President Biden on Monday said that all Americans must speak up because diversity is being attacked, remarks he made while marking 60 years of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
The event comes just days after a deadly shooting in Jacksonville, Fla., killed three Black Americans, which is suspected to be racially motivated. The president bashed attacks on diversity such as book bans, which are happening in states including Florida and are targeting books about slavery and Black history, among other topics.
“Now is the time for all Americans to speak up when history’s being erased, books are being banned. Did you ever think we’d have this conversation here, at this time?” Biden said in remarks. “Diversity’s being attacked.”
We are, ya assholes!
Meanwhile, how much federal government money is being handed over by Biden’s Education Department to the state of Florida so they have the resources to keep telling students slavery was actually a good thing for black people?
Would you rather they play hostage with the funding instead? The kids already have a lot of shit to deal with, cutting funding completely would hit the bad schools and the good ones.
Exactly. What we need is the dept of education to come down hard on the state, not to further deplete the education funding. That’s exactly what these ghouls want. They want public education to fail so they can shovel even more public funds into their own pockets via private school vouchers
In Florida, they are all compelled by law to be bad schools. Cutting funding will force Florida to make up the difference. Maybe not in whole, but a lot of it.
But that said, I’m not sure if there’s an existing legal mechanism to accomplish this and you’re sure not going to get a new one through Congress right now.
Incredible to what lengths those in charge will go to shift responsibility away from themselves and their colleagues who are the only ones with the power to actually do anything (within the system they designed that way, because apparently this needs saying - the solution is outside of their system), and on to the people they’ve trapped in this exploitative and oppressive system of theirs…
“Now is the time for all Americans to speak up when history’s being erased, books are being banned.
As if they haven’t, as if they don’t get shot and jailed when they do, as if anyone in his position has listened when people have been warning for decades that fascism is building power
Did you ever think we’d have this conversation here, at this time?”
The fact that he hasn’t and that all this seems to have somehow snuck up on him is more proof than anyone could ever need that he hasn’t been paying even the slightest bit of attention because he simply doesn’t give a shit about you (nor about the book burnings nor the diversity he’s only now realised is under attack).
I understand your hyperbole, but what do you mean he hasn’t been paying attention? Here’s a quote from the article:
“We know this. As I made clear in my inaugural address, white supremacy is a poison. It’s a poison,” Biden said at the event. “It’s been allowed to grow faster and fester in our communities to the point where the intelligence community’s determined … that domestic terrorism, rooted in white supremacy, is the greatest terrorist threat we face in the homeland.”
Would be nice if he would state the obvious: that the GOP has embraced white supremacy (for the last 50 years), now very much overtly, and its leaders regularly incite violence and espouse intolerance and that the solution isn’t to compromise with them or appease them but to beat them back (politically) into the shadows.
Lmfao, “hyperbole” my ass…
Politicians lie
He’s literally reading a script written to him by someone that probably wasn’t even allowed in the room while he read it.
Do you seriously think he’s doing anything but parrot back words from a page???🤦♀️
I’m just going to edit these in here, because this whole thing, the article, and OP’s bootlick-y reply, are a perfect demonstration of the points these articles make:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism-partners-in-crime/
https://blacklikemao.medium.com/how-liberalism-helps-fascism-d4dbdcb199d9
First election, huh?
Got ‘em
I couldn’t read #1 due to the paywall but #2 is a damned interesting read and I highly recommend others take the few minutes to do so.
Though I knew some of it already—like Ford’s antisemitism, the partnering of corporations with fascist governments, the number of Russians who died on the eastern front^1—I was not previously aware of the degree and breadth of involvement of US corporations and the rich and powerful or their exploitation of pow and concentration camp labor in germany. Fucking hell.
Appreciate the sources and will add #2 to my thought processes and read the others when I get time.
Somewhat related, I found interesting Kendi’s assertion that capitalism and slavery were inextricably (or maybe intrinsically) linked from the beginning in the colonies that became the USA. That exploitation of blacks was interwoven into the economies, particularly the south. No doubt you’re well aware but other readers may find this an interesting bit to chew on. Capitalism is fundamentally about exploiting natural and human resources. I maintain that if it were legal, corporations would happily revert to slavery if it were legal again — as evidenced in #2 with GM making use of free concentration camp labor.
