Why Does the Political Right And Left Feel the Need to Demonize Each Other ?

[Zorral]

14 hours ago, Darth Richard II said:

Sea Lions frighten easily, but they'll be back, and in greater numbers...

Especially as their Great Leaders like Steve Bannon tell them to proud of their racisim and wear their badges of evil with pride.  

Of course the last time the nazis teamed up with Russia, it didn't work out so well for the Reich -- though millions upon millions of everybody had to die.  And then more Russians died some more.

[Darth Richard II]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Especially as their Great Leaders like Steve Bannon tell them to proud of their racisim and wear their badges of evil with pride.  

Of course the last time the nazis teamed up with Russia, it didn't work out so well for the Reich -- though millions upon millions of everybody had to die.  And then more Russians died some more.

Yes that's what I was referencing with the badges, but I guess that's fake news or something.

[GAROVORKIN]

On 3/11/2018 at 5:23 PM, Darth Richard II said:

Yes that's what I was referencing with the badges, but I guess that's fake news or something.

You know,  there should be an official fake news award show and let Hollywood produce it.

[Week]

8 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

You know,  there should be an official fake news award show and let Hollywood produce it.

That idea was already taken by another charlatan stable genius.

 

[The Mother of The Others]

Because neither deserves to exist, and only the distractions they cause keep us from seeing that.  Which is why their distractions have become so constant in recent years as their failure to govern nears completion.  (Implosion via debt.)   

The big issues you want addressed by government?   Politicians know to never fix those problems, because those are wedge issues they can use to manipulate you for decades, keeping you on the hook, getting you worried or angry or fearful enough to vote for their bullcrap and donate extra money. 

After that it's time to pack all of those things up again until the next election year.   In between, when they should be working, they're instead "fighting for you!"   (Which doesn't mean anything.  So really they're doing nothing.  Fine by them, too, since their only real job was to get re-elected.)     

The way they've mind fucked the entire nation (world!) into a state of feverish panic and rage , blaming the other party's voters for stuff that may or may not exist,  ...that should tell you how afraid the politicians are of us being clear headed.   

And the Russians have been here a very long time, to echo an X- Files quote.  They've had full time bureaus of people working to get hinky altered news stories published by our presses since the cold war began, for the purpose of turning us against one another over here and weakening us.  You've been swallowing fake news all along, mostly true stories tweaked to include a little something extra to push our buttons by design , and some of it has seeped into your psyche like it was intended to do, and it now forms the forgotten cornerstone of your irrational hate for half of the countrymen you should be standing with right now against the russian bear and other actual foes.  But instead we get 2 years of tearing ourselves apart , for reasons that are..... not really reason enough to begin to justify how divided we are.  We've fallen for it.  Bigtime.

[Shryke]

On 3/14/2018 at 9:22 PM, The Mother of The Others said:

Because neither deserves to exist, and only the distractions they cause keep us from seeing that.  Which is why their distractions have become so constant in recent years as their failure to govern nears completion.  (Implosion via debt.)   

The big issues you want addressed by government?   Politicians know to never fix those problems, because those are wedge issues they can use to manipulate you for decades, keeping you on the hook, getting you worried or angry or fearful enough to vote for their bullcrap and donate extra money. 

After that it's time to pack all of those things up again until the next election year.   In between, when they should be working, they're instead "fighting for you!"   (Which doesn't mean anything.  So really they're doing nothing.  Fine by them, too, since their only real job was to get re-elected.)     

The way they've mind fucked the entire nation (world!) into a state of feverish panic and rage , blaming the other party's voters for stuff that may or may not exist,  ...that should tell you how afraid the politicians are of us being clear headed.   

And the Russians have been here a very long time, to echo an X- Files quote.  They've had full time bureaus of people working to get hinky altered news stories published by our presses since the cold war began, for the purpose of turning us against one another over here and weakening us.  You've been swallowing fake news all along, mostly true stories tweaked to include a little something extra to push our buttons by design , and some of it has seeped into your psyche like it was intended to do, and it now forms the forgotten cornerstone of your irrational hate for half of the countrymen you should be standing with right now against the russian bear and other actual foes.  But instead we get 2 years of tearing ourselves apart , for reasons that are..... not really reason enough to begin to justify how divided we are.  We've fallen for it.  Bigtime.

Ahh yes, the wisdom of the 15 year old cynic. Yawn.

[Week]

Why are people quoting the X-Files? I've seen it here and on facebook and, I have to say, it ain't a good look.

[Darth Richard II]

Just thought I'd leave this here.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/03/16/tennessee-general-assembly-white-supremacy-vote-sot.tennessee-state-government

[DanteGabriel]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Just thought I'd leave this here.

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/03/16/tennessee-general-assembly-white-supremacy-vote-sot.tennessee-state-government

Can't condemn them because of the fine people in those organizations. After all, so many are such strong Christians.

[Rippounet]

I wonder what it means when the right is flirting with nauseous ideologies while the left is struggling to redefine itself to avoid the same kind of pitfalls. Because false equivalencies aside, it's quite clear that the left no longer plays with communism or marxism-leninism...

