Actually, beyond all these you list above I am MOST concerned that there are people in the US Congress who are seriously talking about trying to repeal the 14th Amendment. That, quite honestly, would be my breaking point. If the 14 is repealed or seriously changed, I'm gone because the ONLY thing that puts my mind at ease as I watch my country head down the track toward barbarism are the 1st and 14th Amendments.

As far as the argument re: access to information. I don't buy it. There are public libraries with newspapers and Internet access. Radios are cheap--it doesn't have to be an expensive radio. Most larger cities have free newspapers. One can go to a neighbor and say "hey, when you're done with your daily paper can I have it so I can look for a job and keep up on the world?" There are countless Americans who couldn't name three Supreme Court Justices, either of their Senators, a single representative from their state, their governor or their mayor but I guarantee you that they could tell you absolutely minute detail every last doing of some Kardashian sister or Snooki or 'the Situation' or Lindsay Lohan or what Bristol Palin wore on Dancing with the Stars. There are people living in genuine, honest-to-goodness Third World countries who will find some way to stay informed while we Americans, awash in a sea of information, will go out of our way to be blissfully, blindingly ignorant.

Now, I learned a different ethic growing up. I was taught that as a black American it was incumbent upon me to be aware of the issues of the day. "Ignorance is a luxury for white people, we negroes can't afford it" is something my mother would say to us on a regular basis (and yes, she used the term negroes because that's the term she grew up with).

And you know, I have to say that this pretense we Americans are in love with that there is no substantive difference between someone who knows about a subject and someone who doesn't is nothing short of madness.

If someone believes that global climate change isn't happening, they're wrong. It's not that they have a different opinion, they're simply *wrong*. If someone believes that Iraq had WMD in March of 2003 or had an active nuclear weapons program, they're wrong. Again, not a difference of opinion, just plain out wrong. If someone believes that evolution didn't happen or that there is some controversy within biology such that working biologists think creationism should be taught in public schools, they're wrong. If someone believes that gays and lesbians are more likely to be child molesters, or are more likely to have kids with social pathologies, they are wrong. Not holding a different opinion but demonstrably wrong in an empirically verifiable fashion.

There really ARE people who really ARE ignorant--willfully, deliberately, ignorant. Not uninformed--my granddaughter is uninformed on a whole raft of subjects but she's three. I'm talking about people who are ignorant, who hold forth on subjects expressing their opinions as if they were facts and then get bent out of shape when it is pointed out to them that their facts are entirely wrong. That is ignorance and ignorance is not something we should encourage or suffer lightly or long. Some of these ignorant people vote. I'm not saying they shouldn't have the *right* to vote but it's a mistake to pretend that an informed voter and an uninformed voter are doing the same thing--they aren't.

Cheers
Aj

No one is saying Canada is a paradise on Earth. If I make the obvious statement that the United States of America is more politically and economically stable, less violent and has more social capital in the form of voluntary associations than, say, Somalia have I made some statement that the United States is somehow without any kind of political upheaval, has no economic problems, has no violence and no social pathology? No. I've made a comparison, nothing more and nothing less. Now, empirically, the United States IS more politically and economically stable than Somalia. Somalia is in the midst of a civil war that has been going on and off for the last two decades. The country is has no functioning economy to speak of. But that does not mean that the United States is some kind of Nirvana--simply that in comparison to Somalia the USA is a much better place to live.

If I make the statement that the United States, compared to the major European economies, has some serious problems have I now reduced the USA to the status of Somalia? Again, no! I'm simply making the empirical statement that, all things considered, a baby born in Denmark will live longer, on average, than a baby born in Oregon. The former will have free education and medical care and the latter likely will not. The former will have a strong safety net under her and the latter will not. Again, I can make this comparison without stating that Denmark is a nation without problems or that the USA is something out of the Dark Ages.

Cheers
Aj

This one paragraph gives an indication of the priorities and challenges of your local government. All of us are making our priorities known. Yes, California and the SF Bay Area are not for all of us. I can tell you in my community libraries are not closing.

Okay, I am going off topic here. Stepping off of the soap box.

Yes, I agree that most countries do racial profiling whether they knowingly do it, admit to it. As for surviving, I hear your frustration. Many of us urban dwellers also deal with survival. These scenarios just do not happen all of a sudden one day, over night.

Much of what is happening in our world today is based on a long history of choices. Individual choices and collective. No one can afford to stick their heads into the sand.

Article...Wikipedia. Poh-TAY-toe...Poh-TAH-toe.

Well I just read an article from 1996 that says that Black people in the US are nearly 5x more likely to get pulled over than White people! Canada wins! Wait...you mean you WEREN'T trying to have a competition? My bad.

Yes of COURSE Canada has corrupt police officers. Sweet jesus, anywhere that there are police (or other people in power) there will be corruption. It is, unfortunately, human nature.

As obsessed as I am with my Canada, I have no issues with admitting that we are not without our problems. Our current PM is a fuckstick conservative from Alberta who would make us into USA-junior if he thought he could get away with it, for starters. Our unemployment rate is 7.9%. We're like the 7th (last I checked) biggest polluter in the world.

But I'll tell you what problem we don't have: We do not have on the books laws designed specifically to harm people for not being white. I do believe that is what whoever it was who brought up Canada was driving at.

Firstly, let us take it as read that ANYONE posting here or in any other Internet venue either has access to a public library, an Internet café, or their own computer and Internet access at home (or are using a neighbors). So this argument about people not having access to information falls apart ENTIRELY for anyone posting on the Internet.

