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Colin Powell Dead

I guess I think it’s pretty fucked to imply that disliking a war criminal makes white progressive posters racist (because he’s Black and faced a lot of challenges to ascend to his role as top war criminal for a generation). But I also get that discourse has declined on here to such a big extent that even that seems normal.

It seems like some people come to the tunnels looking for stuff to get angry about.

The original quibble was about the differential treatment of Powell and Rumsfeld. The assertion was, people who feel compelled to level war criminal charges at Powel in death but not at Rumsfeld (who was undoubtedly more responsible for the Iraq invasion and subsequent deaths than Powell) when he died, are potentially motivated by racism. It is probably an incorrect assertion wrt to townie specifically, but in general, the argument has merit. It may simply be an unconscious societal bias in the way we talk about about different people in different ways that correlates with their race, sex, gender, sexualality, etc. What ever the cause, I think it is actually pretty helpful to have a black man stop by here and say, "hey, are you talking about this dead guy in that way just because he's black?" because it reminds me to think about subtle biases ingrained in my psyche that I have to consciously overcome. It might help me to be a better person.
 
It seems like some people come to the tunnels looking for stuff to get angry about.

The original quibble was about the differential treatment of Powell and Rumsfeld. The assertion was, people who feel compelled to level war criminal charges at Powel in death but not at Rumsfeld (who was undoubtedly more responsible for the Iraq invasion and subsequent deaths than Powell) when he died, are potentially motivated by racism. It is probably an incorrect assertion wrt to townie specifically, but in general, the argument has merit. It may simply be an unconscious societal bias in the way we talk about about different people in different ways that correlates with their race, sex, gender, sexualality, etc. What ever the cause, I think it is actually pretty helpful to have a black man stop by here and say, "hey, are you talking about this dead guy in that way just because he's black?" because it reminds me to think about subtle biases ingrained in my psyche that I have to consciously overcome. It might help me to be a better person.

My point is that it's a fucked up thing to say to Townie, but I guess nobody actually cares so I'll just stop. Whatever.

Collin Powell was a great man. Have at it.
 
My point is that it's a fucked up thing to say to Townie, but I guess nobody actually cares so I'll just stop. Whatever.

Collin Powell was a great man. Have at it.

Alright well, you said "white progressives" so I thought you were making a boarder statement. Whatever.
 
What ever the cause, I think it is actually pretty helpful to have a black man stop by here and say, "hey, are you talking about this dead guy in that way just because he's black?" because it reminds me to think about subtle biases ingrained in my psyche that I have to consciously overcome. It might help me to be a better person.

Well put
 
You guys are too binary in descriptions of people. For Powell you can separate what made the black community look up to him, the barriers he overcame and what he accomplished with the war mongering. It’s like when you described Bush as the personification of pure evil, when for some things maybe, but then guy helps more lives in Africa than anyone else.

You might be familiar with the concept of "Diffusion of Responsibility" - the phenomenon where individuals are less likely to take responsibility as more bystanders are present - very recently a woman was raped on a commuter train while something like a dozen bystanders watched and even filmed, but no one intervened. I bring this up because there was research done in 1978 regarding how that phenomenon affected the diffusion of guilt in criminal judgments. The research found that there is an "significant inverse relationship between number of participants and degree of contributed responsibility"
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01038984

All that is to say, where you and typical Americans might believe yourself to be using fairness and nuance in your viewpoint of political and military leaders, I just see the responsibility being so diffuse that in effect none of you are holding anyone responsible for anything. The buck never stops, the military budget grows every year, and Americans can't be bothered to even think about what our military is doing, much less make an objective moral judgement of it.

Does any of that take away from the racism that Colin Powell endured, or the grades he made in school, or the respect he garnered from his peers, or the love he showed to his family? No. But my relationship to Colin Powell was as a citizen to political authority, and the only relevant thoughts I have about him are regarding that authority and what he did with it.
 
Alright well, you said "white progressives" so I thought you were making a boarder statement. Whatever.

hey man, i didn't post the initial post

i understood the context and the subtext. (donald rumsfeld is bad, too, and I hope that he's right next to Powell in a vibrant jet fuel fire in Hell)

i, too, appreciate call ins from people who are different from me demographically

and it's still a lousy thing to say to somebody who Ph has been interneting with for a decade+ at this point

accountability works both ways like that
 
Someone's seriously asserting that Colin Powell is being criticized more heavily than Donald Rumsfeld?

It seems like some people come to the tunnels looking for stuff to get angry about.
 
show me how you feel about student loan debt with emojis i've got hot sauce in my bag
It's honestly infuriating that liberals dodge criticisms of that type of bullshit by lumping all the critics together as sexist. I'm not going to be punished for refusing to properly revere sociopathic professional politicians, particularly the ones that don't even pretend to have charisma. You know, charisma? that personality trait where people use charm to wallpaper over their flaws and mask their true intentions? Not my fault that Hillary Clinton has none.
Its a dumb tweet. Who gives a shit?
 
Someone who was paying off student loans who knew she didn’t want to to anything to help me with them
 
Someone who was paying off student loans who knew she didn’t want to to anything to help me with them
I know she had some policies regarding student debt refinancing and other relief.
 
I know she had some policies regarding student debt refinancing and other relief.

And Bernie had some policies regarding racial inequality. Policies are great, but ultimately you have to have a relationship with those voters and convince them of your sincerity. That dumbass pandering tweet was viewed as very insincere.
 
Strick, you’re working overtime to be offended here. Townie addressed any questions I had yesterday. I didn’t accuse him of being racist but I also don’t think self-identifying as progressive absolves someone from racism either.

I do think it’s hilarious that anybody can post on this thread and then look back at the few posts on Rumsfeld’s death and claim there was equal criticism of both. Same goes for the larger media discourse as well.
 
Strick, you’re working overtime to be offended here. Townie addressed any questions I had yesterday. I didn’t accuse him of being racist but I also don’t think self-identifying as progressive absolves someone from racism either.

I do think it’s hilarious that anybody can post on this thread and then look back at the few posts on Rumsfeld’s death and claim there was equal criticism of both. Same goes for the larger media discourse as well.

Yeah I think I misinterpreted your statement, as if you were directing a generalized comment about white men progressives as if it was meant to imply that Townie was one such person. I'll concede the point.

As to your point about self-identification - I don't think self-identification of any sort absolves someone from racism. Most of the more racist people I personally know are self-identified liberal Democrats.
 
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