I still have this impression that the fall of the Soviet Union struck a terrible blow to the left in many Western countries (well, not in the US I guess, where the Cold War had already achieved that). But today, with inequality exploding and the middle-classes under various threats there's a real opportunity to seize the intellectual high-ground for decades.

[The Marquis de Leech]

On 11/03/2018 at 6:10 PM, Pony Queen Jace said:

Don't worry, I just had to scare off the sealions.

@Yukle

The President is not above the law, we just haven't had to decide that question yet because (as you mentioned) we never had a blatant traitor in office before at the same time as having a partisan allied congress desperately clinging to the shreds of power it possesses in an attempt to secure a dying victory of the Bourgeoisie that might extend their blatant thievery long enough to explore new arenas of kleptocratic exploitation in a changing social reality. 

Just sayin'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Buchanan

(OK. I'm being a bit harsh on the Congress. The entire political order was in flux).

[Spockydog]

On 08/03/2018 at 0:22 AM, Darth Richard II said:

OK, so we've established that Garovowhatever is a demon. How do we banish him back to the abyss?

The 'ignore user' function is a good place to start. Added him/her weeks ago. 

[aceluby]

10 hours ago, Rippounet said:

I wonder what it means when the right is flirting with nauseous ideologies while the left is struggling to redefine itself to avoid the same kind of pitfalls. Because false equivalencies aside, it's quite clear that the left no longer plays with communism or marxism-leninism...

I still have this impression that the fall of the Soviet Union struck a terrible blow to the left in many Western countries (well, not in the US I guess, where the Cold War had already achieved that). But today, with inequality exploding and the middle-classes under various threats there's a real opportunity to seize the intellectual high-ground for decades.

The left has had the intellectual high-ground since the right started worshiping supply side economics in the 80s.  Doesn't matter when people actively vote against facts and science.

[Rippounet]

16 minutes ago, aceluby said:

The left has had the intellectual high-ground since the right started worshiping supply side economics in the 80s.  Doesn't matter when people actively vote against facts and science.

Most people are not aware that supply-side is bullshit.
It's hard to believe when you know that, but it's true. Even well-educated left-wing people don't always know that it's been absolutely debunked. Most of them oppose it on moral grounds.
Politicians and the media are extremely good at dissembling. In most countries, a cursory look at the public debate would have you believe there is a debate about it - when there is none. That's because what I call "pseudo-economists" go on TV and pretend that they know what they're talking about.
Anyway, preaching to the choir here. What I meant was that the left could seize the intellectual high-ground with the masses, which it really doesn't have right now.

[GAROVORKIN]

On 3/7/2018 at 7:18 PM, maarsen said:

He forgot inane also. 

True enough .

 

[OldGimletEye]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

Most people are not aware that supply-side is bullshit.
It's hard to believe when you know that, but it's true. Even well-educated left-wing people don't always know that it's been absolutely debunked. Most of them oppose it on moral grounds.
Politicians and the media are extremely good at dissembling. In most countries, a cursory look at the public debate would have you believe there is a debate about it - when there is none. That's because what I call "pseudo-economists" go on TV and pretend that they know what they're talking about.

Here in the US we had about one year in 1984 where growth was very good compared to prior years, which was due to mostly monetary policy. And as I've said before on another thread, the Republican Party and conservatives have milked that baby for all it's worth over 30 years, claiming it was mornin' in 'Murica because of the Reagan tax cuts. That's of course is utter crap, but I think you are right, that even some left leaning people fall for it, since the Republican Party is really good at tooting its own horn. It's a real legend in it's own mind.

But other than what is in popular imagination, part of the turn to conservative ideas was in large part a trends in academia. Robert Lucas and his boys down at U of Chicago had enormous influence, convincing many that economy was more or less self stabilizing with Lucas inspired models with it's mindless walrasianism and Rational Expectations, which pretty much showed that the economy was self stabilizing until it wasn't.

And over the last few years many of the boys and gals down at the U of Chicago's economics department really showed their ass. Casey Mulligan spent years scratching his head trying to figure out why unemployment was high unemployment and writing nonsense columns about it in newspapers. And because he was stuck in his mindless walrasianism which basically says prices clear markets quickly he just couldn't figure it out and had to invent "structural stories" ie the ACA is the problem! No wait it's Dodd-Frank! No, it's unemployment benefits! The short answer to Mulligan's nonsense along with the rest of U of Chicago is that the labor market, along with other markets were in disequilibrium and it can take quite awhile before prices adjust to equalibriate demand and supply, if it ever truly does.

And then of course the EMH of his U of Chicago colleague Fama I think is come into disrepute among many academics that might have bought into it before the GFC. Of course conservatives mostly like EMH, except of course when the don't like the guy who is president, and do a bit o' conservative asset mispricing concern trolling and of course when they are trying to blame poor minorities for causing financial crises. 

