Jump to content

Buttigieg 2020


Hugo Stiglitz

Recommended Posts

  On 7/3/2019 at 2:55 PM, Bama Chick said:

Yeah I’m for a National Service program in theory but I need to see specific details on any proposed plan.

My cousin taught through the last one. I honestly cannot remember if he was part of the original Bill Clinton plan or if GW had a similar plan - this isn’t about which side does it.

He was tasked to teach in underserved rural Mississippi.

He ended up teaching and coaching for two years, then in administration for three years at a flipping magnet school/segregation academy.

And got his low salary from said private school enhanced by the program and some loan forgiveness.

I’m very, very skeptical of these service programs. Besides being akin to indentured servitude they end up being used as resume enhancers for white frat boys with future political ambitions because their family is able to supplement their lifestyle while they work for very low wages in these programs.

Expand  

Add this to Bama's book of fucking awesome posts.

Your cousin followed the Teach for America track, which is white neoliberalism in a nutshell.

---------------------

Genius 1: "These poor black communities need help!"

Genius 2: "Yes, they do, but what do they need?"

Genius 1: "They need white saviors!"

Genius 2:  "Good point, let's reduce the already-tiny pool of reliable, high-quality jobs in that poor area by giving them to a rotating set of recent college grads who will never be part of that community and will merely use it as a resume builder before going on to exacerbate the conditions that led us here in the first place as they deregulate and gentrify everything while making serious-face about their brief period of 'service'!"

Genius 1: "I can't imagine anything better!"

-------------------------

  • Like 1
  • Haha 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Segregation academies are private schools that were typically established in small southern towns in the late 60s in response to integration.

Alabama, south of Birmingham, and Mississippi and Georgia are littered with them.

The school my cousin worked at was one of these schools who reclassified as a magnet school in the early 2000s when that became the en vogue thing in conservative circles.

It calls itself a magnet school to get those voucher funds but it’s history and demographics are 100% segregation academy.

It’s in a majority black, poor county so it qualifies as for a lot of federal programs but it educates all the rich and middle class kids - probably 90% white, 5% black, and 5% other.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/4/2019 at 5:17 PM, bad_teammate said:

@Hank Kingsley, gonna need your input on Pete's campaign manager going after Kamala online.

Is this OK? Do we need to stage an intervention with Pete's campaign?

 

Expand  

Pete’s staff has been very disciplined so far. This is the one swipe I’ve seen. Kamala deserves it and I’ll let this one slide.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/5/2019 at 1:04 AM, Ozzman said:

Good for Pete and the crowd not having any of this
 

 


Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 

 

Expand  

That's a good response.

South Bend is 26% black and the police force is 6% black
Pete's local government is far whiter today than the one he inherited
Pete fired a black police chief for recording racists, but hasn't fired the white replacements for not making their officers turn on their body cameras before murdering black people

Good speech, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/5/2019 at 4:53 AM, bad_teammate said:

So we're having a lot of fun talking about racism and such, but can anyone explain to me the problem this whole Service Guarantees Citizenship scheme is intended to address and how it will accomplish it?

Expand  

Pete: Here’s a plan to expand voluntary non-military national service .

BT and other bad faith Bernie pundits: Why is Pete forcing kids into the military?

 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Expanding service opportunities is great. We love to see it, folks.

It seems to me like he is elevating a good-but-unimportant policy (it's either his first actual "no one else is talking about this" proposal or among his first) because it is a way to get people to focus on his service in Afghanistan. I'm a cynical jerk, but the proposal page doesn't disabuse me of this notion since it is, of course, the first thing mentioned. And if he's running a "values, not plans" campaign then it's very hard to look at this plan and understand what the values are, aside from "Do you remember that I went to Afghanistan?"

It's a solution in search of a problem.

The rhetoric about what adding to the Americorp budget would do is silly:

-------------------------------------
"A new generation of American youth, bound by mutual service and sacrifice, aware of the common values that bind all Americans, influenced by the experience of doing real work with people across races, politics, faiths, income levels, and gender identities, and imbued with an appreciation of the effort required to maintain a democracy can help heal a divided nation."
-------------------------------------

This is the smart candidate?

