The Liberal Politics & Current Events Book Club discussion
Reality-Based Chat. Speak!
Concerning the grand jury decision:I think Obama, in his address, was treading an impossible line with extraordinary dignity, and I find it almost impossible to say much beyond it. One can see that he was harrowed. It's painful to all of us, so I'll just throw it open to your discussion.
I didn't hear that but it doesn't sound like a shot at Hillary to me. The media twists everything that Obama does. They'll do anything to create controversy. It's what sells newspapers.
Lisa wrote: "I didn't hear that but it doesn't sound like a shot at Hillary to me. The media twists everything that Obama does. They'll do anything to create controversy. It's what sells newspapers."They'll certainly do anything to sell newspapers, but I think it's the overarching political objectives of the corporatocracy (and the six corporations that now control virtually all American mainstream media activity) that actually generate the unrelenting distortion, disinformation and sheer mendacity that gets disseminated in the guise of "news" -- and that they'd do it even if it lost them sales and cost them money -- even as conservative think tanks churn out toxic tomes that they, themselves, buy up to maintain their visibility on the bestseller lists, and also to provide a specious "philosophical" foundation for their pernicious agenda. (And of course, they do absolutely pander to a constituency whose racist hatred of Obama they have immensely successfully harnessed for their own ends.)
Yes, I have to agree with you about that.
I think we're discussing two topics, Mark and Lisa, the interpretation of Obama's comments about the new car and his response to the Missouri grand jury's failure to indict the police officer who killed Michael Brown. Obama always handles himself with dignity and grace when discussing race. I think it's because he was born in 1961 and raised by his white relatives in Hawaii. Those of us who were born during the Jim Crow years and raised in the South by our black relatives are like war veterans. We have flashbacks to earlier traumatic events, so we can't be as cool as our half-white President. Michael Brown reminds us not only of Trayvon Martin and Rodney King but also of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers.I bought the new biography of Bill Cosby just before the "high-tech lynching" of him started and am reading it now. Cosby, of course, is another black icon (like Tiger Woods and OJ) whose private life is very different from his public image. But, as with OJ and Michael Jackson (who were arguably more beloved by whites than blacks before their problems with the law), blacks are more likely to defend him because we have seen too many innocent black men be falsely accused. When we see OJ, Michael, and Bill, we again think of Emmett Till and of the Scottsboro Boys.
And, Mark, the corporate news media are part of the problem. I don't know why they decided to run with these decades-old allegations now when they mostly ignored them earlier. Maybe they just think 77-year-old Cosby should retire and be quiet; we have plenty of younger blacks on television, so we don't need him to star in his tenth show or whatever it is. Maybe they don't like that he became more political after Obama won. But they should be sensitive to how it looks for white women to be on television calling a beloved black icon a rapist. They need to read NATIVE SON and INVISIBLE MAN.
Mary, I keep wondering why it took these women so long to make these accusations. I guess I wasn't paying attention to the first one. It seemed to me that after the first one came forward, the rest of them felt empowered to do so. And why weren't these women taken seriously when they first accused him? Bill Cosby was protected to some extent by his celebrity status and that seemed to trump a woman's accusation of rape or sexual harassment. Remember what happened when Anita Hill accused Clarence Thomas? Ironically, it helped get a black woman elected Senator from Illinois.
I remember the Anita Hill-Clarence Thomas episode too well, Lisa. In fact, Thomas is the source for the "high-tech lynching" comment, addressed to the Judiciary Committee, chaired by my favorite Vice President of all time, Joe Biden (not his finest hour) and featuring not-exactly-a-monk, my all-time favorite Senator Ted Kennedy. I couldn't stand Thomas then and like him even less now, but the Democrats were also culturally insensitive when they used a sex scandal to try to take down a black man. When I caught my well-educated male colleagues snickering over the hearings, I shot them down with what they would probably call "the race card." I said, "I'm sure you're enjoying watching well-educated black folks discussing sex on television." When I become angry at the Republicans and the corporate media for using sex scandals to go after Democrats, I have to remember that we may have started it in 1991. Before the stained blue dress, there was the pubic hair on the soda can.As for the women accusing Cosby, several of them had made the allegations earlier. Fame-hungry former supermodel Janice Dickinson apparently discussed Cosby's wicked ways with Howard Stern in 2006. But Cosby's lawyers and publicists were able to keep the stories from going viral. One entertainment reporter said this week that Cosby shut down a National Enquirer investigation of his woman problem during the late eighties by giving them a story about his daughter who was on cocaine. If that's the case, then he really is a jerk. I know that the National Enquirer makes deals with celebrities because in 2003 when women started complaining about former bodybuilder, bad actor, soon-to-be Republican governor Arnold S, the tabloid bought the women's stories but didn't publish them because they made a deal with Arnold to write (or have ghostwritten) a monthly article for a bodybuilding or fitness magazine owned by the same company that owned the tabloid. And does anyone believe that no one knew about his lookalike son with the maid? That child was already born when his father was running for governor. It's funny how that story broke after his term ended; the child was thirteen at that point.
There are so many sex scandals that are not reported--segregationist Strom Thurmond's half-black child, Barbara Walters' affair with black Republican Senator Ed Brooke. I predict that some day we will hear all about George W. and Condi Rice. Maybe she'll tell the story the way Barbara told her story.
