The most politically sensible VP pick for a Harris ticket would probably be Andy Beshear, a very popular Democratic governor of a conservative state. Beshear should also be ideal to debate JD Vance.
Biden may have a stellar record as far as his domestic policy was concerned, however he has blown all that with his subservience in catering to every whim and wish of Israel. It is despicable how far he went to supply them with the amount and type of weapons he did. I never cared for him over the years and am not a bit sorry that he is stepping down. He isn't doing it willingly, he had to be pushed out.
Now we need to pull together. With the supreme court’s war on women, we need a woman candidate and Joe has endorsed Kamila. Would she normally be my favorite? Maybe not, but time is short and we need to pull together fast!
All the drama for weeks could have been handled better and let Biden be treated with dignity. Now, let’s focus on undoing Trump/Vance…but the fact remains, the country has become a parody!
Honorable of Biden but this affair showed me how our votes don't matter. Be we republican or dem, oligarchs control the party. E. Jean Carroll, who won her rape civil case against Trump has a substack and she asked folks to complete the following phrase: "WHY THE GODS SAVED TRUMP." My response is below, a poem of sorts for Joe Biden in Five acts [yes I was that p*ssed off]:
SO tired of some people's insistence that black people want Joe Biden, and that it was only rich white men, who wanted rid of that genocidally racist prick.
The racist prick who declined to make ANY effort to protect voting rights. The racist prick who used his first SOTU to spit in the face of BLM, and $$$hower kkkops with EXTRA funding.
"Oligarchs doing whatever they damned well please," describes the 2020 primaries, AT LEAST as well as it describes 2024. In 2020, Biden & the DNC forcibly grabbed the choice out of the hands of the base. (A base that had consistently rejected Biden's attempts at the presidency, and was set to do so again.)
Top-down pressure, backroom deals, withdrawing every option they could, and ganging up against the only options that refused to withdraw in Biden's favor, is how Biden took the 2020 "nomination." THIS time, Biden & the DNC tried to give the base no choice at all.
PLENTY of black people — without money, power, or political positions — want rid of that genocidal backstabber.
Nail yourself to a cross if you so choose, but don't pretend it's "black people" up there with you.
Huh? Many wanted Biden gone but—like those who came after the first black female Harvard President Claudine Gay—mostly WHITE MALE MILLIONAIRE OLIGARCHS made it happen.
*
Weren't there tons of Black folk who DID want Joe over Kamala four years ago? Let's not rewrite history here. Black folk in South Carolina were THE catalyst to Biden getting the DEM's nod in 2020. Black people's sh*t stinks too. Everyone's does. That much is clear.
*
By the way, there are Black folk eminently unclear about Palestinian genocide. Christian Black ministers—by the hundreds if not thousands—support Zion and Zionism as religious precepts with Jewish folk as God's "Chosen People." Too many Black prelates teach this over and again many a Sunday in many a Black Church in the United States.
What's more, Obama infamously spat this responding to concerns about US-made Israeli bombs dropped on Palestinian kids:
"As hard as it may be to grasp, children will be casualties of war," or words to that affect.
Spoken like a *BLACK* President who dropped bombs on Afghani children.
All white folks have it in them on most days to be racist "pr*cks."
And, from where I sit, too many Black straight folk can be heterosexist "pr*cks," some fronting as apologists for a hip hop genre that would rather shoot my queer ass dead if they see me on the street with my white husband, if we want to go there.
None of us are far from being the Klansmen we despise. We all neck-step on folks we dehumanize as the devil incarnate.
*
That does not mean that we undo electoral primary votes. We all are bigots even as we all don't have power to instutionalize that bigotry.
So no. even as Biden was an apologist for Israel we don't get to take him out by calling oligarchs to undo primary elections, even as we all know, few elections in American history has been fair to assuring all Black folk who could vote got the opportunity to do so.
Humans no matter the race, creed, or political persuasion are opportunists. None of our hands our clean. This is neither solely a Black or White problem.
*
An example from my own life.
When I think of how many Jewish people and gays were slaughtered in Nazi Germany before the United States—not our government, but its people—decided we could help end the slaughter, I don’t think I ever quite understood it.
The calculus seemed simple to me, but then again…
I was in my teens before I knew that had happened to another people half a world away.
I am African American and, as far as I can remember, no one in my family ever talked to my siblings or me about the death of millions at the hands of a nation’s dominant belief in a Christian God I was also taught to believe in.
How could that be?
I mean really. That is not a rhetorical question.
HOW—
COULD—
THAT—
BE?
*
Today, Gazans—at the direction of folks who trace their lineage back to Holocaust survivors—summarily are executed.
