So I tell you things have changed for the worse in the Democratic Party since Reagan, I point to major reasons how and why with timelines and everything, I point to the fact that you recommend doubling down on those factors and failed strategies despite not liking the changes, and you tell me things have changed since Reagan and therefore I know nothing. Your approach, chasing the ephemeral obsessions of the Trump voter from hither to yon as their media puppetmasters jerk them - and you - around, is what brought you the Clintons. Your approach is Hillary's approach. If you don't like Hillary, quit trying to pander to this year's Trump voter's obsessions and alleged issues. They're a moving target, and they are and will be chosen to beat you. Or go ahead, run a bunch of Blue Dogs like Peterson, and see what happens to your economic agenda - which was last seen in the keeping of Paul Wellstone, being rejected in favor of something that would appeal more to the lower and middle class white rural voter, the people in your "blue" district. (They were worried about the deficit, see. Free college and health care and other government welfare handouts were social justice liberalism, spending us into bankruptcy. Plus, black people were being uppity. And gays were giving everybody AIDS.)
Sandwich Politics Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! You know, don't click the picture; it's a different kind of sandwich politics, and you really, really, really don't want to know. Meanwhile, the sandwich politics of 2017 purport to explain the American voter, but here's the thing: If Alexandra Petri↱ is scoring points at your expense, you're doing it wrong. The current unfortunate story begins, kinda sorta, with the one and only David Brooks↱, who for some reason invented a female friend without a college degree who felt ashamed to be in the presence of Italian sandwich meats, and this somehow equals how liberals are ruining America. No, really, I'm not joking: Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop. Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named "Padrino” and "Pomodoro” and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican. American upper-middle-class culture (where the opportunities are) is now laced with cultural signifiers that are completely illegible unless you happen to have grown up in this class. They play on the normal human fear of humiliation and exclusion. Their chief message is, "You are not welcome here.” In her thorough book "The Sum of Small Things,” Elizabeth Currid-Halkett argues that the educated class establishes class barriers not through material consumption and wealth display but by establishing practices that can be accessed only by those who possess rarefied information. To feel at home in opportunity-rich areas, you've got to understand the right barre techniques, sport the right baby carrier, have the right podcast, food truck, tea, wine and Pilates tastes, not to mention possess the right attitudes about David Foster Wallace, child-rearing, gender norms and intersectionality. The educated class has built an ever more intricate net to cradle us in and ease everyone else out. It's not really the prices that ensure 80 percent of your co-shoppers at Whole Foods are, comfortingly, also college grads; it's the cultural codes. The thing is that Mr. Brooks is describing a cynical right-wing stereotype of liberalism, but, strangely, in his appeal against elitism, he commits some whopping snobbery of his own. As Jen Amatulli↱ explained in response for Huffington Post: The absurdity emerges when Brooks shifts his focus to the "informal social barriers” that are "segregat[ing] the lower 80 percent.” Brooks blames barre classes, podcasts, David Foster Wallace, and ― most bizarrely ― intersectionality as what's dividing America. He also uses a truly alarming anecdote about taking his high school-educated friend to a sandwich shop: Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop. Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named "Padrino” and "Pomodoro” and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican. Obviously, this is an absurd reference point. Yes, not everyone knows what capicollo (pork) or soppressata (salami) is ― which is completely fine ― but that has absolutely nothing to do with education level or "upper-middle-class culture.” (For example: I'm an Italian-American woman from Long Island and I would know what those meats are without even a high school degree.) The piece, especially that paragraph, is dripping in condescension. And his thesis that barre classes and meat sandwiches are what's "ruining” the country doesn't hold water in Donald Trump's America. Additionally, we might note that maybe in Mr. Brooks' world of highly-educated and well-paid journalists, some liberals discuss David Foster Wallace, but I really do wonder where these enlightened-to-a-fault pockets of American liberalism actually exist. Then again, we're also talking about a New York conservative effete who only knows other effete Italian-Americans, and, you know the only reason they know their Italian sandwich meats is because they went to college, which is why they sit around talking about David Foster Wallace while delicatley nibbling their capicollo on striata baguettes while laughing about all the uneducated people who happen to not be Italian-American and don't know what soppressata is without looking it up on their phones. Sandwich meats? Irony abounds, I suppose, insofar as one of the tweets↱ Amatulli includes spoofs the fast food chain Arby's. Who, in turn, happen by coincidence to be launching a summertime porchetta campaign. To the one, this seems like a variation on the Kael myth, whereby Mr. Brooks' friends come to represent