Usa Thread

[gobbledonk]

I remember an editorial in a non-nutty-rightwing paper that asked if Obama was buying the election. As to California and Texas going blue, remember that both have huge and increasing Hispanic populations. Hispanics are the largest minority in the US these days, outnumbering Africa Americans by quite a bit. I used to hear bitter remarks about this from my Black GI friends when I worked for the Army in the 1990s. They'd say things like "... nobody sold their ass into slavery and made them come to this country and pick cotton." But they got Affirmative Action all the same.

 

Granted, but at the risk of offending any black Americans who may read this, I get the distinct impression that many in the southern US have embraced the Latino population as a cheap, inexhaustible supply of cheap labor who, in many cases, are too afraid to speak up about poor pay/conditions. That may not be slavery circa 1800, but it seems hypocritical for 'liberals' in California to bemoan the efforts of people like Romney to maintain a permanent underclass while they continue to pay their gardener less than the minimum wage because they know they can get away with it.

[Flashermac]

Plenty of national politicians have been caught with illegal gardeners, maids etc in the employment. What the GIs were bitching about was Hispanics getting an edge in promotion because of their ancestry. Affirmative Action as set up by Richard Nixon (yep, he was the man) was designed for those who got the shite end of the stick in US history - 1) Native Americans and 2) African Americans. Then Hispanics got added as an afterthought and women as a "legal minority" (even though they outnumber men in the population). To make things even more bizarre, Portuguese in Massachusetts and a few other states got themselves classified as Hispanic so they could share the bennies.

 

Quite frankly, I think affirmative action has no business in the military. It happens though. I have a senior NCO friend who was assigned to a promotion board and was instructed that over 50% of the soldiers recommended had to be women or minorities. He was quite angry about that. Promotion and job assignment should be based entirely on actually qualifications only. Would you like to go into combat with a platoon leader or squad leader who got his rank mainly because of his ethnic origins?

[Steve]

I'vw long read that white women were the biggest beneficiaries of Affirmative Action. Whites have always had far lower unemployment numbers than Blacks and Latinos. So, AA hasn't had the negative effect as some may think if employment rates and wages are what we are going by.

 

AA has given us Colin Powell, Clarence Thomas and Barack Obama to name a few. I'm not even sure exactly what it is any more. The courts have changed nd modified it since its inception and it means different things to different institions, companies and universities.

 

Regarding Latinos, people speak of them as a monolithic group and they are very, very diverse. They don't all get along. A Puerto Rican and a Mexican-American are very, very different culturally. They even have problems understanding each other in spanish similar to a Texan and a Brit trying to understand each other. The slang, cadence and even pronunciation is different.

[Flashermac]

A black supervisor at Redstone Arsenal back in the 1990s told me that AA had got so bizarre that he couldn't even hire a black man. If a minority woman applied and wasn't hire, she might complain and he'd be in trouble. As a result the new hires all tended to be women. For Pete's sake, this was working with the US Army! Instead of hiring a male vet of whatever race, they'd hire women who had never been in uniform and had absolutely no useful background.

 

We had a good chuckle one day. A woman called up EOD and said she wanted to speak to the "Equal Opportunity Division". The sergeant on the other end patiently explained that she was talking to Explosive Ordnance Disposal.

[unit731]

What? Romney again?

 

 

"Instead, Romney was speaking of what he called “gifts†to specific demographic groups, such as “forgiveness of college loan interest†to voters under the age of 29, “free health care†to African Americans, “amnesty†to the children of illegal immigrants (to lure Latinos) and “free contraceptives†for young, college-age women.

Republicans have quickly distanced themselves from Romney’s remarks, which struck many as tin-eared or sour grapes. (Latinos, for instance, also might have been turned off by Romney’s harsh rhetoric on immigration during the primaries.) It is also worth recalling that Romney in the presidential debates said the opposite about many of these so-called “gifts,†frequently suggesting he had virtually the same policies."

 

 

LINK

[Bangkoktraveler]

What? Romney again?

 

 

"Instead, Romney was speaking of what he called “gifts†to specific demographic groups, such as “forgiveness of college loan interest†to voters under the age of 29, “free health care†to African Americans, “amnesty†to the children of illegal immigrants (to lure Latinos) and “free contraceptives†for young, college-age women.

Republicans have quickly distanced themselves from Romney’s remarks, which struck many as tin-eared or sour grapes. (Latinos, for instance, also might have been turned off by Romney’s harsh rhetoric on immigration during the primaries.) It is also worth recalling that Romney in the presidential debates said the opposite about many of these so-called “gifts,†frequently suggesting he had virtually the same policies."

 

 

LINK

 

 

I see not much difference between Romney and Obama.

 

The biggest difference was Romney's flip-flopping.

He shouldn't have been changing his beliefs so much.

[Steve]

What? Romney again?

 

 

"Instead, Romney was speaking of what he called “gifts†to specific demographic groups, such as “forgiveness of college loan interest†to voters under the age of 29, “free health care†to African Americans, “amnesty†to the children of illegal immigrants (to lure Latinos) and “free contraceptives†for young, college-age women.

Republicans have quickly distanced themselves from Romney’s remarks, which struck many as tin-eared or sour grapes. (Latinos, for instance, also might have been turned off by Romney’s harsh rhetoric on immigration during the primaries.) It is also worth recalling that Romney in the presidential debates said the opposite about many of these so-called “gifts,†frequently suggesting he had virtually the same policies."

 

 

LINK

 

These post election comments prove to me at least that Romney actually believed the 47% comment. Furthermore, what gifts? Black and latino unemployment was extremely high, Black teen unemployment was near 20%. Even college educated Blacks had a 7% unemployment rate v. 3.8% for White college educated workers. The only 'gift' I can think of is the Auto industry bailout. Those were mostly white workers.

 

Goes to show you not only how out of touch he was but also his dishonesty.

 

Other Republicans rightfully distanced themselves from the comment. He's done. They realized he was not only wrong but it will further alienate the party from getting new voters.

[Flashermac]

Quite frankly, most of the Republicans who tried for the nomination were not much to choose from. The Republicans had better come up with some better candidates or they will join the Whigs in history. This is not to say that the Democratic candidates are that good either ...

[Steve]

Johnson, Paul or Huntsman would have been a viable option. Hunstman especially who had all the criteria. He has a very strong resume and he is not some fundamentalist. Johnson is a little quirky but he's a common sense guy. Paul would do well frankly. Independents would love him.

[Flashermac]

It's a shame that those with the most sense seem to do the worst in primaries.