US Politics: Butter Not Guns

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

You can call that inauthenticity and opportunism. Or you can acknowledge that authenticity and purity are luxuries in American politics that are rarely afforded to women and minorities, especially if they're ambitious.

This is what has always grinds my gears about the Harris criticism, as I've said many times before.  Bazelon's article wasn't a hit piece, but she certainly came in with an agenda that, yes, Harris was unable to stand up to scrutiny for.  Also:

 

[fionwe1987]

35 minutes ago, DMC said:

This is what has always grinds my gears about the Harris criticism, as I've said many times before.  Bazelon's article wasn't a hit piece, but she certainly came in with an agenda that, yes, Harris was unable to stand up to scrutiny for.  Also:

 

Yup. Not even a little shocked that she isn't out there calling for people to stay their vote against Trump. That was never her point. In a Democratic primary, though, pointing to Harris's troubling record was a necessity. And she did a good job of it. And seeing how these issues tanked her run, Harris has learned from it and moved to the forefront of criminal justice reform in the Senate.

If she becomes VP and continues to push for it, she can move beyond her California AG record. If she doesn't, then it reinforces the criticism and she'll have a harder time to seek the party's nomination. 

What matter for November, though, is that she's a far more receptive politician to Black Lives Matter than Donald Trump ever will be, so getting her and Biden elected is a no-brainer. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

54 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

I think I was about a 2nd grader in bible school when they told me the story about Abraham wanting to sacrifice his kid. I was all done with my parents religion right then and there.

I just asked my Rabbi one day as a kid if Moses could have just been seeing and hearing a mirage.  

[DMC]

12 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I just asked my Rabbi one day as a kid if Moses could have just been seeing and hearing a mirage.  

Lazarus was just the first zombie and they didn't have movies yet.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, DMC said:

Lazarus was just the first zombie and they didn't have movies yet.

So Jesus is a.....necromancer? 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

So Jesus is a.....necromancer? 

Well, let's just say he's a maiar.

[Tywin Manderly]

3 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I just asked my Rabbi one day as a kid if Moses could have just been seeing and hearing a mirage.  

What was your Rabbi''s reply?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Tywin Manderly said:

What was your Rabbi''s reply?

Same thing he'd tell all the kids who asked him similar things, more or less "If you can't believe in religion, believe in knowledge and learning, but still try to be spiritual and respect your elders' beliefs." 

[JGP]

7 hours ago, fionwe1987 said:

I saw some discussion about the Lara Bazelon piece. The way to know that isn't a hit piece is that she isn't a political commentator. She's pretty much a single issue writer/thinker, and criminal justice reform is all she mostly writes about. 

I don't know if I really want to get into this particular argument again, but I read the above quoted and to me it rang out of tune. 

So, what then, if she isn't a political commentator per se, what gives?

Bazelon was offended that Harris was being touted as progressive, so she just had to speak up about Kamala's cred specifically? Was Kamala lying about the progressive initiatives she, through her various offices [DA, AG, Senatorial] was a part of? Not that I'm aware of.  

Is no one else feeling this?

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

I don't know if I really want to get into this particular argument again, but I read the above quoted and to me it rang out of tune. 

So, what then, if she isn't a political commentator per se, what gives?

I kinda wanted to mention this myself.  Just because she's an academic instead of a talking head does not in no way mean she wouldn't write a political hit piece.  It just means she's much more likely to provide numbers and, ya know, logic.  Academics write hit pieces all the time.  Unfortunately for the most part, that's the only way to get coverage from the political media.

[JGP]

1 hour ago, DMC said:

I kinda wanted to mention this myself.  Just because she's an academic instead of a talking head does not in no way mean she wouldn't write a political hit piece.  It just means she's much more likely to provide numbers and, ya know, logic.  Academics write hit pieces all the time.  Unfortunately for the most part, that's the only way to get coverage from the political media.

That's a tough road to hoe, having to line up *friends against the wall to advance your agenda. But I get it. When the system is an adversary, be adversarial. 

 

*a friend to the cause, or if not a friend friend, someone not unfriendly to the cause  

[DMC]

5 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

That's a tough road to hoe

I don't think they've used hoes to build roads in a very long time.  Otherwise I agree.

[JGP]

58 minutes ago, DMC said:

I don't think they've used hoes to build roads in a very long time.  Otherwise I agree.

