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Luuuc
#NATC


Joined: 10 Feb 2005
Posts: 21901



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PostPosted: 06/21/20 11:27 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

I haven't been arguing for or against memes. I don't have a strong opinion on it and above was purely a comment on the one particular highlighted meme that started this snowball. For me this board has always been primarily about basketball, and Area 51 for the most part has been more of a sideshow. I personally don't think memes or tweets are inherently bad, just like I don't think straight white men or rap music is inherently bad, despite the mountain of examples that might appear to back up such a position.

But I think if Area 51 - which has spent 15+ years becoming whatever random shantytown it is today - is going to be more clearly defined then that should be made known before the bulldozers are sent in.
I like the vision of having better quality conversations here but it's not going to be as interesting if there is only one voice left.



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pilight



Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: 06/21/20 11:51 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

jammerbirdi wrote:
The cops had no idea at that point whether what they were doing was going to be judged to be appropriate or not. They had just been and really still were fighting for their own lives! They weren't punishing the guy.


Fighting for their own lives? Against a drunk they knew was unarmed? Hyperbolic much? The only person whose life was endangered was Brooks.



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tfan



Joined: 31 May 2010
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PostPosted: 06/22/20 1:09 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

pilight wrote:
jammerbirdi wrote:
The cops had no idea at that point whether what they were doing was going to be judged to be appropriate or not. They had just been and really still were fighting for their own lives! They weren't punishing the guy.


Fighting for their own lives? Against a drunk they knew was unarmed? Hyperbolic much? The only person whose life was endangered was Brooks.


If you have a gun on your hip and you are wrestling with an unarmed person, they can become an armed person if they grab your gun. Brooks may have been over-the-limit, but it didn't prevent him from overpowering two men.


PickledGinger



Joined: 04 Oct 2013
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PostPosted: 06/22/20 2:45 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Wow, talk about a dumpster fire.

Jammer,

You claim you are aiming to protect free speech...by implicitly limiting access to free speech? How the FUCK is that not completely hypocritical?
You clearly hate memes - or specifically how they are being used in this case - but just because you "don't get" them does not mean that they are not a valid medium of communication. Propagandizing things that confuse you is never going to land you on the right side of history.
Honestly, this coarse of action is kind of fascist, dude.

Also, while being a bit off-topic, I'd like to take a moment to address this statement:

"THIS election is going to come down to are you on the side of the police or are you on the side of criminals?"

That narrative is complete bullshit.
Those of us that you see as being "on the side of criminals" absolutely do not see this as a battle between the Police and Criminals. Because that idea is fucking ridiculous and needs to be stomped out of existence. The assumption that ANYONE is pro-crime is completely counterproductive to starting logical, meaningful conversations about the realities of this issue. I live on Capitol Hill and have spent a decent amount of time protesting with and talking to the people at CHOP. Anarchists, they are not.

For us, this is an ethical battle between the systemic suppression of American citizens of Color, and basic human fairness. This isn't about protecting criminals, it is about protecting innocent people from undue punishment; and bringing equality to a system that was literally built to suppress a specific demographic.




Last edited by PickledGinger on 06/22/20 6:12 am; edited 10 times in total
GlennMacGrady



Joined: 03 Jan 2005
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PostPosted: 06/22/20 2:50 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Luuuc wrote:
Personally I think that there are few people better able - when it comes to personal experience, smarts, and ability to express themselves - to speak on racial issues than Trevor Noah.


Gadzooks, I'm so deprived. Other than the one tweet posted in this thread, I've never in my life watched Trevor Noah, heard anything he's said or read anything he's written. So, Jammer doesn't have to worry that the whole world will be mind-snatched by the guy.

If Noah's meme is supposed to illustrate a great mind, pen or tongue on the subject of race, I humbly suggest the following introductory list instead: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Soujourner Truth, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Martin Luther King, Eldridge Cleaver, H. Rap Brown, Huey Newton, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou.
Luuuc
#NATC


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PostPosted: 06/22/20 3:25 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Is summer solstice the start of straw man season in the US or something?



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PickledGinger



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PostPosted: 06/22/20 5:14 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

I'm not familiar with Genero's history of posting memes; but I do have to ask you Jammer, what was it, about this specific Trevor Noah meme, that set you off?

Like, what about it do you find antagonistic enough to warrant it being banned? There was nothing anti-establishment or anarchistic about it AT ALL. It was literally just a picture of a guy next to some statements about how it is dangerous to be Black in America. None of his statements were inflammatory, AT ALL. In fact, every one of his statements is backed up my fact.

Soooo.....WHAT ABOUT THAT THREATENS YOU?!?! What about that makes you feel like your voice is being silenced??? I'm really not trying to come at you right now, but I feel like maybe we are on such opposite sides of this argument that I need know what makes you think this way.

If you don't understand the Zeitgeist, maybe it is time to admit that it is your responsibility to catch up to it. Progress is never going to be stopped.

You can't deny someone of their chosen form of communication just because you don't know how to argue against it. You just can't. It is un-American. It's unconstitutional. If you do this, you are never going to get the open, honest conversation that you claim you want.


pilight



Joined: 23 Sep 2004
Posts: 66773
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PostPosted: 06/22/20 8:05 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

tfan wrote:
pilight wrote:
jammerbirdi wrote:
The cops had no idea at that point whether what they were doing was going to be judged to be appropriate or not. They had just been and really still were fighting for their own lives! They weren't punishing the guy.


Fighting for their own lives? Against a drunk they knew was unarmed? Hyperbolic much? The only person whose life was endangered was Brooks.


If you have a gun on your hip and you are wrestling with an unarmed person, they can become an armed person if they grab your gun. Brooks may have been over-the-limit, but it didn't prevent him from overpowering two men.


Sounds like a good argument for the cops to not carry guns unless responding to an already violent situation.



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tfan



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PostPosted: 06/22/20 8:37 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

pilight wrote:
tfan wrote:
pilight wrote:
jammerbirdi wrote:
The cops had no idea at that point whether what they were doing was going to be judged to be appropriate or not. They had just been and really still were fighting for their own lives! They weren't punishing the guy.


Fighting for their own lives? Against a drunk they knew was unarmed? Hyperbolic much? The only person whose life was endangered was Brooks.


If you have a gun on your hip and you are wrestling with an unarmed person, they can become an armed person if they grab your gun. Brooks may have been over-the-limit, but it didn't prevent him from overpowering two men.


Sounds like a good argument for the cops to not carry guns unless responding to an already violent situation.


A good argument can be made for them not having guns when they know the people they’re going to deal with don’t have them. But determining that in advance each time would be difficult, and a lot of guns floating around our society. There have been cases where they pull someone over for speeding and get shot. I think that is normally when the driver is in violation of parole or wanted for some crime.


jammerbirdi



Joined: 23 Sep 2004
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PostPosted: 06/22/20 10:03 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

PickledGinger.

First you. I'm getting your faux concerns about free speech.

Every concern I have about free speech on this message board and everywhere else in this country is personified by you and the sensibility that you so perfectly expressed here in this quote that could literally be held up one day as exemplary of this moment in American history.

PickledGinger wrote:


that idea is fucking ridiculous and needs to be stomped out of existence.


That’s fucking perfect, man. I owe thank you’s to so many people here I’m going to lose track but please know how grateful I truly am to everyone who has so generously contributed to me making my point.

And what was the idea? It was a political idea.

STOMP IT! STOMP IT OUT OF EXISTENCE!!!



So you misunderstood something about that idea. And here is that idea, for anyone who can't be bothered to read through all the horrible words and sentences some of us post here.

Quote:
"THIS election is going to come down to are you on the side of the police or are you on the side of criminals?"


What you mistakenly assumed is that this idea is what is going to drive MY vote. Because you saw me write it down in actual typed words here though, and probably are unaccustomed to seeing people on your own side brainstorming ideas and playing devil's advocate by even whispering in the dark suggesting alternative and contrarian viewpoints etc. you naturally assumed comrade that this just HAD to be a statement of my own personal political position.

That's one of the greatest dangers of this effort to stomp out ideas or the discussions that they are intended to spark. You are not going to know what you're fighting in this country because you can't even bear to hear someone voicing opposing ideas without trying to stomp whatever they're saying out of existence. AND, as we are seeing so often now, stomping them out of existence along with the offending ideas.

People who live in freedom, with an ACTUAL respect for free speech? Are a much more powerful political force because they are prepared and informed. That is the ultimate beauty of free speech. It makes you so much stronger.

So let me clear it up for you. That's not what my posting that thought was or was meant to convey to anyone reading it at all.