Mary's right - Sex scandals involving celebrities tend, in general, to be suppressed, and if Cosby is culpable, then it's appalling -- and if he gave the NE a story about his daughter's cocaine use as a quid pro quo to shut down an investigation, then he certainly is a "jerk," in any case.I think what has to be asked, though, is why is the matter being revived now, in particular? Because there is a campaign of racism being harnessed right now to political ends, and Cosby (culpable or innocent) has a great deal of significance as an iconic figure. My conjecture would be that he stepped on the wrong toes.
Within the echelons of wealth and power, most people can get away with anything. Even on many campuses, figures as insignificant as athletes (insignificant, except to powerful alums) have long got away with rape, and it is unspeakably outrageous. The Cosby case is hard to parse (where there's nothing political at issue, I tend to believe accusations of horrific sexual abuse by powerful people, because it's so prevalent), but there's a separate issue, here. If Cosby in particular is being allowed to be exposed (whether or not accurately), then I wonder about the agenda.
There are a lot of factors at play here with Bill Cosby and I don't know what to make of it. But what if he is guilty? That is a possibility. I don't know why the media would go after him in particular. He's not that political. I don't see what they gain from it. Maybe these women came forward on their own. After a few came forward, maybe it gave the others the courage to follow. As a retired therapist who worked with many victims of sex abuse, I have to say that it's very difficult for victims to talk about it. Sometimes it takes decades to come forward. This is true for victims of white men as well as black or any other race. Many sex abuse victims came to therapy for other issues such as depression or current relationship problems and the sex abuse only came out after months of therapy. It's wrong if black men are being wrongly accused of rape just because someone's out to destroy them but if that's not the case, they need to have the same consequences as any one else who does the same thing.
Lisa wrote: "There are a lot of factors at play here with Bill Cosby and I don't know what to make of it. But what if he is guilty? That is a possibility. I don't know why the media would go after him in partic..."You may be right, and I know, too, that people who are victimized often can be terrified (by reason of very real potential threats) to admit the truth of the hell of their experiences.
I guess it's impossible to know whether Cosby is currently falling prey to a racist agenda, or that of some powerful party with a vendetta, but the two possibilities (that he's guilty, and that he's being used to stoke racism) aren't at all mutually exclusive.
It's a difficult needle for anyone here to thread, since we're all outraged by sexual violence committed with impunity, but also by racism -- and it's been years since racism and misogyny, both, were so aggressively promoted by certain political factions.
From https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/ar..."A series of political commenters, led by the editor of the National Review, have a new idea for Speaker John Boehner: refuse to invite President Obama from the State of the Union address. The thinking behind this proposal is that it would aptly demonstrate the level of GOP discontentment with the president, in case he doesn’t already know. Rich Lowry, the editor of the National Review, told The New York Times Tuesday night that if he were John Boehner “I’d say to the president: ‘Send us your State of the Union in writing. You’re not welcome in our chamber.’”
In a related development, psychopathically bellowing inmates of Bedlam have locked out psychiatrists to demonstrate their discontentment. "You're not welcome in our ward," said prominent psychopath, Richard Screechinsanely. "Send us our prescriptions in writing, and stop talking about reality or we'll hold our breath until we turn blue." ("Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah," he added in an afterthought.)
And, of course, this unprecedented step of preventing the President from entering the "chamber" would have nothing to do with the fact that the President is half-black. Maybe Obama should bar Boehner from the White House. The "chamber" doesn't belong to Boehner any more than the White House belongs to Obama. I generally can't stand Boehner, but I was slightly amused when I saw his how I cook a turkey video. I thought because of the way he looked (twinkling a bit) he was throwing some shade at Obama, and I like snarkiness even when it's coming from the other side. Just in case Boehner was punning, I posted on the White House Happy Thanksgiving message, telling Obama that I appreciated that he pardoned the two turkeys but suggesting that he not be so forgiving of those turkeys in Congress; I said he should baste them and then roast them, especially the obstructionists. A Republican troll tried to take me on, but I quickly shut his "dirty Harry Reid" rant down by reminding him which party is refusing to vote on immigration and which party shut down the government. I love roasting conservative turkeys on Thanksgiving.Speaking of turkeys, I think it's clear that Bill was a dirty dog. One or two of those women who have come forward lately may just be trying to get some fame, but most of them are telling the truth, and some have talked earlier. In fact, reports claim that ten Jane Does were ready to testify in 2006, I believe, in support of one woman's case. Bill Maher and Seth Rogen made good points about this scandal on Maher's last show a week ago. Most of these sexual assaults took place during a time when Cosby and probably the women didn't really see them as rapes. Maher and Rogen pointed out that in seventies movies like "Animal House" and "Revenge of the Nerds" men basically treated drunk or unconscious women in a way that would now be considered gang rape, and it was done for laughs. They referenced Jackie Gleason's comment about sending Alice to the moon as an example of how attitudes toward domestic violence have also changed. I believe that Ricky (Desi Arnaz) actually spanked Lucy, by the way. Attitudes toward child abuse have also changed as we saw in the discussion of the football player's "spanking" his child and leaving marks.
