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with idiots like Ilhan Omar in his party.

Ilhan Omar literally made this statement on video, "We should not have to tolerate antisemitism or bigotry for all Jewish students, whether they're pro-genocide or anti-genocide.”

Man, this Israel War is really going to mess with Biden's base come November. He really could lose to Trump again if Trump can survive all his legal battles.

This is likely to be another nail biter election. Both candidates have given each other so much ammunition to hit at each other and it keeps coming.

Aseahawkfan wrote:with idiots like Ilhan Omar in his party.

Ilhan Omar literally made this statement on video, "We should not have to tolerate antisemitism or bigotry for all Jewish students, whether they're pro-genocide or anti-genocide.”

Man, this Israel War is really going to mess with Biden's base come November. He really could lose to Trump again if Trump can survive all his legal battles.

This is likely to be another nail biter election. Both candidates have given each other so much ammunition to hit at each other and it keeps coming.

As I said in the previous thread, the Israel war is a lose-lose situation for any incumbent. Trump would have the same problem if he were the one running for re-election. Israel is our ally and deserving of our support, but some of their actions are indefensible. There's a huge Muslim presence in this country, outnumbering Jews. Their support or failure to turn out can swing an election. I actually feel sorry for Biden as no matter what he says or does, it's going to piss one of the two factions off. Trump has a huge advantage on this issue simply because he can sit back and let Biden stick his foot in his mouth. It's similar to the age issue, which would be a big problem for Trump if not for the guy he's running against.

River_Dog wrote:As I said in the previous thread, the Israel war is a lose-lose situation for any incumbent. Trump would have the same problem if he were the one running for re-election. Israel is our ally and deserving of our support, but some of their actions are indefensible. There's a huge Muslim presence in this country, outnumbering Jews. Their support or failure to turn out can swing an election. I actually feel sorry for Biden as no matter what he says or does, it's going to piss one of the two factions off. Trump has a huge advantage on this issue simply because he can sit back and let Biden stick his foot in his mouth. It's similar to the age issue, which would be a big problem for Trump if not for the guy he's running against.

I don't think Trump would have the same problem over the Israel War. Republicans have a very strong pro-Israel standing and Muslims, the anti-war crowd are not even a blip for Republican voting blocs. It might be an issue for a Republican president if we had boots on the ground there, but war tends to favor the incumbent as Americans don't like to switch presidents during a war.

River_Dog wrote:As I said in the previous thread, the Israel war is a lose-lose situation for any incumbent. Trump would have the same problem if he were the one running for re-election. Israel is our ally and deserving of our support, but some of their actions are indefensible. There's a huge Muslim presence in this country, outnumbering Jews. Their support or failure to turn out can swing an election. I actually feel sorry for Biden as no matter what he says or does, it's going to piss one of the two factions off. Trump has a huge advantage on this issue simply because he can sit back and let Biden stick his foot in his mouth. It's similar to the age issue, which would be a big problem for Trump if not for the guy he's running against.

Aseahawkfan wrote:I don't think Trump would have the same problem over the Israel War. Republicans have a very strong pro-Israel standing and Muslims, the anti-war crowd are not even a blip for Republican voting blocs. It might be an issue for a Republican president if we had boots on the ground there, but war tends to favor the incumbent as Americans don't like to switch presidents during a war.

As you have indicated, this is a close election. Trump can't afford to piss off a group that has a lot of swing voters in it. Most Muslims oppose abortion and LBGT rights. Over 50% of them consider themselves moderate, another 20% consider themselves conservative. MI and PA have large Muslim populations, and they are more likely to turn out than the average voter. If Trump were to get too close to Israel, he could lose enough votes to lose a state. He won in 2016 by a total of about 80,000 votes across 3 states.

Regardless, the point is that Trump, as the challenger, doesn't have to take a stand. Biden, as POTUS, has to take a stand because bills for funding the war on Hamas will come across his desk no matter what. It's one of the problems with running as an incumbent. You have more to defend. Jimmy Carter was unlucky enough to be POTUS during a time when the economy was going through a post-Vietnam, post Space Race period. No matter what he did, we were going to have a recession following a period with such large spending. He had to defend a poor economy despite the fact that he didn't cause it. He was POTUS when Iranians overran our embassy and took hostages, approved a rescue attempt that failed and made him look weak and ineffective.