I wanted Bernie Sanders or Warren to be the nominee of MY party. Now I want Biden to pick Michelle Obama for VP because a) I think that would swing the election for the Democrats, my registered political party b) I think Joe is going to barely make it till November and not hardly through a first term and that would put the Black Obamas back in power, and, because, you know, I'm such a fucking racist, and put back in the White House all that presidential experience at a time when so much has to be repaired after just one term of Donald Trump that it boggles the mind and c) It would make a black woman, Michelle Obama, who I felt was the greatest first lady in my lifetime, the first woman president, and SO fitting that she would be a WOC, and she would be, with her husband right there (awaken woke feminists: stomp out jammer's thoughts HERE) a two term president in the same bedroom with her and all that co-president stuff, a back and forth between two experienced and mostly right-minded political leaders, all back at work to save the country. If that's even possible at this point.

What I DID MEAN by that comment is that this election was, even before George Floyd, because I said that here LAST YEAR, already going to come down to that stark political equation for so many Americans. And NOW... with what these protests turned into in so many cities, and with this takeover of a part of Seattle happening and ongoing in a Democratic stronghold up there, and the calls to defund the police, abolish the police entirely, at least take away their guns, and release more people from prisons, etc... I'm suggesting it is a WINNING strategy for Trump to center this election right on this fulcrum point that our safe and civil society is teetering on right now.

I said it last year, and LIKE my president HEARD my words and thoughts, he sat his fat ass down on this point at his rally on Saturday night and signaled that THIS is where he's going to win or lose the White House. Right where I said he would. Because I fucking know. Things. Because I can think and talk honestly about them without trying to stomp my own ideas out of my head.

I don't like the Obama Democratic Party establishment at all. I can't believe or forgive their orchestration of Biden becoming the nominee over Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. But I do long for the stability they would bring, the experience, and for them to put back together the executive branch and our reputation as a world leader. But short of selecting Michelle Obama, I think Trump will win if he runs on the side of the police and against the criminals and anarchists and on all that other juicy shit he was saying Saturday night.



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Iluvacc



Joined: 11 Jun 2005
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PostPosted: 06/22/20 12:52 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

sambista wrote:
genero posts a lot of things that i stop and look at and maybe read. and a lot of things i don't.

shades posts a lot of youtube videos that i stop and look at and maybe play. and a lot of them i don't.

some posters with small minds post a lot of small-minded crap that i just skip over.

jammerbirdi posts a lot of tomes that i almost never have time to stop and read, and because i come to rebkell's for escape and not homework or a lecture, rarely do i read them.

now it looks like i have no good reason to come here at all.


Co-sign to all of the above. I don't think I'll be returning either, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired and surely not in the mood to teach and/or explain things that have been occurring for generations. C'est la vie!


GlennMacGrady



Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 8151
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PostPosted: 06/22/20 2:51 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

PickledGinger wrote:

Jammer,

You claim you are aiming to protect free speech...by implicitly limiting access to free speech? How the FUCK is that not completely hypocritical?


PickledGinger, with due respect, I don't think it's fair to accuse Jammer of trying to suppress free speech. Yes, he's encouraging some of us to channel some of the speech, but that very same speech, into a format that is less jarring to the eye and more conducive to reply and intelligent discourse.

As I make it out, Jammer's primary concerns are about process and format -- in particular that:

1. Excessive posting of large font images of Twitter or Facebook images is far more visually jarring than the LARGE CAPS FONTS THAT USED TO BE UNIVERSALLY AGREED TO BE RUDE "SHOUTING", and that such images when excessively used can have the the kind of intimidating effect that the large signs and posters of street protestors are intended to have. Street protestors have no interest in discussion or debate; they just want their signs to get into your face. Indeed, now that I have looked at some of the political and police threads I usually skip, some of the pages look like driving down a highway littered with garish billboards and flashing neon signs, rather than a discussion forum.

2. Jammer would like to minimize this "signage" effect by asking people to reformat the same speech and ideas from the image memes simply in the poster's own voice and words to some greater extent.

3. He has said that posting image memes is still perfectly acceptable, even in large quantities, if constrained in appropriately labeled threads, so that other posters can more easily avoid them if they, too, don't like them.

I'd call all of this a good faith attempt to manage the format of speech and ideas more in line with a discussion forum format rather than another social media format, not an attempt to suppress any particular speech or ideas.

I realize others may feel differently.
mercfan3



Joined: 23 Nov 2004
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PostPosted: 06/22/20 3:18 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

GlennMacGrady wrote:
Luuuc wrote:
Personally I think that there are few people better able - when it comes to personal experience, smarts, and ability to express themselves - to speak on racial issues than Trevor Noah.


Gadzooks, I'm so deprived. Other than the one tweet posted in this thread, I've never in my life watched Trevor Noah, heard anything he's said or read anything he's written. So, Jammer doesn't have to worry that the whole world will be mind-snatched by the guy.

If Noah's meme is supposed to illustrate a great mind, pen or tongue on the subject of race, I humbly suggest the following introductory list instead: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Soujourner Truth, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Martin Luther King, Eldridge Cleaver, H. Rap Brown, Huey Newton, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou.


FYI,

Trevor Noah's memoir is entitled "Born A Crime."

Because he is the biracial child of a Black woman and white man in born in South Africa during Apartheid.

His existence was a crime.

He couldn't play outside as a kid for fear that he would be taken and put in an orphanage with other children who were considered "crimes."

Perhaps when you don't know someone, you should take some time to read up on them, instead of suggesting that he isn't worth that look. I suggest his book.

He has also been brilliant throughout this ordeal. As a comedian, his sketches don't always hit the mark, but when the man is able to just "talk" he is quite often brilliant.


That meme was truth. If you don't get it, learn. I think there is an unwillingness to do that by a lot of people - and I think that's what is responsible for shutting down dialogue.



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Luuuc
#NATC


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PostPosted: 06/22/20 7:03 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

mercfan3 wrote:
GlennMacGrady wrote:
Luuuc wrote:
Personally I think that there are few people better able - when it comes to personal experience, smarts, and ability to express themselves - to speak on racial issues than Trevor Noah.


Gadzooks, I'm so deprived. Other than the one tweet posted in this thread, I've never in my life watched Trevor Noah, heard anything he's said or read anything he's written. So, Jammer doesn't have to worry that the whole world will be mind-snatched by the guy.

If Noah's meme is supposed to illustrate a great mind, pen or tongue on the subject of race, I humbly suggest the following introductory list instead: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Soujourner Truth, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Martin Luther King, Eldridge Cleaver, H. Rap Brown, Huey Newton, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou.


FYI,

Trevor Noah's memoir is entitled "Born A Crime."

Because he is the biracial child of a Black woman and white man in born in South Africa during Apartheid.

His existence was a crime.

He couldn't play outside as a kid for fear that he would be taken and put in an orphanage with other children who were considered "crimes."

Perhaps when you don't know someone, you should take some time to read up on them, instead of suggesting that he isn't worth that look. I suggest his book.


It's been a while since I've watched his show, but I thought his book was excellent. His experience with racial issues expressed so matter-of-factly while also being so clearly ridiculous to me as a reader was a pretty effective way of making a point while being entertaining.
But unfortunately all 15 people worth listening to when it comes to this topic are Americans, and of course I went and read a South African Mad



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mercfan3



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PostPosted: 06/22/20 7:22 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Luuuc wrote:
mercfan3 wrote:
GlennMacGrady wrote:
Luuuc wrote:
Personally I think that there are few people better able - when it comes to personal experience, smarts, and ability to express themselves - to speak on racial issues than Trevor Noah.


Gadzooks, I'm so deprived. Other than the one tweet posted in this thread, I've never in my life watched Trevor Noah, heard anything he's said or read anything he's written. So, Jammer doesn't have to worry that the whole world will be mind-snatched by the guy.

If Noah's meme is supposed to illustrate a great mind, pen or tongue on the subject of race, I humbly suggest the following introductory list instead: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Soujourner Truth, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Martin Luther King, Eldridge Cleaver, H. Rap Brown, Huey Newton, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou.


FYI,

Trevor Noah's memoir is entitled "Born A Crime."

Because he is the biracial child of a Black woman and white man in born in South Africa during Apartheid.

His existence was a crime.

He couldn't play outside as a kid for fear that he would be taken and put in an orphanage with other children who were considered "crimes."

Perhaps when you don't know someone, you should take some time to read up on them, instead of suggesting that he isn't worth that look. I suggest his book.


It's been a while since I've watched his show, but I thought his book was excellent. His experience with racial issues expressed so matter-of-factly while also being so clearly ridiculous to me as a reader was a pretty effective way of making a point while being entertaining.
But unfortunately all 15 people worth listening to when it comes to this topic are Americans, and of course I went and read a South African Mad


It's fantastic. I'm actually planning on teaching it to my students this year. (High School English Teacher)



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GlennMacGrady



Joined: 03 Jan 2005
Posts: 8151
Location: Heisenberg


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PostPosted: 06/22/20 7:37 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

mercfan3 wrote:
GlennMacGrady wrote:
Luuuc wrote:
Personally I think that there are few people better able - when it comes to personal experience, smarts, and ability to express themselves - to speak on racial issues than Trevor Noah.


