|
I just finished Nixonland the other day and thought it was great. Is the next one worth getting?
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 19:04
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 14:56 |
|
|
All three are great. I read Nixonland first, then Before the Storm and then Invisible Bridge. Nixon Agonistes is also recommended reading on the same subject.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 19:06
|
|
|
How steep is Pearlstein's angle? It seems like whenever I see the book mentioned it includes a comment about its bias or how Pearlstein is a leftist or something.
Miltank fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Nov 26, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 19:11
|
|
|
He's a lefty, but it's a good work of scholarship regarding the rise of the American right. Some of his language comes off as kinda pissed off, but it's usually justifiable.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 19:18
|
|
|
silvergoose posted:You cannot be serious. I was so depressed. I think he really wants to rehabilitate the Confederacy, Jackson, etc, and Turtledove is nothing if not sympathetic to the CSA so I guess they're a perfect fit
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 19:20
|
|
|
Miltank posted:How steep is Pearlstein's angle? It seems like whenever I see the book mentioned it includes a comment about its bias or how Pearlstein is a leftist or something. It's a lot more difficult to pick out in Nixonland and Before the Storm than in The Invisible Bridge. He definitely wasn't shy about knocking Kennedy, Johnson, etc. when they deserved it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 19:22
|
|
|
He really does let loose against Reagan. It's nice after reading "Age of Reagan" though, where the author finishes everything negative about Reagan with a "but on the other hand..."
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 19:38
|
|
|
Is there a general D&D opinion of Barry Goldwater? My millennial liberal friends (who were all born well after he stopped being relevant) typically look at him sympathetically, portraying him as a man who saw the conservative movement he started "hijacked" by fundamentalist, corporatist, and neoconservative interests. They point to his environmental tendencies and his later support for gay rights as examples of how the Republicans and conservatives of old wouldn't support the Republicans of today. But not knowing too much about him, he must have had an idea what toxic direction American conservatism was heading, and the politics of his own base of supporters. I own Nixonland but haven't read it yet. But Nixon also often gets the "he wasn't too bad!" treatment from naive young liberals; because of the EPA and his support for nationalizing the healthcare system, just to name two examples. And we're also getting a lot of "Even Reagan wouldn't support ____!" from liberals in light of the Tea Party. It's just weird seeing liberals oddly rehabilitate people who kept pushing the nation's political discourse further and further to the right.
|
|
#
?
Nov 26, 2014 22:01
|
|
|
Echo Chamber posted:
This is literally because of Stephen Colbert by the way.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 01:55
|
|
|
Echo Chamber posted:It's just weird seeing liberals oddly rehabilitate people who kept pushing the nation's political discourse further and further to the right. I usually see it phrased as saying that these right wing heroes aren't even that far right by today's standards as a means of highlighting the shift the country took, but the phrasing usually isn't blunt enough to make that perfectly clear.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 02:39
|
|
|
Echo Chamber posted:Is there a general D&D opinion of Barry Goldwater? Most conservatives I know are barely cognizant of the guy if they know the name at all. It seems kind of weird for supposedly liberal young people to be both aware of who he was and to think of him positively. Echo Chamber posted:I own Nixonland but haven't read it yet. But Nixon also often gets the "he wasn't too bad!" treatment from naive young liberals; because of the EPA and his support for nationalizing the healthcare system, just to name two examples. And we're also getting a lot of "Even Reagan wouldn't support ____!" from liberals in light of the Tea Party. Yeah, Goldwater and Reagan were 100% through and through right wingers, they'd be right at home in the modern GOP. The only difference was that institutionally they couldn't get as much done as they would have liked. Nixon was a little different but only because he was a megalomaniac concerned primary with amassing personal power. xthetenth posted:I usually see it phrased as saying that these right wing heroes aren't even that far right by today's standards as a means of highlighting the shift the country took, but the phrasing usually isn't blunt enough to make that perfectly clear. Like this, is this 100% false. The Congresses at the time were significantly more liberal, but Reagan was absolutely a right wing hardliner
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 02:42
|
|
|
xthetenth posted:I usually see it phrased as saying that these right wing heroes aren't even that far right by today's standards as a means of highlighting the shift the country took, but the phrasing usually isn't blunt enough to make that perfectly clear. Even that's not true though. Like maybe Obama has a farther right position on healthcare than Nixon but he doesn't support nuking Cambodia (or Iraq, for the contemporary example). That's not even getting into how the President can be constrained by outside factors (Congress, the general public, etc). Really, the idea of the President being able to do whatever he wants is the main culprit of this type of thinking.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 02:45