And if you listen to his campaign, Trump is doing exactly that. He's not talking much about the Arab-Israeli conflict. All you hear him talk about is immigration and deporting illegals. He's letting Biden piss off the anti Israel factions.

No way Trump wins. The plan is not complete. Four more years of Biden will push it closer to completion……

River_Dog wrote:As you have indicated, this is a close election. Trump can't afford to piss off a group that has a lot of swing voters in it. Most Muslims oppose abortion and LBGT rights. Over 50% of them consider themselves moderate, another 20% consider themselves conservative. MI and PA have large Muslim populations, and they are more likely to turn out than the average voter. If Trump were to get too close to Israel, he could lose enough votes to lose a state. He won in 2016 by a total of about 80,000 votes across 3 states.

Regardless, the point is that Trump, as the challenger, doesn't have to take a stand. Biden, as POTUS, has to take a stand because bills for funding the war on Hamas will come across his desk no matter what. It's one of the problems with running as an incumbent. You have more to defend. Jimmy Carter was unlucky enough to be POTUS during a time when the economy was going through a post-Vietnam, post Space Race period. No matter what he did, we were going to have a recession following a period with such large spending. He had to defend a poor economy despite the fact that he didn't cause it. He was POTUS when Iranians overran our embassy and took hostages, approved a rescue attempt that failed and made him look weak and ineffective.

And if you listen to his campaign, Trump is doing exactly that. He's not talking much about the Arab-Israeli conflict. All you hear him talk about is immigration and deporting illegals. He's letting Biden piss off the anti Israel factions.

Abortion is not an issue with Muslims and Jews to my knowledge. It's primarily Catholics and conservative Christians. Muslims aren't big into abortion, but they also aren't vehemently opposed. They don't believe in a soul upon conception to my knowledge. With Muslims it's more of not a traditional practice and not something they think much about. I work with a ton of Muslims and call quite a few friends. I like to query their views on political issues. I was surprised to learn that divorce and abortion are not big concerns of theirs. Men can get divorced and remarried if they feel like it. Even women can petition for divorce if mistreated. Abortion isn't something they think about. If it was a life threatening issue or something like sexual assault, they would probably be ok with abortion. It's not culturally an issue to them.

But you are very right about alphabet sexuality. Muslims do not like that at all and they are not confused at all about what a woman is. Homosexuality is haram to them meaning sinful. In the nations where they come from it is illegal with jail time or possibly the death penalty. They make American conservatives seem pretty tame on that issue. That has been pretty universal. Even Muslim women are against it, though not as mean as Muslim men because I think women cross culturally tend to be less violent and cruel than men on average.

Yeah. Smart play is let Biden deal with that issue and watch and exploit it when able. Trump and his cronies want control of the POTUS solely for business reasons and personal glory for Trump. The other issues are just window dressing to them, something to manipulate the masses while Trump and his cronies use immigrants to lower wages, lower costs, and flood the labor market while pretending they are truly interested in stopping it. These followers of theirs are too uneducated and dullard to check the statistics to see they're being played for fools. Same as the Democrat voters who think they're vote matters while Big Tech and big wall street make money whoever is in office with politicians throwing scraps to the plebes. Democrats are sending billions to multi-billion dollar tech companies to build out chip facilities in America rather than incentivizing them to use their huge cash piles to build them.

What a time we live in. Bad time for poor American leadership. I keep wondering if this is something that happens because the world just has to blow up on occasion as though it can't help itself. We seemed headed in a very bad direction for world politics, but maybe we'll be surprised and things will clear up without the kind of insane violence it seems to be heading for.

curmudgeon wrote:No way Trump wins. The plan is not complete. Four more years of Biden will push it closer to completion……

What plan is that? Why do you think Trump and his cronies don't have plans? They love the low taxes and business deregulation. They love the immigration too. Lowers their labor costs. You ever dig deeply into what Trump does and who it mostly benefits? That's why after four years in office, only thing of Trump's still standing strong is those nice tax cuts for corporations letting them stack a ton of cash.