Gadzooks, I'm so deprived. Other than the one tweet posted in this thread, I've never in my life watched Trevor Noah, heard anything he's said or read anything he's written. So, Jammer doesn't have to worry that the whole world will be mind-snatched by the guy.

If Noah's meme is supposed to illustrate a great mind, pen or tongue on the subject of race, I humbly suggest the following introductory list instead: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Harriet Tubman, Soujourner Truth, Chief Justice Earl Warren, Martin Luther King, Eldridge Cleaver, H. Rap Brown, Huey Newton, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison and Maya Angelou.


FYI,

Trevor Noah's memoir is entitled "Born A Crime."

Because he is the biracial child of a Black woman and white man in born in South Africa during Apartheid.

His existence was a crime.

He couldn't play outside as a kid for fear that he would be taken and put in an orphanage with other children who were considered "crimes."

Perhaps when you don't know someone, you should take some time to read up on them, instead of suggesting that he isn't worth that look. I suggest his book.

He has also been brilliant throughout this ordeal. As a comedian, his sketches don't always hit the mark, but when the man is able to just "talk" he is quite often brilliant.


That meme was truth. If you don't get it, learn. I think there is an unwillingness to do that by a lot of people - and I think that's what is responsible for shutting down dialogue.


Thank you for that thoughtful and informative response, Mercfan.

It's true I know nothing about Noah. Nor will I likely ever have any interest in him, whatever his background.

Rightly or wrongly, I put him in the same category as the several other TV "comedy" hosts, who are mainly highly politicized partisans spewing forth non-stop, one-sided political and cultural attacks. I haven't watched any late night comedian since Letterman and Leno retired, and I didn't watch them all that much. Johnny Carson and Steve Allen were my kind of TV host show comedians -- apolitical, appealing to all persons and groups, with no personal attacks, and wickedly funny.

Only watched Jon Stewart once. No doubt a very smart guy and clever quipster, but again much too political for my taste.

I actually watch almost no TV at all. Am not involved with FB, Twitter or any other social media. Not interested. I like reading wordy stuff. And helping inform people on subjects I know, mostly on several other forums and venues than RebKell.

Area 51 of RebKell is actually the only place I ever discuss political issues in my internet or real life, I'm never comfortable doing it, and I frankly regret ever starting to do so here. I started out trying to limit myself to legal subjects, but that too easily bleeds over into cultural and political issues, and it's frustrating when I can't adequately explain legal (or scientific) issues to people who only hear with political or culture-war ears. So, I'll inevitably slow down or stop here.
Richard 77



Joined: 19 Nov 2004
Posts: 4128
Location: Lake Mills, Wisconsin


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PostPosted: 06/22/20 7:38 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

I've seen mems for several months/years now, and from my point of view, I've learned not to believe in them. To me, all they are are doctored photos of celebrities or pundits with words photoshopped on them by someone who has an agenda. Many posted mems are viewed without any credible sources to back up the claim that the person in the photo actually said what was written in the mem.

As for members leaving this site, I will miss you, but I'm staying. I skip over most of the political threads anyways. I get enough on Facebook, Twitter and the local news. I've seen members leave before, sometimes due to their conflict with other members (ladyvols comes to mind - backward spelling) while others have left either because they've gotten bored with the site, just moved on. and our worst-case scenario, their team's owner screwed them. (blue/Rockers and Diane/Detroit), losing their only reason for staying.

I think his message board will survive and no political discourse is going to deter those willing to stay from upsetting them. Have a good week...



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If you cannot inspire yourself to read a book about women's basketball, or any book about women's sports, you cannot inspire any young girl or boy to write a book about them. http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/Richardstrek
jammerbirdi



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PostPosted: 06/23/20 12:49 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Thank you, Luuuc.

Luuuc wrote:
jammerbirdi wrote:
mercfan3 wrote:


Because it sure seems like the answers to these questions are: No, No, No, No, No, No, Yes, Yes, and "this is what America wants." So please, correct me if I'm wrong.

And it sure seems to me, that when you are talking about America..you are often talking about white (male) Middle America..sometimes without even realizing it. My argument is, and will continue to be...it's not the 50s any longer.


You know I can't continue to respond to these 'it sure seems' insinuations and veiled suggestions that I'm personally a racist or siding with whites over blacks.

I've said what follows here many times, it goes ignored because I'm dealing with people who choose to ignore anything that might hinder them from using the unimaginative tactic of slaughtering the messenger by impugning them.

My political heroes were Ali and Angela Davis growing up. And the Kennedys. For the first half of my life my political passions surrounded ONE issue. Racial inequality and injustice. Race. It's all I thought about or cared about. I didn't care about the environment, taxes, abortion, rich women's rights in the workplace, gun control, none of it. As simply a poorly educated kid from a bleak industrial town, I identified and put my mind to work on the issue that grabbed me.

As I've also said many times, however, I have differed, also from a very young age, with the tactics that have often been employed by WHITE liberal groups who weighed in on behalf of blacks in this country. That's maybe a too-complicated notion for people who only see things as you're either 100% with the narrative, or you're a racist. But those tactics included things like public service announcements paid for by white New Yorkers that sought to demonstrate how wrong racism was by humiliating people who held racial stereotypes. Humiliating people doesn't work, I thought. I haven't changed my thoughts in that area.

So I speak out and always have against things that I feel are going to backfire and move racial progress nowhere but backwards. I think this has become a superficial group, that adheres itself in a classic knee jerk manner to anything and everything that carries the whiff of approval of their side on the question of race.

It's very hard to have an open and serious debate point by point on issues without someone sitting across from you and essentially placing their hand on their chin, squinting at you, and saying, in effect, Hmmm. Seems you might be a racist, comrade-jammer.!

Seems like... you just did that, mercfan3. For only the zillionth time.

The things that I want politically are the things I've always wanted. Economic justice for all Americans. That means a sustained examination of everything that has harmed American workers and destroyed the one-time prosperity of the working class and have literally leveled once-prosperous small towns across the country.

That isn't black or white but here's some news for you, black people are poor and working class. My sincere hopes are that an emphasis on the issues of the poor and the working class would be tailored with specific corrections in place to change the horizons of the poorest and most at-risk African Americans in this country. Because they need it more than anyone, number one, number two because this country must correct centuries of injustice by creating a different prognosis for this outsized percentage of blacks who live near or beneath the poverty line.

And lastly and not the least significantly we have to change the arc of black lives in this country so that we keep them out of the criminal justice system, off the nightly news via surveillance cameras and out of prison. Seeing African Americans as criminals is a huge driver of racial divisions. Instead of arguing about that, instead of demeaning white people who might look at those videos and further develop dread or repulsion at what their seeing and attributing it all to there being something wrong with black people... do the long and painful work of changing paths that are available to young black people in America.

That means equal education and for once a true effort to change the system that was failing Americans when I was a child, failed me and everyone I knew, and continues to fail a massive number of Americans including in the schools right back where I started.

Do I think streets in black sections of the inner cities should be safe from crime and murder? I do. How that can make me a racist is the result of a tangled thought processes routed in misguided and misdirected group-think that has sadly become another knee jerk reaction to anyone who differs with the mantras and talking points and positions as have been laid out for good lefties from above.

But those streets remain extremely and unacceptably dangerous and there is and always will be only two ways to render them safer. One is through aggressive policing and the apprehending and incarceration of criminals and gang members.

The other way to make those streets safer is through education and dramatically changing the horizons of possibility for SWATHS of a population. Change the schools. Create a federal task force that goes into every large school district and assesses the most obvious failures and quickly fixes them. And then change what goes on in schools. Feed the kids two meals a day and if they don't have dinner waiting for them after school feed them a dinner as well.

See. Now right about here both political sides would say, who's going to pay for all of that? You haven't even gotten to the mind bogglingly expensive changes to the education system you're probably proposing.

But the reason YOU find money to be a stumbling block and I don't, is because I live in California. The west side of Los Angeles. Beverly Hills. I know something you don't know. I know how much money there really is. And GOOD NEWS! It's in the hands of DEMOCRATS! So you KNOW they're all going to be so willing to chip in whatever it takes to change this country and the miserable life horizons of so many poor black people everywhere in America.

Okay, a little smart ass shit there at the end. I'll wrap it up.

These are MY politics. MY political passions. They are not racist. They are different! Didn't used to be. But now seeing them emphasized in the context of the modern political wars they seem wildly different than anything you're hearing. They represent more specific solutions to specific problems than say this notion of identity politics that only divides Americans around wedge issues.