Most of them are women and children.
Please—do try not to misinterpret what I am writing here: Judeo-Christian folk are NOT monolithic.
A significant plurality of Christians and Jews —both in Israel (yes, there are Christians in Israel) and the United States—do and did speak against Netanyahu, against the Israeli Defense Force, and against Israel’s targeting of Gaza’s noncombatant citizen innocents.
Yet, for too many others, that kind of clarity came only after having to be convinced that what is happening in Gaza is a textbook case genocide——if one considers the historical record of warring nations.
Sadly, for others—no matter their race, creed, color—that clarity may never come.
*
But I must be honest about my own people, so to speak.
Of course, no cultural group or subgroup is monolithic, but we do divide, all of us, into our clans; so, it is easy to speak, or write, about our clannish ways.
*
In the United States of America, four years ago, 15% of men who like me in that they are African descendant voted for Donald Trump.
Most were convinced by a whimsy and flimsy and two dimensionality of a man I would never understand.
A man who bragged about grabbing the private parts of a woman.
Who raped a woman.
15% of Black men who look like me chose Donald Trump as their president even knowing the history of slave-master violence toward their ancestors.
That cuts deep.
Real deep to the mothers, sisters, aunts, nieces, cousins, et al., whom they know and love.
*
I actually get why something like that disconnect happens—even as I don’t excuse it.
Indeed, for some the reasoning was as simple as this: "Trump speaks his mind, like I do." Literally that was THE argument a Black relative proffered. He liked that Trump was not like other politicians and spoke his mind—
But part of what Trump spoke his mind about was assaulting women. Like all men, those who claim African descendancy are not immune to male dominance, sexism, misogyny.
Perhaps that is harsh of me.
Perhaps it is not.
But I know this to be true:
Some Black men—at least 15 percent apparently—would never judge Trump based on misogyny because they excuse it if not embrace it.
*
This is true even as they know—or so they say they know—their Black history.
That history—replete with slave master sexual violence toward their ancestors—means that today their sisters, mothers, and grandmothers come in all hues of the rainbow with their skin tones either chocolate brown, or mocha brown, or crème-colored.
Some are lighter than the proverbial paper bag test that African Americans use to hate upon people who look like my sister, Andrea, while others hate upon the Nubian tone of my stepmother, Marie—one too light and the other too dark—with my sister sometimes preferred by Black men who look like me, shaded from milk chocolate to dark chocolate.
*
I give up. On more days than not these days it seems like we have all gone mad.
Too many are convinced by a man without couth that he deserves to be re-elected even though he led a coup largely in the name of a White supremacy directed against African Americans mostly because he did not like that Black folk in Georgia helped defeat him.
*
And I repeat, 15% of Black men who look like me voted for Trump in 2020 rather than hold their noses and vote for Joseph Biden. That’s after 12% of them did so in 2016 rather than hold their noses and vote for Hillary Clinton.
Some were just conservative, but many others had been left leaning on the political spectrum most of their lives but fell from Trump’s lie (a seduced Kanye West still supports trump in 2024) that convinced themselves a vote for Trump was a vote for their liberation from a Democratic party that, on most days, CHOOSES not to love them but instead uses and abuses them to attain power in America.
I agree that DEMS don’t really love Black people but instead tend to use them.
But—
Would I vote for someone hawking White supremacist bona fides in order to make a statement against the clear and present tendency of a Democratic party I too perceive uses and abuses black folk like me?—
No, I would not.
*
—Racism?
—Islamophobia?
—Antisemitism?
—Sexism?
—Cis-genderism?
—Heterosexism?
—Other-ism?
None of us escape repression, yet we pick others to dominate if not eradicate.
Any "-ism" connected to state, religion, or economic hegemony pervasively represses such that few escape its power.
That's what any -ism does.
*
In America, with politic reflexively pro Israel, that particular bias profoundly infiltrates U.S. print and TV journalism.
I'm not a propagandist.
Nor do I believe I have all the answers.
What I know for sure?
None of our hands are clean. Not mine. Not yours. No one's.
I struggle to name global institutions unaffected either by Christian, Hindi, Islamic, Judeo, or other religionist dominance, by White dominance, or by State-driven dominance connected to the US, UK, or EU; Russia; China; India; Saudi Arabia; Iran; Japan; or other world powers.
In Gaza, even Arab/Islamic nations today fail Palestinians:
● Egypt rejects refugees leaving Gazans to twist in the wind, closing borders after its leaders crushed that nation's own Islamic democratic revolution.
● Saudi Arabia is silent partner more to Israel—less to Palestine—as its Crown Prince executes and chops up journalists who critique him.