You're like, killing the antiquated rhythm I had going there, bud lol

[DanteGabriel]

18 minutes ago, JEORDHl said:

That's a tough road to hoe, having to line up *friends against the wall to advance your agenda. But I get it. When the system is an adversary, be adversarial. 

 

*a friend to the cause, or if not a friend friend, someone not unfriendly to the cause  

Huh. I always thought it was "row to hoe." Like a row in your garden.

And now I have this clear memory of reading "The Dark Knight Returns" and Superman was having a chat with Ronald Reagan and Reagan was being folksy and said something like "That's not my bull to -- that's not my row to hoe."

[The Anti-Targ]

A Robert Reich poll of his Youtube audience gives 37% genuine, enthusiastic support for Harris as the VP pick, which is not great for the Reich audience, which must surely skew left, but not far left. Better news for Biden/Harris is that 50% don't particularly like her as VP but they are going to vote Biden Harris anyway. So the vast majority of his audience says they are going to turn out for Biden/Harris, but they can't really count for that subset of voters to really actively encourage people around them to vote.

[JGP]

58 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

Huh. I always thought it was "row to hoe." Like a row in your garden.

And now I have this clear memory of reading "The Dark Knight Returns" and Superman was having a chat with Ronald Reagan and Reagan was being folksy and said something like "That's not my bull to -- that's not my row to hoe."

You're probably right. My down home-isms need some brushing up.

[The Anti-Targ]

1 minute ago, JEORDHl said:

You're probably right. My down home-isms need some brushing up.

As long as you never write "could of" "should of" or "would of" we should be good.

[fionwe1987]

1 hour ago, JEORDHl said:

I don't know if I really want to get into this particular argument again, but I read the above quoted and to me it rang out of tune. 

So, what then, if she isn't a political commentator per se, what gives?

Bazelon was offended that Harris was being touted as progressive, so she just had to speak up about Kamala's cred specifically? Was Kamala lying about the progressive initiatives she, through her various offices [DA, AG, Senatorial] was a part of? Not that I'm aware of.  

Is no one else feeling this?

I don't know that she was offended so much as someone who has spent time on criminal justice reform, and wanted to point out that someone claiming to have led that fight hasn't really done that.

I have no idea why this news to mean Harris is lying about her initiatives. No one is claiming she didn't do a single progressive thing, the question is, how much, if at all, do her progressive acts balance out her not so progressive acts, and Bazelon's opinion is that it doesn't, that the things she did that weren't progressive were very much of a piece with typical "tough on crime" DAs of the time. 

1 hour ago, DMC said:

I kinda wanted to mention this myself.  Just because she's an academic instead of a talking head does not in no way mean she wouldn't write a political hit piece.  It just means she's much more likely to provide numbers and, ya know, logic.  Academics write hit pieces all the time.  Unfortunately for the most part, that's the only way to get coverage from the political media.

What are we defining a hit piece as, here? By this logic, any piece or writing criticizing or calling out any aspect of a politician is a hit piece.

My understanding of a hit piece has always been that it requires the writer to present either false information, or deliberately biased election of facts to make someone out to be something they're not.

That really doesn't fit this piece. Her reporting on the prosecutorial misconduct cases where Harris tried to defend the convictions and lack of disclosure to the defense is a matter of public record. As are her reversals on some of these after investigative reports made public exculpatory evidence. As is her decision to appeal a verdict that the death penalty was unconstitutional...in 2014.

Bazelon isn't claiming Harris is a criminal. She isn't claiming she's the worst district attorney ever. She isn't claiming she's corrupt or sleazy. She's saying that her actions belie the claim that she was a progressive prosecutor, as defined by the modern wave of men and women who've sought that office on a platform of precisely not doing the very things Harris did. That she did those things isn't a matter of opinion. It's a matter of public record. 

So how is this a hit piece, again?

[JGP]

lol ok man

[DMC]

12 minutes ago, fionwe1987 said:

My understanding of a hit piece has always been that it requires the writer to present either false information, or deliberately biased election of facts to make someone out to be something they're not.

The latter.  You can present perfectly valid facts in a biased way that in turn represents a hit piece.  No false information needed, just the ability to push an agenda, which really isn't that hard.  Anyway, again, I'm not accusing anyone of anything, just saying academics are well equipped to compose hit pieces -- and do so.