Do I want this education overhaul just for blacks? Of course not. I want it for everyone who doesn't get the kind of education the children of affluence get.

The emphasis on what serves best the American worker? That's as much aimed at black people, and righting the hundreds of years of economic injustice endured by black people, as it is to fix simply modern realities.

I'm hyper sensitive to things that divide white and black America. I always have been. Humiliation of poor and working class whites who don't like blacks? Epic fail. Humiliation in this instance is like pouring gasoline on your barbecuing neighbor in a disastrously stupid effort to put out his apron that has caught fire. Boom! Now look at what you've done. And there it is, evidenced in an America that is, as I've said many times in the last few years, on the verge or in the early stages of a race war.

Being away from this board for however many months I stayed away has clarified many things about the perspectives and tactics etc. as they exist here. I thought so highly of people here for so long. But I've come to see the impugning and the trolling as evidence of real shortcomings of perspective and imagination. And worse.

As I said, it's very hard to have a political conversation here that stays within the confines of respectful debating. It's like there's this EASY button just sitting there and people can't help but slap at it whenever the going gets tough. Impugn a person by insinuation. Call who they are into question. Insinuate that there's some dark heart beating beneath the surface of their ideas. Ask them how many murders of black people by the police they find acceptable. lol. That was a good one, pilight. Are they a madly patriotic sheep? And all the way up to quoting them and answering with a Nazi slogan or a YouTube of a Klan meeting.

So, lastly, regarding my own political viewpoint and solutions. Do I think any of it will ever happen and we'll fix or straighten out this country's problems in the area of race and economic equality? I certainly do not. I don't know what that makes me in the eyes of people here after they've worn out calling me a racist. But no, I don't believe we will ever get there. Because if everyone even here can so easily resort to the tactic of casting aspersions at fellow Democrats who are simply trying to open a debate about the nature and viability of where liberals or Dems should be, then there's no hope out there. The battle lines are being drawn and we're not going anywhere good as a country.


One of your best posts.

Just as I believe that kneeling during the anthem, and loving your country, can happily coexist (in fact IMO if you really love your country and want the best for it, you absolutely should take the opportunities when you have them to speak up on important fundamental injustices that would make your country even better if they were rectified), I also think that supporting one political party over the other, and being critical of the party you support, can, and should, coexist. There are a lot of important issues out there. Does "your" party nail every one of them to your satisfaction? I doubt it. Does it make you some kind of weak person or traitor if you admit that? No, it just makes you an honest person with standards.

I lean left, but I tend to mostly be embarrassed by the conduct of my fellow lefties when things get heated. I agree that just ridiculing someone doesn't tend to work. I think I'm yet to ever see it be effective in effecting change - at least not in the intended direction.


Yeah. What you said, Luuuc. (In 2017)



_________________
Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17
jammerbirdi



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PostPosted: 06/23/20 11:44 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Iluvacc wrote:
sambista wrote:
genero posts a lot of things that i stop and look at and maybe read. and a lot of things i don't.

shades posts a lot of youtube videos that i stop and look at and maybe play. and a lot of them i don't.

some posters with small minds post a lot of small-minded crap that i just skip over.

jammerbirdi posts a lot of tomes that i almost never have time to stop and read, and because i come to rebkell's for escape and not homework or a lecture, rarely do i read them.

now it looks like i have no good reason to come here at all.


Co-sign to all of the above. I don't think I'll be returning either, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired and surely not in the mood to teach and/or explain things that have been occurring for generations. C'est la vie!


My politics and my heart on the issue of race should be UNQUESTIONED by people who are familiar with me in this community.

THAT IS, and I will concede this point, if they bothered to actually read my often too long diatribes and really think about where I'm coming from and what I'm trying to say. The person you're responding to here says she can't be bothered to. Doesn't have the time. What am I supposed to do about that? Obrigado pela amizade ao longo dos anos. Boa sorte para você.

I've argued on the other side of these racial skirmishes for a reason and that is because I think that mistakes are being made that are driving us further and further down the road to civil war.

And I know who's going to lose that war.

People are living safely in their ideological bubbles. I've been swimming upstream against that here in this community forever.

For instance. Right now, after the last month in America, the NFL has reconsidered all this business with Colin K. and the issue of taking a knee during the national anthem. So here we go again. People, safely in their liberal lefty bubbles are thinking, Hell yeah! We've finally won this battle. Even Drew Brees has rethought his white privilege and is with us. The uprising of the last month has shown the NFL and the world how truly important it is to take a stand on this issue that places the sport on the right side of history.

So let me burst that bubble and let in the uniquely American toxic nightmare atmosphere for you all to take into your lungs and gag on.

This is the story of the national anthem and standing. Or not.

These two things are inexorably linked together now in the SOUL of modern day Americans. To say that standing is considered to be the ONLY acceptable behavior when that song is heard at a sporting event is only a superficial analysis. This is way way past Pavlovian. But it is Pavlovian. Pavlovian responses do not entail national identity, pride, ancestry and immediate family, or any of that. This does.

So here it is. And I don't think Trevor Noah knows this nor does he care. In fact, he would probably disagree with it and, at least publicly, for the cameras and the sake of his brand, decry it as racist.

But this is the reality. You are NEVER going to get a very large percentage of the American people to kneel during the national anthem. You are simply asking them to do the wrong thing. Outside of ANY issue, they are incapable of even doing it. Not for you, not for anyone. Ever. They would sooner bulldoze bodies into mass graves than acquiesce to this thing that for them goes far beyond being an indignity. It is, to them, a betrayal of their country, and a surrender. And I am here to tell you that that part of America has not made the AR15 the number one selling firearm in the US because they are positioning themselves to surrender.

So I maybe didn't put it exactly like that in the This is All Bullshit thread here a few years back. But my own perspective, the core issues etc. have become more clear over time.

Am I a racist for passing along this dire analysis to you guys here? I certainly have a gloomy outlook on the question of race in America. I am suspicious of everyone and I've articulated that here many times over the years. I see pretty much nothing but bad actors on the racial politics landscape. But I know that a lot of people marching in these protests have the best intentions. And I certainly can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to be a black person continuing to live in America.

But the devil is in the details. There's a lot of nuance and unique history here. People need to face that nuance by talking about it. And people will not open up if you're calling them racists.

I am deeply suspicious of affluent white people, urban liberals, on the issue of race. They publicly support black America. But they send their children to private K-12 schools SIMPLY in large part because they don't want their children to go to school with black kids. That has gutted the quality of public schools in the inner-city.

They will march with you, hug you, take a knee with you, but they will not open up their educational and economic opportunities and share them with you. Never. Ever. It's all hugs and bullshit.

I am unusual. At least in this environment. Deal with it. I've tried, however, to throw some videos up here that demonstrate that I am hardly alone in discussing the issues and impacts of the woke progressive left seeking to "stomp out of existence" perspectives they don't want heard by labeling anyone who would offer those perspectives as racist, etc.

As far as I'm concerned, that is demonstrably anti-intellectual and I think and have felt for a long time that THIS message board here, made up of some albeit smart people, has nevertheless drifted into a comforting fog of anti-intellectualism.



_________________
Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17
jammerbirdi



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PostPosted: 06/23/20 11:51 am    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Luuuc wrote:

Personally I think that there are few people better able - when it comes to personal experience, smarts, and ability to express themselves - to speak on racial issues than Trevor Noah.


So it's easy to get me going off on the many side issues associated with this discussion or any other. And I don't want to get into all the ancillary stuff and I will return to my principle point here in another post. But I think what this statement brings up is useful in this situation, but it by no means represents the actual reason for what has happened here with me.

And I've read the many responses to this thought and so I'm not just taking this comment on out of the context of what others have added.

I'm read in on Trevor Noah's background in South Africa as related in the title of his book and as explained here and on Wikipedia. It's nothing less than a dystopian nightmare existence he experienced growing up.

Why anyone would, however, "think that there are few people better able - when it comes to personal experience, smarts, and ability to express themselves - to speak on racial issues than Trevor Noah" is, I believe something we need to explore.

So let's talk about this. Did you really mean to say, in your opinion, that there are few people better able to speak on racial issues IN AMERICA than Trevor Noah? He only relocated to the United States in 2012. The United States is not South Africa. The American people are not South Africans. Our history and our ongoing racial divides and how they manifest themselves in our communities around the issues of class and our economic, educational, and political systems is COMPLETELY our OWN unique history as well as our present day reality.

Americans have been steeped and stewed in this our entire lives. Some far far FAR more than others. I've been digging down into the details of this issue here, as it exists in MY country, discussing what would be profound differences from anything Trevor Noah would have experienced because unique granular but important details about race in America would naturally BE different, and pouring over this issue in my mind my entire politically aware life.