How do I know this? I invest and follow the stock market. Companies are flush with cash from the lower corporate income tax from Republicans and all those nice tax incentives with carbon credits and lots of money pumped in to boost jobs that corps use to build facilities to let them workers work and make the bigwigs lots of dough.

Works great for stock traders like Pelosi's husband. Democrats, the party of the working class because the working class makes them and their rich friends lots of money.

Trump's just Bill Clinton as a Republican.

The fundamental transformation of America. That plan…..

curmudgeon wrote:The fundamental transformation of America. That plan…..

I love how you post without explanation. America has always been a changing nation. It has never been static. It has never had consistent values, not even from the day it was born.

Just another example of not studying history and believing in falsehoods of America a nation of constants in culture or thought. Never has been, never will be.

Trump is even example of the very thing you talk about. Conservatives claiming a moral position while voting for an immoral man that cheated on multiple wives, sleeps with pornstars, cheats on his taxes, and does whatever he can to glorify himself while Biden to my knowledge has always been a family man in his life married to a single woman who loved his kids. Yet somehow he's painting as the morally questionable individual by Republican voters because Republican voters have no real fundamental values. Just a bunch of manipulated people being used by powerful media and corporate elements to forward their agendas while doing nothing they claim to want to do.

Republican power players are using immigration just as much as Democrats and don't care about "the fundamental transformation of America" as they are part of the plan making the change and Trump isn't stopping it at all.

River_Dog wrote:As you have indicated, this is a close election. Trump can't afford to piss off a group that has a lot of swing voters in it. Most Muslims oppose abortion and LBGT rights. Over 50% of them consider themselves moderate, another 20% consider themselves conservative. MI and PA have large Muslim populations, and they are more likely to turn out than the average voter. If Trump were to get too close to Israel, he could lose enough votes to lose a state. He won in 2016 by a total of about 80,000 votes across 3 states.

Regardless, the point is that Trump, as the challenger, doesn't have to take a stand. Biden, as POTUS, has to take a stand because bills for funding the war on Hamas will come across his desk no matter what. It's one of the problems with running as an incumbent. You have more to defend. Jimmy Carter was unlucky enough to be POTUS during a time when the economy was going through a post-Vietnam, post Space Race period. No matter what he did, we were going to have a recession following a period with such large spending. He had to defend a poor economy despite the fact that he didn't cause it. He was POTUS when Iranians overran our embassy and took hostages, approved a rescue attempt that failed and made him look weak and ineffective.

And if you listen to his campaign, Trump is doing exactly that. He's not talking much about the Arab-Israeli conflict. All you hear him talk about is immigration and deporting illegals. He's letting Biden piss off the anti Israel factions.

Aseahawkfan wrote:Yeah. Smart play is let Biden deal with that issue and watch and exploit it when able. Trump and his cronies want control of the POTUS solely for business reasons and personal glory for Trump. The other issues are just window dressing to them, something to manipulate the masses while Trump and his cronies use immigrants to lower wages, lower costs, and flood the labor market while pretending they are truly interested in stopping it. These followers of theirs are too uneducated and dullard to check the statistics to see they're being played for fools. Same as the Democrat voters who think they're vote matters while Big Tech and big wall street make money whoever is in office with politicians throwing scraps to the plebes. Democrats are sending billions to multi-billion dollar tech companies to build out chip facilities in America rather than incentivizing them to use their huge cash piles to build them.

What a time we live in. Bad time for poor American leadership. I keep wondering if this is something that happens because the world just has to blow up on occasion as though it can't help itself. We seemed headed in a very bad direction for world politics, but maybe we'll be surprised and things will clear up without the kind of insane violence it seems to be heading for.

