially, that Erdogan could tell the most anti-Kurd members of his government that, even if they help the Americans in Kobani, Turkish forces can continue to pound the PKK in the east).

On the Iraqi army, it's true they're fighting okay now, with heavy American and Iranian support, but in summer 2014 they were mostly running away.

It is true that the president did not care for Maliki, largely because of the latter's policies toward the Sunnis. And essentially he made renewed American support for Iraq conditional on Maliki's removal. Personally, I think this was the right call. But I still, still don't see why any of this means Obama is in command of IS. He decided not to do much to stop IS south of Sinjar until Maliki was gone, because he didn't want the US to be in the position of supporting a purely Shi'ite and anti-Sunni government of Iraq. None of this means that Baghdadi is an operative of the United States, that he sits there waiting for orders from Washington, or anything even remotely similar.

"There's no legitimate philosophical distinction between inaction and action if one has total ability to control what's going on."

I don't see that the US has total control of what's going on. Did the Bush administration create Iraqi resistance to our occupation of Iraq? Did Bush control the actions of Muqtada al-Sadr or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? Did Bush order the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad? Did Bush order the Spanish to cut short their participation in the Iraq occupation--or did he order the Madrid bombings that motivated that withdrawal?

Unknown said...

Pithom, I've been thinking about you and your posts, here and previously, and I want to ask you something. For you, isn't all this stuff about the Islamic State and diplomacy and so forth beside the point? Would it be fair to say that, in your eyes, Obama has been damned from the very beginning as president because he is black? I get the impression that, regardless of their policies, talents, actions, inactions, or whatever, for you a black president of the United States is not acceptable. Tell me if I'm wrong or being unfair.

pithom said...

"For you, isn't all this stuff about the Islamic State and diplomacy and so forth beside the point?"

-Absolutely not.

"Would it be fair to say that, in your eyes, Obama has been damned from the very beginning as president because he is black?"

-No. I supported Kerry over Bush in 2004 (knowing what I know now, I regret my error deeply, and thank the American public for picking Bush), Clinton over Obama in 2008 (dunno if I regret this), and McCain over Obama that same year (due to desiring gridlock). In 2008, I full well understood Obama was a pawn of the establishment, and did not have the same bright-eyed view of him as most others with whom I interacted, though I thought he might be better than Bush. By 2012, I came to see that my original 2008 preference was wrong, and that the Obama presidency had reinvigorated a new generation of conservatives (with whom I'm now very disappointed with for insufficient gridlock in Congress), and absolutely despised Romney as an elitist, and willingly supported Obama over Romney. I did not expect Obama to allow, firstly, the rise of JaN in Raqqa, secondly, the gradual takeover of the Islamic State in northern Syria, and, thirdly, Obama's siding with the IS against the non-IS rebels and the Iraqi government throughout the course of the first half of 2014. Obama might be weak and evil, but he's smart, possibly smarter than Romney. I have no idea whether Romney would have been better, though, as he is still very elitist and pro-establishment. I am very anti-establishment, and I eagerly support Trump today, but oppose my Republican representative because he is weak on the cause of liberty and voted to continue U.S. sale of cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia. I plan to vote for his Asian Indian Democratic opponent in November. I supported his predecessor, as he was a sound Tea Partier. I very rarely vote, though I did vote for Trump in this year's primaries. I consider Obama to be much worse than Bush, but purely due to the events of his second term.

Of course, I still support depriving Blacks of the right to vote, because the vast majority of them seem to lack all critical thinking while voting, and this seems to be mostly genetic in nature (there are no Black-majority first-world countries that were not first-world at independence from White-majority nations; there should be some, like a Black-majority Singapore, if this were not genetic in nature). There is no point in literacy testing; the race-parochialism among most Blacks goes much deeper than IQ. Nevertheless, I treat all political figures as individuals. I don't instinctively oppose Clarence Thomas just because he is Black; in fact, he is by far my favorite living Supreme Court justice.

In short, if Obama was doing a good job, I would say he was doing a good job, no matter his race.