I think what you're asserting here, Luuuc, is coming from a place that's like, racism and bigotry is universal, here is a guy who has experienced a nightmare manifestation of it, he's smart and all that.

So who better to scold Americans on the issue of race? Is that what you're saying to me?

Who better to narrow the confines of acceptable debate on the issue of race that Americans are free to engage in without being scolded by an ultra rich celebrity who's lived in this country UNDER a decade that they're trafficking in racist tropes?

Yeah, I'm bristling at the suggestion there.

I'm going to be honest. I'm fundamentally offended by it. And I'm offended that I'm hearing this from a person who as far as I know has never lived in the United States and certainly wasn't born and raised or lived his entire life here.

We're all welcome to share our opinions. Some of them are going to offend. I'm cool with all of that. I don't hold any kind of animosity toward you because you think this way. And in this virtue signalling environment we all live in online now, I'm sure others are going to come to your defense here just as you came to Trevor Noah's defense.

But we all can be offended. I don't like brush backs from people who I know don't know what I know because they didn't grow up in my country. And especially when you're not living in this fraught divisive environment wherein even four or five years ago me and sambista were in agreement that it was starting to look like the first stages of a race war in the United States.

We are now SO much further along down that path.

Am I touchy about this subject? I better be. It's my country and the lives and safety of my people, family, friends, freedoms, the peace and pursuit of happiness that are all at stake now in America. I would not presume to tell you or Trevor Noah about racial and ethnic dynamics as they exist in your native countries.

I would just listen.

So I just wanted to get that out there.



_________________
Every woman who has ever been presented with a career/sex quid pro quo in the entertainment industry should come forward and simply say, “Me, too.” - jammer The New York Times 10/10/17
mercfan3



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PostPosted: 06/23/20 3:05 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

jammerbirdi wrote:



My politics and my heart on the issue of race should be UNQUESTIONED by people who are familiar with me in this community.

THAT IS, and I will concede this point, if they bothered to actually read my often too long diatribes and really think about where I'm coming from and what I'm trying to say. The person you're responding to here says she can't be bothered to. Doesn't have the time. What am I supposed to do about that? Obrigado pela amizade ao longo dos anos. Boa sorte para você.



I've argued on the other side of these racial skirmishes for a reason and that is because I think that mistakes are being made that are driving us further and further down the road to civil war.


Or Jammer, we read and hear what you have to say.

You've said the worst thing in the world someone can be called is racist.

I've got something worse. How about, being on the receiving end of oppression and racism.

Because what we have right now..is a situation where a white person is silencing a format from a black person - about race.

A white person, who is criticizing Trevor Noah..a victim of the worlds worst version of systemic racism - and propping up Joe Rogan...who says racist and sexist bullshit on the daily.

This isn't an intellectual discussion for some people. It isn't a chance to play devil's advocate. Or a chance to view something differently from someone else's shoes. This is real life.


jammerbirdi wrote:

People are living safely in their ideological bubbles. I've been swimming upstream against that here in this community forever.


You often cite Hollywood and California as if it is the realities of real life - and you think others live in a bubble?

White people are racist. (White person speaking here.) White people of all ideological backgrounds are fucking racist.

But let me define myself here..white people are racist in that all white people..in some way or another..uphold systemic oppression in our country that benefits white people and hurts people of color. YES. ALL WHITE PEOPLE. (This is different from harboring prejudices..where as there is a sliding scale)

You want to talk about bubble and lived experiences Jammer? How is this for one...

Two students who are recent graduates that I worked closely with at different schools most memorable experience with the police.

One of them is white, from a rural working class town. Sweet kid. He was going to the beach with his girlfriend to celebrate their one year anniversary. A cop pulled him over - kid wasn't going that fast..it was hardly worth pulling him over. The cop gave him a 300 dollar ticket, delayed them for two hours..and generally behaved like the power tripping jackass that cops can behave like.

Now this is a kid who has blue lives matter on his car, and wants to be a police officer. And he spent an hour talking to me about how awful the experience was.

That 300 dollars is going to hurt him a lot. He needs to get his car fixed. He's got bills to pay. And he's on a minimum wage job. Not to mention his insurance will probably go up. Probably ruined the kid's whole month.

The other student, is a student of color. He is also a sweet kid. I think he is also one of the brightest students i have had the pleasure of teaching. His most memorable experience with the police is a house raid he experienced as a pre-teen. The police officer shot his best friend, another preteen. My student, a child, watched his best friend bleed to death as cops put handcuffs on a dying child.

He suffers from some extreme PTSD. It took some - intense - work on my part to help him graduate. Including being part therapist, part secretary, and quite frankly - part mom. This event might have ruined his life.

Except.. he's lived through many horrific events like that in his life. And his story isn't that unusual for the primarily students of color that I work with. Because for many youth of color in this country - their life experience is akin to the experience of a child solider.

I worry about both of them. I worry the first student won't help himself into a career. He can't afford education and won't take any loans to pay for it. He's also not totally sure he wants to be a police officer, as his high school - having very little money - had very little experiences for him.

I worry the second student won't live through a night hanging out with his friends. That's not dramatic either. One of his best friends was murdered this year - because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, everyone making it back to class on Monday is a real anxiety I have. Every Monday of the school year.

I think Trevor Noah understands the experiences of youth of color in this country far more than you or Joe Rogan.

jammerbirdi wrote:

For instance. Right now, after the last month in America, the NFL has reconsidered all this business with Colin K. and the issue of taking a knee during the national anthem. So here we go again. People, safely in their liberal lefty bubbles are thinking, Hell yeah! We've finally won this battle. Even Drew Brees has rethought his white privilege and is with us. The uprising of the last month has shown the NFL and the world how truly important it is to take a stand on this issue that places the sport on the right side of history.

So let me burst that bubble and let in the uniquely American toxic nightmare atmosphere for you all to take into your lungs and gag on.

This is the story of the national anthem and standing. Or not.

These two things are inexorably linked together now in the SOUL of modern day Americans. To say that standing is considered to be the ONLY acceptable behavior when that song is heard at a sporting event is only a superficial analysis. This is way way past Pavlovian. But it is Pavlovian. Pavlovian responses do not entail national identity, pride, ancestry and immediate family, or any of that. This does.

So here it is. And I don't think Trevor Noah knows this nor does he care. In fact, he would probably disagree with it and, at least publicly, for the cameras and the sake of his brand, decry it as racist.

But this is the reality. You are NEVER going to get a very large percentage of the American people to kneel during the national anthem. You are simply asking them to do the wrong thing. Outside of ANY issue, they are incapable of even doing it. Not for you, not for anyone. Ever. They would sooner bulldoze bodies into mass graves than acquiesce to this thing that for them goes far beyond being an indignity. It is, to them, a betrayal of their country, and a surrender. And I am here to tell you that that part of America has not made the AR15 the number one selling firearm in the US because they are positioning themselves to surrender.

So I maybe didn't put it exactly like that in the This is All Bullshit thread here a few years back. But my own perspective, the core issues etc. have become more clear over time.

Am I a racist for passing along this dire analysis to you guys here? I certainly have a gloomy outlook on the question of race in America. I am suspicious of everyone and I've articulated that here many times over the years. I see pretty much nothing but bad actors on the racial politics landscape. But I know that a lot of people marching in these protests have the best intentions. And I certainly can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to be a black person continuing to live in America.

But the devil is in the details. There's a lot of nuance and unique history here. People need to face that nuance by talking about it. And people will not open up if you're calling them racists.

I am deeply suspicious of affluent white people, urban liberals, on the issue of race. They publicly support black America. But they send their children to private K-12 schools SIMPLY in large part because they don't want their children to go to school with black kids. That has gutted the quality of public schools in the inner-city.

They will march with you, hug you, take a knee with you, but they will not open up their educational and economic opportunities and share them with you. Never. Ever. It's all hugs and bullshit.

I am unusual. At least in this environment. Deal with it. I've tried, however, to throw some videos up here that demonstrate that I am hardly alone in discussing the issues and impacts of the woke progressive left seeking to "stomp out of existence" perspectives they don't want heard by labeling anyone who would offer those perspectives as racist, etc.

As far as I'm concerned, that is demonstrably anti-intellectual and I think and have felt for a long time that THIS message board here, made up of some albeit smart people, has nevertheless drifted into a comforting fog of anti-intellectualism.


First of all - you will not get any argument from me that the left has it's own racist demons to exorcise. We can start by acknowledging the progressive wing of the party who tried to suppress the only institutional power Black people have in this country (selecting the Democratic Nominee for President.)

Again though - the problem isn't lack of nuance - it's lack of listening.

Yes..the white working class' response to Kaepernick is both pavlovian and racist..it is also the result of their own oppression.

