Dear Everybody,
World view and world view. As if I'm some sort of red-neck from KKK Apartheid South Africa era. Yes, I know all about the second world war and even the entire history of social democracy in Sweden.
Short and simple : I don't like Hillary. This dislike (not hatred) goes back to when she (with Bill by her side) was fighting Brother Obama, tooth and claw for the Democrat nomination in 2007 – 2008. I followed events very closely and know what I'm talking about. I repeat , I don't hate her - but I do hate one Rev. Manning.
My tremendous admiration for Brother Obama (his spat with Benjamin Netanyahu not withstanding) lies in his forbearance throughout and his forgiving spirit - even appointing Hillary and not e.g. Samantha Powers or John Kerry as Secretary of State (I like John Bolton) - and of course from my point of view a chap like Manning - God willing - only deserves to be a dead piece of meat for the undertaker or for the okuru dogs to eat when they find his decomposing corpse lying in the street, somewhere in Chicago – such consequences
As I've always said, I have full confidence in the American Constitution and in the American People – that neither the constitution nor the people will permit the dictatorship of a man called Trump or that woman named Hillary Clinton – described by Louis Farrakhan as "a wicked woman". Now why should million-man-march Brother Louis Farrakhan compare her to the devil? And why has Trump given her the trademark name of "Crooked Hillary"? Is there no truth to these allegations – and if so , why is she being investigated by the FBI? And that's the woman – the one who cheated Bernie Sanders - that's the quality of woman you want to be the next president of the United States of America ! Will the servers be secure in the oval office?
The sources of some of my understanding and some of my own opinions, are many, the US demography encompasses all kinds of peoples and one of these is Brother Nathanael whose opinions range from What A Hillary Clinton Presidency Would Bring to What To Do If Hillary Wins ..
Other takes : What To Do If Hillary Wins
About some of the charges laid against Trump, we should be extra careful in labelling anyone a racist or a xenophobe, in his case just because he wants to build a wall to keep out rapists and drug cartels, and illegal entry into the US – check out Trump's campaign in Tampa, Florida, yesterday
Absoluitely, must now out and get some cough medicine for my Better Half…
There's one more important thing I want to say
to be continued
Cornelius
On Saturday, 5 November 2016 20:00:11 UTC+1, Kenneth Harrow wrote:
I don't imagine I can convince you, Cornelius, on the matter of trump, or Clinton. What that means, I believe, is that we don't share enough of a world view/perspective on the world—what I would prefer simply to call a "world" in heidegger's sense—to convince each other of any point. We cite different authorities, see the world in ways that are reinforced by views of different, opposing thinkers.
I might go to a friend and say, wow, did you see what Judith butler had to say about this or that; or what spivak had to say; or what many others had to say. in some cases, like mbembe, whom I admire greatly, I could also say, well, on this point, maybe he exaggerates, or I'd take a different take. And then we'd have a discussion, and try to see the point of the other. The authorities whom we'd discuss are those whom we admire, so we must begin with something of a shared world.
But when it comes to trump, all I see is an authoritarian who reminds me of fascist leaders of the 30s; I see a bigot who scapegoats minorities. And since i belong to a minority that experienced scapegoating my only response has to be, never again.
Trump's positions are not surprising to someone who lives in the u.s. we see the hate speech on the right all around us; we hear the bigotry on the radio; we see the columns in our local newspaper, we read the letters to the editor daily. We are not inured to unreasonable hatred of muslims, blacks, at times jews, and all too often refugees or immigrants from either the arab world or latin America.
We live with it daily, just as the French do with anti-arab hatred. Just as the Europeans do in their far-right parties, everywhere. Just as the Hungarians and poles do now, the Bulgarians, etc.
Now in this country they have a candidate, and he repeats their lies and hatred, campaigns on it, arouses it, creates a mob of furious people who want the demagogue.
I live with that, and now in 3 days am truly apprehensive about the consequence.
I am not only not apprehensive about Hillary, I look forward to her becoming president, and I strongly believe it is time for a woman to break that glass ceiling in my country.
If I can't convince you of these things, at least I can buy a little relief in stating these feelings.
