So it looks like the Kamala Harris campaign is unraveling. I thought Harris was going to be the Democratic nominee for 2020. Another one of my election predictions goes down in flames! It is a good thing that I do not bet on elections, I would be in the poor house.
I always identified with Democrats because we were supposed to be the smart party, as opposed to the troglodyte Republicans. I thought awareness and honest reasoning distinguished the two parties in very meaningful ways.
But now, it is hard to ignore the sweeping ignorance that I see among so many of the automatic Dem supporters. I listen to the viewer comments on C-Span every morning, and I just can’t believe the crushingly obvious ignorance of almost every person who calls in to criticize the right and support the Dems. Very mote in eye vs. log in eye stuff. How do you judge the value of anything without comparing it to other similar things? You can’t. Think about it. But modern Dems are trained to call such necessary comparisons “whataboutism,” as though that was the logical fallacy at play, whilst they delight themselves with true logical fallacies, like ad hominem based attacks.
I don’t mean opinions I disagree with, I mean flat out ignorance of basic facts that reflect badly on their own side. And rage from such folks if you ever suggest they are “ignorant” about any facts, even when they clearly are. And the certainty that they are smart and right, despite their obvious ignorance.
How did this happen, and why is it taboo to talk about it?
Whatever happened to “The unexamined life is not worth living?”
An interesting question: has she slipped over the edge or was she pushed? I have noticed an increase over the past couple of weeks in increasingly negative, anti-female candidate rhetoric directed predominately at Harris and increasingly towards Warren stemming of course from the corporate wings of the neoliberal wall street left. Seems like the left is being herded to a Biden/Gabbard candidacy, drumpf uck’s wildest wet dream, utilizing the same methodology it has been suggested influenced our Reich’s ascension. Or a calving off of the herd in a vain third party attempt at Bloomberg/Steyer siphoning off enough of both weasel centrist dems and queasy retards to win.
A disappointment, Harris/Inslee has to date been my endorsement. Seems the dems are again putting in overtime encouraging my yet another write-in None of the Above vote.
It looks like The New York Times broke the story about the poor treatment of staffers in the Harris campaign so you could be right. I would not be surprised if you were right since there seems to be a lot of infighting and bad blood among the elite class right now.
As far as who is getting the push right now among the Democrats, it looks to me like Pete Buttigieg is getting the big push more than Biden but these things change a lot and as I said, I am not good at predicting election outcomes so maybe Biden is still the favorite of the Democratic corporate wing.
I know far too many idiotic conservatives, and silly liberals, to think it all a coincidence.
Should I blame TV, video games, and working people just wanting some escapist relief from the continuous economic stress? Or are there more psychologically sociologically nefariously influential powers at play, who are always one step ahead of ‘common reality’?
Like realitychecker, I am fascinated by the descent of the Democrats’ . . . What to call it? Mental outlook? shared tribal outlook?
It is only an interesting sidelight, but the World Socialist Web Site (surely a fringe hotbed of radical leftism ?!) has been conducting a series of interviews with highly reputed scholarly historians concerning the New York Times’ 1619 project. The 1619 project is rewriting American history in a identitarian vein: “racism is in the DNA of the USA” that kind of thing. And, WSWS is going to people who would have been at the absolute pinnacle of scholarly history twenty years ago and asking these establishment scholars to call out the NY Times on how the paper of record is featuring race as an explanator.
I think it’s time to rename each political party in America because they are no longer what they once may have been. I prefer the Shit Party and the Shit Party. This election, and every election hereafter until America is no more, will be the Shits versus the Shits. It will be a veritable Shit Parade.
Race is a great surrogate for class if you’re the oligarchy. If we view it as a class war, we can come together, regardless of color or culture or gender or you name it, in solidarity and destroy the 20% (the 1% and the 19% upper middle class enablers). So long as the majority of the 80% see it in terms of race or gender or whatever other divisive factionalizing wedge the oligarchy trots out to divide the 80%, no meaningful progress can ever be made. Gay marriage is a hollow victory when it comes at the price of more and more victims falling into poverty and misery daily.
How does the oligarchy measure and/or determine failure or are they all too-big-to-fail just like the companies they own and manage? I consider Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss to Donald Trump a MASSIVE FAILURE. Anyone involved in that campaign should never be able to find work in that field again.
One such person is Kelly Mehlenbacher. She was Treasury Director for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and on Kamala Harris’ campaign staff in California before she resigned recently. Bloomberg picked her up. Sure. Why not? Hillary lost miserably and Kamala Harris’ campaign has fallen apart so why not hire a failure who was integral to both failures? Because three is a charm? The trifecta?
Kamala Harris’ campaign hit its peak back in the first Democratic debate in June when she took on Joe Biden about his comment that he had gotten on well with some of his most racist and conservative colleagues. She then proceeded to squander the stature and momentum that gave her walking back and equivocating on issues like Medicare for All. And her campaign never recovered. Biden wanted her as a Vice Presidential running mate, and if he got the nomination he would probably still consider her because she checks off all the right identarian boxes.
After her flame out and a number of Biden gaffes, conservative Democrats started hyping Buttigieg. This was especially noticeable on MSNBC where they gave him a lot of free positive coverage and went all folksy with their “Mayor Pete” schtick (something really cringeworthy coming from a bunch of Establishment types making seven figure incomes about a guy who has never lived a second of his life outside the elites). And it continues. MSNBC was doing a series on the healthcare plans of the candidates. Did they start with Bernie Sanders and Medicare for All and Joe Biden and Obamacare as the two major poles of the debate? Of course not, it began with happy music and Mayor Pete because because.
[1] “There only one political party in America, the money party.” – G. Vidal
It’s a banally simple line, but only because it remains true.
[2] K. Harris was being groomed by the Clintonites and had gained Hillary’s blessing till Gabbard so effectively took her down in slightly over a minute.
I have mixed feelings about Gabbard — who’s been more frequently photographed swimsuit-attired than any previous wannabe presidential candidate in history — but there’s no doubt of her sincerity on the ‘stop-the-wars- issue. And her takedown of Harris was a thing of beauty.
I can’t say how much I dislike Buttigieg. For me, he is the quintessential Establishment Hillary Clinton “you can’t have nice things” elitist. He is running on a “Gruel for all” platform. If elected, he would then start negotiating from a “Gruel for some” position and end with a pragmatic “Gruel for a few.”
Ah yes, Mayor Pete, the McKinsey consultant and military stenographer
Yup, with Kamala the Cop’s decline, the neoliberal Dem establishment have taken to barefacedly pushing a spurious narrative of his rise in the polls while continuing to do everything they can to ignore the candidacy of someone who by every account — even his enemies’ — was an enormously effective mayor for quite a while.
I don’t even want to comment on Mayo Pete. Just about as white bred as can be. Another example of the dem establishment giving representatives out every possible demographic fifteen minutes for the sake of appearances before settling down to the neoliberal wall street lefts’s old white guy from the south. Biden/Mayo is a distinct possibility. HWBush/Quayle.
Hmm. The American Whig Party had already effectively dissolved the year before, in 1856, hadn’t they? The Dems –in their current Clintonite neoliberal incarnation, anyway — are still very much around.
Also, the Republicans then were becoming committed to reforming slavery out of existence. Whereas today there’s no grouping of politicians in Washington DC that seems committed to reforming anything about the status quo.
If this was, as I take it, a suggestion that we draw a parallel between Trump and Buchanan (with the added fillip of the Civil War to follow in only a few more years), it’s a very inexact parallel.
there’s a consensus that the “liberal” centrists identifying themselves with the Democratic Party — particularly the elites who drive the visible political culture and control much of the political apparatus — seem both to despise Trump and to be deeply unwilling to back the kind of policy change that might render Trump impotent and irrelevant, simply a bad joke told as a long aside in the sweeping narrative of history.
I don’t know that civil war is as plausible as irreversible subversion of nominally democratic institutional forms — that would be more in the nature of a confirmation that the revolution of 2000-2009 cannot be reversed to any significant degree than an actual change in the status quo circa 2020. (It might also be an implied admission that organizing an effective response to the gathering global environmental crisis is simply beyond human capability. Maybe the embrace of idiocracy on the centre-left is just a manifestation of deep pessimism about that.)
In 1857, most Americans experience of news media was reading an 8 page newspaper two or three times a week and their experience of politics was of attending meetings and social gatherings. As far as we can tell, the entire country then was focused on the issue of slavery and its both large-C and small-c constitutional nuances and implications.
What is the country focused on now? Large numbers of self-identified Democrats have fried their own brains on the artificially hot stove of a frequently preposterous narrative of Russian “interference” determining the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election. It is hard to imagine a more irrelevant focus of political attention and will — in many ways the exact opposite of the intense focus on slavery in the late 1850s as the key issue for the then future.
On a special edition of Washington Week, moderator Robert Costa sits down for one-on-one conversations with The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and historian Jon Meacham on the president and the presidency. This is the best analysis of where the USA is presently and where it may (or may not) be headed in the future.
‘Soul Of America’ Makes Sense Of Nation’s Present By Examining Its Past:
re: Jon Meacham is not someone i have much respect for, and sure enough he explains the origin of his newest book as originating in “the terrible events in Charlottesville last August when the neo-Nazis and the Klansmen were demonstrating, and the counterprotester Heather Heyer was killed. And we found ourselves with a president of the United States who seemed unable to condemn neo-Nazis and Klansmen . . .” The problem with this narrative is that, in fact, Trump did condemn the racists.
Meacham has the story he wants and he does not let mere facts get in the way. He did not check reality, one might say. He may not have felt he had to, because large parts of the Media echoed that narrative line at the time, even outlets that felt obligated to print Trump’s official remarks, argued that he did not say it soon enough or sincerely enough, while others simply ignored his statement. And, that illustrates where we are at.
> If this was, as I take it, a suggestion that we draw a parallel between Trump and Buchanan (with the added fillip of the Civil War to follow in only a few more years), it’s a very inexact parallel.
I don’t know if it’s consensus or foregone conclusion. The establishment dems are systematically shutting down those best suited to address the problem, offering at best milquetoast bones thrown to rubes. They do not appear to be as interested in getting rid of Trump as maintaining the status quo, or taking us back to some mythological status quo, in and of itself a conservative construct. Biden is drump uck’s choice, he shouldn’t be the dems. There are potential variations on that, but the bottom line is the wall street dems are writing the narrative, calling the shots, pulling the strings … Trump is writing the narrative, calling the shots, pulling the strings …
We are where we are because we let them get away with it, from Nixon’s rat-fuckery to Reagan rat-fucking Carter to the so-called Supreme Court interference in an election and appointing a pResident followed by eight years of industrial scale obstructionism and gaslighting, we let them get away with. Had we punched that bully in the nose way back when things would be different, but we didn’t and they’re not. The correlation to all that is down through the years we’ve been holding our noses and pulling the lever for the lesser of evils. The bone tossed …
It’s amazing. They can’t help themselves. Instead of owning a constructive critique of Donald Trump, they defend Trump against disingenuous, destructive critiques. Their illogic is on full display. Because the Dems critique of Trump is disingenuously motivated and misleading and misdirecting, Trump must therefore be good. That’s illogical. What an impotent and illogical position. Pathetic, actually. Those who hold such a position are in no way interested in progress and are in fact part of the problem and an impediment to progress every bit as much as the Dems are let alone the Repubs. If your response to anything is in direct reaction to the Dems, the Dems own you and your response be it negative or positive.
Don’t think Trump and his cronies don’t want a piece of this and aren’t advocating for it and enabling it considering Trump’s recent budget cuts to public housing.
The panic of 1857 was in part due to the increased speed of information with the roll-out of the telegraph — the internet of the day. The panic is part and parcel of what helped promulgate the civil war. The North was hit harder than the South and this emboldened the South to take liberties with what they perceived to be a weakened and vulnerable North.
Efficiencies in nursing care really suck when you’re in the hospital. Unless you’re an important person in government, or rich, in which case I guess they’ll still give you good care.
It’s true. My mother passed this past Wednesday at 12:30am. She was effectively euthanized. It was euthanasia by any other name even though euthanasia is technically illegal. I’m all for euthanasia but in an open and honest manner.