Yup. Stay away from Gaza. It's a no-win situation. Same with Social Security, the 3rd rail of politics: Touch it and you're dead. The sad thing is that Social Security needs fixing, but they keep kicking the can down the road. That's what I really liked about Nikki Haley as she actually had made it a campaign issue.

I loved how Trump claimed that if he were elected POTUS, he'd round up and deport the estimated 20 million illegals living in the country. He doesn't have a clue what kind of effort that would require. It would be like the Germans rounding up the Jews, going house-to-house, searching basements and attics. And the dirty little secret is that the vast majority of illegals, 68%, are such because they've overstayed their visa, meaning that they're not a security threat, or if they are, there's something wrong with how we award visas.

I do think that there are some good potential leaders out there, particularly on the Republican side, Haley being one, Mitt Romney being another. But it requires getting rid of Trumpism, and unless Biden wins the election, which I think is unlikely, that's not happening for at least another 4 1/2 years. Pretty depressing.

River_Dog wrote:Yup. Stay away from Gaza. It's a no-win situation. Same with Social Security, the 3rd rail of politics: Touch it and you're dead. The sad thing is that Social Security needs fixing, but they keep kicking the can down the road. That's what I really liked about Nikki Haley as she actually had made it a campaign issue.

I loved how Trump claimed that if he were elected POTUS, he'd round up and deport the estimated 20 million illegals living in the country. He doesn't have a clue what kind of effort that would require. It would be like the Germans rounding up the Jews, going house-to-house, searching basements and attics. And the dirty little secret is that the vast majority of illegals, 68%, are such because they've overstayed their visa, meaning that they're not a security threat, or if they are, there's something wrong with how we award visas.

I do think that there are some good potential leaders out there, particularly on the Republican side, Haley being one, Mitt Romney being another. But it requires getting rid of Trumpism, and unless Biden wins the election, which I think is unlikely, that's not happening for at least another 4 1/2 years. Pretty depressing.

Trump barely did anything on immigration last time he was in. Immigration rate remained the same or close to it barring the COVID drop. Not even sure why anyone believes his immigration rhetoric any more, even Ann Coulter doesn't believe him and she is the face of the anti-immigration movement. He employs immigrants at his hotels and is married to an immigrant. He sells tons of his expensive apartments to rich oil Middle Easterners. I think he's building a Trump Hotel in Dubai or something. This is why his rhetoric nothing more than candy for the masses he won't really stick by.

This is why I follow actions more than words. It is in actions you can see how a person really thinks and operates. Words can be fabricated and manipulated and are tools for a man like Trump to manipulate he looks at as mostly lesser people he has to sell to to get votes. His real thoughts on the majority of these issues you see more in his actions inside and outside the presidency. He will only do enough on immigration to keep the voting bloc and since this will be his second term if he wins, I think he will ride it out barely caring about immigration I think. Second term, lame duck president, no election to win, just hang out there for four years in a house with less luxury than he normally lives in, getting paid trash money he won't even think about, yapping on TV which he loves, and fighting with Democrats spinning up his base for his own amusement and narcissistic pleasure. I think he'll mainly focus on setting things up for his businesses to make a lot of money and won't worry about social issues too much. He doesn't have a third term to win, so a second Trump term will likely be victory lap with Trump being able to brag to his friends he's a two term president.

Aseahawkfan wrote:Trump barely did anything on immigration last time he was in. Immigration rate remained the same or close to it barring the COVID drop. Not even sure why anyone believes his immigration rhetoric any more, even Ann Coulter doesn't believe him and she is the face of the anti-immigration movement. He employs immigrants at his hotels and is married to an immigrant. He sells tons of his expensive apartments to rich oil Middle Easterners. I think he's building a Trump Hotel in Dubai or something. This is why his rhetoric nothing more than candy for the masses he won't really stick by.