And I will say again how appreciative I was of moses for laying it out so well. I would say we share a world view.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
http://www.english.msu.edu/
people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@
googlegroups.com > on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com >
Date: Saturday 5 November 2016 at 09:52
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com >
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Unraveling the Mystery of Donald Trump's Nigerian Supporters
Crucial : setting the record straight : Anthony Weiner may be out of the picture and out of sight but the real possibility of a national security risk persists, given the Huma Abedin-Hillary Clinton symbiosis and the hoopla about the latter's connections to the Muslim Brotherhood...
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" said Dr. King. "I have a dream" he said,
no surprise then that at this late stage of the race, it's the tables turned :
"One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can. "
and it's Mrs Clinton and not Mr. Trump that's under criminal investigation by none other than the FBI, three days before the US presidential elections. Well, what do you say about someone who deletes/wipes out any incriminating evidence, to have the evidence re-appear, as if by magic...
We must rejoice that at least, the US is still a democracy. Left to me alone (one man one vote) if it was Trump versus Harrow, as he well knows, Moses Ochonu and I wouldn't hesitate to cast our ballot for Harrow...
But right now, expectations are no longer great. The whole world is watching the world leader in Human Rights and Democracy, in the land of the free, and, whatever the election result and its aftermath will be , Professor Harrow's words, "liberal to degree", will be dearly remembered - liberal to a degree as in
"Now, I'm liberal, but to a degree
I want everybody to be free
But if you think that I'll let Barry Goldwater
Move in next door and marry my daughter
You must think I'm crazy !
I wouldn't let him do it for all the farms in Cuba." (I Shall Be Free No. 10")It's said that this time, the race for the White House (two Whites racing) is all about choosing "the lesser of two evils". This time too, for the very first time, it's between yin and yang - lady na master – poor Bill, it's now his wife's turn to be president and master– in the oval office (I almost typed "orifice") with Hillary the yin lady in trousers, calling the shots...Lady na Master, she wants to be Trump's president.
In various ways Hillary apologists acquaint us with half-truths such as "Hillary might not be perfect"..etc. (Harrow). Trump also believes this too when he gets personal, that "Hillary can't satisfy her husband " etc..
"I will go on criticizing her for voting the military appropriations bill during all these years—bills Obama signed—but that is nothing compared with the fabrication of myths about weapons of mass destruction and the invasion of Iraq which bush was able to generate, building on a traumatized people" (Harrow)
Fact is, Hillary the hawk and warmonger pleaded for war on Iraq, even without it being sanctioned by the UN...
The lesser of two evils indeed, and in the same vein the Hillaryites would much prefer to play it cool when it's a matter of trust, believing that it's "better the devil that you know (Hillary) than the one that you don't yet fully know"
Professor Harrow you are very much the alarmist here : "Consider what would happen should he (Trump) use tactical nuclear weapons against iran. Consider russia's possible riposte. Consider the mobilization of forces that might follow."
Consider, consider...consider Africom. Some generals back Trump - he would surely listen to them wouldn't he ?
Consider what would happen if she (Crooked Hillary as Commander-in-chief) should be the first female US president to use tactical nuclear weapons against Russia – maybe without congressional approval : M.A.D.
White House and Oval Office would turn into a churning urn of burning funk – and I can just hear Bill wailing before the laser guided missiles from Russia hit his part of town: "and into ashes all my lust…
"Consider what would happen should he (Trump) use tactical nuclear weapons against iran...
President Rouhani of Iran has considered : the war on Iraq removed Iran's arch enemy, Saddam and restored Iraq to its democratic Shia majority currently pounding the hell out of ISIS in Mosul...they want to pound them out of town. That too is unfortunate as we learned from Alex Haley's Roots – the Mandinka surround the enemy on three sides, thus leaving them an escape route - the alternative , surrender or total annihilation is surely tantamount to genocide?
President Rouhani has considered - maybe even reconsidered and has reduced the choice of the American people to being between bad and worse -
the future is for the survivors to see – as for others as we all enter into previously uncharted waters, it's not merely the anxiety about the unknown, the al-ghaib, the people placed between a rock and a hard place - somewhere between the devil and the deep blue sea…
At the heart of the Middle East is little Israel and it's only a nuclear deterrent - part of Beirut as a possible retaliatory target that will keep Hezbollah & Co at bay, when the fast bullets fly over Syria under the Assads, Israel's implacable enemy...