She entered the hospital because she was having difficulty breathing. They first indicated she could go back to the nursing care facility in a day. Then it was the next day. Granted, she was 91 and not in good health by any means, but within the span of several days in the hospital, she went from “she can go home tomorrow” to medically unmanageable and it’s time for hospice care. She was ready to give up I suppose and the hospital agreed and pushed her into it. My family went along since they were ready for her to die for more than a decade now. She entered hospice, allegedly her choice, where all fluids were removed and any semblance of life support. When she started writhing in pain, she was administered 1 mg of Dilaudid every four hours which effectively sedated her and rendered her unconscious. They said she was not under duress but who really knows. She labored for three days. Her breathing was a struggle as though she was running a marathon. It was horrible to watch. Her death was prolonged once she was determined to be medically unmanageable and I’m not sure inevitable as to timing per the hospital’s prognosis. Hospice had to cost Medicaid/Medicare a mint when legal, voluntary euthanasia would have been more humane and much more economical. Fyi, my extended family are pretty much all Republicans and Trump supporters. Medicaid/Medicare, which paid for the effective prolonged suffering euthanizing of their mother, is evil socialism. It boggles the mind. The hypocritical contradictions are so thick and ubiquitous, it’s insanity.
“Whataboutism” is the most illogical logical fallacy I can imagine. It is basically an argument against considering the full context of the topic under discussion. That only benefits the side that is being invested in being hypocritical, doesn’t it?
Who is it that coined, and has since heavily relied on, that stupid rhetorical trick? And why should they ever again be given the benefit of the doubt with regard to their good faith in any argument?
Could some of the TDS geniuses please provide a coherent defense of whataboutism?
NOTE: By coherent, I mean one that does not assume that a perfect world would exist by default if only we could make Trump disappear.
One of Trump’s war criminal pardons, Edward Gallagher, is a murdering psychopath who deployed again and again to Iraq because he enjoyed killing. I have no mercy for this guy’s wife who will ultimately be his next victim, mark my words, if she isn’t a victim of abuse already. A psycho scumbag like this HAS to kill and kill indiscriminately. He will kill again and this time it will be an American innocent, most likely his wife although I certainly wouldn’t consider his wife an innocent. She should have left long ago and now it’s too late. He will never let her leave and murder her if she does and no doubt murder her even if she doesn’t. This scumbag murdered an innocent Iraqi female teenager walking along a river’s edge and Donald Bone Spur Trump calls that a Warfigher.
Trump also promoted Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, who was accused of a series of crimes in Iraq, including shooting a young girl walking along a riverbank and an older man with a sniper’s rifle and stabbing to death a wounded prisoner, but was acquitted of murder and attempted murder charges in July.
Gallagher was charged with more than a dozen crimes regarding his eighth deployment to Iraq, where his behavior there had alarmed colleagues so much that they asked to meet with their top troop commander to raise concerns, according to a report obtained by the New York Times.
Any TRUE LEFTIST should be APPALLED by Trump’s pardons. Outraged, in fact. If you are TRULY anti-war, you surely MUST BE anti-war criminal. Take note. Trump’s pardons, at least Gallagher and Golsteyn, have piercing blue eyes. Compare and contrast with the Central Park Five.
For all the gun nuts out there, should Gallagher be allowed the right to own a gun? You wouldn’t consider him psychologically imbalanced considering you blame all mass shootings by whites to be the result of mental illness?
Even before pardoning Behenna, Trump demonstrated a disturbing flippancy toward war crimes. He has repeatedly expressed support for former Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher, another alleged war criminal. Gallagher’s own men told investigators that he had, according to the New York Times, “shot a girl in a flower-print hijab who was walking with other girls on the riverbank.” In 2017, Gallagher walked up to a 15-year-old prisoner of war and “stabbed the wounded teenager several times in the neck and once in the chest with his hunting knife, killing him.” He then texted images of his “kill” to friends. Even in the tightknit Special Operations community, fellow SEALs were horrified and repeatedly reported Gallagher’s behavior until charges were brought. He faces court-martial at the end of the month. Trump tweeted that Gallagher would be given better conditions in confinement “in honor of his past service,” an honor many would say he threw away long ago.
I already wrote to the effect that your “shoe” does NOT fit my argument. Failing to acknowledge that is rude.
I really cannot think of any actual person who makes the argument you complain about. Someone who is a fan or supporter of Trump would simply feel the Dems are being partisan and unfair, full stop.
I think you are projecting, in order to avoid engaging with the problem of why so many partisan Democrats, with a target as ripe and repulsive as Trump, choose to deploy false or dishonest or (as you say) “disingenuously motivated and misleading and misdirecting” critiques. Joining that out-of-tune chorus, imho, compounds the political damage done by Trump, because so little of their critique is preparing to reverse Trump policy in sensible directions; joining the pathological Blob in their insane Russophobia threatens to give the IC control of the Presidency — not a precedent I would want to set nor would I recommend that the Dem establishment make an alliance, as they have chosen to do, with either the Blob or the IC — dishonest and failure-prone as they are.
“Whataboutism” is the most illogical logical fallacy I can imagine. It is basically an argument against considering the full context of the topic under discussion. That only benefits the side that is being invested in being hypocritical, doesn’t it?
I agree. It’s time for Trump supporters to quit “Whataboutism” when it comes to criticism of Trump. “What about Obama?” “What about Hillary?” The answer always is, “Obama and Hillary and the Dems have done everything they decry Trump doing but only better.” Which is true in some respects but certainly not all respects. Trump deserves criticism and we should own that criticism rather than relying on Dem apparatchiks to spoon-feed it to us.
Take Trump’s recent pardons of the war criminals. I have seen some partisans use “Whataboutism” and say “what about Obama?” Instead of just focusing on Trump’s pardons and why it was wrong and the implications of this precedent.
Am I allowed to remember who resolved to look forward, not back? Am I allowed to remember the precedent set by the President who could not prosecute a torturer or bankster?
American politics is reduced to idiocracy by not remembering anything past the last commercial break in this very special program.
We have a political system in which we rely on rotation in office and partisan rivalry to generate informed critique and responsible, responsive, adaptive policy change.
Except we have not been getting it lo these twenty years. Life expectancy is declining! The country is losing multiple, apparently perpetual wars! Health care spending per capita is more than twice what any other country spends and we lead the world in medical bankruptcy. Finance is dominated by a handful of megabanks regularly convicted of crimes, while manufacturing is in decline — at least that part that has not already been exported to China and crap jobs are plentiful, and homelessness a common plague in some cities.
In 2006-8, the country was ready for change. We had seen the consequences of Bush, in 9/11, in Iraq and Afganistan, in Katrina, and finally in the GFC. The Democrats were given majorities in Congress and the Presidency and they use that power to . . . affirm, confirm and extend every bad policy of the Bush years and continue many of the same key policymakers in office including Bush’s Defense Secretary and Fed Chairman. The wars went on; the policy of “surge” that had failed so markedly in Iraq was repeated to fail in Afganistan. The Bush tax cuts were made permanent. The signature initiative of the Democrats was to enact a Republican reform plan to subsidize for-profit health insurers to provide crap coverage, a reform that has done absolutely nothing to constrain costs, as the price of basic drugs like insulin has soared. The Democrats pursued a hardline immigration policy, favored banksters over homeowners facing foreclosure, punished whistleblowers and continued to build the surveillance state. Nothing was done to reverse the crumbling of infrastructure. No effective aid or protection was given to workers or labor unions. An inadequate stimulus prolonged the deepest recession since the Second World War.
You want to know how we got Trump? It wasn’t the Russkies “meddling”. It wasn’t the racism of whites privileged to die deaths of despair in flyover country Hillary could not be bothered to visit.
It was a failure of governance that became bipartisan when the Democrats got elected to correct massive policy failure and decided to look forward to doing more of the same. That is what this is about, and everytime you make up some cockamamie reason for why it is morally wrong somehow or “illogical” to bring it up, to bring up the political context that gave us both Trump and ridiculously dishonest and ineffective opposition to Trump, someone here will remind you.
It is interesting that 450 manages to misunderstand my comment about “whataboutism” so completely that he responds as though I am accusing Trump supporters of creating that ridiculous concept, rather than the Dems who have used it relentlessly, but very selectively (Quel surprise! lol), for the last three years, to try and deflect from their own obvious deep hypocrisy.
bruce wilder lays out the history and disappointments of the last Dem/Odisaster administration with total accuracy, but leaves out some of the worst elements, which are, IMO, the permanent immunization of large corporations from criminal sanctions (can’t displace their poor workers, doncha know), and the ridiculous excesses of political correctness that had us taking things like micro-aggressions and micro-invalidations seriously, as the central planning types tried to snuff out all individuality and free-thinking and thereby drain away the last bits of our freedom.
The real Presidential ticket for the Dems should be seen to be Wordfuckery/Mindfuckery, because that is what they really believe in. Makes it very hard to see Trump as worse. I just see a pendulum swinging back from an extreme, as happens continuously throughout human history.
still think someone needs to get their own blog, even if this is “open thread” night. they post five times to each respondents one, and keep dragging the convo back to the same BS, trying to force people here to engage with it.
not everyone’s lives revolves around the latest political 3ring circus act, nor do we all want to waste headspace on it.
intent on basically clogging up the airwaves with trivia.
there are forums for that. basically the entire rest of the internet is that, on this subject at least.
The reflexive condemnation of Democrats while ignoring the active participation and often leadership of Republicans in the perfidies being condemned is what’s known as a “tell.” What it tells is that the ones doing these reflexive condemnations are objectively pro-Republican and very often pro-Trump when he’s in pseudo-opposition to “establishment” Republicans.
Of course they deny it, but it appears that many of those who do this kind of reflexive condemnation of Democrats have little or no self-awareness, nor any sense of self-agency nor means of critical thinking. They are, 450 says, ruled by Democrats absolutely.
For decades, there was nothing beyond the Clintons. History began with the election of Bill Clinton in 1992. From that moment, there were no Republicans. Gingrich and Bush the Awful were erased from the record as if they never existed. The defeat of Hillary seemed to mean that she controlled everything. But then there was Obama who controlled what she didn’t. And of course Biden and his failson were the true viruses of the Democrat disease. And then there was Nancy Pelosi!! We’re all going to die!
This is the sense (?) I get from those who can see no reality beyond Democrats and their betrayal, perfidy, crimes and horrors.
Democrats=Evil Personified.
Republicans=Doing Their Best.
Trump=Clown Destroyer of Democrats: Hero!
This is just partisanship. Tribalism if you want to call it that.
Those who recognize there is functionally one party, the Government Party, that’s riven by factions, and Trump is a factional player, not a Hero, Rs are factional players and Dems are factional players, not Demons, and that none of them has the best interests of you’n’me in mind, and that what they are collaborating in doing is transforming governance in the US into an authoritarian oligarchy beyond factionalism and partisanship — and beyond the ability of you’n’me to affect — are the ones who understand the power plays under way.
Elections won’t save us from this process. It will go on no matter who is in office or which party controls congress. Trump and the Rs aren’t stopping it. If anything they are accelerating it.
If that’s what you want, hurrah! It’s what you’re getting.
If it’s not, then something well beyond elections will be necessary to throw a spanner in the works.
not everyone’s lives revolves around the latest political 3ring circus act, nor do we all want to waste headspace on it.
I don’t find over 400 ppm trivial. I don’t find euthanasia trivial. I don’t find the lack of affordable housing trivial. The thread started off with someone posting a comment about Kamala Harris’s campaign falling apart. I posted a comment related to that revealing Bloomberg picked up one of her prominent staffers who also worked for Hillary’s campaign failure, which I thought was bizarre. One comment centered on what I see as a trend in the commentary by a certain handful of commentators. Funny how I never see you complain about a certain poster who outright denies manmade climate change, namely metamars. I don’t complain about him either and yet I disagree with him. I also don’t see his nonsense as forcing me to engage with it or a threat to me in any way. But I’m not you, thankfully.
We’ve already dealt with metamars. He’s as incorrigible as the crazy uncle at the holidays who always spouts the same nonsense regardless of how often he’s been discredited and ridiculed. Personally, I’ve chosen to entertain myself by imagining him as a tragic troll farm worker pounding the keys in a tiny cubicle funded by some corporate fracking org. Far more public nuts like Yiannopoulos and Prager have earned their living from similar sources. Maybe they’re all the same guy, I dunno.
I do bitch a lot about brainwashed evangelicals, because I was once one and am still surrounded by family and acquaintances who continue on that way. But my, their “bedrock principles” do continuously flux now don’t they? No longer do they demand more troops in Iraq or more jobs sent to the Chinese job creators. But they still blame the Democrats for everything though. Thanks to observing the debates here, I believe it’s the “authoritarian follower” in them speaking. Theirs may be to forever mimic the words of their dear leader de jour, oblivious to the pile of discarded dear leaders behind them.
My current concern is with these Steven Pinker types. Unfunded and non-mamas basemented (AFAIK), yet with the same dangerously crazy ideas about humanity being lovingly shepherded by mammon power. I like the part where they respect reason to solve difficult human problems instead of using methods more faith-based, but they seem to ignore far too much of the trouble which is current, or on the way.