all people everywhere. To the other, this time the basic function of the components spells a uniquely self-referential disaster. It is hard enough to figure which aspect to deal with: There is the incredible elitism of his presumption intended to strike after elitism; and there are also the bizarre articles of faith whereby he spends the greater portion of a column skewering a straw man. Or ... just maybe ... some people have become far too accustomed to Mr. Brooks' apparent psychological decline of recent years, and forget what they are dealing with. This is an unfortunate neurotic symptom: Yes, liberals, we are accustomed to being accused of elitism, but it still sounds to me like he is describing the heritage of traditional blueblooded American wealth. At no point does he actually say this is how liberals are ruining America. Then again—"Upper-middle-class moms have the means and the maternity leaves to breast-feed their babies at much higher rates than high school-educated moms, and for much longer periods."—there are reasons why Brooks' review of societal structural barriers pings alarms, giving way to sandwich politics as it does for the sake of how he has "come to think the structural barriers [Brookings author Richard Reeves] emphasizes are less important than the informal social barriers that segregate the lower 80 percent". That is to say, the problem is people who know their fucking sandwich meats. Liberal guilt is not driving the uncomfortable chuckling, this time around. † Erin Keane's↱ analysis for Salon is a bit more complex, dragging George Will and J. D. Vance into the mix: these are not trivial matters per se, but they are also relatively simple hurdles for a resourceful person to clear. Even Ivy Leaguers from public schools have smart phones these days and can discreetly look up "place settings” in the restroom. Less simple, for example, are the staggering amounts of student loan debt many young people who didn't get into the Ivies have to carry that can keep them from the second and third part of that success sequence, including those who have enrolled in for-profit colleges that prey on first-generation students who believe the sales pitch that this degree will be their ticket to "use the fat spoon for soup” recruitment dinners, rather than years of crushing bills and mediocre job opportunities. Less simple also, looking at the big picture of the opioid addiction crisis—Vance is moving back to Ohio to work on this issue, which could be a preamble to running for public office—are the strains that repetitive physical labor places on a body and how small injuries and stresses can compound over time when untreated or under-treated; the highly addictive pain pills that pharmaceutical companies, doctors and pharmacists flooded into communities where a disproportionate number of people live with pain and without adequate health coverage; and the scarcity of effective, affordable treatment programs after they became hooked. To this, Brooks might gnash his teeth and wail, "It's our fault for not explaining how Pilates builds core strength to prevent back pain!” And Will might counter with, "It's their fault for thinking that life could be anything but constant pain, followed by a long, slow death!” To both I say, go back to that epiphany of Merton's—if not the theology, at least the substance—and liberate yourselves from the illusion that innate cultural differences can explain why you are wealthy and so many people in America are not. ‡ Merton realized one fine day in a flyover state that "we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers.” David Brooks and George Will aren't ruining America all by themselves, of course. But the worldview they represent, in which "informal social barriers”—that they, affluent conservative columnists who enjoy quite a bit of cultural influence due to the size of their platforms, can't do anything about—are what's standing between those total strangers they don't know or understand and economic stability and mobility, sure isn't doing America any favors, either. ―End Part I―
Part the Second Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Erin Keane↱ is back, with notes on Josh Barro and burger time: Last week, New York Times columnist David Brooks projected all of his anxieties about class in America onto one ill-fated visit to a "gourmet sandwich shop." This week, Business Insider senior editor Josh Barro followed with his own lamentation on the left's "hamburger problem." A sure-fire way to heal America's politically polarized culture, apparently, is through our stomachs. Suppose you're a middle-income man with a full-time job, a wife who also works outside the home, and some children. Suppose it's a Sunday in the early fall, and your plan for today is to relax, have a burger, and watch a football game. Conservatives will say, "Go ahead, that sounds like a nice Sunday." (In the Trump era, they're not going to bother you about not going to church.) But you may find that liberals have a few points of concern they want to raise about what you mistakenly thought was your fundamentally nonpolitical plan for the day. Liberals want you to know that you should eat less meat so as to contribute less to global warming. They're concerned that your diet is too high in sodium and saturated fat. They're upset that the beef in your hamburger was factory-farmed. I guess "don't be a condescending asshole" is now a legitimate political strategy that all Democrats—politicians, pundits and civilians alike—can employ to convince their Republican and independent friends and families to vote for Democratic policies, which according to Barro are actually winning, unlike Democrats themselves. "As I see it, Democrats' problem isn't that they're on the