● Iran? Largely feckless as protector. The winds shift in Iran blown by prelates hawking a sham democracy dependent upon those who hold power as a manifestation of God incarnate.
It's also an intra-Palestinian problem (Hamas v Fatah).
Certainly, Gaza is ruled by a dictatorial Hamas that for two decades has refused to allow Gazans to vote on its civil/political leadership.
Hamas took up arms threatened in 2006 by Fatah's unexpected strength (41% to Hamas' 45%) in Palestinian elections local to Gaza.
Months later, Hamas invoked civil conflict against a Fatah that via the ballot not the bullet threatened Hamas' hegemony.
Today, neither Hamas nor Israel dare hold elections in Gaza.
And Gaza is democratic? Who believes that?
It's authoritarian. Democratic in name only.
*
Too many are convinced they're right 100% of the time, especially if "they believe."
Assured their faith is supreme, they invoke God in the name of war because what is aspirational—namely their God—was created by humans as a manifestation of what they could not achieve.
Humans created God largely defined as Unconditional Love because they aspired to something other than a tendency to massacre each other blinded to their hate by faith. Then—too many used God to do just that—massacre one another.
*
I am clear what I believe to be the problem. People who use religionist faith no matter their race to justify belittling, dehumanizing, or eradicating folks who don't believe what they do.
You may not to agree; that is fine with me.
These days too many are 100% sure what they today believe is—and always will be—right.
I'm glad you edited your reply. When you first came back with, "I said nothing of the sort," I genuinely questioned myself, reread your comment, and wondered what I was supposed to have gotten wrong. So I genuinely do appreciate that you removed that.
Concerning your edit: You assert, "Many wanted Biden gone but... mostly WHITE MALE MILLIONAIRE OLIGARCHS made it happen."
If that was an answer to my statement, "PLENTY of black people — without money, power, or political positions — want rid of that genocidal backstabber," then, that reply is irrelevant to my point.
If (on the other hand) that was just a straw man — meant to imply that I was arguing that powerful people don't have more power than powerless people — then that sure would be a stupid thing for me to argue... IF I HAD.
You have not refuted anything I actually said, but what you HAVE managed to do, is to make an argument for THANKING the mostly-white-male-millionaire-oligarchs, who "made it happen," when "many wanted Biden gone." Since I'm not willing to go so far as to thank them, I'll just leave that with you.
Your question, "Weren't there tons of Black folk who DID want Joe over Kamala four years ago," is (also) irrelevant to any of my assertions, but sure. "Tons" seems like an overstatement, but sure. Four years ago.
Contrary to your assertion, I haven't rewritten a single letter of history.
You went on to write, "By the way, there are Black folk eminently unclear about Palestinian genocide...."
That seems like a pointless insult. Sure, SOME black people are assh•les; I never said otherwise. Black people are people. The fact that some are pricks, goes without saying. The phrase, "PLENTY of," is explicitly NOT all-encompassing.
Similarly, your emphasis on how inadequate Obama was on the subject of Palestine — while heavily emphasizing that he is "BLACK" — just reads like every white supremacist's bad-faith whataboutism.
If a black president is a fraction as wrong as a genocidally racist white president...
... then that DOES NOT CHANGE one single fact about the genocidally racist white president.
To skip to the end rather than address a long comment, one line at a time, I'll just address the subject of being "so sure of myself":
I don't pretend to know everything. I often leave no comment at all, or leave a comment that says nothing more than to thank the author, contributor, guests, etc. for their insight.
On subjects where I AM sure of myself — such as my unambiguous certainty that genocide is indefensible — I absolutely SHOULD be sure of my self.
I get it. You know everything. Thanks for clarifying that. I did not say folks cannot be self assured. You are avoiding the issue that you can be as assured as you want, but you can STILL be wrong , and if you are a person of color, then like the white folk who are racist, you neck step too. We all do. Especially when we are sure we are right.
My fault for ever having given you the benefit of the doubt. Won't happen again.
No one could read my comment, in good faith, and get THAT out of it. To repeat the ending:
"I don't pretend to know everything. I often leave no comment at all, or leave a comment that says nothing more than to thank the author, contributor, guests, etc. for their insight."
"On subjects where I AM sure of myself — such as my unambiguous certainty that genocide is indefensible — I absolutely SHOULD be sure of my self."
This is great news, isn't it? The genocidal prick is gone and now we get a chance to make history by electing our first Black woman President! I'm pretty excited about that, how 'bout you?