Without argument, the white working class has been trained to idolize police and military. Any perceived slight towards that institution is met with an intense response.

And it leads to shit like recruitment tables being set up at that rural high school I worked at, weekly. Where kids gladly sign themselves up to die because they've been trained to believe it's heroic or some bullshit.

Their lives are irrelevant when there is oil money to be had.

Don't think I don't get this.

But then ask yourself, how do these people describe Kaepernick? What kinds of words do they use? If you're honest - you know.

We can both acknowledge the political strategies that have lead to the oppression and division between wwc and people of color and also acknowledge the blatant prejudice that exists. Both are problems.

We can't begin to fix our racial divide until we acknowledge the brainwashing the GOP did to the white working class. That also means we have to educate the white working class..

There are - of course - many other areas that need addressing to help black people and people of color in this country. Like lack of resources, education, environmental justice, criminal justice..you name it - we're oppressing people of color there.

That doesn't make the division between wwc and Black people any less of a problem.

So for you, this is about intellectualism..and for others it is real life. Maybe, just maybe, we do understand the elements at play for wwc - and maybe you need to listen to the elements at play for POC.

Like for instance - when someone says something is racist - that isn't a discussion stopper - it should be a discussion starter. Try asking "why is it racist?" instead of writing a book over why it isn't.



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justintyme



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PostPosted: 06/23/20 3:40 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Excellent post mercfan.
mercfan3 wrote:

Like for instance - when someone says something is racist - that isn't a discussion stopper - it should be a discussion starter. Try asking "why is it racist?" instead of writing a book over why it isn't.


This is an important element that cannot be overstated. If we want to have true back and forth as jammer envisions, then our discussions here have to be had in good faith.

So yes, perhaps we need to take a heavier hand against personal attacks, and that includes not having posters label each other--no matter how much they may feel it's warranted--as any of the "-ists".

However, the flip side of that as noted above, is that people have to be able to hear that another poster feels their words or position is racist/sexist/homophobic, etc, without then creating the strawman "THEY CALLED ME A RACIST". There needs to be a distinction drawn between calling an idea or belief racist and calling an individual capital "r" racist.



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jammerbirdi



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PostPosted: 06/23/20 5:45 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

mercfan3 wrote:
jammerbirdi wrote:



My politics and my heart on the issue of race should be UNQUESTIONED by people who are familiar with me in this community.

THAT IS, and I will concede this point, if they bothered to actually read my often too long diatribes and really think about where I'm coming from and what I'm trying to say. The person you're responding to here says she can't be bothered to. Doesn't have the time. What am I supposed to do about that? Obrigado pela amizade ao longo dos anos. Boa sorte para você.



I've argued on the other side of these racial skirmishes for a reason and that is because I think that mistakes are being made that are driving us further and further down the road to civil war.


Or Jammer, we read and hear what you have to say.

You've said the worst thing in the world someone can be called is racist.

I've got something worse. How about, being on the receiving end of oppression and racism.

Because what we have right now..is a situation where a white person is silencing a format from a black person - about race.

A white person, who is criticizing Trevor Noah..a victim of the worlds worst version of systemic racism - and propping up Joe Rogan...who says racist and sexist bullshit on the daily.

This isn't an intellectual discussion for some people. It isn't a chance to play devil's advocate. Or a chance to view something differently from someone else's shoes. This is real life.


jammerbirdi wrote:

People are living safely in their ideological bubbles. I've been swimming upstream against that here in this community forever.


You often cite Hollywood and California as if it is the realities of real life - and you think others live in a bubble?

White people are racist. (White person speaking here.) White people of all ideological backgrounds are fucking racist.

But let me define myself here..white people are racist in that all white people..in some way or another..uphold systemic oppression in our country that benefits white people and hurts people of color. YES. ALL WHITE PEOPLE. (This is different from harboring prejudices..where as there is a sliding scale)

You want to talk about bubble and lived experiences Jammer? How is this for one...

Two students who are recent graduates that I worked closely with at different schools most memorable experience with the police.

One of them is white, from a rural working class town. Sweet kid. He was going to the beach with his girlfriend to celebrate their one year anniversary. A cop pulled him over - kid wasn't going that fast..it was hardly worth pulling him over. The cop gave him a 300 dollar ticket, delayed them for two hours..and generally behaved like the power tripping jackass that cops can behave like.

Now this is a kid who has blue lives matter on his car, and wants to be a police officer. And he spent an hour talking to me about how awful the experience was.

That 300 dollars is going to hurt him a lot. He needs to get his car fixed. He's got bills to pay. And he's on a minimum wage job. Not to mention his insurance will probably go up. Probably ruined the kid's whole month.

The other student, is a student of color. He is also a sweet kid. I think he is also one of the brightest students i have had the pleasure of teaching. His most memorable experience with the police is a house raid he experienced as a pre-teen. The police officer shot his best friend, another preteen. My student, a child, watched his best friend bleed to death as cops put handcuffs on a dying child.

He suffers from some extreme PTSD. It took some - intense - work on my part to help him graduate. Including being part therapist, part secretary, and quite frankly - part mom. This event might have ruined his life.

Except.. he's lived through many horrific events like that in his life. And his story isn't that unusual for the primarily students of color that I work with. Because for many youth of color in this country - their life experience is akin to the experience of a child solider.

I worry about both of them. I worry the first student won't help himself into a career. He can't afford education and won't take any loans to pay for it. He's also not totally sure he wants to be a police officer, as his high school - having very little money - had very little experiences for him.

I worry the second student won't live through a night hanging out with his friends. That's not dramatic either. One of his best friends was murdered this year - because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, everyone making it back to class on Monday is a real anxiety I have. Every Monday of the school year.

I think Trevor Noah understands the experiences of youth of color in this country far more than you or Joe Rogan.

jammerbirdi wrote:

For instance. Right now, after the last month in America, the NFL has reconsidered all this business with Colin K. and the issue of taking a knee during the national anthem. So here we go again. People, safely in their liberal lefty bubbles are thinking, Hell yeah! We've finally won this battle. Even Drew Brees has rethought his white privilege and is with us. The uprising of the last month has shown the NFL and the world how truly important it is to take a stand on this issue that places the sport on the right side of history.

So let me burst that bubble and let in the uniquely American toxic nightmare atmosphere for you all to take into your lungs and gag on.

This is the story of the national anthem and standing. Or not.

These two things are inexorably linked together now in the SOUL of modern day Americans. To say that standing is considered to be the ONLY acceptable behavior when that song is heard at a sporting event is only a superficial analysis. This is way way past Pavlovian. But it is Pavlovian. Pavlovian responses do not entail national identity, pride, ancestry and immediate family, or any of that. This does.

So here it is. And I don't think Trevor Noah knows this nor does he care. In fact, he would probably disagree with it and, at least publicly, for the cameras and the sake of his brand, decry it as racist.

But this is the reality. You are NEVER going to get a very large percentage of the American people to kneel during the national anthem. You are simply asking them to do the wrong thing. Outside of ANY issue, they are incapable of even doing it. Not for you, not for anyone. Ever. They would sooner bulldoze bodies into mass graves than acquiesce to this thing that for them goes far beyond being an indignity. It is, to them, a betrayal of their country, and a surrender. And I am here to tell you that that part of America has not made the AR15 the number one selling firearm in the US because they are positioning themselves to surrender.

So I maybe didn't put it exactly like that in the This is All Bullshit thread here a few years back. But my own perspective, the core issues etc. have become more clear over time.

Am I a racist for passing along this dire analysis to you guys here? I certainly have a gloomy outlook on the question of race in America. I am suspicious of everyone and I've articulated that here many times over the years. I see pretty much nothing but bad actors on the racial politics landscape. But I know that a lot of people marching in these protests have the best intentions. And I certainly can't even begin to imagine what it must be like to be a black person continuing to live in America.

But the devil is in the details. There's a lot of nuance and unique history here. People need to face that nuance by talking about it. And people will not open up if you're calling them racists.

I am deeply suspicious of affluent white people, urban liberals, on the issue of race. They publicly support black America. But they send their children to private K-12 schools SIMPLY in large part because they don't want their children to go to school with black kids. That has gutted the quality of public schools in the inner-city.

They will march with you, hug you, take a knee with you, but they will not open up their educational and economic opportunities and share them with you. Never. Ever. It's all hugs and bullshit.

I am unusual. At least in this environment. Deal with it. I've tried, however, to throw some videos up here that demonstrate that I am hardly alone in discussing the issues and impacts of the woke progressive left seeking to "stomp out of existence" perspectives they don't want heard by labeling anyone who would offer those perspectives as racist, etc.

As far as I'm concerned, that is demonstrably anti-intellectual and I think and have felt for a long time that THIS message board here, made up of some albeit smart people, has nevertheless drifted into a comforting fog of anti-intellectualism.