Professor Harrow, in another thread you have said that its the non-observant who usually throw the first stone. Well, consider:
Satanism??
Catholic Church says Devil works Hillary
Voting for Democrats risks eternal damnation, says Catholic Church
"the same group is to be found in the states: haters of muslims, religious right luddites or fanatics", says Harrow. It would seem that in reality you want your words to tally with Mrs Clinton's "basket of deplorables" except of course, you are unlikely to find any "deplorables" supporting Crooked Hillary...
With regard to "gullible or just plain dumb people who believe every rumor or lie propagated by the trump big lie camp." ( Harrow) one does not know what to make of these nauseating headlines:
The Clintons and Weiner outed as pedophiles
Whatever next?
Cornelius
On Saturday, 5 November 2016 04:21:28 UTC+1, Kenneth Harrow wrote:I can't say how much I appreciated moses's analysis. Moses, thank you!!
The irony is, of course, that almost every point where moses pointed out the failings or weaknesses among those Nigerians who see something positive or heroic in trump, the same group is to be found in the states: haters of muslims, religious right luddites or fanatics, gullible or just plain dumb people who believe every rumor or lie propagated by the trump big lie camp.
Since Nixon the republican party, which had been grounded since the civil war in reconstruction and rights for black americans, switched its strategies and vied to win over the southern states. It was called the southern strategy. It meant the democrats, who had dominated the south for a century, but which turned to advocate civil rights for blacks under Johnson, began to lose the south to white supremacists, white racists, mainstream whites who did not want to lose white privilege to their poorer black neighbors. The whites fought to disenfranchise the blacks, to block their votes, to keep them out of the political mainstream. It fought against democracy as it fought against democrats.
That is happening right this instant in a number of states that have swallowed the huge lie about voter fraud, that have restricted black votes by discouraging or ending early voting, by requiring voters to have photo ids that are cumbersome and hard to obtain. By a million devices to deprive the blacks from the franchise. And on top of that, to discredit black organizing, as with black lives matter, so that the police hegemony might continue.
Trump stands for almost everything horrendous in this world today: not just authoritarianism and militancy, but racism and xenophobia, and the vast injustices of global economics that privilege his 1%. Hillary might not be perfect in opposing some of the effects of globalization, but like Obama she continually seeks to ameliorate the situation. If she believes in a measure of militant intervention, say in a safe zone in Syria, which she called for, consider the alternative of about 13-14 million Syrian refugees and half a million dead. I will on criticizing her for voting the military appropriations bill during all these years—bills Obama signed—but that is nothing compared with the fabrication of myths about weapons of mass destruction and the invasion of Iraq which bush was able to generate, building on a traumatized people.
We are quite possibly facing a monumental moment in history where the risk of electing trump will possibly have enormous repercussions worldwide. Consider what would happen should he use tactical nuclear weapons against iran. Consider russia's possible riposte. Consider the mobilization of forces that might follow.
If you have children and hope to see a better world for them, all I can say is that trump would endanger all of them, all of our children. And if not through something as dramatic as nuclear war, then certainly through the reinforcement of walls around the mansions of the wealthy, walls around the borders of wealthy countries. Walling in the powerful and rich; walling out the rest of the world.
Moses spoke to the weaknesses in Nigeria that account for the misguided admiration for trump. My anguish is that it is my own fellow citizens here who are too dumb or bigoted to see those same dangers at home, and the risks they carry for all of us.
ken
Kenneth Harrow
Dept of English and Film Studies
http://www.english.msu.edu/
people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/
From: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of "meoc...@gmail.com" <meoc...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday 4 November 2016 at 15:22
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Unraveling the Mystery of Donald Trump's Nigerian Supporters
UNRAVELING THE "MYSTERY" OF DONALD TRUMP'S NIGERIAN SUPPORTERS
by Moses Ochonu
Donald Trump has Nigerian supporters and they are very vocal on social media. They troll Nigerians and Nigerians in the diaspora who support and plan to vote for Hillary Clinton. They are hard to ignore because they are worked up over the election and are fanatically committed to hating Clinton or getting Trump elected, or both. I've been observing and studying their strange antics and have come to a conclusion about their varied motives. The following list is not exhaustive but it captures, in my opinion, the major strands of the Nigerian pro-Trump phenomenon.