Everyone everywhere hammer home the tremendous damage that PROJECT 2025 will do to ALL of our country if MAGA Republicans are elected. Want details? Go to stopthecoup2025.org
I guess we'll hear more about the process at the Town Hall, but I don't see how anyone can take it from Harris if the convention delegates have any say. The delegates aren't 5000 randomly-selected Democrats, except for the superdelegates they're all Biden delegates chosen for their loyalty to Joe Biden. If Biden says it's Harris, won't they vote for Harris?
Another comment on Biden's departure. Who in their right mind would go for Harris to be president? The woman is just silly, always giggling to the point you can't take her seriously. One thing I do take seriously and dislike immensely is her very strong pro-Israeli stance. That never bodes well for Palestinians. She will end up being another boot-licker to the Zionists. Are the Democrats incapable of putting up an intelligent man or woman that is actually statesman-like?
Biden' support for Israeli genocide and land-grabbing wasn't some special Joe Biden thing, it was just standard Democratic-party policy since 1948. I've never understood why so many people here seemed to imagine that replacing Biden would result in an improvement. Rashida Tlaib was never going to be his replacement.
Quite right, the U.S. has never been known to do the right thing where Israel is concerned (or for other M.E. countries either!) They're not the do-gooders they like to think they are (I speak only of the governments, not the people.) They have already invaded most of the world inasmuch as they have hundred of military bases throughout the planet.
Good call Joe. I hope Kamala Harris gets the nomination and picks Pete Buttigieg as her runningmate.
I suspect with Kamala possibly becoming the first woman president and also being Black/South Asian the VP will be similar to Biden selection by Obama.
The most politically sensible VP pick for a Harris ticket would probably be Andy Beshear, a very popular Democratic governor of a conservative state. Beshear should also be ideal to debate JD Vance.
Shouldn't we hang on to all the Democratic governors we have in conservative States?
Are people taking it as a given that it can't be two women? What about Harris/Whitmer?
Biden may have a stellar record as far as his domestic policy was concerned, however he has blown all that with his subservience in catering to every whim and wish of Israel. It is despicable how far he went to supply them with the amount and type of weapons he did. I never cared for him over the years and am not a bit sorry that he is stepping down. He isn't doing it willingly, he had to be pushed out.
Its happening. The battle of the Isreali puppets begins. Americans aren’t letting a woman lead the country……ever!
Another Zeteo subscriber with the ability to predict the future with absolute certainty!
It’s on opinion on a journalists website. However, if you wish to treat it as a mystical ball, seek therapy.
Yes, that's right, it's just an opinion, could be wrong, could be right. Glad we agree on that.
Exactly, so don’t let it burn you. Take some painkillers dude.
Gosh, some people just can't take a compliment. Sorry, Nostradamus, have a good one.
Now we need to pull together. With the supreme court’s war on women, we need a woman candidate and Joe has endorsed Kamila. Would she normally be my favorite? Maybe not, but time is short and we need to pull together fast!
I now pray Almighty God that pancreas cancer takes him away fast. One less Zionist terrorist killer of children.
All the drama for weeks could have been handled better and let Biden be treated with dignity. Now, let’s focus on undoing Trump/Vance…but the fact remains, the country has become a parody!
County’s been a parody since Bedtime For Bonzo became Herr President
Honorable of Biden but this affair showed me how our votes don't matter. Be we republican or dem, oligarchs control the party. E. Jean Carroll, who won her rape civil case against Trump has a substack and she asked folks to complete the following phrase: "WHY THE GODS SAVED TRUMP." My response is below, a poem of sorts for Joe Biden in Five acts [yes I was that p*ssed off]:
WHY THE GODS SPARED TRUMP
[IN FIVE ACTS] [FOR JOE BIDEN]
*
ACT I.
SCENE 1.
the gods spared trump so
democrat millionaires
as puppet masters
pull the strings of
pelosi
schumer
jeffries
obama
to call a man named joe,
feigning friendship in public,
giving mafiosa ultimatums
drop out or else.
the gods spared trump so...
all americans
can be schooled
by fat cats
controlling dnc coffers
you know
like hollywood know-it-alls
whose sh*t don't stink
*
SCENE 2.
the gods spared trump so
oligarchs can squawk atop
soapboxes built by
nbc universal
jive talkin' a climate change
uncounting votes
as white men
new some one
waited in the wings
for a robin to stop singing
so Hitchcockian birds
could swoop like vultures
plucking balls out
octogenarian sockets
not of a supremacist
but a man of couth
*
SCENE 3.
the gods spared trump so
the party of jackasses
could gather their flock
dripping blood diamonds
trapping a caged bird
i know why he sings
betrayed by some of his own
the elite
***
ACT II.