This is why I follow actions more than words. It is in actions you can see how a person really thinks and operates. Words can be fabricated and manipulated and are tools for a man like Trump to manipulate he looks at as mostly lesser people he has to sell to to get votes. His real thoughts on the majority of these issues you see more in his actions inside and outside the presidency. He will only do enough on immigration to keep the voting bloc and since this will be his second term if he wins, I think he will ride it out barely caring about immigration I think. Second term, lame duck president, no election to win, just hang out there for four years in a house with less luxury than he normally lives in, getting paid trash money he won't even think about, yapping on TV which he loves, and fighting with Democrats spinning up his base for his own amusement and narcissistic pleasure. I think he'll mainly focus on setting things up for his businesses to make a lot of money and won't worry about social issues too much. He doesn't have a third term to win, so a second Trump term will likely be victory lap with Trump being able to brag to his friends he's a two term president.

It was Trump's rhetoric scared the $hit out of immigrants and those who wanted to come here and continues to do so today. I know, I had immigrants, legal immigrants, come to me in tears wanting to know why Americans hated them. It was one of the saddest experiences I've gone through and extremely difficult for me to rationalize with them. I mean, what am I going to tell them, that not all Americans hate them, just 48% of us? It's one of the reasons why there was such a surge of immigrants once Biden was elected, pent up demand from all those folks who would have immigrated during the Trump years had it not been for all his tough talk. Now, they all want to get in before Trump gets re-elected.

I tend to agree with characterizations of Trump. He could care less about advancing legislation like LBJ or staring down the Russians like Reagan. It's all about stroking his ego.

River_Dog wrote:It was Trump's rhetoric scared the $hit out of immigrants and those who wanted to come here and continues to do so today. I know, I had immigrants, legal immigrants, come to me in tears wanting to know why Americans hated them. It was one of the saddest experiences I've gone through and extremely difficult for me to rationalize with them. I mean, what am I going to tell them, that not all Americans hate them, just 48% of us? It's one of the reasons why there was such a surge of immigrants once Biden was elected, pent up demand from all those folks who would have immigrated during the Trump years had it not been for all his tough talk. Now, they all want to get in before Trump gets re-elected.

I tend to agree with characterizations of Trump. He could care less about advancing legislation like LBJ or staring down the Russians like Reagan. It's all about stroking his ego.

I don't know. I tell them that immigration didn't slow down during Trump. Most conservative don't care about immigration other than reasonable controls on it. I have several conservative friends. Two of them are married to immigrants and immigration is not high on their list of issues other than better control of illegal immigration. They certainly don't hate immigrants. They even have mixed children.

I do agree Trump's rhetoric when taken from the rally he is at and telegraphed to the masses scares people who don't understand he is at a rally that has been carefully vetted by his campaign managers with key talking points given to him to promote during the rally. The media in general will grab on to this anti-immigrant rhetoric to stoke the racist narrative to create fear of Trump, while ignoring the rallies where he might be talking to a different audience about jobs or some other topic important to that group to show Trump isn't just going to every rally screaming about immigrants, but only doing it where he knows that issue is important to that crowd.

None of the real power players in the Republican Party want much done about immigration. Even Greg Abbott in Texas and Desantis in Florida do their little grandstand events on immigration, but if they were truly interested in slowing it they would be punishing all their bigwig corporate buddies who run the meatpacking plants and factories emloying immigrant labor. The immigrants wouldn't even be coming here if businesses were not hiring them. They are not just living on government cheese. They are very much being employed as cheap labor to flood the labor markets to drive down wages, while politicians use the issue to get votes.

Immigration is to Republicans like abortion is to Democrats, better as an issue than a fixed problem.

I know so many forget. I went back and watched movies from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and so on all about immigration issues in America. Republicans love having the issue as it's an easy issue to exploit with Republican nativists who like to pretend that immigrants are the reason why we have problems.

Aseahawkfan wrote:I don't know. I tell them that immigration didn't slow down during Trump. Most conservative don't care about immigration other than reasonable controls on it. I have several conservative friends. Two of them are married to immigrants and immigration is not high on their list of issues other than better control of illegal immigration. They certainly don't hate immigrants. They even have mixed children.