“In 2006-8, the country was ready for change….The Democrats were given majorities in Congress and the Presidency and they use that power to . . . affirm, confirm and extend every bad policy of the Bush years…The wars went on; the policy of “surge” that had failed so markedly in Iraq was repeated to fail in Afganistan. The Bush tax cuts were made permanent. The signature initiative of the Democrats was to enact a Republican reform plan to subsidize for-profit health insurers to provide crap coverage, a reform that has done absolutely nothing to constrain costs, as the price of basic drugs like insulin has soared. The Democrats pursued a hardline immigration policy, favored banksters over homeowners facing foreclosure, punished whistleblowers and continued to build the surveillance state. Nothing was done to reverse the crumbling of infrastructure. No effective aid or protection was given to workers or labor unions. An inadequate stimulus prolonged the deepest recession since the Second World War.
It wasn’t the Russkies “meddling”. It wasn’t the racism of whites privileged to die deaths of despair in flyover country Hillary could not be bothered to visit….”
================================
For decades I believed more [D]’s would solve the nations problems, this in spite of Bill’s record in the 1990’s. By 2006, the scales began to rapidly fall from my eyes, by the time Obama’s 1st war of aggression I had lost any hope that the Democratic Party Apparatchiks installed by Al From, of DLC fame would ever be purged from the party. They had seized control of the Democratic party through ruthless tactics and they would be dammed if the party of Roosevelt would ever return.
That is why people voted Trump, Al From’s [D] party is far to the right of anything Reagan ever wished for, indeed, Reagan would be too far to the “left” to be nominated in today’s [D] party.
This case has not been proven. It’s merely a matter of opinion and a form of cover for voting for a fascist despot.
I think they voted for Trump because that’s who they really are when you look behind the fading and crumbling veneer. Many union workers I have known, from the halcyon union days of the fifties and sixties and early seventies, were Dem in only one way — their paycheck. Otherwise, they were militant fascist fodder waiting to be tapped by a fascist zeitgeist and now that fascist zeitgeist is upon us and those union workers are now increasingly dispossessed geriatrics and their children and grandchildren opioid/meth addicts.
Bobby Kennedy alienated the Teamsters. Hoffa backed Nixon. Carter deregulated trucking and put an end to the middle class lifestyle being a trucker afforded. Union members’ affiliation with the Dems was always tenuous at best and ALWAYS economical. No way these union thugs were ever on board or would ever be on board with more liberal identity politics like gay marriage and gender muddling. These guys were head crackers ready and willing to beat the snot out of anyone who tried to take food off their tables.
Now their day has passed but Trump represents one last gasp of revenge. The joke’s on them once again. Trump isn’t their revenge. He’s in place to polish them off for good. They are this idiotic to think their revenge could be this easy. Trump didn’t even expect to win. It was all a lark for him. He didn’t even have an acceptance speech prepared. It’s a gaslight operation put on by the oligarchy. They are this pathological. It’s sport for them because Netflix isn’t good enough.
As CP says, and I have said forever too, we are long past voting our way out of this and in fact, there may be no way out just as there is no way of avoiding let alone mitigating climate change at this point precisely because of these numbskulls who thought and continue to think anything good could come from voting for Trump.
Any thoughts about this? I’m skeptical about this unprecedented leak. It appears Iran leaked it purposely to paint itself in a positive light. There’s nothing revelatory for me. It’s partial validation of what I already knew. The internationally illegal war against Iraq, and actually illegal from an American constitutional law perspective as well, could only serve to strengthen Iran’s hand against Iraq and boy howdy, did it ever. The planners and strategists aren’t stupid people. They had to know it. They did know it. And yet they did it anyway. Why?
1857. The most important matter at least to our general happiness is that in 1857 you could get a college education and nearly guarantee future success. Americans were hungry to learn as opposed to today’s hunger to be distracted. The country was growing and there was hope mixed in with the cruelty and stupidness.
I still maintain that the D primary circus is intended to fail. They saw the coming of Sanders and decided if they couldn’t beat him they had to at least make sure he lost, keeping their positions safe. The Iron Law of Institutions and all that. It’s funny because I was reading about the KMT party in Taiwan and a “rabblerouser”, Mayor Han and its amazing how well both situations are similar. Sacrifice of the Party to protect the insiders. If only we had listened to Washington and shunned parties all together.
Here’s an interesting article that helps shed some light on at least a faction of Trump supporters — disillusioned former union members or the progeny of former union stronghold families.
I was just a kid in the 80s, so I was unaware of the finer points of Reagan’s policies. However, I do remember my grandparents–who were totally pro-union–voting for Reagan. Both times, I believe. It’s so interesting (and sad) how so many anti-union politicians have been able to attract the support of blue collar laborers. I think they’re able to do it by appealing to their prejudices. That, combined with the fact that the Dems have been such unreliable allies over the years.
The reason people here harp on the Democrats and not the Republicans is because the bad things Republicans do are common knowledge to anyone who doesn\’t exclusively watch Fox News. There\’s an entire media industry devoted to telling people how bad Republicans are and pointing out every bad thing they do: MSNBC, the Daily Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, John Oliver, Daily Kos, Huffington Post and so on. People here don\’t need to pile on. The right wing media industry doesn\’t provide accurate criticism of the Democrats so people here need to point it out.
Echoes of the past can be heard in the problems of the present. The revolutionary notion of democracy was put on hiatus in 1787 and the coup of the oligarchs continues to this day. Rule of the oligarchs under the empty rhetoric of democracy is so familiar and comfortable that to have millionaires in Congress and a ruling class of wealthy elites seems as American as apple pie. But the poisonous politics of wealth are not the homegrown democracy that was cultivated in the backyards of local communities. They are a tainted substitute peddled by wealthy elites.
Today, oligarchic rule stands poised to kill equality, justice and ordinary citizens. Our grandmothers, all unwittingly, crisscrossed the crust, brushed it with oil and baked it until it was golden. The sweet scent of liberty emits from such well-intentioned efforts, but watch out! Our forks are loaded with false democracy and poisonous apples sold by the oligarchs.
We should be advancing good policies both by street-level activism and by pressuring elected officials in whatever way possible. Instead, the media assures us that football-like cheering for the blues vs. the reds is how public life is decided in the U.S. There’s some stuff here that seems to me to be slipping into tribal war dance territory.
For those in the tribe, condemning Democrats is objectively pro-Republican. No, when the most recent Democratic president declined to prosecute the wealthy for fraud, that’s bad policy. To object to it as pro-Republican is to argue that bad policy is objectionable only to the extent that it hurts Democrats’ chances of electoral success. And when they’re successful, tell all the people hurt badly by the bad policies that they’re just stupid bigots not to keep voting in the Democrats.
Same with unions. As the Democrats brought enough good policies to warrant support in the past, the unions have done very good things for the non-elite. It’s no accident that one of the first things autocratic governments get rid of or control is unions. Unions made valiant efforts in the American South to overcome racial job discrimination in the 20s, 30s and 40s. Solidarity meant something. Like Eisenhower’s Military Industrial Congressional complex, union leaders were coopted into a business-political elite complex. They began backing the likeliest winner to get “a seat at the table”. In politics, review what happened in 2008, when union leaders refused to back John Edwards, the only major candidate clearly on their side.
History and intellectual framework are important in thinking through what we want and how we should get there. Both are complex. There are lots of results, causes, and correlations. What’s the point of the arguments we make?
Which one is the fake Brennan? Is there actually a real one? Or is he merely a confused fool who loses track of his “beliefs”?
2019 Brennan:
“For decades I believed more [D]’s would solve the nations problems, this in spite of Bill’s record in the 1990’s. By 2006, the scales began to rapidly fall from my eyes, by the time Obama’s 1st war of aggression I had lost any hope that the Democratic Party Apparatchiks installed by Al From, of DLC fame would ever be purged from the party. They had seized control of the Democratic party through ruthless tactics and they would be dammed if the party of Roosevelt would ever return. ”
2010 Brennan:
The entries below are from Lambert Strether’s old blog. Brennan puts Z’s comments in quotes. He did add “in More lies” to the second point that he defends Clinton on, you know the guy that “in spite of Bill’s record in the 1990’s” he thought the dems “would solve the nations problems”.
By S Brennan on Sun, 01/17/2010 – 12:29pm
More lies from Z
“There are strong similarities in the economic teams of clinton and obama”
Untrue, Clinton started with a Rubin whose views were far different than where he is now. For example Rubin did not support repeal of Glass-Stegal until 1999. Obama started out with right wing extremists in his economic team. And has consistantly ignored advice from right center economist that have warned his policies are too right wing, too biased towards the rich to work.
“There are strong similarities of clinton and obama … in More lies…philosophy, action”
What shit, what utter shit, you either know nothing of history or you are liar. Since I just gave a history that lays this claim to waste, you must be a liar.
“They both have also made balancing the budget a big priority at the expense of social programs and have heavily favored corporate and wall street interests.”
What complete bullshit, Clinton balanced the budget by taxing the rich. Clinton budgets increased the Social Security and Medicare Trust funds, Obama has already slashed more from Medicare and Medicaid in his first year than all of Clinton’s social cuts in 8 years combined. Obama now plans to slash Social Security Benefits and will attempt privatize by forcing people to buy private annuities that can be seized by the government should the financial firm fail. This so investers can be made whole. This with out doubt the most extreme right wing social policy possible.
The budget deficit inherited from the Reagan/Bush presidency was staggering. Those first 100 days of Clinton, while being attacked from all sides, the course was actually set for a economic recovery and boom the US had not seen since the sixties. Had Clinton waited as Obama has done, that boom would not have occured.
At every level you sell lies Z, at every level, go work for Pravda Z and take your historical lies with you.
Fourhundredandfifty, the author you cite [Joseph McCartin] takes his pay through the Georgetown University’s; Wilson Center.
Woodrow Wilson was:
a] a racist, a believer in eugenics, a precursor to the Holocaust, a man who brought Jim Crow to the White House.
b] a fascist, the president who created the first ministry of information to insure that the official view, his view, was the only view allowed.
A man who works in an institution dedicated to an avowed racist should not be cited on matters of race unless it is done mockingly. Your endless dribble is pathetic.
For most of my life, Republican lawmakers have portrayed themselves as a bunch of Marlboro Men. They were the law and order party and tough as nails on national security. So it has been really something to watch Trump in a few short years not so much reduce them as expose them for the cowardly political whores they are and always have been, who wouldn’t know a principle if it kicked them in the ass.
As bad as the Democrats are, and they are awful, the Republicans are worse, and Trump is light-years beyond either. This is not me making some lesser of two, or three, evils argument. My point is rather that we have a really degenerate political system where pretty much the whole political spectrum is out to get us. I make an exception for Bernie Sanders who is usually described as A) not really a Democrat and B) radical. I have always found this funny because back during FDR’s Presidency he would have been just another New Dealer and under Johnson, another Great Society Democrat. Sanders isn’t radical at all. He is simply what Democrats used to be.
Parenthetically, I sometimes watch MSNBC’s Joe and Mika show for laughs. Today, they dutifully reported, without comment, that Sanders was ahead in the new polls. I think it took them about 3 seconds to get the words out and that was pretty much the last he was mentioned. (OK, there was one grudging reference to him later being able to beat Trump, but that was it.) They spent more time praising Buttigieg who had fallen to second. Even Yang got more air time than Sanders. And Bloomberg, by far, got the most. Apparently Bloomberg doesn’t need voters just ads to put him over the top. Again illustrating the degeneracy of the system. All horse race analysis, and not even very good or coherent analysis. Nothing about where anybody actually stood on anything.
I, S Brennan, am a complete farce, a fake, a fraud who postures as if he stands strong behind principles when in fact I am just a self-justifying liar who personally benefited from Bill Clinton’s economic policies in the 90s, so I defended them because they benefited me. Then I skulked away from defending them in this decade based on the excuse that Hillary Clinton’s odious term as SOS woke me about the Clintons, though of course Hillary Clinton’s stint as SOS had nothing to do with Bill’s economic policies and Bill himself backed foreign policies that led to the deaths of one million Iraqi babies,which of course I breezily forgave Bill for because his economic policies benefited me. Now, even though Bernie Sander’s is talking of enacting policies that would greatly benefit the majority of the people in this country, I perceive they would increase my taxes and I’m already covered medically so I am coming out against Bernie Sanders and I am pretending once again to stand behind some magnanimous principles when in fact I am more concerned about some “a-hole” taking the last breath mint at a restaurant than I am with the abominable health care situation in this country and the people that will suffer and die because of it.
Wilson also began the Red Scare raids which decisively cut unions off from the broader social movements which sustained them. And the Fed was created in 1913 during his Presidency, effectively taking money creation out of the hands of the federal government and placing it with what were essentially the private banking cartels of the regional Feds. And then there was the Espionage Act of 1917 which since Obama has been used to go after whistleblowers and inconvenient truth tellers.