wrong side of policy issues," he writes. "It's that they're too ready to bother too many ordinary people about too many of their personal choices, all the way down to the hamburgers they eat." The thing is that if I take every liberal food police trope I hear over the course of a year and pile it all into one fictitious person, maybe I can stuff a straw man like Barro's. I always like it when people tell me I'm not a liberal. Fine, I'm left of liberal. Keane jabs at Barro's burger expertise—apparently he reviewed burger joints for Business Insider at one point, or maybe it was just In-N-Out. Spoiler: He found In-N-Out Burger's burgers overrated. Oh, right, Keane jabs at his burger expertise and then continues: In my experience as a person who eats every day in a Red State, not in Manhattan, meat lovers are way more eager to unload their unsolicited meat feelings onto me than the other way around. But Barro is wrong about the fundamental premise of his "be less annoying" thesis: that liberals are now the morally judgmental ones and conservatives aren't—at least not anymore, now that Donald Trump is president. It's likely that in some affluent communities Republicans and Democrats sort themselves primarily through petty consumer choices—the Escalade vs. Prius divide—and the biggest culture wars revolve around spats between in-laws over the fat content at the Fourth of July cookout, homeowners' association brawls over gas-powered leaf blower use and school controversies over insensitive Halloween costumes. ("[A]nything but blackface" should be acceptable, Barro suggests, to my predictable confusion and amazement.) But Barro's claim that "in the past few years, conservatives have made a strategic retreat from telling people what to do in their personal lives" is pretty disingenuous .... ‡ Look, we Americans are annoying, period—on both sides of the aisle. But getting distracted by personal acts of rudeness isn't going help the Left win any major battles, and we still have battles—be they economic, scientific or on racial and gender justice—to fight. Cultural pressure, both gentle and aggressive, does work to move the dial on public opinion. But it's naive to think that being less eager to mock what strangers choose to eat—inclusive of whatever broad cultural sins of the Left this burger shaming's supposed to stand in for—will clinch the vote next time, just as it's condescending to suggest that what conservative voters care about the most is what a snotty colleague thinks about lunch. At some point it gets hard to figure what to think about sandwich politics. Are Barro and Brooks just that stupid, and that's all there is to it? Do they think their audience is stupid? Are they trying to communicate with liberals or rally conservatives? That is to say, just who do they think is so stupid? I would, however, wonder aloud just who the hell cares in such a manner if thinking that damn much about your daughter's vagina creeps anyone else out. Wait, wait—what?! Okay, this really is creepy. Jenna Amatulli↱, a little over a year ago: PSA: Women are not things, and their body parts are not food items. Unfortunately, Twitter user Jennifer Mayers, a self-described "wife, mother, Christian," doesn't quite seem to get that. In a tweet from June 15, Mayers, 44, compared her daughters' vaginas to pop-star Taylor Swift's vagina. She did so by posting a photo of two sandwiches. (We can only assume that the subtext of this tweet is that Mayers' daughters vaginas are pure and neat and good, while Swift's is not.) Or we can look at the picture and wonder at ... no ... no, we'll just skip ... I mean ... er ... ah ... oh, Christ. But this is the thing: In the United States, obsessing over your daughters' genitalia and sexual behavior is creepy enough; there is no psychoanalysis of this particular sandwich politic that doesn't inspire even stronger revulsion. As things stand, though, that revulsion is vilified; the moral problem in the U.S., according to latter-day sandwich politics as Barro and Brooks explain, is that liberals are too ready to bother too many ordinary people about too many of their personal choices, like sexualizing one's own children, might make that mother feel ashamed for any number of reasons, including but not limited to unhealthy focus on her daughters' genitalia or inability to distinguish 'twixt vagina and vulva. The irony sandwich is tasteless beyond compare. What this comes down to is basic function. We pretend politics are subjective but certain things are observable: • If One does A, and Other does B, then ... er ... ah, I guess they do what they do. • But One says B is not allowed, and Other disagrees. • One claims Other is injuring A by not forsaking B. ↳ Thus, the problem, conclusively, is that the Other is deliberately hurting the One and A, and therefore being the One suffers the injustice of inequality for having to be equal to the other. We Americans do this all the tme. Quite literally, one is not injured simply by being prohibited from arbitrarily injuring another. And this is what the sandwich politics are about: Conservatives feel injured for being prohibited from arbitrarily injuring others, and those Liberal scoundrels need to stop injuring conservatives by saying it's wrong to arbitrarily injure others. That is to say, conservatives feel they are oppressed and therefore unequal if they are not granted supremacism. And there is no special sauce that will make Appeasement either appetizing or healthy. ____________________ Notes: Amatulli, Jenna. "One Awful Tweet About T-Swift Sums Up Society’s Retro Ideas About Female Sexuality". The Huffington Post. 6 July 2017. HuffingtonPost.com. 30 July 2017. http://huff.to/29KlH5T —————. "Twitter Skewers David Brooks For Bizarre Story About ‘Gourmet’ Meats". The Huffington Post. 11 July 2017. HuffingtonPost.com. 30 July 2017. http://bit.ly/2tLEyn5 Brooks, David. "How We Are Ruining America". The New York Times. 