Bill was a kinky adulterer whose behavior would not have been considered criminal by most people during the time that he was committing the acts. And I still believe that he has not been able to contain the fallout this time because he has become too political. For instance, I remember that he followed another self-promoting, loose-morals jerk, Donald Trump, on "The Today Show" during that period when Trump was pretending to be a birther. Cosby made some nasty cracks about Trump during his segment. He was clearly preparing to move back into the spotlight with the publication of that mostly celebratory biography, the donation of his art work for some kind of cultural uplift tour, which is why he and his wife were doing interviews, a comedy special on Netflix, culminating in a new sitcom, where he would play the grandfather. The corporate media has spoken, and Bill is officially retired. He may be able to do his stand up or sit down act in a few places, but his days as a television star have ended. I won't miss him. There are plenty of other funny men and women to entertain us. I love the new ABC comedy "Blackish," for instance.
Mary wrote: "And, of course, this unprecedented step of preventing the President from entering the "chamber" would have nothing to do with the fact that the President is half-black. Maybe Obama should bar Boeh..."No, nothing at all to do with the fact that the president is half-black, and wholly unrelated to the fact that they've been maintaining their coalition of the racist, misogynistic and stupid -- the wretched wretches yearning to vent rage -- by stoking their most reprehensible qualities. Plutocrats represent a minuscule fraction of the population: to the extent that the furtherance of their agenda of world wealth-sucking global immiseration remains dependent on the existence of a functioning democracy, they do need bodies to cast votes for their puppets in Congress. And what better motivating tool than racist hatred (ironically further stoked by economic frustration emanating from the very policies for which the economic vampires at the top induce the marching morons to vote in a great, collective act of ritual economic seppuku)?
They (the kakistocratic scum we've allowed to float to the top of the socioeconomic cesspool) may not need to exacerbate the hatreds of their ignorant, deliberately ill-educated prey (and ballot-casting proxies) much longer. As I've said before, they've pretty effectively achieved electoral nullification, and the coalition of the willing victims will in any case continue to vote squarely against their every interest -- including that of barest survival -- whilst singing venomous hymns exalting the prophets Hannity and Limbaugh, and the happy wonder of capitalist predation (brought to you by those friendly folks who have left you dying prostrate in the street).
Goering said (at Nuremberg) perfectly correctly that "it works the same in every country." Identify the "enemy," the "other" -- the members of groups that threaten the Vaterland (and wasn't it signally interesting when we adopted the direct translation, "Homeland," to justify the eradication of our own constitution?). And then, you have but to invoke "the enemy" (the Jew, the Black, feminists, liberals... pick your favorite object of anathematization), and accuse of the ultimate sin (lack of the quite barbaric atavistic quality known as "patriotism") anyone who doesn't "get with the program" and hate with conspicuous vigor.
It all infuriates me, as I'm sure it does you, but there may be the barest glimmer of a silver lining: refusing unprecedentedly to invite the President of the United States to address "The Chamber" may just conjure sufficient outrage, bewilderment, or the glimmerings of consciousness in the residue of citizens not wholly bereft of their senses... that it may backfire. I think even some of the establishment Republicans know that it might just backfire, which is why I suspect Boehner is reluctant to do it. But he has the ravening hordes of the brainwashed and the rabid at his back (and probably quite willing to unseat him), and he may have to accede to their self-defeating will. I earnestly hope they defeat themselves, because it doesn't look as though anyone else is strategizing to do it very effectively.
Mark wrote: "Mary wrote: "And, of course, this unprecedented step of preventing the President from entering the "chamber" would have nothing to do with the fact that the President is half-black. Maybe Obama sh..."I like to think of the Tea Baggers as the Frankenstein the GOP created through their talk-radio/FOX News media bubble. And now the monster is eating everything in its path, including THEM.
You're right, Mark. People would be outraged if they took that unprecedented step, but you're also right that Boehner might do it anyway because he's craven and easily bullied by the Tea Party nuts. I still wonder if the Democrats were at least subconsciously hoping that the Republicans would win so that they would have to try to govern and not just block the Democrats. They were hoping that the Republicans would self-destruct.
Beverly wrote:".. I like to think of the Tea Baggers as the Frankenstein the GOP created through their talk-radio/FOX News media bubble. And now the monster is eating everything in its path, including THEM. ..."It's certainly a pretty thought (Dr. Victor Plutocrat consumed by the TP monster he'd created electronically by wiring together the brains of Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, and connecting them to a Fox News microphone). Funny you should use the pronoun, "THEM." Has anyone seen the movie, "They Live?" Probably the most courageously accurate depiction of America in the form of a grade-B science fiction movie in the history of cinema. I don't actually know how They (in this case, the producers) got away with it. Of course, "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (from the novel* by Jack Finney) was pretty close, as well. Don't anyone fall asleep near a radio broadcasting Fox News. (especially not if it's a POD-cast :-) :-) )
*Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Mary wrote: "You're right, Mark. People would be outraged if they took that unprecedented step, but you're also right that Boehner might do it anyway because he's craven and easily bullied by the Tea Party nut...""Though thy crest be shorn and shaven
Thou, I said, art surely craven,
Ghastly, TP-harried raven
Wandering through the Speaker's door...
Tell these right-wing lords and ladies
Kindly to go back to Hades
And to never cast a ballot
On the House or Senate floor...
Quoth John Boehner,
"Horse...
well, you get the idea.
