Redeye's Saturday Must Reads and Open Thread

Warning readers, this is not one of those uplifting forward thinking posts. I still reserve the right to complain... LOUDLY over folk's FOOLISHNESS!~Gina, The Blogmother

Over the Mountain Dems are looking for a solution to the Joe Reed problem.

10,000 Pound Elephant (4.00 / 1)
The all danced around a very pertinent issue, Joe Reed. He has got to go and will be used as the poster boy to beat Dems going forward for many years. Good lord, how badly do we have todo in elections before stupid people at the top get it.

I can't say I didn't see this coming. Comast in. Keith Olberman out.

Which of these statements are true?

There is no such thing as white privilege.
Blacks like to complain.
Blacks are their own worst enemy, not white people or their supposed racism.
Blacks need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps just like everyone else.
I made it on my own, I did not get any special favours. Why should blacks?
If anything, blacks have it easier than whites, what with affirmative action and all.
Affirmative action is unfair to whites.
Whites are a better judge of whether something is racist than blacks are. Blacks are oversensitive.
It is unfair to have a Black History Month when there is no White History Month.
Blacks are just as racist as whites.

The Tea Party will be No Party for the poor and the middle class

Republicans and Tea Partiers have no compunction when it comes to lowering the hammer on the lives and welfare of taxpayers (the "low-hanging fruit"), while the rich and the powerful are advocated for with full press--the extension of the Bush tax cuts which will increase this nation's deficit hole, although economists are mostly in agreement that such an extension will do little to stimulate our lethargic economy.

Why can't our government officials share in the pain?

Every time I hear the phrase "it's gonna be painful", what comes to mind is that the only ones that are feeling the pain are the downtrodden and poor. However, our government officials always seem to glide through the pain as untouchables.

What's on your Saturday reading list?

So, now we know how "white Dems" really feel

This is one of those times I really hate no longer being allowed to post at Left in Alabama, but it's also one of those times I realize why I'm no longer allowed to post at Left in Alabama. The white wing of the Birmingham/Jefferson County Alabama democratic party held a forum to try and figure out How will Alabama Dems Rise Again after the November massacre. Calling themselves Dems instead of Democrats should have been my first clue, but this comment by mooncat defines how Dems really feel about the Democratic Party and African American Democrats specifically.

There is a perception that the ADP caters to black voters but ignores white voters. A significant number of Democrats, some on the SDEC, have expressed concern to me that the ADP will "become like Mississippi" where, I gather, race is the significant difference between the two parties. If you want to run for office and you're white, you run as a Republican, if you're black you run as a Democrat. Now, I know that isn't strictly the case in Mississippi since they recently had a white Democrat run (unsuccessfully) for Senate, but this is a huge concern for people who care about the Democratic party in Alabama.

Wrong mooncat, the ADP doesn't cater to black voters, they take black voters for granted. If you want to run for office and you're white in Alabama you run as a conservative democrat, with emphasis on conservative, to garner the white vote. and democrat to garner the black vote. Black voters have no where else to go but the ADP.

And how exactly does the ADP cater to black voters? By giving them a seat at the table? By addressing their issues and concerns?

If race is the elephant (is that a pun?) Joe Reed is the mahout And this is why he needs to step back gracefully.

Oh really now?

So now we know how white democrats, strike that, we know how some white democrats feel about it's minority members and it's leader. Black democrats need to go somewhere and STFU and STFD because they are driving white democrats away. Not.

In last year's midterm election, white voters favored the GOP by a margin of 60 percent to 37, according to the national exit poll conducted by Edison Research. It was a higher percentage than the margin claimed by the GOP during its 1994 landslide victory.
Anzalone argued that margin was reflective of the "political environment" and didn't mean there was a "death sentence" on Southern Democrats.
"We had this same conversation after the 1994 elections," he said, before citing a series of Democratic victories over the last two decades. "The reality is that white voters are up for grabs for Democrats.
"You've got to be patient, you've got to build your argument. Will it come immediately after a big swing like this? Not with big gains," he said.
White voters will come back to the party when they feel "comfortable" with a particular Democratic candidate, Anzalone predicted.

Rep. John Lewis doesn't have to be concerned about a "mass migration" of African-Americans to the GOP. He needs to be concerned about a mass migration of African Americans becoming Independents because as much as it pains me to para quote Dale Jackson, the democratic party doesn't want us and the republican party won't have us.

 What to do and where to go?