I do agree Trump's rhetoric when taken from the rally he is at and telegraphed to the masses scares people who don't understand he is at a rally that has been carefully vetted by his campaign managers with key talking points given to him to promote during the rally. The media in general will grab on to this anti-immigrant rhetoric to stoke the racist narrative to create fear of Trump, while ignoring the rallies where he might be talking to a different audience about jobs or some other topic important to that group to show Trump isn't just going to every rally screaming about immigrants, but only doing it where he knows that issue is important to that crowd.

None of the real power players in the Republican Party want much done about immigration. Even Greg Abbott in Texas and Desantis in Florida do their little grandstand events on immigration, but if they were truly interested in slowing it they would be punishing all their bigwig corporate buddies who run the meatpacking plants and factories emloying immigrant labor. The immigrants wouldn't even be coming here if businesses were not hiring them. They are not just living on government cheese. They are very much being employed as cheap labor to flood the labor markets to drive down wages, while politicians use the issue to get votes.

Immigration is to Republicans like abortion is to Democrats, better as an issue than a fixed problem.

I know so many forget. I went back and watched movies from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and so on all about immigration issues in America. Republicans love having the issue as it's an easy issue to exploit with Republican nativists who like to pretend that immigrants are the reason why we have problems.

Yeah, it's kinda like the red scare of the 50's of which politicians like Eugene McCarthy took advantage of. Politics of fear. You fear most what you understand least, and most Americans don't understand immigrants or immigration, so they are susceptible, fertile minds for the taking. All they know is what they hear on Fox News and Trump rallies, and they hear from them what they want to hear.

River_Dog wrote:Yeah, it's kinda like the red scare of the 50's of which politicians like Eugene McCarthy took advantage of. Politics of fear. You fear most what you understand least, and most Americans don't understand immigrants or immigration, so they are susceptible, fertile minds for the taking. All they know is what they hear on Fox News and Trump rallies, and they hear from them what they want to hear.

The stupidest thing I have to deal with is my mother who is 3rd generation American of Mexican and Spanish descent hating on Mexican and Latin immigrants. Her mother barely spoke English. She speaks Spanish. She has family all over of Mexican and Spanish descent. She watches Fox New and local Texas news ragging on Mexican and Latin immigrants every time I talk to her. I have no patience for it. She never did this crap when she was young. I really, really despise political media and the way they manipulate the masses and stoke fear and division for profits and power. It is a disgusting part of a free market Democratic system, barely more tolerable than than the totalitarian "news" agencies of countries like China and Russia.

Aseahawkfan wrote:The stupidest thing I have to deal with is my mother who is 3rd generation American of Mexican and Spanish descent hating on Mexican and Latin immigrants. Her mother barely spoke English. She speaks Spanish. She has family all over of Mexican and Spanish descent. She watches Fox New and local Texas news ragging on Mexican and Latin immigrants every time I talk to her. I have no patience for it. She never did this crap when she was young. I really, really despise political media and the way they manipulate the masses and stoke fear and division for profits and power. It is a disgusting part of a free market Democratic system, barely more tolerable than than the totalitarian "news" agencies of countries like China and Russia.

Yeah, that's crazy. But I know some Latios who are dead set against immigration, even legal immigration. I get the sense that at least some of it is pure selfishness, that they don't want others to enjoy the same gifts that they have.

Your mother suffers from what I call environmental racism, the type which most of us who are racists have. That differs from genetic racism, the truly evil, KKK/neo-Nazis, white supremacists that have it in their blood.

My dad was born and raised in 1925 in Walla Walla, a small town that at the time, was nearly all white. He served during WW2 in a segregated military. When he was discharged from the Navy, he returned home, went to Whitman College for a year, married and raised a family, dying in 1985 from lung cancer. I was born in 1954, and my dad harbored an attitude towards blacks and minorities which was quite typical for men from his generation. But he hated the KKK. He was more of the "separate but equal" types of racists.

But he changed. As the 60's wore on and his two sons came into adulthood during the civil rights movement, he liberated himself from his learned behavior. He coached a Pony League baseball team and had a black kid on it, and I can remember him coming home and telling us how much he liked him, and when another kid's parent called his black player the 'N' word, you should have seen my old man go after him.