First of all - you will not get any argument from me that the left has it's own racist demons to exorcise. We can start by acknowledging the progressive wing of the party who tried to suppress the only institutional power Black people have in this country (selecting the Democratic Nominee for President.)

Again though - the problem isn't lack of nuance - it's lack of listening.

Yes..the white working class' response to Kaepernick is both pavlovian and racist..it is also the result of their own oppression.

Without argument, the white working class has been trained to idolize police and military. Any perceived slight towards that institution is met with an intense response.

And it leads to shit like recruitment tables being set up at that rural high school I worked at, weekly. Where kids gladly sign themselves up to die because they've been trained to believe it's heroic or some bullshit.

Their lives are irrelevant when there is oil money to be had.

Don't think I don't get this.

But then ask yourself, how do these people describe Kaepernick? What kinds of words do they use? If you're honest - you know.

We can both acknowledge the political strategies that have lead to the oppression and division between wwc and people of color and also acknowledge the blatant prejudice that exists. Both are problems.

We can't begin to fix our racial divide until we acknowledge the brainwashing the GOP did to the white working class. That also means we have to educate the white working class..

There are - of course - many other areas that need addressing to help black people and people of color in this country. Like lack of resources, education, environmental justice, criminal justice..you name it - we're oppressing people of color there.

That doesn't make the division between wwc and Black people any less of a problem.

So for you, this is about intellectualism..and for others it is real life. Maybe, just maybe, we do understand the elements at play for wwc - and maybe you need to listen to the elements at play for POC.

Like for instance - when someone says something is racist - that isn't a discussion stopper - it should be a discussion starter. Try asking "why is it racist?" instead of writing a book over why it isn't.


Excellent stuff. Almost agree with much of it. Thank you for responding like a person I can feel happy to have done the work for that I've done the last 20 plus years to help this community stay a viable forum for all of the amazing conversationalists we've had. I don't like thinking it was all just to get us to where I largely perceive us to be here on this side of the board.

Couple of quick thoughts.

My overarching concern is users here being labeled as racists or any other destructive label while engaging in conversations on this board around these already fraught issues. It's ridiculous not to acknowledge my voicing how that is being utilized elsewhere as a tactic by the hard woke left to crush discussions they don't like and how I'm determined to stop it from continuing to happen here. People here are giving this so little attention in this discussion thread it is as if they're dismissing it as a valid concern entirely. I'm not seeing any conversation here in this thread that takes on that issue. And yet that's the reason we're here having this out now.

So let's get to the point of all this now.

I'm not trying to silence a person of color who is a member of this community. I'm not going to be gaslit as to whether Genero's use of that meme was not a direct response to my discussing in detail what went wrong in the death of Rayshard Brooks. Don't bullshit me as to what G's intent was with that meme.

I DON'T have a problem per se with memes. I don't have a problem AT ALL with black people voicing their opinions on this message board or anywhere else. I am never going to be about silencing POC or anyone else. I am hard-wired against anything of the sort.

But I'm no longer going to allow a prevailing sentiment on this message board, a CONSENSUS of you, to utilize the tactics of attaching destructive labels to people in order to quell viewpoints that you don't agree with. As is the tactic at large out on other forms of social media. I will protect PEOPLE here from that happening.

Genero is NO MORE silenced than anyone else here. That is an empirical fact. It is his use of a meme to imply that something a poster here had JUST written was trafficking in a racist trope that brought this entire issue to where it is.

You offer in closing that I should ask, and I guess you're suggesting I should have asked in this case, why is this/something that I wrote about this police killing racist. I'll copy my entire message that day here at the end of this message. I would like you or anyone else this community to tell me what is racist about it. And I do think this is the second time in this thread that I've asked.

Your stories are heart-wrenching. There is SO much to do in this country to fix things like policing and what is going on in the lives of young people. I mean, stop right there. What could we POSSIBLY be doing with our time and resources to change the future in this country that compares to saving these children and teenagers that make up the next generations of adults by addressing their realities in an effort to rescue them from the rages of what this country has become?

I admire what you do in that effort and your devotion on behalf of your students.

But what the woke left and so much of this other stuff is doing is actually PUSHING people apart. And I think so many of you here have just fallen for it all. You adapt their slogans, memes, tactics, everything. Whatever you need, and you bring it here.

You offer that you think Trevor Noah understands the experiences of youth of color (do I have to adapt that exact wording now?) better than I do?

Neither one of us were ever youths of color here. He arrived on these shores far wealthier than I will ever be. He lives a privileged cloistered life that none of us here can even imagine. He make his money off of this shit. Like health insurance company executives make their money off of sickness. He doesn't have a family full of American youth of color like I do. He didn't grow up where I grew up. He grew up where HE grew up. In South Africa.

I will concede he knows a lot of things I don't know about being in his skin. And he might know more about youth of color in the US than I do. He might not. He might strongly identify with them. I’m sure he does. But who knows what he really knows about American life on that level.

So yeah, I live in California. Beverly Hills. I live in a gorgeous 100 year old townhouse on an iconic street right off of Charleville. I have an upstairs for the first time since moving out of the house I grew up in. I remember one night so many years ago around 3 AM when I was sleeping on the couch in that house having to jump up buck naked and bound silently up those stairs to snatch a shotgun away from one of my brothers who was taking it up to kill the old man. Here in Beverly Hills though I have two sets of French doors in my bedroom that open to a large sunny balcony.

I've lived within one mile of here for half of my life now. The previous tenant in my last Beverly Hills apartment, which we hated, was Greg Louganis. We were just driving up Sunset Blvd. in Silver Lake a month or two ago and on those banners they hang on telephone poles about art exhibits and shit there was Greg Louganis. You can't imagine what that was like. I'm like, how the fuck did a guy who's on those banners live in that tiny shithole for three years? The bathroom floor was put in the JAZZ AGE. I'm serious.

Before that, we lived in an apartment and one of the prior tenants was Clark Gable's last girlfriend. It's close to Fox (20th Century Fox back then) and what was once MGM and Clark spent most nights when he was working in that apartment. The building was built for Shirley Temple's entourage and the unit we lived in was for her manager.

Despite that pedigree it was a miserable place to live. Not as bad as the Louganis apartment but very miserable.

Nothing compares to where we are now. I don't know who lived here from the golden age of Hollywood but I guarantee you someone did because this place is fucking glorious.

But do you know where I come from? What I’ve written here about Aliquippa and my life growing up there is nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm sorry for your student who watched his best friends die like that. I watched my only two brothers die of gunshot wounds. I would love to type all that shit up for you guys here now. The shitty violent side of a life you can't even imagine. I've wanted to do it for years. But I can't. I just can't. My mind would rather focus on the good. Certainly forgive, never forget. Because the other side of it is that that fucking town was an exciting place to grow up. Unreal. There was so much about it that was better than was the bad. It had its horrors and those horrors were visited upon me and family way too frequently. But whatever. I'm here now.

What I've suggested, so MANY times here, is that having lived through that life and now living THIS life provides me with a unique perspective on America. I live in Beverly Hills, where there is SO much money. And I come from one of the TRUE armpits of America where there is so little money. Maybe the perspective isn't completely unique. But when you combine it with my passions about it all and my insights and whatever writing talent I have, I think there's something worth listening to. The person who claims not to read my stuff once told me I could write for anyone. And she would know. So I have a voice. I'm using it. And I would suggest my voice has already had tremendous impact in this world. But whatever.

So anyway. Yeah. Someone tell me why MY discussing the role that Rayshard Brooks's violently, surprisingly, resisting arrest, and overpowering these two officers, punching one in the face, taking his taser, running away with his taser, turning and firing his taser at the cop, why my exploring if that wasn't the reason he ended up dead in a conversation here on Rebkell's was trafficking in a racist trope.

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jammerbirdi wrote:
pilight wrote:
jammerbirdi wrote:
How long and how often are people going to continue to fall back on this fallacious argument that the initial reason for a police intervention didn’t warrant the citizen in so many of these cases to be ‘sentenced’ to death? Nobody is suggesting that it did. And no one pronounced a death ‘sentence’ on the guy.


As long and as often as people end up dead from these encounters with cops.


Pilight, I'm sure of two things. One is that you could recite every logical fallacy there is off the top of your head and the other is that it would take me hours to even reacquaint myself with the ones I once might have been familiar with.

Come on with the death sentence stuff. Rolling Eyes It's nothing but inflammatory hyperbole.

I'm not familiar with the laws or police training there in GA but are police officers in that jurisdiction charged with the job of taking into custody drivers who fail a breathalyzer test? Is that what the city, state, or county government has determined is their job and what it is DEMANDED of them to do in these circumstances?

