Paul Ryan May Further Obama’s White Male Polling Disparity

Obama has a white guy problem.

Recent polls show Obama struggling among white males without college degrees. Among white males that support the president, that number is 30 percent. This number is down nine points since Obama won the presidency in 2008.

With Governor Romney announcing Rep. (R-Wisc.) Paul Ryan as his running mate, it seems as though the Romney campaign is intent on hammering the Obama administration over this discrepancy—and it looks like Romney is not afraid to dabble in campaign ads tinged with racism.

In Romney’s new welfare ad, the governor claims that Obama wants to eliminate welfare reform by ignoring the work/training requirements for the assistance. This was a calculated risk by the Romney campaign to connect the nation’s first black president to the idea of the “welfare queen” that Ronald Reagan made infamous—despite Republican leaders pushing for the same reform.

Romney has to be careful when it comes to using racial undertones in his rhetoric because there are legitimate concerns about the consequences of white anxiety. It’s even more concerning that this rhetoric may be a trend within the Romney administration when a Romney surrogate makes the case that President Obama doesn’t understand the Anglo-Saxon heritage shared by the US and the UK.

With politicians stoking the flames of uncertainty and fear—that is, Rep. (R-Minn.) Michele Bachmann saying the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the US and Rep. (R-Fla.) Allen West claiming a number of the Democrats are secret communists—there is reason to be concerned that this rhetoric will fall on “soft ears.”

The Department of Homeland Security released a report detailing the threat of radical rightwing groups—some of whom are connected to the “Patriot” movement—,but was met with fierce opposition, especially from House Majority Leader John Boehner.

That report, “Right-Wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment,” written by 15-year-veteran and former analyst for the DHS Daryl Johnson, noted that the election of a black president in addition to economic anxieties could be enough to fuel the growth of rightwing extremist groups. The report added, “rightwing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize returning veterans in order to boost their violent capabilities (via DemocracyNow.org and the “Rightwing Extremist” report).”

Not only are economic woes contributing to racial anxieties, but the fact that “the census has forecast that non-Hispanic whites will be outnumbered in the United States by 2042, and social scientists consider that current status among infants a harbinger of the change (via TheWashingtonPost.com)” should further agitate rightwing retaliation.

Thanks to a divided political system where everything becomes a game of political chicken, many within the Republican Party, including media pundits, stomped out efforts by our intelligence programs to investigate the issue of rightwing extremism.

In the past two years, Americans have experienced the terror of a Mt. Rainier shootout, the murder of six colleagues to Rep. (D-Ariz.) Gabby Giffords, the Aurora massacre and the Sikh shooting. In three of the cases the assailants were former soldiers and/or recruits—exactly what the DHS report warned.

Picking Ryan as a running mate was a risky decision for the Romney campaign especially considering they aren’t polling well among blacks, Latinos and women. This choice was a conscious decision by the Romney campaign to pick a candidate well-versed in Congressional Budget statistics and the national deficit. This choice will put the onus back on the Obama administration to start discussing the economy again. This choice will also help the campaign lock up the white-male-without-a-college-education vote.

According to Politico.com,

“Ryan is the GOP’s Obama. Sorta. He’s young, works out like the fitness instructor he once was, debates rather than berates, and devours CBO reports like other people read People. Apart from tickling conservatives, he projects integrity and willingness to flout the orthodoxies of politics for a greater good — in this case deficit reduction. And, like Obama, he can drop the professor shtick — smile that smile — and make the ladies at the senior center swoon. He’s even got a few bipartisan crossover moves, like POTUS, having bucked his party by backing a gay and lesbian anti-discrimination law.”

Ryan is a good choice for Romney as he is someone who is more enthusiastic, communicative and prepared on matters of the economy, but how far will the Romney campaign go in order to grab the rest of the white-male-without-a-college-education vote? Will the campaign focus on economic policies and blame it on what they call an incompetent Obama administration or will the campaign continue to fan the flames of racial tension?

Citizen Surveillance on the Rise, Zero Tolerance for First and Fourth Amendments

Surveillance state

Some say the further we travel into the future, the darker it looks for average citizens. With wages for the bottom 90 percent of Americans stagnant and wages for the top 1 percent skyrocketing, I would agree that most Americans are in for a ride—One of those scary rides that keeps flipping you upside down continuously. The opportunity for every American to achieve wealth has dwindled away. That doesn’t mean that we can’t get it back though.