There was a mention above of the Social Security trust fund. It is important to understand that the fund is an accounting fiction. It is really a hidden regressive tax on American workers. No money actually goes into the trust fund. Instead it gets kicked into the government’s general revenues and gets spent like any other money. For politicians, it’s free money. The Trust Fund gets special government bonds which aren’t even managed to maximize their fictional interest. Why is all this fictional? Because it was about future shortfalls which were always going to be covered out of general funds or adjustments (usually to workers’ detriment) to the Social Security payouts (increasing the retirement age etc.). That is even if the Trust Fund never existed.
“Funny how I never see you complain about a certain poster who outright denies manmade climate change, namely metamars.”
Well, at least you spelled my name right.
What I deny is that anthropogenic CO2 has had a dangerous impact on the climate; or is likely to, over the next century. There’s apparently a consensus amongst most skeptical scientists (e.g., Nir Shaviv, Dick Lindzen, Will Happer, to name 3 of the most famous that have actually worked on climate models, themselves) that climate sensitivity is about 1 – 1.5 deg C per CO2 doubling. And this is unlikely to cause catastrophe.
Furthermore, following Lomborg’s cost/benefit approach, whatever costs are actually required to deal with climate change should be quite manageable.
I’ve defaulted to this position, though with some doubts. I have a technical background (physics, math, applied math), but never even saw the derivation of the green house gas effect until something like 2 years ago. I didn’t dig into it enough to understand it, but I can tell you this: it wasn’t what I expected. I was expecting something like a volume integration, with radiation absorption sort of the starting point of random walk type of calculation.
My doubts had two main sources. One is the fact that sea levels generally have been rising at a steady rate since the mid 1800’s, even through periods of (surface) global cooling. That suggests a subterranean source of heat, regarding which, see https://www.iceagenow.com/Ocean_Warming.htm and, in particular, https://www.iceagenow.com/Three_Million_Underwater_Volcanoes.htm. AFAIK, NONE of even the prominent skeptical scientists even try to account for this. My other source of doubt had to do with quarter-baked physics notions of what happens when a photon is absorbed by CO2. AFAIK, there’s no preferred direction, so half of these (more, actually) will re-radiate away from the earth, until either re-absorption, or escape from the atmosphere. I assumed a detailed analysis of photon random walks would be contained in the original greenhouse gas paper, but not having seen it until relatively recently, I harbored some doubts (apparently justified).
There’s a new source of doubt, unless the work is shown to be without merit. That’s the work done by a couple of Irish scientists, using millions of radiosonde data points, showing a greenhouse gas effect, but one that is extremely transient, and thus irrelevant. See “Christopher Monckton New Irish study shows greenhouse gas effect cannot cause global warming” @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqLYXVDND5o
I realize there is no hope for a rational debate with you, with as much deference to physical facts and laws, as is possible given both our limitations of same. (I’m well over the hill, despite my background.) I wrote the above in the probably vain hope of reaching somebody who does know what he doesn’t know, unlike you, who apparently has no clue regarding what you don’t know (and what you think you do know.)
However, I will say, with some confidence, that you COULD, in principle, anyway, profit from getting a greater understanding of the “meta” involved in scientific enterprises. Scientific culture, corruption due to careerism and funding flows, etc., will tell you immediately in what direction the claims of “climate science” will tend to move towards, regardless of their scientific merits. With that greater perspective, you would then have a better chance of spotting bias, false claims, etc.
I got my mercury fillings removed, ending this last March, and have begun the mercury detox process. I have begun with the relatively affordable Andy Cutler protocol, though will buy some more advanced (I believe) and safer (I believe) detox technology from quicksilverscientific.com.
See what he says about the need to read scientific papers carefully, and not just the abstracts; financial incentives, i.e, “funding agencies with agendas”.
“Most of them prove what they’re supposed to; sometimes that data supports it, sometimes it doesn’t” (@ 5:11)
If you can grok the ubiquitous defects of health science, you have a better chance to grok similar defects in “climate science”.
“We’ve already dealt with metamars. He’s as incorrigible as the crazy uncle at the holidays who always spouts the same nonsense regardless of how often he’s been discredited and ridiculed. ”
Snicker
“I do bitch a lot about brainwashed evangelicals, because I was once one and am still surrounded by family and acquaintances who continue on that way. ”
You have far more in common with the brainwashed evangelicals than you imagine. Depending on your own degree of irrationality and brainwashing, you might begin to deprogram yourself if you followed my advice to 450.org.
However, it would probably also be useful for you to study E.O. Wilson’s book “On Human Nature”. In particular, read the chapter on religion.
Human irrationality was selected for, so maybe you shouldn’t feel too bad about yourself. Nevertheless, of what use is our lives if we don’t move towards some type of improvement, mastery, useful goal? Assuming you’re not a nihilist, read on!
I saw a headline just recently that Yang had a very good fundraising week/event/whatever. Yang also supports thorium nuclear reactors. Could this be a major factor? I dunno.
But somebody of your superior intellect can doubtless figure this out, and then maybe use your great talent to help Yang get elected.
‘Ole Donald Trump was a portly old grump, a portly old grump was he.
He sat on his throne with just his phone, at about a quarter to three.
Twiddle, diddle, dee went his tweeter, tweeter, tweeter;
Twiddle, diddle, dee with his thumbs.
Twiddle, diddle, diddle, dee, he is ‘ole TrumpleThinSkin;
Twiddle, diddle, dee he is DUMB!
His ego is larger than his tie is long; he’s childish to extreme.
His tweets from his throne that he dashes all alone, are always really mean.
Twiddle, diddle, dee went his tweeter, tweeter, tweeter;
Twiddle, diddle, dee with his thumbs.
Twiddle, diddle, diddle, dee, he is ‘ole TrumpleThinSkin;
Twiddle, diddle, dee he is DUMB!
A President who’s not mature, but full of manure, will not help us survive.
If he won’t grow up soon and change his tune, our country will not thrive.
Twiddle, diddle, dee went his tweeter, tweeter, tweeter;
Twiddle, diddle, dee with his thumbs.
Twiddle, diddle, diddle, dee, he is ‘ole TrumpleThinSkin;
Twiddle, diddle, dee he is DUMB!
Your pathetic lies/ad hominems aside, I really do feel sorry for shriveled soul.
You are consumed with your own poison. Do you really believe the attacks on me for the last 12 years have ever helped your candidates win? Surely the record of your efforts, by your own account, says otherwise. Go drink the self-prescribed poison of your own making in peace, I will not disturb your imbibition.
If I was you, I’d worry more about the poison you ingest and the shriveling of your own soul, pal. And you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s not hard to recognize. I see plenty of it every workday.
When you think a mile a moment, but only an inch deep, what do you end up constantly thinking about? You and what you think is in your immediate best interests. Then you end up assembling bizarre analogies that whirl around the “a-hole” that took that last breath mint you coveted at the diner and your selfish concerns about how often people would abuse free, at the point of contact, healthcare when you’re already covered as it is.
Just because climate change is a complex issue, doesn’t mean that one should be grasping at every possible denial hoping that many small unrelated denials will equal one big fat conclusive denial.
But debating over the long term affects of climate change seems worthwhile. And have you ever seen ExxonMobil’s carbon capture ads? Hope? Contrition? Propaganda? Wishful thinking?
As a former fake rocket scientist, I know far too little about thorium reactors to make an educated judgment. But I do think I’m pretty good at knowing that if there’s good money in it for those in power, they’ll be a rousing success (for them, not necessarily us).
Imbibition. Yes, good word. Russians can’t help themselves. They have vodka on the brain. And in the blood. Imbibing is the same as breathing when you’re a Russian, whether you’re actually a Russian or a Russian in sentiment.
IOW, you not only are incapable of a rational discussion on climate science, but you are also disinterested, or perhaps afraid, of gaining a perspective that would clue you in to expected biases and distortions of the climate science community.
Thank God there are people like Dr. Andy Cutler who not only have (actually had; he passed, recently) fine minds (when not poisoned by mercury), but also the willingness to see through BS, even BS given the imprimatur of publication in a peer reviewed journal.
Cutler took his Ph.D. from Princeton University, so he was doubtless blessed with a very high IQ. But the willingness to call BS for what it is has more to do with ethics, and should be accessible (aside from constraints of scientific knowledge) to average IQ types. Should be, that is, if they’re ethical. I mean, do you really need a Cutler level of IQ to understand, and admit, to the data fudging indulged in by various “climate scientists”, as documented in realclimatescience.com?
In “The Trouble with Physics”, it is not for nothing that Smolin, the author, dealt with scientific ethics.
Donna LaFramboise, with no scientific background, was nevertheless able to evaluate certain ancillary claims emanating from the climate catastrophist camp, regarding the nature of the IPCC reports, and the process that creates them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5weFQYBL5w
You aren’t worthy to untie the moldy sneakers of LaFramboise, and it has nothing to do with lacking a scientific background, or lacking an IQ to match hers. I’m sure you have an IQ sufficient to replicate the work of LaFramboise, but I’m also sure that you lack some other qualities that would ever allow that to happen.
I guess when ExxonMobil gives in to all those silly scientists with all their well-hoaxed, mindless “scientific consensus”, then life as we know it may be doomed. It’s good to have maverick fighters like metamars setting the record straight.
New York (CNN) Terrifying rumors initially propelled by Facebook’s algorithms have sparked fears that men driving white vans are kidnapping women all across the United States for sex trafficking and to sell their body parts. While there is no evidence to suggest this is happening, much less on a national, coordinated scale, a series of viral Facebook (FB) posts created a domino effect that led to the mayor of a major American city issuing a warning based on the unsubstantiated claims.
The latest online-induced panic shows how viral Facebook posts can stoke paranoia and make people believe that spotting something as common as a white van, can be deemed suspicious and connected to a nationwide cabal.
“Don’t park near a white van,” Baltimore Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young said in a TV interview on Monday. “Make sure you keep your cellphone in case somebody tries to abduct you.”
I would say that laymen that are (or act as if they are) oblivious to such pressures are as likely to be able to have a rational debate on climate change as as the scientists who have succumbed to such pressures. In the case of such scientists, their ethics are also in doubt. As for the ethics of the laymen practitioners of the CO2 catastrophist religion, that depends on the unknowable (to outsiders) degree of their being brainwashed.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes, being brainwashed or successfully propagandized is just being brainwashed or successfully propagandized. That’s quite different from having evil and deceitful intentions. I myself used to believe the CO2 catastrophist jazz, from at least the time that I saw Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, to about 2010.
If climate skeptics weren’t so ineffectual, politically, they would enlighten/educate the public about these political pressures (as well as the bad and corrupt science). Alas, the skeptics don’t do activism well. Trump may well lose the next election due to a morally motivated, if ignorant, Greta Thunberg vote. Trump had a chance to make a huge dent in climate ignorance, but chose not to, for political reasons. https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061717133
IMNSHO, on this score, he’s either a fool, or a coward, or both.
Herman
So it looks like the Kamala Harris campaign is unraveling. I thought Harris was going to be the Democratic nominee for 2020. Another one of my election predictions goes down in flames! It is a good thing that I do not bet on elections, I would be in the poor house.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/472455-kamala-harris-aide-says-in-resignation-letter-ive-never-seen-staff-treated
realitychecker
How did we get here?
I always identified with Democrats because we were supposed to be the smart party, as opposed to the troglodyte Republicans. I thought awareness and honest reasoning distinguished the two parties in very meaningful ways.
But now, it is hard to ignore the sweeping ignorance that I see among so many of the automatic Dem supporters. I listen to the viewer comments on C-Span every morning, and I just can’t believe the crushingly obvious ignorance of almost every person who calls in to criticize the right and support the Dems. Very mote in eye vs. log in eye stuff. How do you judge the value of anything without comparing it to other similar things? You can’t. Think about it. But modern Dems are trained to call such necessary comparisons “whataboutism,” as though that was the logical fallacy at play, whilst they delight themselves with true logical fallacies, like ad hominem based attacks.
I don’t mean opinions I disagree with, I mean flat out ignorance of basic facts that reflect badly on their own side. And rage from such folks if you ever suggest they are “ignorant” about any facts, even when they clearly are. And the certainty that they are smart and right, despite their obvious ignorance.
How did this happen, and why is it taboo to talk about it?
Whatever happened to “The unexamined life is not worth living?”
Ten Bears
An interesting question: has she slipped over the edge or was she pushed? I have noticed an increase over the past couple of weeks in increasingly negative, anti-female candidate rhetoric directed predominately at Harris and increasingly towards Warren stemming of course from the corporate wings of the neoliberal wall street left. Seems like the left is being herded to a Biden/Gabbard candidacy, drumpf uck’s wildest wet dream, utilizing the same methodology it has been suggested influenced our Reich’s ascension. Or a calving off of the herd in a vain third party attempt at Bloomberg/Steyer siphoning off enough of both weasel centrist dems and queasy retards to win.
