US Politics: Hindsight on 2020

[mormont]

3 minutes ago, Lord of Rhinos said:

What Swordfish seems to be arguing is that the left's tactics are normalizing racism and sexism. 

That's just another way of saying what I was saying: let's redefine racism to exclude everything short of burning crosses.

Oh, you say, but that's 'normalising racism' - as if racism was some rare, exceptional occurrence, when we know that it is not. Some forms of racism are terrifyingly normal.

The real problem here is the right's refusal (often tactical, in my view) to accept that there can be degrees of racism. It's a way of redefining racist behaviour as acceptable, saying that if something is 'normal' in society then there can't be anything wrong with it - so if racism becomes common, then logically it can't be racism!

This is excusing racism. And if you think excusing racism is less harmful than calling it out, I have news for you.

[The Killer Snark]

5 hours ago, Little Scribe of Naath said:

Yeah right. He chose that method of attack because he was an African American with a Muslim-sounding middle name. He does that all the fucking time. Attacks women by way of their appearance, called a Indiana-born judge unfit to judge his case because he was Mexican, so on. 

Attacking Obama over what he perceives as failures in his presidency is one thing, but the whole birther thing hinged on the fact that he looked different and had a different sounding name. 

I'm sure you'll deny that though. 

The birther thing was actually started within the Dems camp. This is public knowledge. They believed that if the Republicans picked up on it, it might discredit them. However, Obama himself admitted once in a speech he never knew was being recorded that he was born in Kenya. It is available on Youtube. Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQcd41RO25k 

And as a reminder, a person not born in America cannot be President of the United States.

[DunderMifflin]

4 hours ago, IamMe90 said:

 

I'd agree with that but you'd have to include the left, the right, the middle and any other political direction when you are doling out charges of normalized racism. Not just search for someone you think is more racist than yourself. Otherwise it's just virtue signaling and using a political affiliation as a get out of racism badge.

[Squab]

9 minutes ago, mormont said:

That's just another way of saying what I was saying: let's redefine racism to exclude everything short of burning crosses.

Oh, you say, but that's 'normalising racism' - as if racism was some rare, exceptional occurrence, when we know that it is not. Some forms of racism are terrifyingly normal.

The real problem here is the right's refusal (often tactical, in my view) to accept that there can be degrees of racism. It's a way of redefining racist behaviour as acceptable, saying that if something is 'normal' in society then there can't be anything wrong with it - so if racism becomes common, then logically it can't be racism!

This is excusing racism. And if you think excusing racism is less harmful than calling it out, I have news for you.

To quote Anita Sarkeesian: "Everything is racist, everything is sexist, everything is homophobic"

i dont think she went far enough. She needed to say that everything is bigotry too.

[Squab]

8 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Yes! There is a thing where you label things based on their categories. This doesn't censor anything, but rather informs the reader what kind of thing it is, so that it is not misleading or incorrect. The reader can read it as they choose. 

This is something they do in places that are somewhat newfangled called libraries and in publications known as newspapers. 

Youre right, we need to spend more time calling people names

[Squab]

8 hours ago, Stannis is the man....nis said:

Man this is Trump's "honeymoon" and his approval is 42/58 ouch

Bwahahahahha. Loser

[Squab]

7 hours ago, Stannis is the man....nis said:

I brought him up early in this thread but I do wonder why no one is really talking about Julian Castro for 2020? All the articles I've seen is talking about Elizabeth Warren but Julian fits the bill more for a foil to Trump being that he is young and charismatic and was a successful blue mayor in a notorious red state (Texas)

A head needs to be removed from its own bottom before accuracy can be achieved. May as well call it against trump, amirite?