This is such a liberal television view of the world. Our nation isn't divided because we don't have dinner with each other enough. We aren't a nation of people who are fighting each other in the aisles at Home Depot. We aren't rolling around with "DEMOCRAT!" or "REPUBLICAN!" flags having shootouts in the streets. We don't vote the way we do because we just haven't met enough people.

Our nation is divided because of deep structural inequalities along class and race lines. And if you have bold, values-focused plans to solve those inequalities then those plans are what you lead with. Expanding Americorps is nice, but it's unserious as a focus for a presidential campaign in 2020 when sold as something to "HEAL A DIVIDED NATION".

As for the voluntary aspect...

---------------------------------------
Consideration for public service student debt forgiveness, vocational training, and hiring preference for service fellows.
---------------------------------------

"Voluntary" is nice, but it's less voluntary when you have a candidate who wants to vocational training, employment, and student loan forgiveness behind this wall of "voluntary" service.

Because, let's face it, what kinds of kids are going to be able to do this service year? Children from families of means.

Americorps Alumni Outcomes Report

This finding suggests AmeriCorps service members are coming from families that are more educated than the average population across the country. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 32.5 percent of adults aged 25 or older in the U.S. had a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2015.27 By comparison, roughly 61 percent of the parents of AmeriCorps members have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

This plan gives children of means even more advantages in terms of loan forgiveness, training, and employment than they already had.

The smart candidate.

But he DOES know his audience (rich white liberals) and this is basically him saying, "You know how all those other candidates are promising bullshit like universal healthcare, student loan forgiveness, and free college? You don't need those things, so I'm going to give your precious Dakota and Kaylynn an opportunity to slum it for a year as a resume builder and then tell employers to give them favorable treatment for it."

Edited by bad_teammate
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/6/2019 at 6:19 PM, henrygandorf said:

isn't he basically saying that shitty, racist cops make it harder for good cops to do their job correctly?

Expand  

Yes, I guess that's what he's trying to say. "Bad apples" has been the excuse made for white supremacist policing for decades and it's 100% bullshit. If we were dealing with an issue of "good cops" and "bad cops" in tension, we would have good cops constantly turning in/ratting out the bad cops. But we don't, so we either have ALL bad cops or we have institutions that are designed and maintained to be white supremacist. Racism isn't an outside problem that infects our poor police departments, it is an institutional feature of those police departments.

And again, we're talking about a guy who fired a black police chief who was recording racist white cops and whose police force's black officer representation has fallen 50% during his time there.

  On 7/6/2019 at 6:16 PM, Hank Kingsley said:

Holy logical fallacy, Batman. 

Expand  

Which one, nerd? lol

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/6/2019 at 6:25 PM, bad_teammate said:

Yes, I guess that's what he's trying to say. "Bad apples" has been the excuse made for white supremacist policing for decades and it's 100% bullshit. If we were dealing with an issue of "good cops" and "bad cops" in tension, we would have good cops constantly turning in/ratting out the bad cops. But we don't, so we either have ALL bad cops or we have institutions that are designed and maintained to be white supremacist. Racism isn't an outside problem that infects our poor police departments, it is an institutional feature of those police departments.

And again, we're talking about a guy who fired a black police chief who was recording racist white cops and whose police force's black officer representation has fallen 50% during his time there.

Which one, nerd? lol

Expand  

the black sheriff situation has been well documented, and it's my understanding that it was more or less taken out of his hands once it was being investigated by the feds.

from a racial standpoint, the system is fucked, both on the law enforcement side and the judicial guideline side - and has been for a long time.  the fact that it's "gotten better" in many places is saying close to nothing.

the problem (i have) with your argument is that you make it sound easy to identify the "good" cops from the "bad" cops.  while i'm sure there are plenty of instances where cops say racist shit, so when something happens, everyone's like, "well, duh, dude's a fucking racist."  but i'm sure there were times where inherent racism didn't show itself until guns were drawn.  shit, there have been problems before with black cops who treat races differently, maybe more out of instinct than some sort of "uncle tom racism".  i'm sure it's not easy.

also, in regards to numbers on black officers - i saw one of the top black officials from sb in an interview, and he said that recruitment has been a real issue.  it's not like they go around firing black cops.  but younger black people don't grow up having good relationships with the sb police dept, so they don't exactly grow up wanting to be cops.  so then what?  do you recruit black cops from other areas?  do you lower the bar and end up hiring black cops that maybe aren't as qualified?

lots of shitty options to "fix" a system that's been broken for a long time.  i think it's easy to pick apart from the outside when something goes wrong.

i think you said it best when you said "fuuuuuck being a mayor."  it's a shit, thankless job, and he's meant for better things where he can hopefully make more of a difference.  he's wasted as a mayor in a city like south bend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/6/2019 at 6:25 PM, bad_teammate said:

And again, we're talking about a guy who fired a black police chief who was recording racist white cops 

Expand  

Providing more color on this one-liner that is constantly used. 