A disappointment, Harris/Inslee has to date been my endorsement. Seems the dems are again putting in overtime encouraging my yet another write-in None of the Above vote.
Herman
@Ten Bears,
It looks like The New York Times broke the story about the poor treatment of staffers in the Harris campaign so you could be right. I would not be surprised if you were right since there seems to be a lot of infighting and bad blood among the elite class right now.
As far as who is getting the push right now among the Democrats, it looks to me like Pete Buttigieg is getting the big push more than Biden but these things change a lot and as I said, I am not good at predicting election outcomes so maybe Biden is still the favorite of the Democratic corporate wing.
Willy
I know far too many idiotic conservatives, and silly liberals, to think it all a coincidence.
Should I blame TV, video games, and working people just wanting some escapist relief from the continuous economic stress? Or are there more psychologically sociologically nefariously influential powers at play, who are always one step ahead of ‘common reality’?
bruce wilder
Like realitychecker, I am fascinated by the descent of the Democrats’ . . . What to call it? Mental outlook? shared tribal outlook?
It is only an interesting sidelight, but the World Socialist Web Site (surely a fringe hotbed of radical leftism ?!) has been conducting a series of interviews with highly reputed scholarly historians concerning the New York Times’ 1619 project. The 1619 project is rewriting American history in a identitarian vein: “racism is in the DNA of the USA” that kind of thing. And, WSWS is going to people who would have been at the absolute pinnacle of scholarly history twenty years ago and asking these establishment scholars to call out the NY Times on how the paper of record is featuring race as an explanator.
450.org
I think it’s time to rename each political party in America because they are no longer what they once may have been. I prefer the Shit Party and the Shit Party. This election, and every election hereafter until America is no more, will be the Shits versus the Shits. It will be a veritable Shit Parade.
450.org
Race is a great surrogate for class if you’re the oligarchy. If we view it as a class war, we can come together, regardless of color or culture or gender or you name it, in solidarity and destroy the 20% (the 1% and the 19% upper middle class enablers). So long as the majority of the 80% see it in terms of race or gender or whatever other divisive factionalizing wedge the oligarchy trots out to divide the 80%, no meaningful progress can ever be made. Gay marriage is a hollow victory when it comes at the price of more and more victims falling into poverty and misery daily.
450.org
How does the oligarchy measure and/or determine failure or are they all too-big-to-fail just like the companies they own and manage? I consider Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss to Donald Trump a MASSIVE FAILURE. Anyone involved in that campaign should never be able to find work in that field again.
One such person is Kelly Mehlenbacher. She was Treasury Director for Hillary Clinton’s campaign and on Kamala Harris’ campaign staff in California before she resigned recently. Bloomberg picked her up. Sure. Why not? Hillary lost miserably and Kamala Harris’ campaign has fallen apart so why not hire a failure who was integral to both failures? Because three is a charm? The trifecta?
https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/29/bloomberg-campaign-hires-a-top-harris-staffer/
Hugh
Kamala Harris’ campaign hit its peak back in the first Democratic debate in June when she took on Joe Biden about his comment that he had gotten on well with some of his most racist and conservative colleagues. She then proceeded to squander the stature and momentum that gave her walking back and equivocating on issues like Medicare for All. And her campaign never recovered. Biden wanted her as a Vice Presidential running mate, and if he got the nomination he would probably still consider her because she checks off all the right identarian boxes.
After her flame out and a number of Biden gaffes, conservative Democrats started hyping Buttigieg. This was especially noticeable on MSNBC where they gave him a lot of free positive coverage and went all folksy with their “Mayor Pete” schtick (something really cringeworthy coming from a bunch of Establishment types making seven figure incomes about a guy who has never lived a second of his life outside the elites). And it continues. MSNBC was doing a series on the healthcare plans of the candidates. Did they start with Bernie Sanders and Medicare for All and Joe Biden and Obamacare as the two major poles of the debate? Of course not, it began with happy music and Mayor Pete because because.
Mark Pontin
[1] “There only one political party in America, the money party.” – G. Vidal
It’s a banally simple line, but only because it remains true.
[2] K. Harris was being groomed by the Clintonites and had gained Hillary’s blessing till Gabbard so effectively took her down in slightly over a minute.
I have mixed feelings about Gabbard — who’s been more frequently photographed swimsuit-attired than any previous wannabe presidential candidate in history — but there’s no doubt of her sincerity on the ‘stop-the-wars- issue. And her takedown of Harris was a thing of beauty.
Hugh
I can’t say how much I dislike Buttigieg. For me, he is the quintessential Establishment Hillary Clinton “you can’t have nice things” elitist. He is running on a “Gruel for all” platform. If elected, he would then start negotiating from a “Gruel for some” position and end with a pragmatic “Gruel for a few.”
Mark Pontin
Ah yes, Mayor Pete, the McKinsey consultant and military stenographer
Yup, with Kamala the Cop’s decline, the neoliberal Dem establishment have taken to barefacedly pushing a spurious narrative of his rise in the polls while continuing to do everything they can to ignore the candidacy of someone who by every account — even his enemies’ — was an enormously effective mayor for quite a while.
Funny, really, that they’re getting so desperate.
Ten Bears
I don’t even want to comment on Mayo Pete. Just about as white bred as can be. Another example of the dem establishment giving representatives out every possible demographic fifteen minutes for the sake of appearances before settling down to the neoliberal wall street lefts’s old white guy from the south. Biden/Mayo is a distinct possibility. HWBush/Quayle.
Stirling S Newberry
So, there’s a consensus here is from 4 more years of Trump. Go to know.
Now back to 1857…
Mark Pontin
Stirling N.: ‘Now back to 1857.’
Hmm. The American Whig Party had already effectively dissolved the year before, in 1856, hadn’t they? The Dems –in their current Clintonite neoliberal incarnation, anyway — are still very much around.
Also, the Republicans then were becoming committed to reforming slavery out of existence. Whereas today there’s no grouping of politicians in Washington DC that seems committed to reforming anything about the status quo.
If this was, as I take it, a suggestion that we draw a parallel between Trump and Buchanan (with the added fillip of the Civil War to follow in only a few more years), it’s a very inexact parallel.
bruce wilder
there’s a consensus that the “liberal” centrists identifying themselves with the Democratic Party — particularly the elites who drive the visible political culture and control much of the political apparatus — seem both to despise Trump and to be deeply unwilling to back the kind of policy change that might render Trump impotent and irrelevant, simply a bad joke told as a long aside in the sweeping narrative of history.
I don’t know that civil war is as plausible as irreversible subversion of nominally democratic institutional forms — that would be more in the nature of a confirmation that the revolution of 2000-2009 cannot be reversed to any significant degree than an actual change in the status quo circa 2020. (It might also be an implied admission that organizing an effective response to the gathering global environmental crisis is simply beyond human capability. Maybe the embrace of idiocracy on the centre-left is just a manifestation of deep pessimism about that.)
In 1857, most Americans experience of news media was reading an 8 page newspaper two or three times a week and their experience of politics was of attending meetings and social gatherings. As far as we can tell, the entire country then was focused on the issue of slavery and its both large-C and small-c constitutional nuances and implications.
What is the country focused on now? Large numbers of self-identified Democrats have fried their own brains on the artificially hot stove of a frequently preposterous narrative of Russian “interference” determining the outcome of the 2016 Presidential election. It is hard to imagine a more irrelevant focus of political attention and will — in many ways the exact opposite of the intense focus on slavery in the late 1850s as the key issue for the then future.
Chuck Mire
PBS Washington Week – A special edition on President Donald Trump and impeachment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5RNq1wFAig
On a special edition of Washington Week, moderator Robert Costa sits down for one-on-one conversations with The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and historian Jon Meacham on the president and the presidency. This is the best analysis of where the USA is presently and where it may (or may not) be headed in the future.
‘Soul Of America’ Makes Sense Of Nation’s Present By Examining Its Past:
https://www.npr.org/2018/05/02/607704116/soul-of-america-makes-sense-of-americas-present-by-examining-its-past
bruce wilder
re: Jon Meacham is not someone i have much respect for, and sure enough he explains the origin of his newest book as originating in “the terrible events in Charlottesville last August when the neo-Nazis and the Klansmen were demonstrating, and the counterprotester Heather Heyer was killed. And we found ourselves with a president of the United States who seemed unable to condemn neo-Nazis and Klansmen . . .” The problem with this narrative is that, in fact, Trump did condemn the racists.
Meacham has the story he wants and he does not let mere facts get in the way. He did not check reality, one might say. He may not have felt he had to, because large parts of the Media echoed that narrative line at the time, even outlets that felt obligated to print Trump’s official remarks, argued that he did not say it soon enough or sincerely enough, while others simply ignored his statement. And, that illustrates where we are at.
Stirling S Newberry
> If this was, as I take it, a suggestion that we draw a parallel between Trump and Buchanan (with the added fillip of the Civil War to follow in only a few more years), it’s a very inexact parallel.
“History does not repeat, but it rhymes.”
If you want another rhyme, look at the NYCHA.
Stirling S Newberry
https://xkcd.com/2235/
“Since there’s no algorithmic feed, the responsibility for injecting lots of garbage no one asked for falls on you.”
Ten Bears
I don’t know if it’s consensus or foregone conclusion. The establishment dems are systematically shutting down those best suited to address the problem, offering at best milquetoast bones thrown to rubes. They do not appear to be as interested in getting rid of Trump as maintaining the status quo, or taking us back to some mythological status quo, in and of itself a conservative construct. Biden is drump uck’s choice, he shouldn’t be the dems. There are potential variations on that, but the bottom line is the wall street dems are writing the narrative, calling the shots, pulling the strings … Trump is writing the narrative, calling the shots, pulling the strings …
We are where we are because we let them get away with it, from Nixon’s rat-fuckery to Reagan rat-fucking Carter to the so-called Supreme Court interference in an election and appointing a pResident followed by eight years of industrial scale obstructionism and gaslighting, we let them get away with. Had we punched that bully in the nose way back when things would be different, but we didn’t and they’re not. The correlation to all that is down through the years we’ve been holding our noses and pulling the lever for the lesser of evils. The bone tossed …
450.org
It’s amazing. They can’t help themselves. Instead of owning a constructive critique of Donald Trump, they defend Trump against disingenuous, destructive critiques. Their illogic is on full display. Because the Dems critique of Trump is disingenuously motivated and misleading and misdirecting, Trump must therefore be good. That’s illogical. What an impotent and illogical position. Pathetic, actually. Those who hold such a position are in no way interested in progress and are in fact part of the problem and an impediment to progress every bit as much as the Dems are let alone the Repubs. If your response to anything is in direct reaction to the Dems, the Dems own you and your response be it negative or positive.
450.org
Good point, Stirling. Trump’s White House is the NHCYA writ large, Republican style. As is above is below. Microcosm and macrocosm. Inspiration.
https://thecity.nyc/2019/10/hud-says-fraud-charges-coming-for-nycha-no-bid-contracts.html
450.org
Don’t think Trump and his cronies don’t want a piece of this and aren’t advocating for it and enabling it considering Trump’s recent budget cuts to public housing.
https://brooklynrail.org/2013/05/local/warning-vultures-eyeing-nycha
The panic of 1857 was in part due to the increased speed of information with the roll-out of the telegraph — the internet of the day. The panic is part and parcel of what helped promulgate the civil war. The North was hit harder than the South and this emboldened the South to take liberties with what they perceived to be a weakened and vulnerable North.
450.org
Ian said on Twitter:
It’s true. My mother passed this past Wednesday at 12:30am. She was effectively euthanized. It was euthanasia by any other name even though euthanasia is technically illegal. I’m all for euthanasia but in an open and honest manner.
She entered the hospital because she was having difficulty breathing. They first indicated she could go back to the nursing care facility in a day. Then it was the next day. Granted, she was 91 and not in good health by any means, but within the span of several days in the hospital, she went from “she can go home tomorrow” to medically unmanageable and it’s time for hospice care. She was ready to give up I suppose and the hospital agreed and pushed her into it. My family went along since they were ready for her to die for more than a decade now. She entered hospice, allegedly her choice, where all fluids were removed and any semblance of life support. When she started writhing in pain, she was administered 1 mg of Dilaudid every four hours which effectively sedated her and rendered her unconscious. They said she was not under duress but who really knows. She labored for three days. Her breathing was a struggle as though she was running a marathon. It was horrible to watch. Her death was prolonged once she was determined to be medically unmanageable and I’m not sure inevitable as to timing per the hospital’s prognosis. Hospice had to cost Medicaid/Medicare a mint when legal, voluntary euthanasia would have been more humane and much more economical. Fyi, my extended family are pretty much all Republicans and Trump supporters. Medicaid/Medicare, which paid for the effective prolonged suffering euthanizing of their mother, is evil socialism. It boggles the mind. The hypocritical contradictions are so thick and ubiquitous, it’s insanity.
realitychecker
Q: How’s your wife?