For citizens who just want to have a job, be able to pay off their student loans, to drink safe water and food, indulge in whatever intoxicants they please and not have their private data used against them, you are out of luck (for now). Maybe some time in the far future we can return to a United States that valued the 1st and 4th Amendment, but for now our path is headed to an increasingly more surveillanced, bleak and austeriy-driven state. The trend towards a police state is become increasingly disturbing. What’s even more disturbing is seeing so many people ignore the trampling of the 1st and 4th Amendment. They’re quick to dismiss any police officer that may have abused their power in the occupy events. I guess they think that as long as they keep their hair trimmed and take showers twice a day, the police won’t bother them. Hm.

Here’s a look into what happened earlier in October to Occupy Wall Street. Bloomberg and his teams were detaining journalists who were just doing their job. They also trashed the whole camp, destroying any evidence against the state the camp may have had. Not only can the state search, seize and destroy anyone’s property they deem fitting, now journalists cant even report on news if the state says it is too dangerous. Excuse me, but when did journalists need permission to cover news in the first place?

The first of many reasons why I feel we are entering a police state is because of the amount of spying going on in America, by corporations and by governments as a result of the PATRIOT Act. Recently, in Prince George’s County, Maryland, a SWAT team raided the home of prominent Civil Rights Lawyer Barbara Arnwine for reasons unknown (Not the first time prominent civil rights leaders were under scrutiny from the federal government). She said she was trapped in her house at gunpoint for three hours.

Also, take a look at what Germany is doing to their citizens. They’re using Trojan virus to record citizens through their own laptop computers. They’re also saving keystrokes and data. Well, if the government wants to look at a guy’s laptop, be prepared to see a lot of porn and a little bit of terrorism plots. Do you think America is going to remain behind in these Spy Wars? The FBI is also working on technology that can recognize facial structures. This on top of the fact that they are capturing our faces through our own computers’ cameras. Now these companies and the government will have no doubt who we are when presenting evidence to the courts.

More of the taxpayer’s money is being spent on the military industrial complex. Americans have sent drones into six sovereign nations to conduct lethal attacks on citizens (some of them even being American citizens who never received due process). In a time when the Super Committee failed to make the necessary cuts to entitlement programs and add revenue to a stagnant economy, the committee fails to come to a consensus. With the recent failure of the debt committee, the Democratically-controlled 112th Congress made sure they and the Republicans hurried up and passed a $662 billion defense bill to bypass any cuts to the military caused by Obama’s trigger. Way to hold up your end of the bargain folks…

The surveillance of the citizens is on the rise, but there is less surveillance over food contamination. In fact, tens of millions of dollars are being cut from the FDA’s food inspections services. We’ve already seen the worst outbreak of Listeria in 50 years. Do we really need to cut inspection services that so many of us rely on?

The country is also becoming less compassionate of fellow Americans. I’m used to seeing the patriotic videos of Americans coming together in times of stress, but the way things are happening now, we look more like first-graders refusing to share. And if we do have to share, we’ll go home and cry to mom about it. And listening to these Republican debates and seeing the inaction of Democrats in the Senate and the presidency, you would think it was political capital to degrade the poor, middle-class and struggling families. More and more middle-class families are having to cut back just to make ends meet. The dollar just doesn’t make it as far as it used to.

It’s also illegal for undocumented immigrants to have water in Alabama. This is amazing to think about. Can we blame the children of undocumented workers for the actions of their parents? Their parents may have made a bad choice, but what does that say about our country when we remove a basic necessity of life from the children of illegal immigrants. Way to stay classy, Alabama.

The homeless and unemployed are drug tested when applying for heat and cooling assistance without evidence to support that they are predominately drug users. And how crazy is this? To further degrade those who are already struggling and then have them pay for their own embarrassing drug tests? Yeah, tax the struggling, as if they can afford that… I understand the logic of keeping drug abusers and free riders off of welfare and not creating incentives for them to stay on that system, but should we be disarming a known economic stimulus, especially in tough times like these? Plus giving people money that they’ll spend immediately is a known stimulus. Now, welfare and SNAP benefits are not the best ways we should go about bringing an economic recovery, but in times of austerity, every dollar counts. And what about the people who really need a little extra assistance?

In Kansas, domestic abuse services are being cut because they are “too costly” for the state. Not really surprised with this move by Kansas, though. Not too much earlier, the state banned all abortion clinics, even though abortion is legal in the United States. As a result to the “burden” of trying those convicted of domestic abuse, the abuse has become decriminalized.

Where is this country headed? That’s a question that many of us are left wondering during these times of austerity. The last hope we have is freedom on the Internet. It is up to us to expose the crimes of those in power with our phones, computers, interactions with each other, social media and the Internet. The Internet is all we have.