Overall, I think much of academia is starting to veer to the left, in large part, to recent experiences and because of recognition that supply side nonsense never was able to deliver it's promises and has contributed to growing wealth inequality. The question of course is whether any of that will filter down to the broader public. Conservatives are very good at getting their horseshit believed. And in the US, it would seem that all you have to do is convince a lot of people that because you're a successful business guy, or maybe you just played on TV, you actually know what in the hell you're talking about.

[Rippounet]

1 hour ago, OldGimletEye said:

Overall, I think much of academia is starting to veer to the left, in large part, to recent experiences and because of recognition that supply side nonsense never was able to deliver it's promises and has contributed to growing wealth inequality. The question of course is whether any of that will filter down to the broader public.

I really wonder about that too.
It's come to a point that when a politician starts running on a Keynesian platform while facing supply-siders the Keynesian is labeled as "far-left" and ridiculed for his poor grasp of economics.

F*** it's French politics but Mélenchon actually built his entire program with the help of economists like Hoang-Ngoc or Généreux who are actually quite solid. He even got a half-assed support by Piketty when it came to choosing between Keynesian Mélenchon and neo-liberal Macron.
A hundred economists even supported Mélenchon's program including big shots like Ha-Joon Chang from Cambridge.
But none of that mattered. Mélenchon was still mocked and ridiculed, his program described as "unrealistic" or "utopian" at best, and completely nonsensical at worse. Whenever I discuss economics with random people (i.e. not fellow leftists), Mélenchon is an object of scorn and mockery. Outside from his supporters, it seems no one can believe that his economic program was actually the best by far. Macron and Fillon were classic neo-liberal supply siders, Le Pen proposed to leave the euro and devaluate the franc. Mélenchon -and Hamon, I guess- was the one who actually knew what he was talking about. But try to point that out to a random person and you get a smirk.

It pisses me off. F***ing bullshit neo-liberal propaganda. And then someone wonders why the left "demonizes" the right. Bloody squawking popinjays...

[all swedes are racist]

5 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I really wonder about that too.
It's come to a point that when a politician starts running on a Keynesian platform while facing supply-siders the Keynesian is labeled as "far-left" and ridiculed for his poor grasp of economics.

F*** it's French politics but Mélenchon actually built his entire program with the help of economists like Hoang-Ngoc or Généreux who are actually quite solid. He even got a half-assed support by Piketty when it came to choosing between Keynesian Mélenchon and neo-liberal Macron.
A hundred economists even supported Mélenchon's program including big shots like Ha-Joon Chang from Cambridge.
But none of that mattered. Mélenchon was still mocked and ridiculed, his program described as "unrealistic" or "utopian" at best, and completely nonsensical at worse. Whenever I discuss economics with random people (i.e. not fellow leftists), Mélenchon is an object of scorn and mockery. Outside from his supporters, it seems no one can believe that his economic program was actually the best by far. Macron and Fillon were classic neo-liberal supply siders, Le Pen proposed to leave the euro and devaluate the franc. Mélenchon -and Hamon, I guess- was the one who actually knew what he was talking about. But try to point that out to a random person and you get a smirk.

It pisses me off. F***ing bullshit neo-liberal propaganda. And then someone wonders why the left "demonizes" the right. Bloody squawking popinjays...

lol, why does this sound familiar to me?

[OldGimletEye]

18 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

I really wonder about that too.
It's come to a point that when a politician starts running on a Keynesian platform while facing supply-siders the Keynesian is labeled as "far-left" and ridiculed for his poor grasp of economics.

F*** it's French politics but Mélenchon actually built his entire program with the help of economists like Hoang-Ngoc or Généreux who are actually quite solid. He even got a half-assed support by Piketty when it came to choosing between Keynesian Mélenchon and neo-liberal Macron.
A hundred economists even supported Mélenchon's program including big shots like Ha-Joon Chang from Cambridge.
But none of that mattered. Mélenchon was still mocked and ridiculed, his program described as "unrealistic" or "utopian" at best, and completely nonsensical at worse. Whenever I discuss economics with random people (i.e. not fellow leftists), Mélenchon is an object of scorn and mockery. Outside from his supporters, it seems no one can believe that his economic program was actually the best by far. Macron and Fillon were classic neo-liberal supply siders, Le Pen proposed to leave the euro and devaluate the franc. Mélenchon -and Hamon, I guess- was the one who actually knew what he was talking about. But try to point that out to a random person and you get a smirk.

It pisses me off. F***ing bullshit neo-liberal propaganda. And then someone wonders why the left "demonizes" the right. Bloody squawking popinjays...

Here in the US even people that are fairly centrist are considered the "far left". Like certain people that more or less support Dodd Frank for instance. I don't think people like Robert Schiller or Richard Thaler are part of "far left", instead they just are guys that have undermined the EMH idea.

During the GFC things got so crazy that even your run of the mill monetarist became part of the "far left", even though most of them are right of center.

In the US, most of us might as well identify as dirty liberals, since you know it's extremely difficult to adhere to the true conservatism.

[GAROVORKIN]

13 hours ago, Spockydog said:

The 'ignore user' function is a good place to start. Added him/her weeks ago. 

I find that trying to please everyone is an exercise in futility.