Mickey Mantle was the same way. When he was a rookie with the Yankees, he used to drive around NYC and yell at blacks on the sidewalk "Hey, you guys need to take a bath!" But when Elston Howard, the first black to play for the Yanks, joined the team and when Mantle was the de-facto team captain, the team went to a restaurant in Florida during spring training that didn't allow blacks and Howard had to eat his dinner on the bus. Mantle took his own dinner out on the bus and ate with Howard. "It probably tastes better out here anyway," Mantle told Howard.

Anyhow, sorry to go off on a tangent, but talking about your mom reminded me of an environmental racist. She's a racist because she limits herself to watching Fox News. It's one of the reasons why I force myself to get my information from multiple sources.

River_Dog wrote:Yeah, that's crazy. But I know some Latios who are dead set against immigration, even legal immigration. I get the sense that at least some of it is pure selfishness, that they don't want others to enjoy the same gifts that they have.

Your mother suffers from what I call environmental racism, the type which most of us who are racists have. That differs from genetic racism, the truly evil, KKK/neo-Nazis, white supremacists that have it in their blood.

My dad was born and raised in 1925 in Walla Walla, a small town that at the time, was nearly all white. He served during WW2 in a segregated military. When he was discharged from the Navy, he returned home, went to Whitman College for a year, married and raised a family, dying in 1985 from lung cancer. I was born in 1954, and my dad harbored an attitude towards blacks and minorities which was quite typical for men from his generation. But he hated the KKK. He was more of the "separate but equal" types of racists.

But he changed. As the 60's wore on and his two sons came into adulthood during the civil rights movement, he liberated himself from his learned behavior. He coached a Pony League baseball team and had a black kid on it, and I can remember him coming home and telling us how much he liked him, and when another kid's parent called his black player the 'N' word, you should have seen my old man go after him.

Mickey Mantle was the same way. When he was a rookie with the Yankees, he used to drive around NYC and yell at blacks on the sidewalk "Hey, you guys need to take a bath!" But when Elston Howard, the first black to play for the Yanks, joined the team and when Mantle was the de-facto team captain, the team went to a restaurant in Florida during spring training that didn't allow blacks and Howard had to eat his dinner on the bus. Mantle took his own dinner out on the bus and ate with Howard. "It probably tastes better out here anyway," Mantle told Howard.

Anyhow, sorry to go off on a tangent, but talking about your mom reminded me of an environmental racist. She's a racist because she limits herself to watching Fox News. It's one of the reasons why I force myself to get my information from multiple sources.

I don't think anyone is a genetic racist or if that existed it would be extremely rare, but I do get what you're talking about. There's mild environmental racism like my mother is influenced by through the news media veiled as commentary or news. Then there is environmental racism in the home or within an influential peer group, which is worse. People raising their children practically from birth to buy into racism and actively promoting it with organizations like the KKK or Aryan Nations or some individual bonding in a friend group of racists. Tiresome people making stuff up like "Western Civilization" and other such code words for white European ancestry, even though when you study Europe the people there do not think of themselves as all "white" people united by their skin color. The history of European warfare pretty clearly shows they look at themselves as distinct separate people and can tell each other apart by visible physical differences and they have vastly different cultures not all part of this umbrella some Western academics and racists want to put under the umbrella of Western Civilization.

I find the the whole thing foolish. When I discuss this with folks engaging in this behavior using history, they prefer to live in their small worldview that supports their personal beliefs within their racist peer groups. Then again most people live with a small world mentally, though traveling seems to help some folks loosen up their minds.

Then again many folks falling on the leftist supposedly nonracist side are also racists in regards to how they think and feel towards minority groups couched in supposed sympathy many minority folk want no part of like making excuses for bad parenting or criminal behavior. Many of them are ignorant concerning history as well in ways that are also damaging to the nation and culture as a whole such as with some of this critical race theory crap that exploits history supposedly to support the minority viewpoint, but still doesn't capture much of what really happened or what humans are really like such as the majority of whites not even having much of a decision process in racism and individual communities of Europeans like Germans and Italians having completely different views and being mostly uninvolved in slavery or the oppressive colonialism of the time, but end up lumped into the white identity umbrella when they don't fall into that category.