(always trying to keep it literary)
*The Complete Works Of Edgar Allen Poe
Further, to my last post:Now, I feel tempted, Mary (via the inspiration of your use of the word, "craven"), to rewrite the whole poem, all 18 verses, with the title, "The Boehner" (of our existence, perhaps). There are some inconsistencies to be worked out: the Raven ought really to be the symbol of the death of hope to be visited upon liberals and sane people after The Great Loss (so I suppose that makes "Lenore" symbolic of meaningful democracy, humanity, decency or the prospect of survival), but Boehner was around well before the disastrous election. Still, he has a raven-like visage, so the image is persuasive, even if it's really the Tea Party that "still is sitting, still is sitting, on the pallid bust of Limbaugh, just above the chamber door...
and their eyes, the lamplights pooling,
of a cretin that is drooling,
and dystopia unspooling,
lies before our chamber door,
and the States from out their hateful
Schadenfreude on the floor,
shall be lifted, "Nevermore."
Too depressing, and not enough things rhyme with "Boehner," anyway, though "insaner" leaps readily to mind. :-) I certainly hope it isn't true, in any case, so let's go ahead and hope they do give Obama the... er, Raven... and refuse to invite him into "the chamber." I'd like nothing so much as to see a backlash.
Things must be really dark if we're quoting (and revising) Poe, Mark. I hope the "nevermore" applies to what happened last month. I hope the Democrats "nevermore" get sucked into playing the Republicans' all-politicians-are-bad game and voters "nevermore" stay home so that the less popular party can win. Boehner is a hard name for rhyming, but the liberal googlers call him Boner. I try not to engage in name calling on social media sites since I'm trying to promote civil discourse, but I usually call him Bonehead when he pops up on my television screen.
Mary wrote: "Things must be really dark if we're quoting (and revising) Poe, Mark. I hope the "nevermore" applies to what happened last month. I hope the Democrats "nevermore" get sucked into playing the Repu..."Oh, writing bad parodies is just my idiosyncratic approach to sublimating political and other distress, but you're right, Mary. We liberals should all be wearing "Nevermore" buttons, and taking every measure possible to counter both voter suppression by the Repubs and accidie on the part of our own voters. Boehner is "craven" in his acquiescence to the Tea Party contingent, but I don't think he's clinically deranged, and it's difficult to say whether Dems would be better off if he were replaced by a full-fledged member of the deranged faction, since currently I think he somewhat masks their psychopathy.
Yeah, Mark, now that Cantor, who probably would have been worse, is gone what semi-sane Republican Representative is left? Boehner at least remembers when the game was played differently and understands how Congress is supposed to work. He's a drunk and a crybaby, but he's not a maniac. Speaking of drunks, Obama is apparently drinking with McConnell today, discussing their future agenda. When they showed the pictures of those two, I realized how well they represent the two parties. Obama effectively represents the younger, smarter, better looking, and more diverse Democrats while McConnell . . . You know what he represents.
Mary wrote: "Yeah, Mark, now that Cantor, who probably would have been worse, is gone what semi-sane Republican Representative is left? Boehner at least remembers when the game was played differently and under..."I'm not familiar with every single Republican Representative (the burden of which knowledge would, I think, involve more strain and induce more trauma than my poor, aging brain could endure), but when I review all the prominent ones, I think you're right: there's no one whom I'd want to give a clean bill of mental health. Wonderful motto for House Republicans: "Our Speaker Isn't Wildly Clinically Insane." (no warranties, express or implied, relative to other members) They should print it on buttons.
And as for what McConnell represents, well... I'm going to *cough*Confederacy*cough* attempt to emulate your ideal of civil discourse. (Please ignore the momentary congestion in my throat.)
Just incidentally, for those of you who have been engaged in this thread primarily, our sympathetic neighbor to the North, Malcolm (a Canadian attorney), has some insightful observations on Jimmy's Voter ID thread, which I commend to your attention. I confess (as I think I have before) that I've been trying to concentrate activity on a few threads to maximize the "notification effect," but I will occasionally draw attention to posts from other threads that seem to me cogent or interesting, and you can (if you feel thus inclined) continue the discussion there or here.I think I've become enamoured of my idea for a Republican button (see the preceding post), and wonder if we couldn't order a bunch to give as holiday gifts of consolation to Republican friends (if we have any).
And finally... Can anyone breathe?I find that the oxygen content of the air in America has recently dropped by about 99%.
Thanks for the tip about the other thread, Mark. I've been debating the voter I.D. mess on google+ for months. I don't have any Republican friends unless some of my friends are really good actors.
Did you see the latest House vote on Immigration? It's just further proof that they'd rather thwart anything and everything that Obama tries to do than actually try to run the country.
Lisa wrote: "Did you see the latest House vote on Immigration? It's just further proof that they'd rather thwart anything and everything that Obama tries to do than actually try to run the country."The proof was already high enough for 100% ethyl alcohol, but I agree: it's now reached an arithmetically impossible 210. :-) Anyway, the House does not so much vote as dismiss the Democrats from the room and then commune maniacally via telepathy with the evil Reptile Overlords, currently in geosynchronous orbit somewhere over Texas. :-) :-)
Mary wrote: "Thanks for the tip about the other thread, Mark. I've been debating the voter I.D. mess on google+ for months. I don't have any Republican friends unless some of my friends are really good actors."Truth be told, I don't have any Republican friends, either, but it's certainly not because I'm biased against cognitively dualistic narcissistic sociopaths: I think I just get on their nerves. :-)
I actually do have a couple of Republican friends. I don't think it helps to put all these insults out about them. We're stooping to the level of the current Republican dynamic.