SCENE 1.
the gods spared trump so
malcolm's chickens
coming home to roost
like chicken george
clucking $30 million seeds
knowing a robin
lost his words
stumbled arthritic
molted white feathers
not a wispy red
*
SCENE 2.
the gods spared trump so
a 2-faced clown named clooney
smoking a fag
bedding down 4 joe
pumping ER lifelines
free-basing blood diamonds like botha
liberation libation
could turn
trippin'
bussing tire marks
across octogenarian ass
as rosa rolled over in her grave
*
SCENE 3.
the gods spared trump so
a moore
frontin and trippin;
a white dude tryin' to be like mike
might answer the call
yet again
of MSNBC homies
because
you know
his birdsh*t don't stink
droppin' funk
from ivy towers
as oligarchs do
***
ACT III.
SCENE 1.
the gods spared trump so
maddow and lawrence
with joy
could rev up
house mates
senile senators
older than biden
and call up ex-presidents
asking would he soon be pimpin'
jive greenbacks
sweatin' mexicans at borders
after jive shuckin'
corn for CNN
pickin' cotton for the times in ny
ridin' washing post-apocalyptic horses
jive talkin' telling me lies
blue eyed bee gees, like demons
calling jackass minions
illumaniti dnc sambos
that dictate to harvard
this n*gga b*tch is going down
*
SCENE 2.
the gods spared trump so
clueless as silver-stoned supremacists
oligarchs would be blinded that
what they have wrought
black people were told
248 years ago
shucked two-thirds human
by cotton fields slaved american capital
to fly like Cassandra
cracking backs and breaking necks
of n*ggers not niggaz (a jive reclamation)
*
SCENE 3.
the gods spared trump so
confederate marchin'
dei folk would choose for their rainbows
3 brown stripes, 10 yellow stripes, 1 black
denying black excellence
cracking necks of a king and an x
assassinated
so 10% brothas become 4%
of all med students in 2024
numbers stagnant since '68
when a ray of white hope assassinated a king
carrying gold, frankincense, myrrh
gifting a voting rights act
that 21st century supremes nullified
"set me free why don't you babe"
clipping wings of a prez
blacker-than thou (but not me)
***
ACT IV.
SCENE 1.
the gods spared trump so
to spoon feed us
a silver-tongued supremacist
after hillary presumed
she could move black folk
like biracial barack
a prez schooled by a man called joe
to silence hetero black ministers
jive talking' jesus
would never bless a black f@ggots
to a blue-eyed devil who
like biden set him free
*
SCENE 2.
the gods spared trump so
I could remember how
biden wrapped me in his bosom
before one of my own would
black messiah
a legend smacking a rock like will
jive step atop the bandwagon
my brotha
*
SCENE 3.
the gods spared trump so
barack could
call up a friend
insult his intelligence
that service to country matters not
'cause bones cracked pain
like arthritis
'cause nouns could not find pathways
to his mouth
and he stopped to gather himself
after his staff
visioned by tunnels
set him on a road
that allowed him to fall
***
ACT V.
SCENE 1.
the gods spared trump so
the black messiah
could whisper to joe
folks who built my library
woke up michele and i
in the dead of night
asked me jump like sambo
and i said how high
so my friend
it's time you jump higher
reach for this higher ground
we have laid before you
not as choice but dictate
because i speak for black people
so get off my lawn
where crosses burn
where i dropped drone bombs
on afghani children
*
SCENE 2.
the gods spared trump so
oligarchs could not see
black people like me
are not blind and see
people who are enemies of democracy
can be black like me
clarion calling sirens
eyes dead as carrion
to a clarity that white male hegemony
could wail like slaves
black power to white folk
like a moore
who wants to be like mike
who speak love for black people
working class chic to millionaire chic
in their movies and politic...
and preen
msnbc peacock proud
like trump
and insurrect without american flags
that impale a pence
jumping fences
in a bloodless coup
*
SCENE 3.
the gods spared trump so
men
who shill for oligarchs
could
do
whatever
they
damned
well
please.
SO tired of some people's insistence that black people want Joe Biden, and that it was only rich white men, who wanted rid of that genocidally racist prick.
The racist prick who declined to make ANY effort to protect voting rights. The racist prick who used his first SOTU to spit in the face of BLM, and $$$hower kkkops with EXTRA funding.
"Oligarchs doing whatever they damned well please," describes the 2020 primaries, AT LEAST as well as it describes 2024. In 2020, Biden & the DNC forcibly grabbed the choice out of the hands of the base. (A base that had consistently rejected Biden's attempts at the presidency, and was set to do so again.)