A: Compared to whom?
“Whataboutism” is the most illogical logical fallacy I can imagine. It is basically an argument against considering the full context of the topic under discussion. That only benefits the side that is being invested in being hypocritical, doesn’t it?
Who is it that coined, and has since heavily relied on, that stupid rhetorical trick? And why should they ever again be given the benefit of the doubt with regard to their good faith in any argument?
Could some of the TDS geniuses please provide a coherent defense of whataboutism?
NOTE: By coherent, I mean one that does not assume that a perfect world would exist by default if only we could make Trump disappear.
Not holding my breath on this one.
450.org
One of Trump’s war criminal pardons, Edward Gallagher, is a murdering psychopath who deployed again and again to Iraq because he enjoyed killing. I have no mercy for this guy’s wife who will ultimately be his next victim, mark my words, if she isn’t a victim of abuse already. A psycho scumbag like this HAS to kill and kill indiscriminately. He will kill again and this time it will be an American innocent, most likely his wife although I certainly wouldn’t consider his wife an innocent. She should have left long ago and now it’s too late. He will never let her leave and murder her if she does and no doubt murder her even if she doesn’t. This scumbag murdered an innocent Iraqi female teenager walking along a river’s edge and Donald Bone Spur Trump calls that a Warfigher.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/salvadorhernandez/trump-service-members-pardons
450.org
Any TRUE LEFTIST should be APPALLED by Trump’s pardons. Outraged, in fact. If you are TRULY anti-war, you surely MUST BE anti-war criminal. Take note. Trump’s pardons, at least Gallagher and Golsteyn, have piercing blue eyes. Compare and contrast with the Central Park Five.
For all the gun nuts out there, should Gallagher be allowed the right to own a gun? You wouldn’t consider him psychologically imbalanced considering you blame all mass shootings by whites to be the result of mental illness?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/i-led-a-platoon-in-iraq-trump-is-wrong-to-pardon-war-criminals/2019/05/09/15b10430-71d5-11e9-9eb4-0828f5389013_story.html
bruce wilder
Because the Dems critique of Trump is disingenuously motivated and misleading and misdirecting, Trump must therefore be good.
450, I hope you were not referring to me or or my comments. I have never made such an argument.
450.org
Bruce, I’m referring to whomever the shoe fits. If it doesn’t fit you, so be it.
realitychecker
@ bruce et al
Just a general FYI: My comments are in perpetual auto-mod, so they are often being very delayed.
Eventually, a comment I made earlier this morning will probably appear, about “whataboutism,” which I think would be timely right here. 🙂
One might also consider authoring a comment about ” relentlessly-reckless-over-the-top-ism” lol.
Ain’t words fun?
bruce wilder
I already wrote to the effect that your “shoe” does NOT fit my argument. Failing to acknowledge that is rude.
I really cannot think of any actual person who makes the argument you complain about. Someone who is a fan or supporter of Trump would simply feel the Dems are being partisan and unfair, full stop.
I think you are projecting, in order to avoid engaging with the problem of why so many partisan Democrats, with a target as ripe and repulsive as Trump, choose to deploy false or dishonest or (as you say) “disingenuously motivated and misleading and misdirecting” critiques. Joining that out-of-tune chorus, imho, compounds the political damage done by Trump, because so little of their critique is preparing to reverse Trump policy in sensible directions; joining the pathological Blob in their insane Russophobia threatens to give the IC control of the Presidency — not a precedent I would want to set nor would I recommend that the Dem establishment make an alliance, as they have chosen to do, with either the Blob or the IC — dishonest and failure-prone as they are.
450.org
I agree. It’s time for Trump supporters to quit “Whataboutism” when it comes to criticism of Trump. “What about Obama?” “What about Hillary?” The answer always is, “Obama and Hillary and the Dems have done everything they decry Trump doing but only better.” Which is true in some respects but certainly not all respects. Trump deserves criticism and we should own that criticism rather than relying on Dem apparatchiks to spoon-feed it to us.
Take Trump’s recent pardons of the war criminals. I have seen some partisans use “Whataboutism” and say “what about Obama?” Instead of just focusing on Trump’s pardons and why it was wrong and the implications of this precedent.
bruce wilder
I am NOT a supporter of Trump.
Am I allowed to remember who resolved to look forward, not back? Am I allowed to remember the precedent set by the President who could not prosecute a torturer or bankster?
American politics is reduced to idiocracy by not remembering anything past the last commercial break in this very special program.
realitychecker
It seems like it’s just pointless to engage with some people.
Still, sorry you are having a bad week. My condolences, there’s nothing like losing one’s mother.
bruce wilder
We have a political system in which we rely on rotation in office and partisan rivalry to generate informed critique and responsible, responsive, adaptive policy change.
Except we have not been getting it lo these twenty years. Life expectancy is declining! The country is losing multiple, apparently perpetual wars! Health care spending per capita is more than twice what any other country spends and we lead the world in medical bankruptcy. Finance is dominated by a handful of megabanks regularly convicted of crimes, while manufacturing is in decline — at least that part that has not already been exported to China and crap jobs are plentiful, and homelessness a common plague in some cities.
In 2006-8, the country was ready for change. We had seen the consequences of Bush, in 9/11, in Iraq and Afganistan, in Katrina, and finally in the GFC. The Democrats were given majorities in Congress and the Presidency and they use that power to . . . affirm, confirm and extend every bad policy of the Bush years and continue many of the same key policymakers in office including Bush’s Defense Secretary and Fed Chairman. The wars went on; the policy of “surge” that had failed so markedly in Iraq was repeated to fail in Afganistan. The Bush tax cuts were made permanent. The signature initiative of the Democrats was to enact a Republican reform plan to subsidize for-profit health insurers to provide crap coverage, a reform that has done absolutely nothing to constrain costs, as the price of basic drugs like insulin has soared. The Democrats pursued a hardline immigration policy, favored banksters over homeowners facing foreclosure, punished whistleblowers and continued to build the surveillance state. Nothing was done to reverse the crumbling of infrastructure. No effective aid or protection was given to workers or labor unions. An inadequate stimulus prolonged the deepest recession since the Second World War.
You want to know how we got Trump? It wasn’t the Russkies “meddling”. It wasn’t the racism of whites privileged to die deaths of despair in flyover country Hillary could not be bothered to visit.
It was a failure of governance that became bipartisan when the Democrats got elected to correct massive policy failure and decided to look forward to doing more of the same. That is what this is about, and everytime you make up some cockamamie reason for why it is morally wrong somehow or “illogical” to bring it up, to bring up the political context that gave us both Trump and ridiculously dishonest and ineffective opposition to Trump, someone here will remind you.
Jeremy
Buttigieg – do you really think that the US is ready for a gay president? One actually married to another man? “Mr. President and the First Man”!
I don’t think so.
https://www.southbendtribune.com/news/local/mayor-pete-buttigieg-marries-partner-chasten-glezman-in-downtown-south/article_b9bb722b-bbb0-5b55-a73d-e014ac7e4bf1.html
https://eu.indystar.com/story/news/2019/04/09/chasten-buttigieg-what-we-know-pete-buttigiegs-husband/3398186002/
realitychecker
It is interesting that 450 manages to misunderstand my comment about “whataboutism” so completely that he responds as though I am accusing Trump supporters of creating that ridiculous concept, rather than the Dems who have used it relentlessly, but very selectively (Quel surprise! lol), for the last three years, to try and deflect from their own obvious deep hypocrisy.
bruce wilder lays out the history and disappointments of the last Dem/Odisaster administration with total accuracy, but leaves out some of the worst elements, which are, IMO, the permanent immunization of large corporations from criminal sanctions (can’t displace their poor workers, doncha know), and the ridiculous excesses of political correctness that had us taking things like micro-aggressions and micro-invalidations seriously, as the central planning types tried to snuff out all individuality and free-thinking and thereby drain away the last bits of our freedom.
The real Presidential ticket for the Dems should be seen to be Wordfuckery/Mindfuckery, because that is what they really believe in. Makes it very hard to see Trump as worse. I just see a pendulum swinging back from an extreme, as happens continuously throughout human history.
anon y'mouse
still think someone needs to get their own blog, even if this is “open thread” night. they post five times to each respondents one, and keep dragging the convo back to the same BS, trying to force people here to engage with it.
not everyone’s lives revolves around the latest political 3ring circus act, nor do we all want to waste headspace on it.
intent on basically clogging up the airwaves with trivia.
there are forums for that. basically the entire rest of the internet is that, on this subject at least.
Ché Pasa
The reflexive condemnation of Democrats while ignoring the active participation and often leadership of Republicans in the perfidies being condemned is what’s known as a “tell.” What it tells is that the ones doing these reflexive condemnations are objectively pro-Republican and very often pro-Trump when he’s in pseudo-opposition to “establishment” Republicans.
Of course they deny it, but it appears that many of those who do this kind of reflexive condemnation of Democrats have little or no self-awareness, nor any sense of self-agency nor means of critical thinking. They are, 450 says, ruled by Democrats absolutely.
For decades, there was nothing beyond the Clintons. History began with the election of Bill Clinton in 1992. From that moment, there were no Republicans. Gingrich and Bush the Awful were erased from the record as if they never existed. The defeat of Hillary seemed to mean that she controlled everything. But then there was Obama who controlled what she didn’t. And of course Biden and his failson were the true viruses of the Democrat disease. And then there was Nancy Pelosi!! We’re all going to die!
This is the sense (?) I get from those who can see no reality beyond Democrats and their betrayal, perfidy, crimes and horrors.
Democrats=Evil Personified.
Republicans=Doing Their Best.
Trump=Clown Destroyer of Democrats: Hero!
This is just partisanship. Tribalism if you want to call it that.
Those who recognize there is functionally one party, the Government Party, that’s riven by factions, and Trump is a factional player, not a Hero, Rs are factional players and Dems are factional players, not Demons, and that none of them has the best interests of you’n’me in mind, and that what they are collaborating in doing is transforming governance in the US into an authoritarian oligarchy beyond factionalism and partisanship — and beyond the ability of you’n’me to affect — are the ones who understand the power plays under way.
Elections won’t save us from this process. It will go on no matter who is in office or which party controls congress. Trump and the Rs aren’t stopping it. If anything they are accelerating it.
If that’s what you want, hurrah! It’s what you’re getting.
If it’s not, then something well beyond elections will be necessary to throw a spanner in the works.
450.org
I don’t find over 400 ppm trivial. I don’t find euthanasia trivial. I don’t find the lack of affordable housing trivial. The thread started off with someone posting a comment about Kamala Harris’s campaign falling apart. I posted a comment related to that revealing Bloomberg picked up one of her prominent staffers who also worked for Hillary’s campaign failure, which I thought was bizarre. One comment centered on what I see as a trend in the commentary by a certain handful of commentators. Funny how I never see you complain about a certain poster who outright denies manmade climate change, namely metamars. I don’t complain about him either and yet I disagree with him. I also don’t see his nonsense as forcing me to engage with it or a threat to me in any way. But I’m not you, thankfully.
Willy
We’ve already dealt with metamars. He’s as incorrigible as the crazy uncle at the holidays who always spouts the same nonsense regardless of how often he’s been discredited and ridiculed. Personally, I’ve chosen to entertain myself by imagining him as a tragic troll farm worker pounding the keys in a tiny cubicle funded by some corporate fracking org. Far more public nuts like Yiannopoulos and Prager have earned their living from similar sources. Maybe they’re all the same guy, I dunno.
I do bitch a lot about brainwashed evangelicals, because I was once one and am still surrounded by family and acquaintances who continue on that way. But my, their “bedrock principles” do continuously flux now don’t they? No longer do they demand more troops in Iraq or more jobs sent to the Chinese job creators. But they still blame the Democrats for everything though. Thanks to observing the debates here, I believe it’s the “authoritarian follower” in them speaking. Theirs may be to forever mimic the words of their dear leader de jour, oblivious to the pile of discarded dear leaders behind them.
My current concern is with these Steven Pinker types. Unfunded and non-mamas basemented (AFAIK), yet with the same dangerously crazy ideas about humanity being lovingly shepherded by mammon power. I like the part where they respect reason to solve difficult human problems instead of using methods more faith-based, but they seem to ignore far too much of the trouble which is current, or on the way.