Lisa wrote: "I actually do have a couple of Republican friends. I don't think it helps to put all these insults out about them. We're stooping to the level of the current Republican dynamic."My intent was to be silly and whimsical, in a reductio-ad-absurdum sort of way, not really to insult any particular Republican. I emphatically agree that it's not a good idea to insult groups of people based on inherent characteristics that they have, but I think the question does arise philosophically of whether it's admissible to criticize -- even very virulently -- choices that people make to adopt or maintain affiliations with groups whose ideological positions (e.g., racism, misogyny, homophobia, hatred of the poor) result in the pursuit of agendas tangibly horrifically injuriously to tens of millions of other people. Say, Nazis or the KKK. When a group that may originally have merely represented an arguably objectionable economic philosophy gravitates, en bloc, into the realm of advancing agendas that are arguably heinous or genocidal (one of the effects, e.g., of denying healthcare to the poor or advocating to eliminate Medicare), should members of conscience not disaffiliate, and is it not legitimate to criticize the ones who don't? I think the question bears inspection.
Lisa - Further to my rather hurried initial response, I felt that I needed to clarify a few points:1) I should have said first that I *in no way* intended to offend you, or anyone with Republican friends. I hope that wasn't your impression, but I very sincerely apologize if it was.
2) I *was* serious in saying that my remark was intended to be construed as jocular -- obviously over-the-top -- but you have a point about our conservative counterparts. They're *never* joking when they say immeasurably more vicious things about liberals. And I *would* be worried about seeming to emulate them, but I think this might involve a false moral equivalency. It would be crazy to accuse liberals of exhibiting sociopathic tendencies, because our ideology has to do with helping others. It is not equally crazy to suggest that the policy positions of the Tea Party, and the Republican Party en bloc, which has become scarcely distinguishable, betray sociopathic attitudes. They are in fact actively hostile to helping others -- most of them expressly embrace Randian selfishness as a virtue -- and their agenda is to destroy the social safety net. So to call those attitudes sociopathic is merely to state a truism.
3) The stated policy of this group has always been that members may not make ad hominem attacks on one another, and I intend to continue to enforce that policy. I do not, however, intend to restrain even rhetorically spirited attacks on the ideology of "the opposition." I believe the Republicans have strayed so far from the status of merely representing an opposing economic point of view, that we are entering the territory of needing to oppose a group infused with hatred and actuarially genocidal proclivities, so I won't cavil to violate "Godwin's Law," here. Too much is at stake, and too many hundreds of millions of people (including many ill-informed ones, who consider themselves Republican) are in actual, empirical danger of their health and their lives, for us to muzzle ourselves in an attempt to maintain genteel standards that are simply not appropriate in a time of ongoing horrific threat, and where the opposition enjoys *all* the advantages. I live in Texas. Roughly half the women in this state have already been deprived of healthcare and the option to have a safe abortion because insufficient opposition has been mounted to Republican policies. We are returning to Gilead, the Republic of Coathangers. I'm afraid that rhetorical gentility (for all that I, myself, would normally prefer it) is a luxury we cannot afford.
4) So, in summary, the policy is that we can't make ad hominem attacks on each other, but we may attack right-wing ideology (and criticize prominent public figures who promote it) to any degree within reason. I reiterate that my earlier remark was not intended as an attack on any member of this group who has Republican friends, and I apologize to anyone who felt that it was. It would probably be a good thing if more of us had Republican friends whom we might attempt to dissuade from remaining affiliated with a party that has become overwhelmingly toxic. We don't, after all, want to exist strictly as an echo chamber.
I think we can attack what they're saying and doing while refraining from attacking their personalities and personas. Obviously, I don't agree with anything that they're trying to achieve in the USA right now. I'm furious with the way all their behavior seems to be directed at making Pres. Obama look back. All they are succeeding in is making themselves look terrible. That said on a personal level, I try to find the commonalities that people have with each other rather than what divides us. That's a lot easier on a one to one basis than when discussing the US Congress. We live in a time when everything is so polarized. There has to be a way to get us actually talking to each other.
I admire people who can have Republican friends or family members, Lisa, but politics for me is probably like religion for some people. I will never understand couples like Maria and Arnold, who are thankfully now divorced, or James Carville and his wife Mary. I can be civil when debating people on social media because I don't really know them and so am not personally invested, but I become very emotional and enraged about the way Republicans have damaged this country, with some help from Democrats. I can't stand intolerance and lost one black friend who was a Democrat but also a born-again Christian and so made ignorant, intolerant remarks about gays, Mormons, and Jews. She had been a high school friend (at ETHS, Lisa), and we reconnected through e-mail. I had to drop her because she made me too angry.Mark, I agree that we should have a place where we can make jokes about the Republicans, assuming that we are all Democrats and so won't be offended. We just have to remember to leave our snide, Republican-bashing jokes here in our liberal bubble.