11 July 2017. NYTimes.com. 30 July 2017. http://nyti.ms/2tLQPrm @HokieWartooth. "tl;dr". Twitter. 11 July 2017. Twitter.com. 30 July 2017. http://bit.ly/2vWSZW7 Keane, Erin. "First gourmet sandwiches, now burger-shaming! Can more sensitive lunches heal America?". Salon. 18 July 2017. Salon.com. 30 July 2017. http://bit.ly/2haUOv2 —————. "How David Brooks is ruining America (and George Will isn’t helping, either) ". Salon. 12 July 2017. Salon.com. 30 July 2017. http://bit.ly/2sSixSk @petridishes. "David Brooks walks into a sandwich shop the sandwich shop collapses "it wasn't a structural problem' says David Brooks". Twitter. 11 July 2017. Twitter.com. 30 July 2017. http://bit.ly/2vcKYOP Spoiler ―fin―
#identitypolitics | #WhatTheyVotedFor Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The problem with identity politics: A federal judge has struck down Alabama's one-of-a-kind law that enabled judges to put minors seeking abortions through a trial-like proceeding in which the fetus could get a lawyer and prosecutors could object to the pregnant girl's wishes. Alabama legislators in 2014 changed the state's process for girls who can't or won't get their parents' permission for an abortion to obtain permission from a court instead. The new law empowered the judge to appoint a guardian ad litem "for the interests of the unborn child" and invited the local district attorney to call witnesses and question the girl to determine whether she's mature enough to decide. U.S. Magistrate Judge Susan Russ Walker sided Friday with the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama , writing that the law unconstitutionally and impermissibly imposes "an undue burden on a minor in Alabama who seeks an abortion through a judicial bypass," and violates the girl's confidentiality by potentially bringing other people from her life into the process. (Chandler↱) Okay, ready? (1) Conservative wants something unconstitutional, passes statute. (2) Courts strike statute as unconstitutional. (3) Conservatives are offended. (4) Everybody knows this is the fault of liberals and feminists and Democrats for going out of their way to make identity politics come first. If they had just shut up and let the conservatives have their identity politics without objection, everything would be just fine and everyone would be happy. Here's one: Texas Republicans pass an ostensibly anti-gay conscience-clause law that also includes the right to refuse medical services to a minor in their care, even and especially if that means keeping sexually abused minors away from doctors long enough to force them to have babies. And when that heap of abuse↱ is dismantled by the courts, surely enough there will be that angry contingent blaming Democrats for "identity politics". I couldn't tell you when it began, but I've been watching this cycle go on long enough for children born under Romer v. Evans to graduate from college; a generation of conservatives have come up to believe they have the right to arbitrarily hurt people, that their equal protection under law requires their supremacism, and that they are injured by having to suffer mere equality. The problem with telling liberals to lay off the identity politics is that you might as well tell people to stand there and do nothing while someone else beats the hell out of them, or steals from them, or, you know, whatevers them to death or some such. And while some might try to step up with some sputtering protest amounting to #NotAllConservatives or #NotEveryIssue, well, yeah, okay, that would be just fine with the rest of us, too: If we cancel out these self-inflicted contributions to the purported frustration, what is left? There are, after all, a number of aspects about the frustrations certain voters are expressing that appear, historically speaking, to be, after a fashion, self-inflicted. Conservatives keep doing incredibly stupid shit in order to prove how worthy they are of some identity assertion, and much lamentation about identity politics could be settled if they would just stop it, because they hurting themselves and everyone else for the sake of feeling empowered. ____________________ Notes: Chandler, Kim. "Judge nixes Alabama law putting pregnant girls through trial". Associated Press. 31 July 2017. APNews.com. 31 July 2017. http://bit.ly/2uPz3WF Morrow, Nick. "Discrimination Signed Into Law in Texas, Governor Abbott Signs HB 3859". Human Rights Campaign. 15 June 2017. HRC.org. 31 June 2017. http://bit.ly/2tcKPHE
What Appeasement Doesn't Get You Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The news from Reuters↱— Texas measures criticized as being discriminatory for limiting transgender people's access to bathrooms in schools and public buildings died on Tuesday, as the House adjourned and ended its special legislative session. Business leaders and civil rights groups had battled to defeat the bills, saying they advanced bigotry, would tarnish the state's image and damage its economy. The measures were blocked by moderate House Republicans. —would seem to speak against Appeasement. That is to say, as even "moderate" Republicans are turning to do the right thing because the capitalists say so, why would liberals roll over and give up? ____________________ Notes: Herskovitz, Jon. "Texas 'bathroom bill' dies in special legislative session". Reuters. 15 August 2017. Reuters.com. 15 Augsut 2017. http://reut.rs/2w0ogdA
And as I said before this is a state issue, not one the president needs waste time on, without making economic justice our top priority we will not win back the goverment.