Secondly, in 2000 I moved to Oregon and was laid off a just before the end of the year. By mid-2001 I had gone through my severance pay. By early 2002 I was maxed on my credit cards. In 2000 I made about 70K. In 2001, I made about 10K. In 2002, I made the princely sum of 11K. Now, during that time, I kept the following utilities--gas, electricity, phone and Internet. I didn't have cable TV but I kept DSL access because A) I needed to have Internet access to get a job and B) to stay informed and connected to the world.

Thirdly, I'm not talking about people living on the streets. Unless Oregon is extraordinarily blessed with the second or third highest unemployment rate in the state, there are simply NOT enough people living on the streets to explain the phenomenal level of voter ignorance and apathy. Now, it may be that other parts of the country are doing far worse than Oregon is.

Lastly, I wonder how many of these people living in rural areas could tell you about what happened on Dancing with the Stars, or Jersey Shore or some other piece of electronic, televisual confection. I'm not talking about people living on the streets. I'm talking about people who have access to television and/or radio and/or Internet and/or libraries and/or have children in public schools who couldn't name their governor, their senator, or any other elected official. I'm talking about people with access to ALL of those who couldn't name three Supreme Court Justices if their lives depended upon it. I'm talking about people who couldn't name three freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States but will jump up and lead a chant of USA! USA! USA! and tell you that the United States is number one in everything that a nation could want to be tops in at the drop of a hat. I'm talking about people who have jobs, houses, clothes on their backs, bread for their children, a television in every room but not a single damn book in their entire house. I'm talking about people who drive gigantic Chevy and Ford urban assault vehicles (SUVs) with DVD players and fantastic stereos, that get 6 miles per gallon and use that gigantic machine to drive three blocks to pick up a quart of half-and-half.

Did I say that there aren't people in the straits you describe in this country? No. I will say this, though, you're goalpost moving. You're choosing to focus on people who are homeless as if that were such a significant number that it explains the manifest ignorance and voter apathy. Although any reading of my part of this conversation should make it reasonably clear that I'm talking about people who HAVE the means but choose not to avail themselves of it.

Cheers
Aj

Um I've never slept with my doors and windows unlocked even with loaded fire arms in the house

Sigh, do I have to walk you through this? Really?

One more time:

Your argument is flawed because one can make a comparison between the social circumstances of any given number of nations--in this specific instance the United States and Canada--without making any *absolute* statement about those conditions. In other words, saying that racial profiling happens in the USA does NOT make any kind of statement about whether or not racial profiling happens in other countries. What's more, even if someone had said that racial profiling is MORE common in the United States than it is in Canada that does NOT change the statement to mean that racial profiling happens in the former but not the latter. It is merely to state that if, say, 1 in every thousand black Canadians is stopped for driving while black while 5 in every 1000 black Americans is stopped for the same thing that racial profiling is more common in the USA than it is in Canada.

Taking the words I quoted above to mean precisely what they appear to mean, you seem to believe that if I say X happens more in Oregon than it does in New York I am saying that X ONLY happens in New York. That is the argument I am making.

So, what do the relative fates of babies in Oregon and Denmark have to do with it? It's called an argument by analogy. What I was trying to get across and which you completely failed to grasp although I thought I'd made it clear was this:

One can make a comparison between any two nations without making ANY absolute statement about whether some phenomena occurs in some nation. So I can point out that a baby in Denmark will, on average, live longer than a baby born the same day in Oregon without being committed to the idea that because the baby born in Denmark will live longer it means that the baby in Oregon is already dead.

The logic you are deploying in the statement quoted above is that to say that the average lifespan of a Danish baby is longer than an American baby is to say that all babies in America are stillborn. I was pointing out, by way of analogy, that your logic is flawed. I'm absolutely mystified that you seemed to think that some point was being made about Danish babies.

I will freely admit that I am no Shakespeare but I think I'm a pretty decent writer and can make myself generally well understood so how you could miss the point I was making and think that somehow I was arguing something critical about Danish babies is beyond my comprehension.

Cheers
Aj

Corkey:

Thank you! I was thinking that was the case. I know that's the case in Oregon because we are vote-by-mail only so you have to have a place you can receive mail in order to vote.

Cheers
Aj

i have ban myself from porting in this thread.. my statements were not made clear enough for several and my abilty of speach does dont comepete.. please refain from using my name on this thread or assuming what i am or may /may not have or know. i do not know you nor you me.
thanks
cody

Um look Cody, why not call out DNC for using your name in his post? Hence my reply using your name.

As far as your "unclear" statements, this is what is odd to me, white folks can use the most colorful descriptors when it comes to POC and then brush it off as "we" misconstrued such adjectives.

So with that said, I did not assume, YOU chose to use "that look" I stand by it was not the best choice of adjectives to describe us, why? Cause it is fucking offensive, just as offensive as "wet back" "beaners" and my favorite everyone still uses no matter how many times we asked you don't

ILLEGAL.

I am not illegal, I did not come from another planet here I came from a land where MY ancestors ( I have direct bloodlines to Pancho Villa AND can prove it) roamed freely.

So please don't wag your finger at me for your name use, at least I did not use an offensive descriptor.

Thanks

Homeless people can most certainly vote! They use the address of the homeless shelter they are staying at or where they collect their checks if they are getting any!

Oh BTW the whole "more education" thing DNC

I never graduated highschool...

I couldn't I was in the streets.

I did however read ANYTHING I could get my hands on. I learned English in 3 months, and I used my library not only to get warm in but to


EDUCATE myself.

Weird huh?