1. In the first category are those who are simply ignorant of what the vile, racist demagogue stands for. It doesn't help that there is a lot of falsehood on social media and on the Internet generally about what Trump has done and what he will do. I have even come across several items on my Facebook newsfeed about how Trump has promised to "actualize Biafra," how Trump would crush Boko Haram, how Trump made this or that statement about Nigerians and Africans — all of them false memes generated by Internet junkies on fringe sits with political agendas targeting the uninformed and lazy. If you look hard enough you'll find on the Internet that Barack Obama is an alien from another planet and that the moon landing never happened. Some Nigerians wittingly or unwittingly share false information from far-right and racist websites on Facebook. Some shares are from the conspiracy website, Infowars, which, among other outlandish claims, peddle the notion that the September 11 attack was the work of the U.S government and that the killing of Osama bin Laden was a hoax. These shares regularly appear on my timeline. To me they are a minor irritation; to others they are credible information.
2. The second category comprises Nigerians who know but don't care that Trump is a bombastic conman, a narcissistic, know-nothing racist, and a sexist xenophobe to boot. This group is the most perplexing because it requires a measure of self hate and/or cognitive dissonance to support a guy who combines xenophobia with a long history of disdain for blacks and Hispanics. Given the disdain of some Nigerians for research and history, it is possible that some in this category are simply not aware of the depth and span of Trump's racism, xenophobia, and sexism, or his propensity for mocking the disabled and for petty insults and infantile tantrums.
3. Category three is made up of Nigerians who identify with Trump's strongman, fascistic tendencies and pronouncements. Some people are seduced by braggadocio and bluster. Some of these Nigerians won't admit it but they see themselves in Trump. Others see a world in turmoil and yearn for a measure of order that they assume only a tough, Mafioso type leader can provide. This phenomenon is playing out in several parts of the world. In an unstable and uncertain world, citizens of several countries have embraced tough-talking, rigid, extreme political figures that several years ago would probably have been dismissed as unviable candidates. India's Modi; Egypt's el-Sisi; Nigeria's Buhari; Turkey's Erdogan — these are all so-called strong men whose firm, if counterproductive, certitude and showy display of nationalistic fervor have catapulted them to, or consolidated them in, their countries' presidencies. The same potent mix of ultra-nationalist sentiment and a cult-like belief in a strongman's capacity to restore the nation's pride and solve its problems is at work in certain sections of America that fanatically support Trump. Ironically, many of Trump's Nigerian supporters never supported Buhari. Conversely, many Nigerians who supported Buhari because of his strongman nationalist posturing against the "weak" Jonathan are opposed to Trump. This last position is not necessarily an inconsistent one as people in this camp of Buhari-supporting but Trump-opposing Nigerians are likely to be Muslims who are turned off by Trump's Islamophobia, or people repulsed by his racist rhetoric.
4. The fourth category comprises Nigerians who, as embarrassing as it is to admit it, actually agree with Trump's Islamophobia, his Muslim ban, and his blustery talk about "Islamic terrorism." Here, in this category, you will see some Nigerians who are using the prism of Nigeria's bitter religious politics to cultivate an attitude toward the US presidential election. For them, Trump is the solution to the global problem of Islamist terrorism and extremism, never mind that the candidate is woefully uninformed about Islam, the Middle East, and the Islamic world generally and knows even less about antiterrorism policy. Some Nigerians in this group channel their antipathy towards Boko Haram and towards Nigerian Muslims they believe share the blame for the rise of Boko Haram into supporting the candidate they see as being tougher on terrorism. I should add here that many Nigerian urban households now get the Right Wing US news network, FOX News, which is essentially an arm of the Republican Party and of Donald Trump's campaign. Their attitude to the election has been partly shaped by FOX News. It was during the 2012 that I came to know about FOX's presence on Nigerian cable TV offerings. A few weeks before the election, an Obama-supporting prominent Northern Nigerian journalist frantically called a Nigerian friend of hers in Atlanta asking if what she was hearing on FOX News about Obama was true and almost tearfully asking if it was true that Obama was headed for certain defeat. This friend spent a great deal of time lecturing her on the political loyalties of FOX, on its genealogy and ideological commitments, and on the true picture of the election campaigns. It was a big relief for her, a relief that Obama's victory confirmed a few weeks later. In the same period, a cousin of mine also relayed what he had been hearing on FOX News to me, but in his own case, he said he was suspicious of the network and wondered why they were so biased against Obama and so intent on smearing him. Because he was already a skeptical watcher of FOX it didn't take me long to confirm his suspicions and point him in the direction of more objective coverage of the election.