Surrender Is Stupid Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Because civil rights have nothing to do with the federal government? Because you think economic justice can itself be stratified? Because if we just give them their way, maybe they'll stop bringing it up? No, seriously, that was just stupid, ElectricFetus. Don't say "we" to Democrats and liberals when you're pitching hardline conservative supremacism. What we should be analyzing is the difference, in the mind of Texas Republicans, 'twixt transgender, to the one, and woman, to the other. And, no, that doesn't mean the clumsy parsing of uneducated aesthetics↗—(by the way, Germaine is a woman↗, so, come on, dude, can't you get anything right, or is it always a spectacular disaster of just how freaking ignorant and perpetually wrong can you be?)—but, rather, something far more useful, which is the difference between why Texas Republicans buckle in the face of transgender and the business community but would still, on their consciences, aid and abet the sexual abuse of girls? Civil rights are a federal issue, or is that part of your Appeasement? You know, if everybody just gives over their civil rights, maybe conservatives will stop demanding them?
Except focusing it on federal level was one reason we lost. Who shits in bathrooms is not a serious issue, the stagnant wages is a serious issue, and as long as the public see democrats giving more time to bathrooms than to jobs, trump will continue to win. The whole problem tiassa with your appeasement argument is that you would rather lose, so long as you can keep virtue signalling about racial and sexual justice, instead of win so we can actually do something about it, you much rather just whine. And yes I will continue to say "we" as I am an elected democrat, director in my district, I volunteer my time and hundreds of my dollars to WIN votes and candidate for the DFL. Saying I am "pitching hardline conservative supremacism" does not bother me, in fact it makes me giggle, because I know who I am, and you clearly don't. yes, yes I know Gernaine Greer is a women, why would you think I would not know she is a women? Maybe you need to read a few post back when I said "Oh god I just had this image of this wrinkled old babuska, Gernaine Greer, in a men's pool changing room, perving on little boys, asking them to play salty cracker in front of her. I almost black-out in laughter!" clearly you can't handle what I was saying in that post so I will try to break it down for you: I am apply Lucy's argument of transgender 'perverts' enter girls changing rooms, but swapped sexes, with Germaine Greer as the pervert because of her noted predilection for little boys, with Germaine using what Lucy fears most, transgenderism, as a pass to perv on children, asking the boys to play "soggy cracker" because of her fondness for their semen. You can thank Bell for telling me these things about Germaine, whom looks to me like a grumpy babuska.
The Republican media operations focused on it. They can easily focus on something else next time. Appeasing them on one issue just frees up resources for another. So how do people come to "see" things that aren't there, and not things that are? How did you, for example, acquire the delusion that "the Democrats" were giving more time to bathrooms than to jobs or stagnant wages?
Misdirect Energy of the Regressive Liberals Well we are getting confederate statues removed, what a victory, that will totally put money in the pockets of debt riddle poor, working several jobs just toe make ends meets families of America. Look at the spiting, joyest hate as they spit on a lump of copper as if they have accomplished something righteous. It was not even a statue to some slave owner rich prick, but rather a statue to acknowledged the poor southern whites who owned no slaves and were constipated to fight and die in a war for rich man's rights. Oh well symbolic victories is what the regressives are all about. If only this energy could manifest in the voting booth or even town halls, via democratic order these statues can be removed via a simple vote, rather then spiting hate mob of angry children, and while they are voting they could vote for higher taxes on the rich to pay for more schooling and higher minimum wage. In short how do we get these kids who despite being of voting age clearly are children in adult bodies, to come out a vote in numbers? Certainly we need to run candidates that inspire them.