- When Buttigieg took office in 2012, he re-appointed the black police chief

- the ILLEGAL tape recordings started before Buttigieg was mayor, he didn't find out about them until after re-appointing the chief. He also found out that the police chief was being investigated by the FBI

- He confronted the police chief, who then offered his resignation which Buttigieg accepted

- The next day the police chief withdrew his resignation after discussing with his friends in the SB community

- The police chief was demoted to Captain and continued serving in the South Bend police department

- The mayor of South Bend has NO AUTHORITY to hire or fire police officers. That job is up to the civilian Public Board of Safety (which BTW, now has 3 African Americans on a 4 person panel). The mayor does decide who ascends to senior rank, so on that authority Buttigieg demoted him to Captain. 

 

Edited by Hank Kingsley
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/6/2019 at 6:40 PM, henrygandorf said:

the black sheriff situation has been well documented, and it's my understanding that it was more or less taken out of his hands once it was being investigated by the feds.

Expand  

Well if a federal investigation is all it takes, then he should fire the current (white) police chief since he himself wrote a letter to the DOJ asking for an investigation into the recent killing of a black citizen by a white officer.

As for it being taken out of his hands, nope. 

Here's an excerpt from Pete's book:

------------------------------------------------------------------

A few weeks into the job of mayor, I learned that my newly reappointed police chief was being investigated by the FBI. Eventually a message came through, thinly veiled but quite clear, from federal prosecutors: the people responsible for the covert recordings needed to go, or charges might be filed. Why did they send me that signal, instead of just acting on their own? Was the intent to do me a favor, giving me a shot at resolving this quietly and helping my young administration without getting bogged down in the scandal of indictments just a few weeks after we got started? Maybe. Or perhaps they just understood the politics of all this before I did. Why should a U.S. attorney shoulder the responsibility of taking down a bellowed African-American police chief, if he can get the mayor to do it for him by removing him from his position? . . . I had lost confidence in the leadership of a chief who had not come to me the moment he realized he was the target of an FBI investigation.

------------------------------------------------------------------

According to Boykins's attorney, Boykins was told by the feds that Boykins wasn't the target of an investigation. Also, according to the attorney, the feds never said "fire him or he's going to get indicted" to Pete.

------------------------------------------------------------------

But while the mayor publicly placed blame at the U.S. attorney’s office, Boykins’ attorney, Tom Dixon, claims that federal prosecutors were privately assuring him that no such conversation had occurred. Dixon told The Federalist that after the mayor first claimed he had demoted the police chief at the request of the U.S. attorney’s office, in exchange for the federal prosecutors dropping the investigation, one assistant U.S. attorney (AUSA) reached out to him “assuring me their office would never make a charging decision based on a quid pro quo employment decision by a municipality.”

Then, after the mayor floated the second justification—that he demoted Boykins because the police chief hadn’t informed Buttigieg that the chief was under investigation—Dixon said he then had a second meeting with multiple AUSAs. Dixon claims that, at that meeting, the AUSAs unequivocally stated that their office did not suggest, in any way, that the mayor should remove Boykins or the police chief might be charged with federal wiretap crimes.

“Nor was Boykins a target or subject of a federal investigation, as Buttigieg claimed,” Dixon told The Federalist. Rather, Dixon said that “In the second meeting, the ASUAs confirmed that Boykins was neither a subject nor a target of the investigation.”

It was then, according to Dixon, that the AUSAs gave him “a letter summarizing the results of the FBI’s investigation into the South Bend Police Department’s long-standing policy of taping telephone calls.” The federal prosecutors concluded that police department’s informal policy did not violate federal wiretapping laws, Dixon stated.

------------------------------------------------------------------

My take isn't that evil racist Pete wanted to fire the black man for evil racist reasons, but that Pete was an inexperienced 30-year-old who folded on his police chief the second he felt heat. Was that easier for him to do because of the racial dynamics? Probably.