[Squab]

Get your asses up. I cant be first awake. My partner an i are going for a ride

[Chaldanya]

37 minutes ago, The Killer Snark said:

The birther thing was actually started within the Dems camp. This is public knowledge. They believed that if the Republicans picked up on it, it might discredit them. However, Obama himself admitted once in a speech he never knew was being recorded that he was born in Kenya. It is available on Youtube. Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQcd41RO25k 

And as a reminder, a person not born in America cannot be President of the United States.

http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-started-birther-movement/

 

Quote

Though it's true that the specific allegation that Obama wasn't born in the U.S. first reared its head during the 2008 presidential race, rumblings about Obama's "otherness" had been percolating since long before that. In 2004, a political gadfly named Andy Martin issued a press release calling Barack Obama a "complete fraud" who had "misrepresented his heritage" in his memoir, Dreams From My Father, and "is a Muslim who has concealed his religion." The theme was pushed further in December 2006 by conservative columnist Debbie Schlussel, who published an article entitled "Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always a Muslim," which stated that "Obama has a 'born-again' affinity for the nation of his Muslim father, Kenya." In March 2007, Clinton campaign strategist Mark Penn proposed attacking Obama on the basis of his "lack of American roots." And, in December 2007, a Clinton volunteer county coordinator in Iowa was fired for forwarding an e-mail making the by-then familiar claim that Obama is a Muslim.

 

Can we have more from your supersecret reddit group - it's funny.

N

[OldGimletEye]

6 hours ago, DraculaAD1972 said:

Regarding the economy, if it got worse for workers and the economy then he will have failed utterly on a central promise. 

I already know from his stated policy proposals that things will get worse for workers and  the economy.

There will be a short term boost.

But in the medium to long run, his policies will be bad. Of course, Trump supporters never really wanted to talk about policy that much. Why would they, when you got people's emails to talk about.

On economic policy Trump has bunch of clowns.

Here is an example of the quality of the technocratic competence that Trump has on economic policy.

Take Peter Navarro's paper on Trade.

Navarro starts with the national accounting identity.

Y = C + I + G + NX

he then eliminates NX, and then presto concludes:

Y increases.

But that is reasoning by accounting identity. You can't do that. You have to specify  some kind of behavioral relationship. Sophomore level students know that you can't reason by accounting identity alone. But, that is exactly what Navarro did. It's ridiculous.

Along with Navarro, Trump has Moore and Kudlow. Both are clowns. Trump didn't get the best people.

[The Mance]

7 hours ago, ThinkerX said:

How does the Trump administration and the (delusional) Tea Party set respond to this?

Thanks Obama!

 I would not be at all surprised by a complete reversal of Trump's stance on global warming not long into his term.  And no doubt it will be framed as him personally having "looked at new evidence", or as a result of his "best people" uncovering the real truth.  Cue: immediate castigation of Obama for not having done enough*.

 

*possibly delivered with the same straight face with which he "apologized" for his** birther nonsense by claiming to have personally, finally, proved that Obama was, in fact, born in the US.

**totally not racist

 

[Jo498]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

That's just another way of saying what I was saying: let's redefine racism to exclude everything short of burning crosses.

Is this what is happening? Last time I checked we "redefined" racism so that Pippi Longstocking had to be rewritten. I completely understand that these passages are racist (although I would not vote for editing them) but it is exactly the hysteria around such things, concerning symbols and language use that have given the impression that all kinds of behavior are racist and can be wielded against anyone too clumsy or refusing to walk on eggshells.

So we actually lose the option to properly express outrage on non-symbolic racism. It is the same everywhere. Sexist jokes are bad taste and groping is insufferable. But they are not rape. It's crying wolf/rape/racism all the time for things that aren't even close to what this used to mean until quite recently that cheapens the bad offenses and those suffering from them. And of course it alienates the ones too clumsy to keep up with the latest inoffensive wording etc.

[DunderMifflin]

4 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

Is this what is happening? Last time I checked we "redefined" racism so that Pippi Longstocking had to be rewritten. I completely understand that these passages are racist (although I would not vote for editing them) but it is exactly the hysteria around such things, concerning symbols and language use that have given the impression that all kinds of behavior are racist and can be wielded against anyone too clumsy or refusing to walk on eggshells.