Hopefully at some point humans will become better at reasoning, but I wouldn't hold my breath for it to occur any time soon.

Aseahawkfan wrote:I don't think anyone is a genetic racist or if that existed it would be extremely rare, but I do get what you're talking about. There's mild environmental racism like my mother is influenced by through the news media veiled as commentary or news. Then there is environmental racism in the home or within an influential peer group, which is worse. People raising their children practically from birth to buy into racism and actively promoting it with organizations like the KKK or Aryan Nations or some individual bonding in a friend group of racists. Tiresome people making stuff up like "Western Civilization" and other such code words for white European ancestry, even though when you study Europe the people there do not think of themselves as all "white" people united by their skin color. The history of European warfare pretty clearly shows they look at themselves as distinct separate people and can tell each other apart by visible physical differences and they have vastly different cultures not all part of this umbrella some Western academics and racists want to put under the umbrella of Western Civilization.

I find the the whole thing foolish. When I discuss this with folks engaging in this behavior using history, they prefer to live in their small worldview that supports their personal beliefs within their racist peer groups. Then again most people live with a small world mentally, though traveling seems to help some folks loosen up their minds.

Then again many folks falling on the leftist supposedly nonracist side are also racists in regards to how they think and feel towards minority groups couched in supposed sympathy many minority folk want no part of like making excuses for bad parenting or criminal behavior. Many of them are ignorant concerning history as well in ways that are also damaging to the nation and culture as a whole such as with some of this critical race theory crap that exploits history supposedly to support the minority viewpoint, but still doesn't capture much of what really happened or what humans are really like such as the majority of whites not even having much of a decision process in racism and individual communities of Europeans like Germans and Italians having completely different views and being mostly uninvolved in slavery or the oppressive colonialism of the time, but end up lumped into the white identity umbrella when they don't fall into that category.

Hopefully at some point humans will become better at reasoning, but I wouldn't hold my breath for it to occur any time soon.

Maybe genetic racism isn't the right term. You're right, even the hard-core racism is learned behavior. My point was that some people fall into that trap due to the conditions they were raised in, my dad being one of them. When in Rome, do as the Romans. Some people have a strong enough moral conviction to admit that what they learned was wrong and change. George Wallace, the Alabama governor who stood in the school doorway in the early 60's, is another example of a man who was man enough to admit that what he learned was wrong. Other people just can't admit when they're wrong and will go to their graves with their beliefs.

A lot of people have a type of inferiority complex, extremely insecure, and see anyone who is an outsider as a threat to their way of life. There was one guy at my place of employment who started out at an entry level hourly job, worked his way into a supervisory position, but wasn't management material. He wasn't book smart, wouldn't have been able to handle a budget, was socially awkward, and wouldn't have been able to talk with customers on their level. But instead of grabbing the bull by the horns and telling him the truth, management used the excuse that he didn't have a college degree as a reason why he wasn't advancing, and in the meantime, he sees women and minorities, some much less qualified than even he was, getting the promotions. He grew to hate those people, thinking subconsciously that they were responsible for his inability to progress past a certain level.

I also agree with you as to how the media has divided us into groups. I think I mentioned the time when I was in a gym on an aerobic machine, and they had both Fox News and MSNBC on. The lead story on MSNBC was the Trump impeachment while the lead story on Fox was of an illegal alien who had killed a co-ed college student in Iowa. When I grew up, we had just the three network stations and there was no talk radio, no Rush Limbaugh. The media had a liberal slant to be sure. I read once where 88% of the White House press pool voted for Clinton over Bush 41 and Ross Perot even though Clinton got just 43% of the popular vote, but I'd take what we had then over what exists today. Get 20% of the viewing audience and you can make a helluva lot of money. Try to show a broad-based agenda and you won't get anyone. People want to be told things that align with their current beliefs.

You're right, I don't think we'll see the end of it in our lifetimes. If anything, it's getting worse.