All that said, I think it is disingenuous to generalize the claim that communism is the bulwark against fascism without acknowledging how many Stalin put to death. So fascism was defeated, concentration camps closed and their prisoners freed. What was the bulwark against Stalin’s purges? To contrast the USSR with Nazi Germany and throwing about the term totalitarian with no mention of the type of power Stalin held, I mean, come on. While it does not detract from the ease with which liberal democracy can and has devolved into fascism, it very much calls into question the general conclusions stated about communism as some ideal.
Fascism is a manifestation of human nature. Not all humans but a percentage that are more tribalistic, lacking empathy, preferring social hierarchy to egalitarianism, more prone to fear of the other due to isolation and ignorance. It is a natural evolution of conservatism. But authoritarianism, a key piece of fascism, is always a problem because too many humans have a bent to that power structure.
My thoughts on all this are always forming and evolving. But that’s where my head is at right now.
NO. LIBERALISM/PROGRESSIVISM AND FASCISM ARE NOT THE SAME.
I can’t believe centrist fence sitting republicans (any historical fascist) keep trying to repeat that garbage for literal centuries.
The horseshoe political spectrum theory is absolute bullshit and has no bearing in truth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_theory
Progressives are trying to give people rights and take care of their fellow & future man.
Conservatives destroy knowledge, strip rights, and don’t care one shit about hypocrisy in the veiled guise of nationalist religiosity.
You can talk your way around how two people fighting for their beliefs ARE UGH, THE SAME PEOPLE. But the moment you apply any critical thinking to it whatsoever, it falls apart.
The journey is often just as important as the end. Both sides wishing they could Thanos snap all opposition isn’t some weird gotcha. It’s the human condition of not wanting to go through the bullshit to get there lol.
who are the only ones with the power to actually do anything
That’s absolutely not the case. Every day people have the power to stand up for it in conversations over the kitchen table, at work and in the community
I agree, and that is why the right-wing has sought to brainwash and isolate its followers, as any good cult does, to make intercession much more difficult, to prevent its faithful from questioning their errant beliefs.
Biden is clueless and hasn’t done shit for the average person. And damn sure Biden guy behind stop the busing doesn’t give two shits about blacks unless its hurting his chances at reelection.
He hasn’t done shit to stop states from busing migrants which the federal government should be easily put stop too.
Plus he wants more money for the police which we all know is captured by white supremacy.
And his administration hasn’t said word one on cop city.
He can shut the fuck up because people have protested every time this happens which is almost everyday he doesn’t say shit.
Biden is clueless and hasn’t done shit for the average person. And damn sure Biden guy behind stop the busing doesn’t give two shits about blacks unless its hurting his chances at reelection.
Idk you can like or hate him but he’s done a lot of stuff. See: The horribly named inflation reduction act.
not really sure how someone would think a book ban would be effective. books are, for the most part, an obsolete technology. 86% of the global population has a smartphone in their pocket & that’s all you really need to access any kind of textual data.
There is quite a jump in quality of information depending on the source, and books generally have a much higher quality. Books are hardly obsolete.
Physical books. If you can get digital copies of the books, banning the physical book is meaningless.
well, you can only use them when you’re holding them, and you cant access more than one at a time, and once printed they’re static/unchangable until reprinting. hence my choice of using “obsolete”
digital books are different of course, but you need a device like a smarphone to access them - but i personally dont see ebooks as books, they’re similar but different enough to matter.
and you cant access more than one at a time
I assume you’re talking about libraries here, and if so this isn’t true. Libraries allow you to check out multiple books at a time within reason.
and once printed they’re static/unchangable until reprinting.
Which is a good thing because it makes it harder to censor them. This is a security feature, now a flaw. Plus physical books don’t come with DRM.
It still makes it more difficult to access these things. People have to figure out how and where exactly to find the book online - going into a library is much simpler if you’ve never done that. It’s not about 100% banning it, just about reducing the amount of people who have access.
Right, like what are they gonna do, censor the INTERNET?!
Good luck, ya nerds. You’ll never take my Napster away from me.
Books are antiquated tech, what’s far more concerning is corporations banning content and discussions on the internet.