I also agree about the echo chamber, Mark. I don't know if you were around earlier this year when the infamous James was battling all of us. He was dumped from the group as a troll. I was annoyed because I enjoyed debating him; even when he made slightly insulting, condescending comments, I didn't mind because I felt I was winning all of the debates. And I was impressed that he was willing to be the lone ranger, fighting all of us liberals. No offense to my fellow liberals, but I actually have more fun on google+ because that is definitely not an echo chamber. And I sometimes play the James role (only with more wit and civility); I'm the lone ranger, fighting two or three conservatives on a Herman Cain or John Boehner post.
Both the Democratic party & the Republican party are rather heterogeneous and contain people with diverse, often conflicting, interests and political ideologies. Also, imho a Democratic government would not make the US into a utopia, nor would a GOP government turn it into a totalitarian state or return it to its pre-Civil Rights era.
Hi, Xdyj!I appreciate your willingness to pitch in with a contrary opinion, but let me undertake to respond to some of it. I'm sure Mary will be eager to comment, also.
First, that no party is wholly monolithic seems to me an irrelevant truism. Second, NO government would turn the United States into a "Utopia," so I think the inarguable fact that a wholly Democratic one would fail to accomplish that unachievable objective is something of a strawman argument. Logically, to say that a certain political outcome would not be perfect in all respects is not to say that it wouldn't be immeasurably preferable to an unspeakably hellish and dystopian alternative. I am not, frankly, at all convinced of the validity of your asseveration that a GOP government would not conduce to the formation of a more totalitarian union, or that it would not return the United States to a pre-Civil Rights Era, since those would appear to be its express objectives, and the Republicans have already made considerable strides in that direction through an aggressive program of voter suppression, electoral nullification through the elimination of constraints on unlimited (and anonymous) campaign spending by corporations and plutocrats, and also effective nullification of Roe v. Wade in large swathes of the country, thereby bringing back those halcyon pre-women's rights and antebellum days they so urgently crave of the utter lack of reproductive rights for women. You know, Occam's Razor dictates that when a constellation of disparate stated (and aggressively prosecuted) policies seem all to be covered by a single explanatory hypothesis, which is precisely the one you expressly deny (and also the simplest one), then a reasonable person really ought to consider the hypothesis as convincingly proven.
Finally, let me remind you of just one of the gifts bequeathed to us by our last GOP administration: two wholly unnecessary, immeasurably destructive and economically devastating cataclysmic wars, the first one predicated on assertions about WMD's now utterly proven to have been egregious, deliberate and shameless lies.
Mark wrote: "Hi, Xdyj!I appreciate your willingness to pitch in with a contrary opinion, but let me undertake to respond to some of it. I'm sure Mary will be eager to comment, also.
First, that no party is ..."
Thanks! I completely agree with you on reproductive rights and that GOP's recent attacks on reproductive rights already had calamitous consequences. I also think the recent trend of voter suppression is worrying.
I have no sympathy with most of the stances of the Republican party, but I don't think they should be demonized unnecessarily either. It's a normal, mainstream right-wing political party, better than some and worse than many, but it does not have the discipline or ambition of a real totalitarian movement.
There are plenty of criticisms of the Democratic party leadership from the American left, and some left wing discontent can also be seen in the Occupy movement three years ago. I don't think I know enough about American politics to tell if those criticisms are valid.
As to foreign policy, I like Barack Obama, but he did get the US to participate in the disastrous Libyan intervention in 2011 as well as the current Iraq war #3.
Mary wrote: "I admire people who can have Republican friends or family members, Lisa, but politics for me is probably like religion for some people. I will never understand couples like Maria and Arnold, who a..."Hi Mary, I'm not that religious in that my adherence to religious rituals is almost nonexistent. I'm more comfortable walking the walk so my political views stem from my views on ethics and society. It's hard for me to hear right wing opinions because I get too angry. On a personal basis, however, I can talk to Republicans about other things. I have one close friend who has been my friend for decades who is a Republican. We've watch our children grow up and been to each other's children's weddings. We know we have opposite views on politics and we have a tacit agreement not to discuss it. You don't choose family. Most of my family is pretty left wing. My daughter, however, became ultra-religious and then became a right wing Republican. We used to argue but I got tired of it and changed the subject. After 10 years, we've finally gotten to a point where we can touch on these subjects but it's very hard. The incentive for working things out though is having a relationship with my four grandchildren and ultimately with her. Naturally, that incentive doesn't exist with other people.
Anyway, personal relationships aside, even though this spot is a liberal bubble, it is still a public forum. Calling a group names and attacking their personalities instead of their ideologies doesn't foster any kind of discussion. That's why I think it would be advisable to refrain from doing so except in private messages.
I disagree. I think this should be a safe place where we can express our frustrations about the personality/character/look/comments of egregious people. Plus, it's all up to the moderator. If you want a safe haven for people to respect figures that can and should be compared to Nazis or the KKK, there is nothing stopping you/someone from starting a different forum or group on Good Reads for that purpose and those who agree with you can follow you there.
I wouldn't do that. If people want to vent their frustrations here, that's okay. I'll see how it goes. I've enjoyed this site. We'll see if your way of doing this chases away discussion or not. Maybe I'll be wrong.