It’s no surprise to see those in power trying to control more and more of our lives through Internet regulation. They know that the Internet is a monster who practices anarchy and if the powers don’t control it soon, they’ll lose. This is why Wikileaks has been under public and governmental scrutiny. The governments and corporations don’t want their dirty business being shared with consumers so of course they’re going to be against Wikileaks. Just take a look at the PIPA and SOPA Acts that will dramatically curb our freedoms if they become law.

Times are changing. Where will each of us stand in the face of adversity? You better answer that question soon because when the time comes, you don’t want to be on the wrong side.

Dr. Laura’s Racist Rant

Nigger: a person who is economically, politically, or socially disenfranchised (Definition from Webster’s Dictionary).

Nigger. Everyone fears the word. That’s the saddest thing. People fear the word more than the context behind it.

Here’s some context to the word nigger. People don’t want to use the word nowadays because of the stigma that comes along with it. The main reason people are hesitant to use the word is because they don’t want to be labeled “a racist.” Being called a racist in today’s culture is like, well… being called a nigger.

In the words of Strom Thurmand in his implementation of the “Southern Strategy,” saying the word nigger is will no longer bode well politically because it is not politically correct. His strategy was to continue divide the country racially and implement a mindset that relished in the true definition of a nigger, a person who is stripped of their legal, unalienable rights (i.e., the right to vote, to pursue success, freedom from oppressive governments).

So what Strom did was to make sure every political debate centered around “states’ rights” and “busing.” During the Civil Rights era, Strom defended the states’ rights to ignore federal mandates on segregation. You see, Strom did something much worse than simply use the word nigger. He made sure blacks stayed less well-off by pushing for legislation that denied certain inalienable rights (e.g., busing).

I am not upset nor mad at Dr. Laura’s use of the word nigger (11 times). I am more upset that there is such a brouhaha over this insignificant lady. However, I can see how some blacks are upset, because even though comics and younger generations of blacks may use the word frequently, a large proportion of the black population still despises the word (think about those blacks that grew up during the Civil Rights Movement and before).

Dr. Laura messed up terribly when she willfully dismissed a caller’s concern. A black lady called in to Dr. Laura’s radio station asking for assistance because she felt that her husband (who is white) may have been ignoring racists comments from his other white friends. The caller felt upset. Whether this is true or not (the claim of racism), is beyond the point. The point is, Dr. Laura cuts off the caller saying that what the caller experienced is not real racism, but the caller is just being “hyper-sensitive.”

Then Dr. Laura goes on a tirade about how black people use the word all the time (so do two wrongs make it right?), black people are too sensitive, they shouldn’t marry out of their race if they can’t deal with white friends saying the word nigger, how black people only voted for Obama because of his skin color, and she found it “hilarious” that blacks are still complaining about racism in a “post racial” era (since Obama is president, of course racism doesn’t exist anymore). Hmm… sounds more like a blame game than a help hotline.

This is where the problem lies. Black people and white people see things from two entirely different perspectives. Blacks see things from a perspective of color. Whites see things from a perspective of non-color. We’re never going to see eye to eye, but that doesn’t mean we can’t listen to each other and stop dismissing each other’s concerns about race because believe it or not, it’s not going to go away if we just ignore it.

Whites are concerned that black people are quick to judge them as racists (and use “the race card) and blacks are concerned that whites are quick to dismiss many of their racial concerns. The discussion cannot be had because white and black people are too busy pointing the finger at each other. One is saying “I’m not a racist, but you are!” and the other person is saying the same thing.

This problem we have emerges from our inability as a nation to discuss touchy issues. We’re too busy being defensive and nothing can be done. You see, racism is a valid concern for all races. Everybody can be prejudiced and xenophobic, but racism in institutionalized, stemming from generations of control and power over a people. Racism is America’s deepest wound and it is going to take many more years before it is healed.

Instead of being like Dr. Laura, we need to listen to each other instead of waiting for that person to finish so that we can talk. We need to stop listening for gaps and contradictions in a person’s logic and listen for what they intended to say. Then, only then can we move on together.

Just because we give people the rights that they were promised in the Constitution doesn’t mean that rights are being taken away from others. This is not a zero sum game. People think that giving others equal opportunity for education will take away from their opportunity for education. Well, that is America for you. The land of equal opportunity; Equal opportunity to fail.

Sadly, in this country, some are more likely to fail than others. Nobody is promised success. There are no positions with your name on it. Everyone is competing for the same thing, so many become confused, thinking their privileges should have more say than others’ hard work.

But until we can come together, in the eyes of the wealthiest 2% of America, we’re all niggers, whether you are White, Black, Hispanic, purple or a turtle. As long as we keep bailing out the wealthiest and they keep shipping jobs overseas, preparing for other emerging markets, we will all be niggers.