  Quote

the problem (i have) with your argument is that you make it sound easy to identify the "good" cops from the "bad" cops.  while i'm sure there are plenty of instances where cops say racist shit, so when something happens, everyone's like, "well, duh, dude's a fucking racist."  but i'm sure there were times where inherent racism didn't show itself until guns were drawn.

Expand  

I don't think it's easy. I think "good cops" vs. "bad cops" is a false choice designed to protect the inherent racism of the entire law enforcement structure. ALL cops are "bad cops" not because they are bad people, but because policing in America is a bad, racist institution.

  Quote

also, in regards to numbers on black officers - i saw one of the top black officials from sb in an interview, and he said that recruitment has been a real issue.  it's not like they go around firing black cops.  but younger black people don't grow up having good relationships with the sb police dept, so they don't exactly grow up wanting to be cops.  so then what?  do you recruit black cops from other areas?  do you lower the bar and end up hiring black cops that maybe aren't as qualified?

Expand  

You are literally making right-wing arguments about how it's OK that women and minorities are frozen out of any number of other professions. Congratulations.

You tell the community that any cop found saying racist things or posting racist things on social media will be fired/demoted/punished/pressured to leave. You tell everyone to snitch them out because it is 100% unacceptable.

You DON'T fire a black police chief for recording white racist cops and then keep those racist white cops on the force.

For instance, Officer Aaron Knepper was involved in the killing of Eric Logan. Knepper's got a history.

The only way to disrupt a racist system is to essentially be hostile towards that system. Pete doesn't want to do that. He wants blue lives to matter just as much as black lives. (Well, "all lives" according to him.)

  On 7/6/2019 at 6:57 PM, Hank Kingsley said:

- The mayor of South Bend has NO AUTHORITY to hire or fire police officers. That job is up to the civilian Public Board of Safety (which BTW, now has 3 African Americans on a 4 person panel). The mayor does decide who ascends to senior rank, so on that authority Buttigieg demoted him to Captain. 

Expand  

And how do people get on that board?

Don't be obtuse.

  Quote

- He confronted the police chief, who then offered his resignation which Buttigieg accepted

Expand  

Wait, you think Pete came in just so powerful and manly that Boykins offered his resignation ... why? For what reason?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/6/2019 at 7:13 PM, bad_teammate said:

And how do people get on that board?

Don't be obtuse.

 

Expand  

I believe they are appointed by the mayor. I'm saying he's made an effort in recent years to have more African Americans on the Public Board of Safety. What are you implying? 

Also noticed that you have no comment about the fact the police chief was demoted to Captain, and continued to serve on the police force until his retirement in 2017. 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/6/2019 at 7:20 PM, Hank Kingsley said:

I believe they are appointed by the mayor. I'm saying he's made an effort in recent years to have more African Americans on the Public Board of Safety. What are you implying?

Expand  

That he could have done a way better job of appointing people to this board who would have been more aggressive in ridding the police force of racist officers. Simply putting black citizens on the board doesn't fix anything if the leadership message isn't clear. "You fire racist cops or you aren't on this board."

  Quote

Also noticed that you have no comment about the fact the police chief was demoted to Captain, and continued to serve on the police force until his retirement in 2017. 

Expand  

I have no idea what distinction you're trying to draw here; please spell it out for me. Am I supposed to be amazed by Pete's magnanimity?

If Boykins was such a nefarious criminal, why was he still fit to serve on the force?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/6/2019 at 7:13 PM, bad_teammate said:

 

I don't think it's easy. I think "good cops" vs. "bad cops" is a false choice designed to protect the inherent racism of the entire law enforcement structure. ALL cops are "bad cops" not because they are bad people, but because policing in America is a bad, racist institution.

Expand  

so the institution is inherently bad and racist because there are no good cops.  got it.  what's your solution?  what's bernie's solution?

  On 7/6/2019 at 7:13 PM, bad_teammate said:

You are literally making right-wing arguments about how it's OK that women and minorities are frozen out of any number of other professions. Congratulations.