Why do you insist on making each new and temporary obsession of the Republican wingnut media the focus of your political efforts, accepting all of their claims as factual observation, and framing all your posts in their terms? That hasn't been all that simple to arrange, in North Carolina - especially if you happened to be among the "debt riddle poor, working several jobs just toe make ends meets families of America" who are not white in that State. There's a long history of the effort to get the vote of the non-white working poor registered, recorded, and counted, in that State. Latest event: https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...linas-voter-id-law-supreme-court-cert/526713/
#thatgoodmendonothing | #WhatTheyVotedFor Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Playing make believe is playing make believe, and the reason that seems so likely really is your utter lack of comprehension about Democratic politics, liberalism, and leftism, combined with your adherence to extraordinarily conservative narrative. Who you are and what you do would be, technically speaking, two different things. You still can't use words correctly. That is to say, you can claim to know who you are all you want, and that has precisely nothing at all to do with pitching hardline conservative supremacism. No, seriously, follow your conservative complaint about transgender. (1) That the rejection of a perverts' pride bill came from Texas Republicans is politically significant in a civil rights dispute. (2) Regardless of conservative demands to the other, civil rights are a federal issue as well as a state issue. (3) The President of the United States of America is the sworn protector and defender of the Constitution of the United States of America; members of Congress swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. Thus, you can say civil rights are "a state issue, not one the president needs waste time on" all you want, and you will be wrong. There does come a point at which the question of what is wrong with you moves past the content of what you're saying in order to focus on the idea that you're still saying it. When you put on this show, you're only posturing an enduring ignorance, that you have no substantial clue what yoou're on about. After all, the Trump administration is involved in these issues, and supporters want it involved. Your pretentious complaints effectively advocate the preservation or advancement of injustice. This is why liberals argue against Democrats supporting candidates who reject human and civil rights. This is a question no Appeaser is willing to address; to wit, from the topic post↑: But if the point is to get along with other people who refuse to work and play well with others, the Appeasers need to explain just how their advocacy is going to help anything but the advancement of prejudice, bigotry, and bullying .... .... No, seriously, what do we do about this? That is to say, the Appeasers aren't actually suggesting we give them their way, right? Except, of course, that's the thing. The bigots and bullies are going to be uncomfortable as long as they're not getting their way. So let us hear from the Appeasement faction: How do Democrats not hurt supremacists' feelings? And over and over again, your answers orbit the idea that Democrats should not undertake certain fights; those fights, however are picked by conservatives, with the effective result of your advocacy being that when the supremacists Democrats should not answer. And there is a reason that, between April and now, no Appeaser has been willing to address the fundamental questions underpinning this thread. If your friend advises you, as you're icing a mouse under your eye, that the solution is you shouldn't get in fights, maybe you'll want some explanation from your friend as to what that means when someone walks up out of the blue and throws a punch. And if your friend keeps repeating his advice and refusing to clarify the obvious point, what are the implications? How are you not suppsoed to get in fights? If someone is walking up at random and attempting harm because of your color, or your sex, or your religion, or whatever, and your friend keeps telling you to not piss these people off while refusing to explain what that means in light of the fact that your mere existence would seem to piss these people off, at what point are you going to doubt your friend's explanation? See, passing is nearly easy enough if you're a gay male. That is to say, as much as people say they know, apparently the homophobes appreciate the effort, so, you know, good on them faggots for bein' good boys, and that means our lives are that much easier, right?° Because it's a lot harder for a woman, or person of color, to pass. You know, in the days after 9/11, we heard a lot about Sikh and Hindu cabbies, but there was a case out of somewhere involving head injuries hospitals after a teenage Jewish boy was attacked for being a Muslim, apparently on the basis of his brown skin. And what gets me is that kid should never have to pass for being Jewish, but even if he does, someone, somewhere is going to take issue with the fact that he is brown. And racism is as racism does, but I'm of an American cohort whose school administrators responded to racist violence in the schools by refusing to punish white assailants and threatening minority victims with punishment, including the advice that minorities need to try harder to fit in. We like to think of "Seattle" as an enlightened corner of the Universe, but the region has a strong white supremacist history↱, and that speaks nothing of Oregon. And ultimately, all you are offering, ElectricFetus, is the same basic desire as the white supremacist school principal; contemporary iterations across the conservative spectrum seem imbued with a post-Southern Strategy faux-naïveté whereby not saying it explicitly somehow absolves responsibility for consciously pursuing an effect. I personally don't like the term "dog-whistle", as such; we're well enough to call it what it is, euphemization and stylization—a casual regard seeking merit in creativity—without insulting the dogs, who in turn are, generally speaking, smarter than all that. And for the rest of us, it's one thing to piss people off or not, but until you are capable of acknowledging how much of this has to do with conservatives being pissed off at existential reality, you will continue to fail to be believable. ____________________ Notes: ° Hint: Do you know what "passing" means, in this context? Michel, Casey. "Want to Meet America’s Worst Racists? Come to the Northwest". Politico. 7 July 2015. Politico.com. 28 August 2017. http://politi.co/1LWyH2j
Well we are getting black students desegregated, what a victory, that will totally put money in the pockets of debt riddle poor, working several jobs just to make ends meet...