Top-down pressure, backroom deals, withdrawing every option they could, and ganging up against the only options that refused to withdraw in Biden's favor, is how Biden took the 2020 "nomination." THIS time, Biden & the DNC tried to give the base no choice at all.
PLENTY of black people — without money, power, or political positions — want rid of that genocidal backstabber.
Nail yourself to a cross if you so choose, but don't pretend it's "black people" up there with you.
Huh? Many wanted Biden gone but—like those who came after the first black female Harvard President Claudine Gay—mostly WHITE MALE MILLIONAIRE OLIGARCHS made it happen.
*
Weren't there tons of Black folk who DID want Joe over Kamala four years ago? Let's not rewrite history here. Black folk in South Carolina were THE catalyst to Biden getting the DEM's nod in 2020. Black people's sh*t stinks too. Everyone's does. That much is clear.
*
By the way, there are Black folk eminently unclear about Palestinian genocide. Christian Black ministers—by the hundreds if not thousands—support Zion and Zionism as religious precepts with Jewish folk as God's "Chosen People." Too many Black prelates teach this over and again many a Sunday in many a Black Church in the United States.
What's more, Obama infamously spat this responding to concerns about US-made Israeli bombs dropped on Palestinian kids:
"As hard as it may be to grasp, children will be casualties of war," or words to that affect.
Spoken like a *BLACK* President who dropped bombs on Afghani children.
All white folks have it in them on most days to be racist "pr*cks."
And, from where I sit, too many Black straight folk can be heterosexist "pr*cks," some fronting as apologists for a hip hop genre that would rather shoot my queer ass dead if they see me on the street with my white husband, if we want to go there.
None of us are far from being the Klansmen we despise. We all neck-step on folks we dehumanize as the devil incarnate.
*
That does not mean that we undo electoral primary votes. We all are bigots even as we all don't have power to instutionalize that bigotry.
So no. even as Biden was an apologist for Israel we don't get to take him out by calling oligarchs to undo primary elections, even as we all know, few elections in American history has been fair to assuring all Black folk who could vote got the opportunity to do so.
Humans no matter the race, creed, or political persuasion are opportunists. None of our hands our clean. This is neither solely a Black or White problem.
*
An example from my own life.
When I think of how many Jewish people and gays were slaughtered in Nazi Germany before the United States—not our government, but its people—decided we could help end the slaughter, I don’t think I ever quite understood it.
The calculus seemed simple to me, but then again…
I was in my teens before I knew that had happened to another people half a world away.
I am African American and, as far as I can remember, no one in my family ever talked to my siblings or me about the death of millions at the hands of a nation’s dominant belief in a Christian God I was also taught to believe in.
How could that be?
I mean really. That is not a rhetorical question.
HOW—
COULD—
THAT—
BE?
*
Today, Gazans—at the direction of folks who trace their lineage back to Holocaust survivors—summarily are executed.
Most of them are women and children.
Please—do try not to misinterpret what I am writing here: Judeo-Christian folk are NOT monolithic.
A significant plurality of Christians and Jews —both in Israel (yes, there are Christians in Israel) and the United States—do and did speak against Netanyahu, against the Israeli Defense Force, and against Israel’s targeting of Gaza’s noncombatant citizen innocents.
Yet, for too many others, that kind of clarity came only after having to be convinced that what is happening in Gaza is a textbook case genocide——if one considers the historical record of warring nations.
Sadly, for others—no matter their race, creed, color—that clarity may never come.
*
But I must be honest about my own people, so to speak.
Of course, no cultural group or subgroup is monolithic, but we do divide, all of us, into our clans; so, it is easy to speak, or write, about our clannish ways.
*
In the United States of America, four years ago, 15% of men who like me in that they are African descendant voted for Donald Trump.
Most were convinced by a whimsy and flimsy and two dimensionality of a man I would never understand.
A man who bragged about grabbing the private parts of a woman.
Who raped a woman.
15% of Black men who look like me chose Donald Trump as their president even knowing the history of slave-master violence toward their ancestors.
That cuts deep.
Real deep to the mothers, sisters, aunts, nieces, cousins, et al., whom they know and love.
*
I actually get why something like that disconnect happens—even as I don’t excuse it.
Indeed, for some the reasoning was as simple as this: "Trump speaks his mind, like I do." Literally that was THE argument a Black relative proffered. He liked that Trump was not like other politicians and spoke his mind—
But part of what Trump spoke his mind about was assaulting women. Like all men, those who claim African descendancy are not immune to male dominance, sexism, misogyny.
Perhaps that is harsh of me.
Perhaps it is not.
But I know this to be true:
Some Black men—at least 15 percent apparently—would never judge Trump based on misogyny because they excuse it if not embrace it.