TL;DR, I have an almost unfailing tendency to support the presidential candidate who, in retrospect, was clearly the wrong choice. Though I'm still not sure if Obama 2012 was clearly the wrong choice. Romney's pronouncements in 2012 made me despise him, and those since 2012 have not even remotely improved my impression of him, and I can't believe Republican primary voters chose him of all people, to be their nominee. Ron Paul would have been much better than him, and so would have Perry, as Perry didn't sign a Perrycare into law while governor.

pithom said...

"which would describe Bolivia but not Turkey"

-Both of them pale in comparison to the world's second-largest economy and leading military power.

"I think a basic point we could agree on (maybe) is that the Turks would have to know that a particular matter was important to the US and that what the US was asking of them would not fatally compromise their sovereignty (most especially, that Erdogan could tell the most anti-Kurd members of his government that, even if they help the Americans in Kobani, Turkish forces can continue to pound the PKK in the east)."

-Pretty much. I'm pretty sure Turkey would never allow even the U.S. to control what goes on within their own territory in regards to the PKK.

"but in summer 2014 they were mostly running away"

-Mostly. They seemed to be very parochial, fighting well at Samarra, but totally failing to take back Fallujah.

"It is true that the president did not care for Maliki, largely because of the latter's policies toward the Sunnis."

-I think the issue goes much deeper than this. I never take a politician's complaint about sectarianism or human rights abuses or whatnot abroad with any seriousness.

"None of this means that Baghdadi is an operative of the United States, that he sits there waiting for orders from Washington, or anything even remotely similar."

-But it's very much consistent with it.

"Did the Bush administration create Iraqi resistance to our occupation of Iraq? Did Bush control the actions of Muqtada al-Sadr or Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? Did Bush order the bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad?"

-No. Muqtada and Zarqawi were leaders of insurgencies, and, last time I checked, they never controlled territorial entities bordering a U.S. NATO ally. Insurgents swim like fish among the people; they are far more difficult to crush than territorial entities.

"Did Bush order the Spanish to cut short their participation in the Iraq occupation--or did he order the Madrid bombings that motivated that withdrawal?"

-He could have probably pressured the Spanish to continue, but would it have been worth it? What is the Spanish military worth, anyway? And the Madrid bombings are the sort of domestic terrorism that's even harder to combat than insurgency; they were isolated acts of violence that could have been done by anyone. Soft targets abound in the West; the White House has notoriously weak security. It's impossible to prevent all acts of domestic terrorism without totally abandoning personal privacy.

Unknown said...

"Of course, I still support depriving Blacks of the right to vote, because the vast majority of them seem to lack all critical thinking while voting, and this seems to be mostly genetic in nature."

So, would it be fair to say that you believe most Black people are genetically inferior, though some individual Blacks can be born with a superior genetic makeup, and/or can "rise above" their blackness? (As in your view has Clarence Thomas.)

"I'm pretty sure Turkey would never allow even the U.S. to control what goes on within their own territory in regards to the PKK. . . . Muqtada and Zarqawi were leaders of insurgencies, and, last time I checked, they never controlled territorial entities bordering a U.S. NATO ally."

So the US does NOT control everything. Countries like Turkey and Spain routinely make their own decisions about their own affairs, in your view. You simply believe that Obama either created the IS, or fostered it once it had created itself, or at least didn't do much to stop it until the second half of 2014, all of which in your view amount to the same thing, so one might as well make the most damning accusation, which is that Obama created the IS. Is that your view?

Unknown said...

"Of course, I still support depriving Blacks of the right to vote, because the vast majority of them seem to lack all critical thinking while voting . . ."

Since you're the third commentator on this blog to write recently about depriving people of their right to vote, I suppose it's time someone weighed in in favor of good ol' democracy. I absolutely support a universal right to vote as contained in the US Constitution, along with universal rights including life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and those rights contained in the Constitution. I support these ideas because they are universal and unlimited in principle. To me, much of their beauty lies in the fact that they recognize humans to possess these rights whether the humans in question deserve them or not. In fact they accord these rights before or pre-, so to speak, any ideas about "merit" that may arise. Ideas about who deserves or doesn't deserve rights may toddle whining after them, and go to hell.