S Brenann
I concur with Bruce when he says above…
“In 2006-8, the country was ready for change….The Democrats were given majorities in Congress and the Presidency and they use that power to . . . affirm, confirm and extend every bad policy of the Bush years…The wars went on; the policy of “surge” that had failed so markedly in Iraq was repeated to fail in Afganistan. The Bush tax cuts were made permanent. The signature initiative of the Democrats was to enact a Republican reform plan to subsidize for-profit health insurers to provide crap coverage, a reform that has done absolutely nothing to constrain costs, as the price of basic drugs like insulin has soared. The Democrats pursued a hardline immigration policy, favored banksters over homeowners facing foreclosure, punished whistleblowers and continued to build the surveillance state. Nothing was done to reverse the crumbling of infrastructure. No effective aid or protection was given to workers or labor unions. An inadequate stimulus prolonged the deepest recession since the Second World War.
It wasn’t the Russkies “meddling”. It wasn’t the racism of whites privileged to die deaths of despair in flyover country Hillary could not be bothered to visit….”
================================
For decades I believed more [D]’s would solve the nations problems, this in spite of Bill’s record in the 1990’s. By 2006, the scales began to rapidly fall from my eyes, by the time Obama’s 1st war of aggression I had lost any hope that the Democratic Party Apparatchiks installed by Al From, of DLC fame would ever be purged from the party. They had seized control of the Democratic party through ruthless tactics and they would be dammed if the party of Roosevelt would ever return.
That is why people voted Trump, Al From’s [D] party is far to the right of anything Reagan ever wished for, indeed, Reagan would be too far to the “left” to be nominated in today’s [D] party.
S Brenann
I should have put this link in the last comment
https://medium.com/@matthewstoller/its-al-froms-democratic-party-we-just-live-here-5d0de7f89c3e
450.org
This case has not been proven. It’s merely a matter of opinion and a form of cover for voting for a fascist despot.
I think they voted for Trump because that’s who they really are when you look behind the fading and crumbling veneer. Many union workers I have known, from the halcyon union days of the fifties and sixties and early seventies, were Dem in only one way — their paycheck. Otherwise, they were militant fascist fodder waiting to be tapped by a fascist zeitgeist and now that fascist zeitgeist is upon us and those union workers are now increasingly dispossessed geriatrics and their children and grandchildren opioid/meth addicts.
Bobby Kennedy alienated the Teamsters. Hoffa backed Nixon. Carter deregulated trucking and put an end to the middle class lifestyle being a trucker afforded. Union members’ affiliation with the Dems was always tenuous at best and ALWAYS economical. No way these union thugs were ever on board or would ever be on board with more liberal identity politics like gay marriage and gender muddling. These guys were head crackers ready and willing to beat the snot out of anyone who tried to take food off their tables.
Now their day has passed but Trump represents one last gasp of revenge. The joke’s on them once again. Trump isn’t their revenge. He’s in place to polish them off for good. They are this idiotic to think their revenge could be this easy. Trump didn’t even expect to win. It was all a lark for him. He didn’t even have an acceptance speech prepared. It’s a gaslight operation put on by the oligarchy. They are this pathological. It’s sport for them because Netflix isn’t good enough.
As CP says, and I have said forever too, we are long past voting our way out of this and in fact, there may be no way out just as there is no way of avoiding let alone mitigating climate change at this point precisely because of these numbskulls who thought and continue to think anything good could come from voting for Trump.
450.org
Any thoughts about this? I’m skeptical about this unprecedented leak. It appears Iran leaked it purposely to paint itself in a positive light. There’s nothing revelatory for me. It’s partial validation of what I already knew. The internationally illegal war against Iraq, and actually illegal from an American constitutional law perspective as well, could only serve to strengthen Iran’s hand against Iraq and boy howdy, did it ever. The planners and strategists aren’t stupid people. They had to know it. They did know it. And yet they did it anyway. Why?
https://theintercept.com/series/iran-cables/
ponderer
1857. The most important matter at least to our general happiness is that in 1857 you could get a college education and nearly guarantee future success. Americans were hungry to learn as opposed to today’s hunger to be distracted. The country was growing and there was hope mixed in with the cruelty and stupidness.
I still maintain that the D primary circus is intended to fail. They saw the coming of Sanders and decided if they couldn’t beat him they had to at least make sure he lost, keeping their positions safe. The Iron Law of Institutions and all that. It’s funny because I was reading about the KMT party in Taiwan and a “rabblerouser”, Mayor Han and its amazing how well both situations are similar. Sacrifice of the Party to protect the insiders. If only we had listened to Washington and shunned parties all together.
450.org
Here’s an interesting article that helps shed some light on at least a faction of Trump supporters — disillusioned former union members or the progeny of former union stronghold families.
https://psmag.com/economics/what-caused-the-decline-of-unions-in-america
This comment captured my sentiment.
Willy
I’d break down the Trump voter by whatever classification has been credibly documented.
Bramlet Abercrombie
Che Pasa,
The reason people here harp on the Democrats and not the Republicans is because the bad things Republicans do are common knowledge to anyone who doesn\’t exclusively watch Fox News. There\’s an entire media industry devoted to telling people how bad Republicans are and pointing out every bad thing they do: MSNBC, the Daily Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, John Oliver, Daily Kos, Huffington Post and so on. People here don\’t need to pile on. The right wing media industry doesn\’t provide accurate criticism of the Democrats so people here need to point it out.
450.org
The oligarchical coup of 1787.
https://truthout.org/articles/oligarchy-as-american-as-poisoned-apple-pie/
nihil obstet
We should be advancing good policies both by street-level activism and by pressuring elected officials in whatever way possible. Instead, the media assures us that football-like cheering for the blues vs. the reds is how public life is decided in the U.S. There’s some stuff here that seems to me to be slipping into tribal war dance territory.
For those in the tribe, condemning Democrats is objectively pro-Republican. No, when the most recent Democratic president declined to prosecute the wealthy for fraud, that’s bad policy. To object to it as pro-Republican is to argue that bad policy is objectionable only to the extent that it hurts Democrats’ chances of electoral success. And when they’re successful, tell all the people hurt badly by the bad policies that they’re just stupid bigots not to keep voting in the Democrats.
Same with unions. As the Democrats brought enough good policies to warrant support in the past, the unions have done very good things for the non-elite. It’s no accident that one of the first things autocratic governments get rid of or control is unions. Unions made valiant efforts in the American South to overcome racial job discrimination in the 20s, 30s and 40s. Solidarity meant something. Like Eisenhower’s Military Industrial Congressional complex, union leaders were coopted into a business-political elite complex. They began backing the likeliest winner to get “a seat at the table”. In politics, review what happened in 2008, when union leaders refused to back John Edwards, the only major candidate clearly on their side.
History and intellectual framework are important in thinking through what we want and how we should get there. Both are complex. There are lots of results, causes, and correlations. What’s the point of the arguments we make?
Z
Brennan,
Which one is the fake Brennan? Is there actually a real one? Or is he merely a confused fool who loses track of his “beliefs”?
2019 Brennan:
“For decades I believed more [D]’s would solve the nations problems, this in spite of Bill’s record in the 1990’s. By 2006, the scales began to rapidly fall from my eyes, by the time Obama’s 1st war of aggression I had lost any hope that the Democratic Party Apparatchiks installed by Al From, of DLC fame would ever be purged from the party. They had seized control of the Democratic party through ruthless tactics and they would be dammed if the party of Roosevelt would ever return. ”
2010 Brennan:
The entries below are from Lambert Strether’s old blog. Brennan puts Z’s comments in quotes. He did add “in More lies” to the second point that he defends Clinton on, you know the guy that “in spite of Bill’s record in the 1990’s” he thought the dems “would solve the nations problems”.
By S Brennan on Sun, 01/17/2010 – 12:29pm
More lies from Z
“There are strong similarities in the economic teams of clinton and obama”
Untrue, Clinton started with a Rubin whose views were far different than where he is now. For example Rubin did not support repeal of Glass-Stegal until 1999. Obama started out with right wing extremists in his economic team. And has consistantly ignored advice from right center economist that have warned his policies are too right wing, too biased towards the rich to work.
“There are strong similarities of clinton and obama … in More lies…philosophy, action”
What shit, what utter shit, you either know nothing of history or you are liar. Since I just gave a history that lays this claim to waste, you must be a liar.
“They both have also made balancing the budget a big priority at the expense of social programs and have heavily favored corporate and wall street interests.”
What complete bullshit, Clinton balanced the budget by taxing the rich. Clinton budgets increased the Social Security and Medicare Trust funds, Obama has already slashed more from Medicare and Medicaid in his first year than all of Clinton’s social cuts in 8 years combined. Obama now plans to slash Social Security Benefits and will attempt privatize by forcing people to buy private annuities that can be seized by the government should the financial firm fail. This so investers can be made whole. This with out doubt the most extreme right wing social policy possible.
The budget deficit inherited from the Reagan/Bush presidency was staggering. Those first 100 days of Clinton, while being attacked from all sides, the course was actually set for a economic recovery and boom the US had not seen since the sixties. Had Clinton waited as Obama has done, that boom would not have occured.
At every level you sell lies Z, at every level, go work for Pravda Z and take your historical lies with you.
Z
S Brenann
Fourhundredandfifty, the author you cite [Joseph McCartin] takes his pay through the Georgetown University’s; Wilson Center.
Woodrow Wilson was:
a] a racist, a believer in eugenics, a precursor to the Holocaust, a man who brought Jim Crow to the White House.
b] a fascist, the president who created the first ministry of information to insure that the official view, his view, was the only view allowed.
A man who works in an institution dedicated to an avowed racist should not be cited on matters of race unless it is done mockingly. Your endless dribble is pathetic.
c]
Hugh
For most of my life, Republican lawmakers have portrayed themselves as a bunch of Marlboro Men. They were the law and order party and tough as nails on national security. So it has been really something to watch Trump in a few short years not so much reduce them as expose them for the cowardly political whores they are and always have been, who wouldn’t know a principle if it kicked them in the ass.
As bad as the Democrats are, and they are awful, the Republicans are worse, and Trump is light-years beyond either. This is not me making some lesser of two, or three, evils argument. My point is rather that we have a really degenerate political system where pretty much the whole political spectrum is out to get us. I make an exception for Bernie Sanders who is usually described as A) not really a Democrat and B) radical. I have always found this funny because back during FDR’s Presidency he would have been just another New Dealer and under Johnson, another Great Society Democrat. Sanders isn’t radical at all. He is simply what Democrats used to be.
Parenthetically, I sometimes watch MSNBC’s Joe and Mika show for laughs. Today, they dutifully reported, without comment, that Sanders was ahead in the new polls. I think it took them about 3 seconds to get the words out and that was pretty much the last he was mentioned. (OK, there was one grudging reference to him later being able to beat Trump, but that was it.) They spent more time praising Buttigieg who had fallen to second. Even Yang got more air time than Sanders. And Bloomberg, by far, got the most. Apparently Bloomberg doesn’t need voters just ads to put him over the top. Again illustrating the degeneracy of the system. All horse race analysis, and not even very good or coherent analysis. Nothing about where anybody actually stood on anything.
Z
Brennan,
Yeah, you were really on top of things back in 90’s on Clinton … and in 2010.
But. yeah I know your story: Hillary Clinton’s stint as SOS supposedly “woke you” about the Clintons.
Z
Z
Brennan,
Just repeat after me:
I, S Brennan, am a complete farce, a fake, a fraud who postures as if he stands strong behind principles when in fact I am just a self-justifying liar who personally benefited from Bill Clinton’s economic policies in the 90s, so I defended them because they benefited me. Then I skulked away from defending them in this decade based on the excuse that Hillary Clinton’s odious term as SOS woke me about the Clintons, though of course Hillary Clinton’s stint as SOS had nothing to do with Bill’s economic policies and Bill himself backed foreign policies that led to the deaths of one million Iraqi babies,which of course I breezily forgave Bill for because his economic policies benefited me. Now, even though Bernie Sander’s is talking of enacting policies that would greatly benefit the majority of the people in this country, I perceive they would increase my taxes and I’m already covered medically so I am coming out against Bernie Sanders and I am pretending once again to stand behind some magnanimous principles when in fact I am more concerned about some “a-hole” taking the last breath mint at a restaurant than I am with the abominable health care situation in this country and the people that will suffer and die because of it.
Z
Hugh
Wilson also began the Red Scare raids which decisively cut unions off from the broader social movements which sustained them. And the Fed was created in 1913 during his Presidency, effectively taking money creation out of the hands of the federal government and placing it with what were essentially the private banking cartels of the regional Feds. And then there was the Espionage Act of 1917 which since Obama has been used to go after whistleblowers and inconvenient truth tellers.