You raise an interesting comparison. It seems a strange question to be arguing over publicly financed tributes to enemies of the United States of America, but then we might stop and think about the reasons why we have such discussions in the first place. That is to say, why is the question of giving public sacred space over for homage to enemies of our society even available for the discourse? Specifically, why put statues paying tribute to our enemies on public land, at public expense, in the first place? In that consideration, you provide a powerful bridge to the Civil Rights Movement in American history: When American governments pine for treason, we have a problem. So, you know, romanticism and a bizarre assertion of free speech are what they are, but the Constitution is not a suicide pact, and these Confederate-Nazi romantics betray the Constitution and the United States of America it empowers. In the end, it is a very persuasive assertion of values: Holding people of color in bondage and hatred is justification, in this traitorous logic, for betraying their country. Wasting your soul is the in thing to do. The Civil Rights legacy is painfully aware that it has been put on notice: A significant and influential portion of American society believe there is room for discussion in defense of the public trust giving aid and comfort to identifying, declared enemies of the United States of America, as long as it means preserving white supremacism. But it is generally familiar; in youth, during and right after the Cold War the former traditional guard would admonish against harsh critiques denouncing the racism and sexism of American society. Watching people struggle with the concept of rape culture is a similar experience; traditionalism very badly wants outcomes described with metaphors that sound perverse simply by their application—e.g., best of both worlds, have their cake and eat it too—as many perceive benefits they might wish to retain within the structure and processes they deny. That is to say, the advice, which was wrong for suggesting such influences were small, scattered, disorganized, and generally powerless, also appears an issue of vested interest for traditionalism, which sought to protect its levers of supremacy; the traditional paradigm found utility in deception. It would seem the Civil Rights dispute of former decades and generations is still going on. Who knew, right? No, really: Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, right? Because how could anyone possibly have known? You know, beause there's a bunch of white supremacists over there telling us it's still on, but respectable traditionalist mythos informs that we don't attend them because they are few and that's not how America really is; there are a whole lot of people of color telling us every day it's not over, but respectable traditionalist mythos informs that we don't attend them because they are radicals who hate America, and you can't be allowed to define America according to those few bad seeds we don't attend because they are few and that's not how America really is. And that's pretty much the way it's gone, for decades, in towers of white privilege that kept telling everyone else, whenever it came up, that racism had no power in these United States, and those black radicals need to stop hating America. This is one of the things that is ending. Again, the censorship wars of the Eighties come to mind: We didn't listen to the critique about sexual liberation objectifying and exploiting women; we did, however, hold a societal freak-out about the idea that women were not intended to be sexually obedient dolls for their husbands. And so what we arrived at was we damn well do have the right to sing about raping and killing and eating women, or telling them to lick our unkempt assholes, or gangbanging her ass. And, you know, yeah, we do. Isn't that great? And we made our point by calling the women leading the PMRC whores and cunts. And we had a blast doing so. I mean, think about what we won; it was part of what started in '62, and what women got out of that was men's support to be rebellious in order to be good women unto their men even if they weren't married. There is a reason why future generations will not specifically thank us; indeed, the perverse irony is that it is actually possible to argue, with a straight face, that the best way for women to regard the exploitation of their Reevolution is to describe the period as an inevitable phase, and just move on with life. The psychoanalytic meaning of this history is clear. And what is striking about much of the conservative hardline these days is how much of it actually sounds like the censorship wars. I wouldn't discount similar rhetoric on this occasaion pertaining to other aspects of feminism, such as women in the workplace, married women in the workplace, and the right of a woman to refuse sexual intercourse, except the reason for attending the fluff about heavy metal and then rap is the same market reality describing why we had that fight then instead of another. While liberals in general, and feminists in particular, have their sometimes complicated, oft-formulaic reasons why or why not, there is a certain insistent simplicity about the conservative response that amounts to dismissing the outcome, "Because you say so." It really is a hard relationship to document because at some point the conservative counterpoint started relying on its own version of, "Because I say so." Mat Staver is a famous example. "Governor Ultrasound", Bob McDonnell (R-VA) is another. Christian conservatives actually run law schools toward this end, such as Regents University. Conservative health care professionals banded together in groups like NARTH, arguing contrary assertions of medical advice pretty much because they say so; there is also another lesson in there, but lifting luggage is a discussion best reserved for whenever we absolutely must. We should also note that the would-be mainstream #NeverTrump movement selected David French, who ran an organization dedicated to harassing educational institutions on behalf of religios and political theses seeking classroom audiences on the pretense that a school refusing to hire a teacher to present an insupportable thesis as proper