*
This is true even as they know—or so they say they know—their Black history.
That history—replete with slave master sexual violence toward their ancestors—means that today their sisters, mothers, and grandmothers come in all hues of the rainbow with their skin tones either chocolate brown, or mocha brown, or crème-colored.
Some are lighter than the proverbial paper bag test that African Americans use to hate upon people who look like my sister, Andrea, while others hate upon the Nubian tone of my stepmother, Marie—one too light and the other too dark—with my sister sometimes preferred by Black men who look like me, shaded from milk chocolate to dark chocolate.
*
I give up. On more days than not these days it seems like we have all gone mad.
Too many are convinced by a man without couth that he deserves to be re-elected even though he led a coup largely in the name of a White supremacy directed against African Americans mostly because he did not like that Black folk in Georgia helped defeat him.
*
And I repeat, 15% of Black men who look like me voted for Trump in 2020 rather than hold their noses and vote for Joseph Biden. That’s after 12% of them did so in 2016 rather than hold their noses and vote for Hillary Clinton.
Some were just conservative, but many others had been left leaning on the political spectrum most of their lives but fell from Trump’s lie (a seduced Kanye West still supports trump in 2024) that convinced themselves a vote for Trump was a vote for their liberation from a Democratic party that, on most days, CHOOSES not to love them but instead uses and abuses them to attain power in America.
I agree that DEMS don’t really love Black people but instead tend to use them.
But—
Would I vote for someone hawking White supremacist bona fides in order to make a statement against the clear and present tendency of a Democratic party I too perceive uses and abuses black folk like me?—
No, I would not.
*
—Racism?
—Islamophobia?
—Antisemitism?
—Sexism?
—Cis-genderism?
—Heterosexism?
—Other-ism?
None of us escape repression, yet we pick others to dominate if not eradicate.
Any "-ism" connected to state, religion, or economic hegemony pervasively represses such that few escape its power.
That's what any -ism does.
*
In America, with politic reflexively pro Israel, that particular bias profoundly infiltrates U.S. print and TV journalism.
I'm not a propagandist.
Nor do I believe I have all the answers.
What I know for sure?
None of our hands are clean. Not mine. Not yours. No one's.
I struggle to name global institutions unaffected either by Christian, Hindi, Islamic, Judeo, or other religionist dominance, by White dominance, or by State-driven dominance connected to the US, UK, or EU; Russia; China; India; Saudi Arabia; Iran; Japan; or other world powers.
In Gaza, even Arab/Islamic nations today fail Palestinians:
● Egypt rejects refugees leaving Gazans to twist in the wind, closing borders after its leaders crushed that nation's own Islamic democratic revolution.
● Saudi Arabia is silent partner more to Israel—less to Palestine—as its Crown Prince executes and chops up journalists who critique him.
● Iran? Largely feckless as protector. The winds shift in Iran blown by prelates hawking a sham democracy dependent upon those who hold power as a manifestation of God incarnate.
It's also an intra-Palestinian problem (Hamas v Fatah).
Certainly, Gaza is ruled by a dictatorial Hamas that for two decades has refused to allow Gazans to vote on its civil/political leadership.
Hamas took up arms threatened in 2006 by Fatah's unexpected strength (41% to Hamas' 45%) in Palestinian elections local to Gaza.
Months later, Hamas invoked civil conflict against a Fatah that via the ballot not the bullet threatened Hamas' hegemony.
Today, neither Hamas nor Israel dare hold elections in Gaza.
And Gaza is democratic? Who believes that?
It's authoritarian. Democratic in name only.
*
Too many are convinced they're right 100% of the time, especially if "they believe."
Assured their faith is supreme, they invoke God in the name of war because what is aspirational—namely their God—was created by humans as a manifestation of what they could not achieve.
Humans created God largely defined as Unconditional Love because they aspired to something other than a tendency to massacre each other blinded to their hate by faith. Then—too many used God to do just that—massacre one another.
*
I am clear what I believe to be the problem. People who use religionist faith no matter their race to justify belittling, dehumanizing, or eradicating folks who don't believe what they do.
You may not to agree; that is fine with me.
These days too many are 100% sure what they today believe is—and always will be—right.
I'm not so sure of myself.
Nor should you be.
None of us should.
I'm glad you edited your reply. When you first came back with, "I said nothing of the sort," I genuinely questioned myself, reread your comment, and wondered what I was supposed to have gotten wrong. So I genuinely do appreciate that you removed that.
Concerning your edit: You assert, "Many wanted Biden gone but... mostly WHITE MALE MILLIONAIRE OLIGARCHS made it happen."