5. Category five contains Nigerians whose attitude to the US presidential election is refracted through the lens of Nigeria's politics, specifically the lingering emotions of the 2015 presidential elections. In this category are many supporters of former president Goodluck Jonathan and detractors of president Buhari, who detest the Obama administration's cold disposition toward Jonathan and its barely disguised support for Buhari's candidacy. In the calculus of these Nigerian Trump supporters, it is payback time, time to humiliate Obama by defeating Hillary.
6. The sixth category is populated by gullible, impressionable Nigerian Christians who listen to and watch American right-wing radio and TV broadcasts. Most of these misguided Christians are from my own Evangelical/Pentecostal constituency and are naively drawn to US Evangelical political rhetoric without acquainting themselves with the political and cultural roots of such rhetoric. They are drinking the Kool-Aid of the American religious Right. To these Nigerians, Clinton (and by extension Obama) is too cozy with Muslims and not sufficiently Christian, precisely the rhetoric of the U.S. right wing. Conversely, for reasons that are known only to them, and contrary to all the available evidence, they regard Trump as a warrior for Christianity, the savior of a supposedly endangered Judeo-Christian civilization. This is an expansive category. My first introduction to this strange emotional alliance of Nigerian Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians and the U.S religious Right was during the 2012 election cycle when a relative of mine called me to ask if it was true that Obama was the antichrist and had begun forcing Americans to be implanted with 666-numbered chips on their foreheads to signify their allegiance to him. A quick search on the Internet gave me the source of his misinformation, which apparently had spread in his church and in his Christian circle. The fictional nonsense emanated from fringe, extremist Right Wing and Christian Right websites, and from a dark part of the Internet that is now associated with white supremacy and he Pseudo-Christian politics of the so-called alt-right. I spent at least one hour on the phone reeducating and disabusing my relative of the falsehood. In Nigeria today, thanks to the relative democratization of Satellite broadcasting technology and the globalization of mass media, many households have cable TV packages that come with several American Evangelical and Christian Right channels, including CBN, TBN, and others, where they are fed a steady diet of politicized gospel, apocalyptic nonsense, and anti-Obama, anti-Clinton talking points and inventions. They regard this information as gospel truth and are too lazy or too loyal to their TV Evangelists to verify what they are being told or to crosscheck the outlandish claims against the Bible in their hands.
7. The final category comprises Nigerians who, far from being repulsed by Trump's reputation as a con artist, artful tax dodger, and serial scammer, actually admire him for precisely those reasons, for what Trump himself says are a mark of his smartness. Unfortunately, some Nigerians, like some Americans, actually admire Trump for being a slick, litigious, and shady businessman who has managed to avoid getting into serious legal trouble despite operating outside or on the edge of the law for decades. It is the same kind of admiration that some people have for mob and mafia bosses and figures.
Fortunately for those of us who live and work in the U.S, know what's at stake, and have American children whose lives and futures will be impacted by the outcome this election, the vast majority of these Trump-supporting Nigerians cannot vote and in fact are simply cyber noisemakers who buy data and log onto Facebook from their abodes in Nigeria to snipe at Hillary and those of us who support and love her.
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index. html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com .
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout .--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDial...@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index. html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialo...@googlegroups.com .
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout .
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
No comments:
Post a Comment