Expand  

jesus not everyone who disagrees with you is a republican.  i'm just pointing out the ugly, obvious flaws to affirmative action type of policies if you have to bend the requirements, especially when it comes to jobs like police.  and "a number of other professions" can be subjective when it comes to hiring.  i personally would like our police officers to all be tested and qualified.  why shouldn't the standards be uniform?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/6/2019 at 7:35 PM, henrygandorf said:

so the institution is inherently bad and racist because there are no good cops.  got it.  what's your solution?  what's bernie's solution?

Expand  

Holy shit I don't know how many times/ways to say it: It is not about "good cops" and "bad cops". It is not about bad apples spoiling the bunch, it's about the fact that the basket the apples are in is made out of lead and arsenic.

A solution is for city leadership to do everything in its power to be actively hostile towards racism in the department.

NOT this:

------------------------------------------------------------------------

We cannot reach our full potential for community-oriented policing until we have made it the norm that all residents feel and know that we have every reason to be both pro-minority and pro-police, at the same time.

There is no contradiction between respecting the risks that police officers take every day in order to protect this community, and recognizing the need to overcome the biases implicit in a justice system that treats people from different backgrounds differently, even when they are accused of the same offenses. We need to take both those things seriously, for the simple and profound reason that all lives matter.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

What the hell does "pro-police" even mean? Why the fuck is he equating the historic oppression of blacks by police and some people maybe not liking the police?

"Well what would YOU do about it, huh Mr. Smart Guy!?" isn't a good message for a 37-year-old running to be the most powerful person in the world. Am I running for president?

Bernie isn't running for mayor of South Bend. Not sure how he's relevant here.

  On 7/6/2019 at 7:35 PM, Hank Kingsley said:

Well, repeatedly saying Pete "fired" the police chief is incorrect.  I thought facts would matter to you. 

Expand  

He was fired from his job as police chief. A white liberal hiding behind semantics to downplay the impact of white power on a black person = VERY good look

giphy.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I just got another email from Pete about National Service.  He needs to expand on what he means by this.  I think the average person would balk at it as being compulsory military service, even though I know it's not that.  It comes off that way if he doesn't specify what he means.

Create a new Civilian Conservation Corps or something similar.  Tie it to infrastructure.  Be specific.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/9/2019 at 5:29 PM, Hank Kingsley said:
Expand  

Ah nice.  Still, he needs to articulate it better for the general public.  There's time of course, but he seems to be harping on it right now and for those who aren't going to click that link and read the full thing, distill it down to a couple of sentences.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Things that stood out to me as unique(ish) proposals that aren't run-of-the-mill Democratic 2020 candidate policy platform...

- Abolish the electoral college
- Public financing of elections

- 5x investment in minority-owned banks
- Support "ban the box" initiatives (meaning that there would be no "check here if you've ever been convicted of a crime" box on job applications)
- Independent clemency commission outside of the DOJ

Overall it's all fine, but there's nothing radically transformative about any of this and all of it is 100% squarely in the interests of the economic and political elites as they currently exist. There's no "holy shit, this guy is really challenging the existing authority and economic power systems" stuff.

The whitest imaginable human with essentially zero non-white support calling his nice, safe, doesn't-step-on-ANYONE'S toes, primarily-means-tested, and largely-race-blind set of policy ideas "The Douglass Plan" is cringeworthy as hell.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does ban the box include some sort of restrictions on background checks? Don't have time to read 18 pages right now but that's sort of interesting. You're just going to have companies running background checks on candidates earlier in the process, most likely. Doubt that would do much  except make background check companies a bunch of money. Interesting concept, I guess. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/11/2019 at 3:46 PM, bad_teammate said:

The whitest imaginable human with essentially zero non-white support calling his nice, safe, doesn't-step-on-ANYONE'S toes, primarily-means-tested, and largely-race-blind set of policy ideas "The Douglass Plan" is cringeworthy as hell.

Expand  

Nevermind that he developed The Douglass Plan with help from African American policy advisers and reached out to to other black leaders, one of which is an actual direct descendant of Frederick Douglass. 

 

Edited by Hank Kingsley
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  On 7/11/2019 at 6:00 PM, Hank Kingsley said:

Nevermind that he developed The Douglas Plan with help from African American policy advisers and reached out to to other black leaders, one of which is an actual direct descendant of Frederick Douglass. 

 

Expand  

Don’t waste your time on BT.  It’s Burnie or bust with him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites



×
×
  • Create New...