There was a mention above of the Social Security trust fund. It is important to understand that the fund is an accounting fiction. It is really a hidden regressive tax on American workers. No money actually goes into the trust fund. Instead it gets kicked into the government’s general revenues and gets spent like any other money. For politicians, it’s free money. The Trust Fund gets special government bonds which aren’t even managed to maximize their fictional interest. Why is all this fictional? Because it was about future shortfalls which were always going to be covered out of general funds or adjustments (usually to workers’ detriment) to the Social Security payouts (increasing the retirement age etc.). That is even if the Trust Fund never existed.
metamars
@450.org
“Funny how I never see you complain about a certain poster who outright denies manmade climate change, namely metamars.”
Well, at least you spelled my name right.
What I deny is that anthropogenic CO2 has had a dangerous impact on the climate; or is likely to, over the next century. There’s apparently a consensus amongst most skeptical scientists (e.g., Nir Shaviv, Dick Lindzen, Will Happer, to name 3 of the most famous that have actually worked on climate models, themselves) that climate sensitivity is about 1 – 1.5 deg C per CO2 doubling. And this is unlikely to cause catastrophe.
Furthermore, following Lomborg’s cost/benefit approach, whatever costs are actually required to deal with climate change should be quite manageable.
I’ve defaulted to this position, though with some doubts. I have a technical background (physics, math, applied math), but never even saw the derivation of the green house gas effect until something like 2 years ago. I didn’t dig into it enough to understand it, but I can tell you this: it wasn’t what I expected. I was expecting something like a volume integration, with radiation absorption sort of the starting point of random walk type of calculation.
My doubts were in the direction AWAY from that of CO2 catastrophists. There are a (very?) few prominent skeptical scientists (that I know about) who basically pooh pooh even a modest green house gas effect. Viz: Dr. Tim Ball, Dr. Martin Hertzberg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPTiTFMhZrg) and, I think, Dr. Fred Singer (who recently is arguing about a CO2 global cooling effect https://www.climatedepot.com/2018/04/03/physicist-dr-fred-singer-does-the-greenhouse-gas-co2-cool-the-climate/ ).
My doubts had two main sources. One is the fact that sea levels generally have been rising at a steady rate since the mid 1800’s, even through periods of (surface) global cooling. That suggests a subterranean source of heat, regarding which, see https://www.iceagenow.com/Ocean_Warming.htm and, in particular, https://www.iceagenow.com/Three_Million_Underwater_Volcanoes.htm. AFAIK, NONE of even the prominent skeptical scientists even try to account for this. My other source of doubt had to do with quarter-baked physics notions of what happens when a photon is absorbed by CO2. AFAIK, there’s no preferred direction, so half of these (more, actually) will re-radiate away from the earth, until either re-absorption, or escape from the atmosphere. I assumed a detailed analysis of photon random walks would be contained in the original greenhouse gas paper, but not having seen it until relatively recently, I harbored some doubts (apparently justified).
There’s a new source of doubt, unless the work is shown to be without merit. That’s the work done by a couple of Irish scientists, using millions of radiosonde data points, showing a greenhouse gas effect, but one that is extremely transient, and thus irrelevant. See “Christopher Monckton New Irish study shows greenhouse gas effect cannot cause global warming” @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqLYXVDND5o
I realize there is no hope for a rational debate with you, with as much deference to physical facts and laws, as is possible given both our limitations of same. (I’m well over the hill, despite my background.) I wrote the above in the probably vain hope of reaching somebody who does know what he doesn’t know, unlike you, who apparently has no clue regarding what you don’t know (and what you think you do know.)
However, I will say, with some confidence, that you COULD, in principle, anyway, profit from getting a greater understanding of the “meta” involved in scientific enterprises. Scientific culture, corruption due to careerism and funding flows, etc., will tell you immediately in what direction the claims of “climate science” will tend to move towards, regardless of their scientific merits. With that greater perspective, you would then have a better chance of spotting bias, false claims, etc.
I got my mercury fillings removed, ending this last March, and have begun the mercury detox process. I have begun with the relatively affordable Andy Cutler protocol, though will buy some more advanced (I believe) and safer (I believe) detox technology from quicksilverscientific.com.
I challenge you to listen to Cutler interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSHGfvr77xw
See what he says about the need to read scientific papers carefully, and not just the abstracts; financial incentives, i.e, “funding agencies with agendas”.
“Most of them prove what they’re supposed to; sometimes that data supports it, sometimes it doesn’t” (@ 5:11)
If you can grok the ubiquitous defects of health science, you have a better chance to grok similar defects in “climate science”.
metamars
@Willy
“We’ve already dealt with metamars. He’s as incorrigible as the crazy uncle at the holidays who always spouts the same nonsense regardless of how often he’s been discredited and ridiculed. ”
Snicker
“I do bitch a lot about brainwashed evangelicals, because I was once one and am still surrounded by family and acquaintances who continue on that way. ”
You have far more in common with the brainwashed evangelicals than you imagine. Depending on your own degree of irrationality and brainwashing, you might begin to deprogram yourself if you followed my advice to 450.org.
However, it would probably also be useful for you to study E.O. Wilson’s book “On Human Nature”. In particular, read the chapter on religion.
Human irrationality was selected for, so maybe you shouldn’t feel too bad about yourself. Nevertheless, of what use is our lives if we don’t move towards some type of improvement, mastery, useful goal? Assuming you’re not a nihilist, read on!
I saw a headline just recently that Yang had a very good fundraising week/event/whatever. Yang also supports thorium nuclear reactors. Could this be a major factor? I dunno.
But somebody of your superior intellect can doubtless figure this out, and then maybe use your great talent to help Yang get elected.
Chuck Mire
Sing to the tune of “Old King Cole”
‘Ole Donald Trump was a portly old grump, a portly old grump was he.
He sat on his throne with just his phone, at about a quarter to three.
Twiddle, diddle, dee went his tweeter, tweeter, tweeter;
Twiddle, diddle, dee with his thumbs.
Twiddle, diddle, diddle, dee, he is ‘ole TrumpleThinSkin;
Twiddle, diddle, dee he is DUMB!
His ego is larger than his tie is long; he’s childish to extreme.
His tweets from his throne that he dashes all alone, are always really mean.
Twiddle, diddle, dee went his tweeter, tweeter, tweeter;
Twiddle, diddle, dee with his thumbs.
Twiddle, diddle, diddle, dee, he is ‘ole TrumpleThinSkin;
Twiddle, diddle, dee he is DUMB!
A President who’s not mature, but full of manure, will not help us survive.
If he won’t grow up soon and change his tune, our country will not thrive.
Twiddle, diddle, dee went his tweeter, tweeter, tweeter;
Twiddle, diddle, dee with his thumbs.
Twiddle, diddle, diddle, dee, he is ‘ole TrumpleThinSkin;
Twiddle, diddle, dee he is DUMB!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RktkdFq0zxc
realitychecker
Hey Quag, that is one lousy sonnet. 🙂
S Brennan
Z,
Your pathetic lies/ad hominems aside, I really do feel sorry for shriveled soul.
You are consumed with your own poison. Do you really believe the attacks on me for the last 12 years have ever helped your candidates win? Surely the record of your efforts, by your own account, says otherwise. Go drink the self-prescribed poison of your own making in peace, I will not disturb your imbibition.
realitychecker
Wow! I finally got to see the word “imbibition” used in a sentence. I can now die in complete peace lol.
Well played, good sir. 🙂
Z
Brennan,
The only lies come from you and they’re what you always resort to in the end because that’s all you got and all that you’re about.
Z
Z
Brennan,
If I was you, I’d worry more about the poison you ingest and the shriveling of your own soul, pal. And you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s not hard to recognize. I see plenty of it every workday.
Z
Z
Brennan,
When you think a mile a moment, but only an inch deep, what do you end up constantly thinking about? You and what you think is in your immediate best interests. Then you end up assembling bizarre analogies that whirl around the “a-hole” that took that last breath mint you coveted at the diner and your selfish concerns about how often people would abuse free, at the point of contact, healthcare when you’re already covered as it is.
Z
Willy
@metamars
Just because climate change is a complex issue, doesn’t mean that one should be grasping at every possible denial hoping that many small unrelated denials will equal one big fat conclusive denial.
But debating over the long term affects of climate change seems worthwhile. And have you ever seen ExxonMobil’s carbon capture ads? Hope? Contrition? Propaganda? Wishful thinking?
As a former fake rocket scientist, I know far too little about thorium reactors to make an educated judgment. But I do think I’m pretty good at knowing that if there’s good money in it for those in power, they’ll be a rousing success (for them, not necessarily us).
450.org
Imbibition. Yes, good word. Russians can’t help themselves. They have vodka on the brain. And in the blood. Imbibing is the same as breathing when you’re a Russian, whether you’re actually a Russian or a Russian in sentiment.
realitychecker
Methinks you’ve been Russian to too many conclusions.
450.org
Just like your hero Trump, you lie. I did not cite Joseph McCartin. Why would you assert that?
metamars
@Willy
IOW, you not only are incapable of a rational discussion on climate science, but you are also disinterested, or perhaps afraid, of gaining a perspective that would clue you in to expected biases and distortions of the climate science community.
Thank God there are people like Dr. Andy Cutler who not only have (actually had; he passed, recently) fine minds (when not poisoned by mercury), but also the willingness to see through BS, even BS given the imprimatur of publication in a peer reviewed journal.
Cutler took his Ph.D. from Princeton University, so he was doubtless blessed with a very high IQ. But the willingness to call BS for what it is has more to do with ethics, and should be accessible (aside from constraints of scientific knowledge) to average IQ types. Should be, that is, if they’re ethical. I mean, do you really need a Cutler level of IQ to understand, and admit, to the data fudging indulged in by various “climate scientists”, as documented in realclimatescience.com?
In “The Trouble with Physics”, it is not for nothing that Smolin, the author, dealt with scientific ethics.
Donna LaFramboise, with no scientific background, was nevertheless able to evaluate certain ancillary claims emanating from the climate catastrophist camp, regarding the nature of the IPCC reports, and the process that creates them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5weFQYBL5w
You aren’t worthy to untie the moldy sneakers of LaFramboise, and it has nothing to do with lacking a scientific background, or lacking an IQ to match hers. I’m sure you have an IQ sufficient to replicate the work of LaFramboise, but I’m also sure that you lack some other qualities that would ever allow that to happen.
What, oh what, could they be?
Willy
I guess when ExxonMobil gives in to all those silly scientists with all their well-hoaxed, mindless “scientific consensus”, then life as we know it may be doomed. It’s good to have maverick fighters like metamars setting the record straight.
bruce wilder
News reporting? Offered for contemplation
New York (CNN) Terrifying rumors initially propelled by Facebook’s algorithms have sparked fears that men driving white vans are kidnapping women all across the United States for sex trafficking and to sell their body parts. While there is no evidence to suggest this is happening, much less on a national, coordinated scale, a series of viral Facebook (FB) posts created a domino effect that led to the mayor of a major American city issuing a warning based on the unsubstantiated claims.
The latest online-induced panic shows how viral Facebook posts can stoke paranoia and make people believe that spotting something as common as a white van, can be deemed suspicious and connected to a nationwide cabal.
“Don’t park near a white van,” Baltimore Mayor Bernard “Jack” Young said in a TV interview on Monday. “Make sure you keep your cellphone in case somebody tries to abduct you.”
realitychecker
Don’t look at me! I used to have a van, but it was black.
metamars
Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry warns of the ‘drive to manufacture a scientific consensus’ and the ‘tremendous political pressure on scientists’ to support policy making goals in a op ed about the UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid. @ https://judithcurry.com/2019/12/02/madrid/?mc_cid=c314390c89&mc_eid=d5e6b5270d#more-25458
I would say that laymen that are (or act as if they are) oblivious to such pressures are as likely to be able to have a rational debate on climate change as as the scientists who have succumbed to such pressures. In the case of such scientists, their ethics are also in doubt. As for the ethics of the laymen practitioners of the CO2 catastrophist religion, that depends on the unknowable (to outsiders) degree of their being brainwashed.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes, being brainwashed or successfully propagandized is just being brainwashed or successfully propagandized. That’s quite different from having evil and deceitful intentions. I myself used to believe the CO2 catastrophist jazz, from at least the time that I saw Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, to about 2010.
If climate skeptics weren’t so ineffectual, politically, they would enlighten/educate the public about these political pressures (as well as the bad and corrupt science). Alas, the skeptics don’t do activism well. Trump may well lose the next election due to a morally motivated, if ignorant, Greta Thunberg vote. Trump had a chance to make a huge dent in climate ignorance, but chose not to, for political reasons. https://www.eenews.net/stories/1061717133
IMNSHO, on this score, he’s either a fool, or a coward, or both.