So we actually lose the option to properly express outrage on non-symbolic racism. It is the same everywhere. Sexist jokes are bad taste and groping is insufferable. But they are not rape. It's crying wolf/rape/racism all the time for things that aren't even close to what this used to mean until quite recently that cheapens the bad offenses and those suffering from them. And of course it alienates the ones too clumsy to keep up with the latest inoffensive wording etc.

Yeh but those other people who don't vote the same way as me do it too, so......

[Lord Flashheart]

17 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

So we actually lose the option to properly express outrage on non-symbolic racism. It is the same everywhere. Sexist jokes are bad taste and groping is insufferable. But they are not rape. It's crying wolf/rape/racism all the time for things that aren't even close to what this used to mean until quite recently that cheapens the bad offenses and those suffering from them. And of course it alienates the ones too clumsy to keep up with the latest inoffensive wording etc.

Struggling to understand your point here.

[Jo498]

read the "crying wolf" essay on slatestarcodex I linked further above. Explains it much better than I ever could and with lots of examples.

[mormont]

21 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

Is this what is happening?

Yes.

(cf numerous posts in this thread confidently telling us that Donald J Trump, Steve Bannon et al are entirely innocent of the charge of racism.)

21 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

So we actually lose the option to properly express outrage on non-symbolic racism.

No, actually, we don't. I mean, I can't speak for you, but I am perfectly able to do this and so are most other people I know.

I will add that by and large, it is well understood by most people raising and questioning racism that there are degrees of racism. It's the people who're saying things like the above who seem unable to grasp that basic fact. They insist that a thing is either burning crosses or not racism at all: and that there is no middle ground, so to accuse anyone of racism for anything short of cross-burning is 'crying wolf'. This is, as I have pointed out, just a way of excusing racism and suppressing discussion of genuine and valid issues.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Squab said:

Youre right, we need to spend more time calling people names

So, by this logic labeling a work of fiction "fiction" is the use of invective?

[DunderMifflin]

15 minutes ago, mormont said:

 

No, actually, we don't. I mean, I can't speak for you, but I am perfectly able to do this and so are most other people I know.

I will add that by and large, it is well understood by most people raising and questioning racism that there are degrees of racism. It's the people who're saying things like the above who seem unable to grasp that basic fact. They insist that a thing is either burning crosses or not racism at all: and that there is no middle ground, so to accuse anyone of racism for anything short of cross-burning is 'crying wolf'. This is, as I have pointed out, just a way of excusing racism and suppressing discussion of genuine and valid issues.

When you call something racist you are not expressing to which of these degrees of racism you are refering though. 

To a listener or reader it's just a claim of racism. 

 

[Lord Flashheart]

12 minutes ago, Jo498 said:

read the "crying wolf" essay on slatestarcodex I linked further above. Explains it much better than I ever could and with lots of examples.

I will read it. I will also say posting factual references is certainly something I can get down with, posting links to opinion articles because you can't defend your own opinion baffles me. If this is an opinion you share you should be able to defend it.

[Lord of Rhinos]

2 hours ago, mormont said:

That's just another way of saying what I was saying: let's redefine racism to exclude everything short of burning crosses.

Oh, you say, but that's 'normalising racism' - as if racism was some rare, exceptional occurrence, when we know that it is not. Some forms of racism are terrifyingly normal.

The real problem here is the right's refusal (often tactical, in my view) to accept that there can be degrees of racism. It's a way of redefining racist behaviour as acceptable, saying that if something is 'normal' in society then there can't be anything wrong with it - so if racism becomes common, then logically it can't be racism!

This is excusing racism. And if you think excusing racism is less harmful than calling it out, I have news for you.

No, I'm saying that if something is normal in society than it ceases to be a disqualification for public office.