academic study is somehow a violation of First Amendment rights; this "because they say so" thing is pretty much mainline among conservatives and their "moderate" and "independent" sympathizers; it has become stock Republican trade. We're watching the emergence of that long-rumored silent majority; whether or not it actually achieves a proper majority is its own question, and depends on a fundamental #trumpswindle question about who is a mark or in on the grift. Generally speaking, people are still gambling it's not actually a majority, but it's easy to see the proportions they estimate are enough in and of themselves to rattle confidence. But as the white supremacist silent sympathy roars anew, watch for the familiar manipulations and machinations, the proposition that because they say so, and without regard to function. And in that determined ignorance of and apathy toward function, there will always remain some question about who was really confused and who was going out of their way to confuse them. And when one's freedom and equality require another's lack thereof, such questions become important. And on your sarastic point↑ about statues: It was a slow and piecemeal thing that came up here and there in local discourse; a right-wing freakout brought it into focus, and the results of that conservative panic dramatically accelerated the slow process. Some cities reached out and settled the question overnight. We should, then, also note that right-wing freakouts do occasionally motivate progress. It took a quarter-century, sure, but all told, that was pretty quick for a societal revolution. But, yeah, marriage equality in 2015 would not have happened without conservatives freaking out sometime around 1989, and not letting up until ... er ... ah ... right, they still haven't. It's just there's a lot of fucking damage every time conservatives do the right thing by pitching infantile tantrums in order to force everyone to do it for them. And we get that they want to smart afterward, sulking on how we went and did it anyway. It's always a weird thing when one proposes a liberalish complaint that what we ought to do is give aid and comfort to injustice. And, you know, I say liberalish because there really isn't any point in muttering this and that about how conservative the Farm and Labor of DFL can be when it comes to anything other than who is giving them money, as your right-wing narrative defies even the worst prejudicial aspects about trying to balance the needs of farm country as Northstar shone its light toward equality. Even then, when DFL was pleading the needs of farm country slowing down their support for marriage equality, they could still talk a proper Democratic game, and even range into liberalism proper. Your apparent ignorance of history, inability to comprehend basic liberal and Democratic discourses—speak nothing of leftist—combined with your insistence on right-wing presupposition to madlib the blanks is a bit like throwing darts with a blindfold mixed into bowling with Marge; every once in a while, you'll hit a target, even if it's two lanes over. And, yes, you are correct to explicitly connect the Civil Rights Movement to what is happening now. The Movement is validated, as are the decades of reminding that our work as Americans remains unfinished.
The first reaction to this was to post it in the "appeasement" thread - as an example of how a pro refuses to appease. But it would fit as well in the other thread, as an example of what Trump's presidency is going to look like in real time: https://www.stripes.com/news/us/pen...ps-calls-for-more-study-1.485073#.WaaRWRSxW16 "More study", followed by expert oversight and design of actual implementation. Maybe ten or fifteen years worth?
I'm skeptical. Incredibly skeptical. I think the whole thing was show and probably represents the ONE thing that Trump is adequately capable of: posturing. <the following is just baseless speculation and should only be taken as that> Trump: "Mattis. I'm gonna come out against transgender people in the military. I have to posture for those who elected me. [Because I'm psychopath and have no moral core, frankly, I don't give a flying fuck about those people nor any people for that matter, but I do care about keeping my base energized,] so if you could, I'm gonna send a tweet. Then I'm going to sign the executive order with the fine-print that you will implement it and can do whatever you think is right in affecting it. You then can belay the order and conduct a study. We'll wash our hands of this in a few years after the whole thing dies down. I get the good publicity. You get to be the smart manager. We all make out and nothing changes." </baseless speculation>
I don't know if your misunderstanding me or intentionally straw-manning me again. I have no problem with removing the statues, so long as it is done through the law as it was in most cases (the video though is an example of pathetic childish behavior that insults the left though), my problem is the lack of focus on bigger problems, problems that directly cripple the lives of living people and not the existence of a hunk of bronze that had been sitting their for decades. This is the fundamental difference between now and the civil rights, the lives of people verse the lifeless bronze. Civil rights was an actual achievement, removing some statues is not. I think all of this stems from how most people on the regressive left have never actually suffered in life externally (clearly they suffer internally, mentally) thus feelings are more important then food, water, homes, jobs, a future. This inability to priorities actual needs verse feelings is how we now have total republican domination and president trump.
That would not prevent it from engendering destructive reality - as can the wall, or the immigrant blaming, or the treaty grandstanding. That's how the Reps won, yep. Feelings beat issues when the media is manipulated and corrupted - the Dems tried to run on issues and good government via argument, the Reps appealed to feelings and bigotries via imagery (and rigged the voting). Standard fascist propaganda technique, btw - get 'em by the eyeballs (posting videos for argument, say, as we see on this forum) and their hearts and minds will follow.