Nancy wrote: "I disagree. I think this should be a safe place where we can express our frustrations about the personality/character/look/comments of egregious people. Plus, it's all up to the moderator. If you w..."Nancy, I partake of your frustration (and perhaps too obviously) with what I will not cavil to call... well, "evil." And I do think this should be a "safe place" for those of us on the liberal side of the spectrum. It is difficult to make nuanced distinctions between an ideology and its most conspicuous public proponents. At the risk of yet again violating "Godwin's Law," I have to ask, how can one possibly say, "well, all this business of the extermination of six million Jews is reprehensible, but I certainly wouldn't want to attack Hitler's personal character?"
I have stated the policy that has always prevailed on this blog -- and that I will continue to enforce. We may not make ad hominem attacks on each other. I have also made it clear that I will not restrain attacks on an evil ideology, or on the prominent public advocates of that ideology and its unspeakably pernicious agenda. That is no more or less than a liberal newspaper editorial board would do. Criticism of public figures is perfectly legitimate, and cannot even be held libelous, absent malice -- though I would certainly remove any comment I considered to be libelous, even potentially, irrespective of intent. If you say that prominent Republican X molests children, then I will remove the comment. (Unless it's been determined by a jury to be true.) But if you say that he or she advocates policies that may plausibly cause millions of children to suffer acute educational, environmental and nutritional injury, then I won't.
Criticism of private individuals is an entirely different matter. We may loathe their politics, but we cannot cite relatives or acquaintances of ours (or just ordinary citizens we know about) who are devout Republicans and insult them by name or in any way that could even conceivably identify them. In fact, in general, I think anathematizing private individuals in public does cross the line into harassment, and I'll suppress it. (Republicans apparently do *not* think this (viz. Sandra Fluke), which is another reason for us to avoid it.) To be clear, though participants here have referenced Republican relatives and friends with whom they have experienced frustration, I do not consider any of their comments to have been insulting or injurious, so I am definitely not alluding to those references.
All that said, I also fully understand and sympathize with Lisa's desire to foster civil discourse, and to behave better than our ideological antagonists, and we cannot afford a schism within this group over the issue of what is and is not civil discourse. I hope everyone agrees with this. There are just too few of us; we cannot afford not to stand together. I would very strongly urge you, Nancy, to make your stand here, where we already have a subscription of 583, and not to start from scratch. We need you. We need everyone here (potential trolls excluded, except for the ones whom it amuses Mary to annihilate rhetorically :-)).
I hope I have made my position as moderator clear. No intra-group ad hominem attacks. No ad hominem attacks on private individuals outside the group. Concerning right-wing ideology and its public proponents, you may take a very strong adversarial position, and I won't exclude incendiary rhetoric or outright mockery (within reason). I encourage humor that is strictly ideological (or randomly whimsical), but would not, of course, allow "jokes" of a racist, misogynistic or homophobic character (though I think we can safely presume that all of those would emanate from the other side).
Xdyj wrote: "Mark wrote: "Hi, Xdyj!I appreciate your willingness to pitch in with a contrary opinion, but let me undertake to respond to some of it. I'm sure Mary will be eager to comment, also.
First, that..."
Xdyj, I was perhaps more rhetorically intense than I might have been if I hadn't misconstrued your intent as that of creating a sort of false moral equivalency between the parties, so I regret that.
We appear to agree with respect to most of the substantive issues, though I think you do raise an interesting point concerning the degree of discipline of the Republican Party, and whether it's currently sufficient to foster totalitarianism. I tend to think that it is, but it's a point concerning which reasonable people can disagree, for a variety of reasons.
You are certainly right that there are no shortage of issues with respect to which those of us on the left might take issue with Obama (or those of us further left: I take Obama to be a moderate with some military and security policies more usually identifiable with the right wing, and also an excessive degree of "comfort" with Wall Street).
Thanks, and I hope you will continue to contribute your perspective.
Those rules seem fair, Mark. Although this group would not use the racial slurs that the most offensive people on the other side might use, I've seen liberals use such slurs as "redneck" and "trailer trash," so I think we should ban those as well. I wouldn't even mind burying "Nazi" with the other side's "Communist" since we're now in the 21st Century and need to "move on." But I reserve the right to call anti-peace, anti-personal combat service jerks like Cheney, GW Bush, and Mitt Romney "chicken hawks."Lisa, I can see now why you would be bothered by people ridiculing Republicans; the aforementioned James Carville once said, "If you want to make people happy, say something nice about their children." And if you want to make them unhappy, say something mean about their children. So know that whatever I say about Republicans, I am always excluding your daughter, as well as the blood relatives of any other liberals on this site. But friends are a different story since you can dump them if they become too obnoxious.
Xdyj, the Republican Party will not make the country totalitarian and can't take us back to the pre-Civil Rights era, but they will make us more of a plutocracy and less of a democracy. They clearly don't believe in the one-person, one-vote rule. They think folks like the Koch brothers should have more influence than someone flipping burgers in Burger King or a single mother on welfare. They are angry that more black people registered and voted for Obama even though my folks fought in wars and paid taxes even when they couldn't vote, ride in the front of the bus, stay in hotels, or eat in restaurants. They even try to suggest that the primary reason Obama is letting these illegal immigrants stay in America is so that they can vote Democrat even though there is no evidence that illegal immigrants have been voting.