Yes, there are restrictions on the practice of some of these rights; but the principle of universality, of non-merit, stands. And, yes, the idea is that a universal right to vote does mean government of the people, by the people, for the people. Without that universality, no government of the people. If the people don't vote for the right policies . . . well, that's why we have a complex legal system and checks and balances and all that, to prevent the majority from getting its way too much.

If the people vote to give everyone access to assault rifles, too bad; if you [I don't mean you in particular, pithom; I mean the universal "you"] don't like it, your job is to work to change their minds. If the people vote for a president whose main campaign theme is caution on military intervention, and you don't like it and think it makes America weak, too bad; your job is to agitate to make the people vote more hawkishly next time.

But there are certain things the people can't justly vote for; most important, they can't justly vote to take away each other's rights. If they do, we have a crisis, and we have faced these crises before.

I apologize to John for bogarting his blog and turning it into my soapbox. I'm grateful that he has provided this forum where we can work out and enunciate our ideas.

pithom said...

"So, would it be fair to say that you believe most Black people are genetically inferior, though some individual Blacks can be born with a superior genetic makeup, and/or can "rise above" their blackness? (As in your view has Clarence Thomas.)"

-"Rise above their blackness" makes no sense. But, yes, I do think most Black people are genetically inferior to most White people in most ways. Some Blacks are born with greater abilities than others, Obama and Thomas among them.

"So the US does NOT control everything."

-I never said it did. I never believed the U.S. could control any important events in Egypt, for example. But the U.S. can control many things, and people flows through the Syro-Turkish border are among them.

"You simply believe that Obama either created the IS, or fostered it once it had created itself, or at least didn't do much to stop it until the second half of 2014, all of which in your view amount to the same thing, so one might as well make the most damning accusation, which is that Obama created the IS. Is that your view?"

-Yes.

pithom said...

"If the people don't vote for the right policies . . . well, that's why we have a complex legal system and checks and balances and all that, to prevent the majority from getting its way too much."

-Wouldn't voting restrictions be just another form of checks and balances?

The composition of the electorate appears to matter a great deal. But a near-complete replacement of the electorate in a country with full institutional continuity is something very rare, indeed. I don't think I've ever seen an example of it. Though I might be missing some obvious example.

Unknown said...

"I do think most Black people are genetically inferior to most White people in most ways."

With respect, I'm afraid that to my mind this makes you a vile racist and a bad guy. You are traveling a road that humans should not travel. Yes, I would say you can vote your racist conscience. But to the extent that the Trump candidacy means there are significant numbers of people like you and they might actually impinge on our public life, I fear for my country. Sometimes I wonder if, all unexpectedly, a time has come for old-fashioned phrases like "girding ourselves" and fighting the good fight.

pithom said...

"You are traveling a road that humans should not travel."

-Why not? Noticing is powerful. There are as many Black-majority countries out there as White-majority countries. Yet, the majority of Black-majority countries are loser countries on the level of Moldova, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan -which are the only White-majority countries of their kind. And there's only one first-world Black-majority country out there -and it's a tax shelter which had a higher GDP/capita in 1969 -before independence- than in 2014.

"But to the extent that the Trump candidacy means there are significant numbers of people like you"

-There aren't. Trump got to where he did by winning almost the entire East, not just the Mississippi Delta in the primaries. He's an American nationalist, not a White nationalist.

"I fear for my country"

-Why? No one's proposing launching an invasion of Sub-Saharan Africa to steal its minerals.

"a time has come for old-fashioned phrases like "girding ourselves" and fighting the good fight."

-For what are you really fighting?

"Yes, I would say you can vote your racist conscience."

-And my "racist conscience" says to vote for the Asian Indian Democrat against the Chamber of Commerce Republican. Again, I judge individual politicians on their merits.