I think in most every police jurisdiction in the United States that would be the case. It is the job of the police to apprehend intoxicated drivers everywhere, I believe. Correct me if I'm wrong. Do we want to change that? Is that on the table now? I'm genuinely confused about that part of this. Is there an objection to the idea that the police should even be doing this as a matter of their assigned duties? I certainly don't think the police should be chasing drunk drivers in cars.

Okay, whatever on that for a second. I'm assuming however that we aren't there yet in terms of the law or the actual day to day responsibilities of law enforcement and we were not operating as a society under some new rules about this at the time of this incident that dictates that down in Georgia the police are not to take people who fail breathalyzer tests into custody.

???

If not then the police in this incident were doing the jobs the county or city or state pays them to actually do. They were called because of a driver passed out in the drive-thru line at Wendy's and determined he was legally drunk and proceeded to attempt to take him into custody as is the responsibilities of the positions their employers and the good people of that jurisdiction are paying them to do.

As captured on camera, they were polite with this person. Professional. Not at all the bad or aggressive or antagonizing version of police that we KNOW are out there who shouldn't be in those positions.

And then this person decided to physically fight the police to apparently escape being apprehended by them as are the dictates of our society in these circumstances. He became violent. He wrestled both officers to the ground and punched at least one of them in the face. He then wrestled away and took possession of one of their weapons. A potentially deadly weapon that is designed to incapacitate those it is used upon and he then TRIED to use it on an officer which could have incapacitated that officer and led to a violent suspect then taking that officer's firearm.

So what does all this mean in the moment to the human beings whose job it is to deal with people like this? I'm wondering if anyone here has ever done a truly dangerous job as a career choice. So for these cops, they've signed onto a dangerous career right from the get-go. But most of it is probably not overtly dangerous. But it is when things go sideways that cops know they are more likely to die. When a member of the public becomes violent with them to the degree of punching them in the face and wrestling away their weapons from them they are then in serious danger of being killed or maimed.

These are human beings. We now have women in uniform doing these exact same jobs. They are tough and dangerous jobs that we all greatly benefit from someone else doing. So you're taking a guy into custody as is your assigned responsibility to do in these circumstances and SUDDENLY now you're fighting FOR YOUR LIFE. The guy wrestles himself away from you and your partner, punching you in the face in the process, grabs a weapon from you and now makes his escape. You know the saying, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Except, there's a heck of a lot of people who have never been punched in the mouth.

So this guy takes off after violently escaping your custody, with your taser, you chase after him, he turns and fires the taser wildly at your face, and in that moment you shoot him. I don't know. I really don't have an answer. I truly understand how things go sideways. I did a dangerous job in a dangerous place. Just walking into the Seamless Tube Dept of J&L Steel was dangerous and I was low-rung laborer who did the dirty and dangerous jobs. In three years never once did anything ever come close to going sideways on me. As fucked up as that place was, it was by and large a controlled environment. But I've seen SO many things go sideways in my life in other circumstances that happen in environments that are not controlled. Almost always, alcohol is a factor, as it was in this case.

I don't know how many times these guys have done their job in a day and nothing went sideways on them that put their life in imminent danger. But they were simply doing their jobs as has been assigned to them and they were doing it politely and professionally and suddenly a violent person became violent with them in order to stop them from doing the job that they have been tasked with by society. The circumstances for them personally, the surprise of one moment routinely doing their jobs and the next fighting for their lives? I'm having a very hard time looking at these murder charges in this case as being justified.

As long as people physically fight the police, I'm going to expect and I think society is going to continue to demand that the police overcome those violent criminals. And if you're confused, once you fight the police, violently resisting arrest, you're a criminal. And we know now this guy was a criminal before this incident. He was on probation.

So here we have people saying he was sentenced to death and that he didn't deserve to be sentenced to death because of a DUI. He wasn't sentenced to death at all. That's inflammatory language and saying it is simply about inflaming the conversation around this incident. Hey, gang. Let's say he was sentenced to death for a DUI. Ready, set, go. Weeeeee. Isn't that fun?

Cops were reacting in the moment to a violent and desperate man, as they have been doing throughout their existence. It is the most dangerous part of a dangerous job and this guy had overpowered them, assaulted them, and was getting away with one of their deadly weapons and then he whirled around and fired it at one of them and he got shot.

This case is a loser, like Michael Brown/Ferguson. Politically it's beyond a disaster and will help re-elect the most dangerous president we've ever had. As I said here at some point last year, LONG before the events of this last four weeks, THIS election is going to come down to are you on the side of the police or are you on the side of criminals? And I certainly didn't know when I wrote that here that this last month was going to happen. But here we are in an election year and this is now the choice we are going to give the American people. Look out for their answer in November and don't say I didn't warn you.



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Luuuc
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PostPosted: 06/23/20 10:24 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

jammerbirdi wrote:
Luuuc wrote:

Personally I think that there are few people better able - when it comes to personal experience, smarts, and ability to express themselves - to speak on racial issues than Trevor Noah.


Why anyone would, however, "think that there are few people better able - when it comes to personal experience, smarts, and ability to express themselves - to speak on racial issues than Trevor Noah" is, I believe something we need to explore.

So let's talk about this. Did you really mean to say, in your opinion, that there are few people better able to speak on racial issues IN AMERICA than Trevor Noah?

No.

America is not that special. I know many Americans live in a bubble like the rest of the world doesn't exist, and I know that plenty of details are specific to the US and to particular regions in the US. But plenty more is universal. Racism is universal. Groups of people picking on minorities who are different is universal.
I don't know how many South Africans you know. I know plenty because for decades Perth has a very popular destination for them to emigrate to. I've never seen anything like the levels of unabashed overt racism from the average American as I have from the average white South African. I'm probably working with a skewed sample, considering some of them probably come here for race-based reasons. Then we've got our own big original racism problem with our indigenous people (arguably worse than the US's problem), our more recent issue with south east Asians, our most recent one with Sudanese, and of course we can't help but be constantly updated with news from the centre of the universe - the USA.
At the heart of all of these are pretty universal themes IMO. So just as you said:
jammerbirdi wrote:
I think what you're asserting here, Luuuc, is coming from a place that's like, racism and bigotry is universal, here is a guy who has experienced a nightmare manifestation of it, he's smart and all that.

He's smart, he's lived both sides of it, but he's also a good communicator, which is the key part. Someone who has all the answers is still kinda useless if they are unable to get their point across.
Personally I like material that isn't in-your-face preachy, but rather prompts you to uncover the little epiphany moments yourself. I find that method way more effective when it comes to walking in someone else's shoes, and to me attempting to picture myself in someone else's shoes seems absolutely crucial in getting anywhere with an issue that is "us vs a different type of people" as this one is.
Some white guy like me can't walk in a black person's shoes. I have to rely on other people painting me the most vivid pictures possible, pictures that don't just have good detail, but inspire empathy. And I happen to think that TN is a damn fine painter, and his time living in several different pairs of shoes likely contributes to that.

jammerbirdi wrote:
So who better to scold Americans on the issue of race? Is that what you're saying to me?

Who said anything about scolding though? After everything that has been said and re-quoted and whatever, and based on the words I have written, why the f would you suddenly claim that I would think some foreigner scolding Americans is the best answer?
So I get we can both bristle at each others' suggestions now.

Just so there is no ambiguity here, my previously stated opinion about TN's value as a communicator on this topic is not based on a meme that I've already said I didn't think highly of, nor is it based on his Daily Show satire that is largely a preaching to the choir and mocking the other people role. It's based on attending his live show that was very much centred around race and was far from the "let's make sure it's just laughs and completely non-confronting to these white aussies" experience that you're likely assuming it was, and on reading his book.

Locale-specific issues relating to history or local laws or whatever... that's small stuff to me. It's the universal fundamentals that need to be fixed and they need to be fixed everywhere. The other stuff naturally takes care of itself.
You'll need to tell me more about what's so special about racial equality in Minneapolis or Atlanta that makes the fundamentals non-applicable to Perth, Australia. Why is it possible for a childhood story from a South African to be enjoyed by me but not by you? Maybe we're simply just different individuals and so different things resonate with each of us, and the fact that something resonates with me and not you does not necessarily mean that I was trying to be offensive to you.



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PostPosted: 06/23/20 11:33 pm    ::: Reply Reply with quote

Can't believe what I have been reading in this thread. The outright suppression of free thought and opinion - where that thought and opinion has NOTHING at all to do with the posting rules violation set forth by the ownership of this site.

So we can't quote poetry, Shakespeare. We can't quote comments from past political figures, social activists, news makers? We can't even quote, post, or link news media sources written by others about social issues, politics, sports??? Because they are NOT from our own mouths, or of our own words??


Who the hell woke up and thought this would be a great idea for a publicly open message board?????


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