If that was an answer to my statement, "PLENTY of black people — without money, power, or political positions — want rid of that genocidal backstabber," then, that reply is irrelevant to my point.
If (on the other hand) that was just a straw man — meant to imply that I was arguing that powerful people don't have more power than powerless people — then that sure would be a stupid thing for me to argue... IF I HAD.
You have not refuted anything I actually said, but what you HAVE managed to do, is to make an argument for THANKING the mostly-white-male-millionaire-oligarchs, who "made it happen," when "many wanted Biden gone." Since I'm not willing to go so far as to thank them, I'll just leave that with you.
Your question, "Weren't there tons of Black folk who DID want Joe over Kamala four years ago," is (also) irrelevant to any of my assertions, but sure. "Tons" seems like an overstatement, but sure. Four years ago.
Contrary to your assertion, I haven't rewritten a single letter of history.
You went on to write, "By the way, there are Black folk eminently unclear about Palestinian genocide...."
That seems like a pointless insult. Sure, SOME black people are assh•les; I never said otherwise. Black people are people. The fact that some are pricks, goes without saying. The phrase, "PLENTY of," is explicitly NOT all-encompassing.
Similarly, your emphasis on how inadequate Obama was on the subject of Palestine — while heavily emphasizing that he is "BLACK" — just reads like every white supremacist's bad-faith whataboutism.
If a black president is a fraction as wrong as a genocidally racist white president...
... then that DOES NOT CHANGE one single fact about the genocidally racist white president.
To skip to the end rather than address a long comment, one line at a time, I'll just address the subject of being "so sure of myself":
I don't pretend to know everything. I often leave no comment at all, or leave a comment that says nothing more than to thank the author, contributor, guests, etc. for their insight.
On subjects where I AM sure of myself — such as my unambiguous certainty that genocide is indefensible — I absolutely SHOULD be sure of my self.
So should we ALL.
I get it. You know everything. Thanks for clarifying that. I did not say folks cannot be self assured. You are avoiding the issue that you can be as assured as you want, but you can STILL be wrong , and if you are a person of color, then like the white folk who are racist, you neck step too. We all do. Especially when we are sure we are right.
My fault for ever having given you the benefit of the doubt. Won't happen again.
No one could read my comment, in good faith, and get THAT out of it. To repeat the ending:
"I don't pretend to know everything. I often leave no comment at all, or leave a comment that says nothing more than to thank the author, contributor, guests, etc. for their insight."
"On subjects where I AM sure of myself — such as my unambiguous certainty that genocide is indefensible — I absolutely SHOULD be sure of my self."
"So should we ALL."
This is great news, isn't it? The genocidal prick is gone and now we get a chance to make history by electing our first Black woman President! I'm pretty excited about that, how 'bout you?
I WILL PROUDLY VOTE for VPOTUS HARRIS for POTUS!!❤❤❤❤
You and me both, Harry.
Thank you Biden you saw the light.
Genuinely looking forward to hearing zeteo’s take on this, this is good journalism.
Tough times. Can't wait to hear our Zeteo leaders.
I feel cheated!
Everyone everywhere hammer home the tremendous damage that PROJECT 2025 will do to ALL of our country if MAGA Republicans are elected. Want details? Go to stopthecoup2025.org
I am a paid subscriber. No details about townhall - zoom
I got an email about it.
Has it happened already?
Yes.
Was it good? Maybe they recorded it.
I guess we'll hear more about the process at the Town Hall, but I don't see how anyone can take it from Harris if the convention delegates have any say. The delegates aren't 5000 randomly-selected Democrats, except for the superdelegates they're all Biden delegates chosen for their loyalty to Joe Biden. If Biden says it's Harris, won't they vote for Harris?
Another comment on Biden's departure. Who in their right mind would go for Harris to be president? The woman is just silly, always giggling to the point you can't take her seriously. One thing I do take seriously and dislike immensely is her very strong pro-Israeli stance. That never bodes well for Palestinians. She will end up being another boot-licker to the Zionists. Are the Democrats incapable of putting up an intelligent man or woman that is actually statesman-like?
Biden' support for Israeli genocide and land-grabbing wasn't some special Joe Biden thing, it was just standard Democratic-party policy since 1948. I've never understood why so many people here seemed to imagine that replacing Biden would result in an improvement. Rashida Tlaib was never going to be his replacement.
Quite right, the U.S. has never been known to do the right thing where Israel is concerned (or for other M.E. countries either!) They're not the do-gooders they like to think they are (I speak only of the governments, not the people.) They have already invaded most of the world inasmuch as they have hundred of military bases throughout the planet.