While both parties have people with diverse goals and interests--Republicans have the plutocrats, evangelicals, and racist, mostly poor, not-well-educated whites--clearly the Democrats are more diverse demographically. The Republicans are mostly old white men. In fact (I'm going to get a little nasty here, Lisa, so remember that I'm excluding your younger, female, I'm sure quite beautiful and smart child), I think Obama and McConnell represent the two parties quite well. The Democrats are younger, more diverse, smarter, better looking, and cooler than the old, ugly, boring, ignorant white Republicans.
Mary wrote: " While both parties have people with diverse goals and interests--Republicans have the plutocrats, evangelicals, and racist, mostly poor, not-well-educated whites--clearly the Democrats are more diverse demographically. The Republicans are mostly old white men. In fact (I'm going to get a little nasty here, Lisa, so remember that I'm excluding your younger, female, I'm sure quite beautiful and smart child), I think Obama and McConnell represent the two parties quite well. The Democrats are younger, more diverse, smarter, better looking, and cooler than the old, ugly, boring, ignorant white Republicans. ..."Beautifully-stated, Mary, and let me add, Lisa, that I naturally also exempt your daughter (and the Republican relatives of any other members -- unless they're public figures within the GOP) from any vituperative remarks I might make about the right wing. What I am attacking is a destructive ideology and its proponents who are public figures and who wield actual power and influence. We should seek, as best we can, to wean deluded supporters away from them, but as we've all noted, that's notoriously difficult to accomplish and perhaps more than can reasonably be expected of a liberal who also seeks not to alienate valued friends and family members. What most particularly exacerbates the problem, as has been noted also, is that the Republicans have hijacked many fundamentalist churches, making the issue an intractably religious one. A remarkably unChristian practice, all things considered, since Christ wasn't exactly an advocate for responding to a slap on the cheek with a missile attack and afflicting the afflicted. (Unless I seriously misread Matt 5:39.) Nor do I recall his saying, "it is easier for a plutocrat with exceptionally large sacks of money to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but we'll also take drafts on Cayman Island bank accounts."
Mary wrote: "Those rules seem fair, Mark. Although this group would not use the racial slurs that the most offensive people on the other side might use, I've seen liberals use such slurs as "redneck" and "trai..."I'm all for adding "redneck" and "trailer trash" to the roster of excluded epithets, Mary. Though I actually doubt anyone here would be likely to use those offensive terms (especially the second), consider them added to the legion of the banned. :-) As regards "Nazi," well, I think it continues to be relevant to actual historical discussions, and it's really hard to deny certain ideological parallels... and given that Rove pretty indisputably appropriated the whole Republican playbook straight from Goebbels (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/02...), I think I'm going to deem it allowable on grounds of the empirical legitimacy of the comparison.
Okay, keep Nazi if you must, Mark. I'm just tired of fighting those 20th Century battles while still fighting the many centuries-old racism battle. I liked your digs at the Republican Christians. I'm sure that they would call Jesus a Communist if he came back today.
http://www.kktv.com/news/headlines/To...Headline (KKTV) -- Top lawmaker: Torture report will spark violence
Gee, d'you think? And did anyone think before we did it?
I earnestly hope the release of the report will NOT incite violence.
But I'd really like it if it did spark attention from the International Criminal Court in The Hague, which has jurisdiction over crimes against humanity, including, notably, torture.
I also have to wonder, if we're (it would seem, reasonably) expecting that it will incite violence, why we're releasing the report, since no one imagines that the CIA couldn't stop the release if they wanted to. Can anyone spell, "pretext?"
Mark, I think that your guidelines should work pretty well. For the record, people using slurs to refer to conservatives and racists aren't personally insulting me. I was just hoping that if we stuck to the issues instead of insulting people's personalities, we could have some discourse which might help the national lack of dialogue. Since the solution proposed in "Better Off Without 'Em" is never going to happen (ie the South being allowed to secede), we're all stuck with each other and one way or another, we're going to have to figure out some solution to the polarization that is paralyzing our country.
Didn't one Senator (Coburn) think that Obama's executive action saving some illegal immigrants from deportation would spark violence, Mark? The Republicans seem to be afraid of everything except crazy Americans with guns.Lisa, I think the polarization might end when we are all so racially mixed that we can no longer discriminate between black and white, brown and yellow. But even then it might not end because racism may be one major cause of conflict in this so-called democracy, but it's not the only one. We can always fight over class, religion, and gender.
Mary, It seems as though the polarization has gotten worse in the last 20 years since the days with Newt Gingrich and his "Contract with America." Since it wasn't always this bad, I hope that the situation can improve again. There will always be arguments and conflict but maybe we can all take it down a few notches.
The Liberal Politics & Current Events Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
A Gift Upon the Shore (other topics)Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces (other topics)
Drift (other topics)
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What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815 - 1848 (other topics)
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You speak even better than you know, but in that connection, I can only quote Hamlet's father's ghost, apropos of "lightest words." (But I won't; as an English professor, I'm sure you'll get it.)
Anyway, George S. is a Bilderberger (no especial secret: check his Wikipedia entry). There is virtually no prominent member of the corporate media who is not owned and operated by one of the groups that run the country, while distracting us with the Kabuki drama of "free" elections in which they have now effectively implemented electoral nullification.
"What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, that he should weep for her? What would he do, had he the motive and the cue [to be paranoid] that [we] have?"
(Your Shakespearean Digression for the Day)