|
|
|
It's still bizarre to me that Nixon went along with Watergate just because he had previously been so much more careful in how he broke the law. When you look at the stuff he pulled off during HUAC, it was just as illegal but a hell of a lot easier to get away with, and he was always willing to just abandon people if he thought they might result in getting caught. What I'm saying is, it's not surprising Nixon was willing to break the law like that, it's surprising to me that he thought it'd work.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 02:48
|
|
|
corn in the bible posted:What I'm saying is, it's not surprising Nixon was willing to break the law like that, it's surprising to me that he thought it'd work. Turns out megalomaniacs don't have realistic conceptions of their own abilities and competence
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 02:54
|
|
|
icantfindaname posted:Like this, is this 100% false. The Congresses at the time were significantly more liberal, but Reagan was absolutely a right wing hardliner I don't tend to agree with it fully either because a lot of that stuff was compromising, but a lot of that argument is a shorthand for arguing that the country's shifted considerably rightwards, and things that they did wouldn't really fit in the modern right. computer parts posted:Even that's not true though. Like maybe Obama has a farther right position on healthcare than Nixon but he doesn't support nuking Cambodia (or Iraq, for the contemporary example). Yeah, it is. However, it's worth noting that Obama is supposed to be a socialist intent on shifting the US leftwards, not the icon of modern conservativism.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 02:54
|
|
|
Echo Chamber posted:I own Nixonland but haven't read it yet. But Nixon also often gets the "he wasn't too bad!" treatment from naive young liberals; because of the EPA This always really bugs me, Nixon instituted the EPA and other environmental protections because he was facing a sea change on the issue from the entire electorate and because the current business lobbies that fight against such issues now were not in existence. He didn't do it out of the kindness of his heart.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 02:55
|
|
|
xthetenth posted:
And so was Jimmy Carter but he brought the religious wing into relevancy and deregulated industries. If you allow your enemies to define you - you will fail!
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 02:57
|
|
|
icantfindaname posted:Most conservatives I know are barely cognizant of the guy if they know the name at all. It seems kind of weird for supposedly liberal young people to be both aware of who he was and to think of him positively. Echo Chamber fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Nov 27, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 03:12
|
|
|
Goldwater was a big L Liberal, devoted to bourgeois interests like free trade, property rights, small government and hawkish anti-communist policy. In that sense he was genuine hard-right guy and his efforts in organizing for those interests are legendary. He was not a religious rightist or especially racist and he was quite vocal about opposing those factions within the Republican party and conservative movement in general. So in that sense he's not as bad as the post-70s right establishment. Some people might disagree with the racist thing but I think his opposition to the Civil Rights Act was more a tactical choice than a moral one. That was when the Republicans were consciously adopting racist or crypto-racist attitudes and policies to take the South from the Democrats. I don't think his vote made any difference to the actual passage of the bill and anyway when he decided to run for national elections that vote absolutely killed him everywhere but the South so he got his desserts. I think the thing about Goldwater is if you teleported him into the present he would discover that most of his goals had been achieved. That's my diagnosis for the problem of the modern Republican party anyway; it's achieved most of its goals and most of the further-right policies it now advocates are simply unpopular. It trades on identity politics and gerrymandering to maintain its place, and it's still pretty good at politics, but in the policy sphere it's running out of ideas. What ideas it does have are either flimflam or inspire only the lunatic fringe.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 05:30
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:Some people might disagree with the racist thing but I think his opposition to the Civil Rights Act was more a tactical choice than a moral one. That was when the Republicans were consciously adopting racist or crypto-racist attitudes and policies to take the South from the Democrats. I don't think his vote made any difference to the actual passage of the bill and anyway when he decided to run for national elections that vote absolutely killed him everywhere but the South so he got his desserts.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 06:23
|
|
|
corn in the bible posted:I was so depressed. I think he really wants to rehabilitate the Confederacy, Jackson, etc, and Turtledove is nothing if not sympathetic to the CSA so I guess they're a perfect fit I'll admit to reading the whole "What if the South was the Nazis" series but I didn't get the impression it was favorable to the CSA outside of entertaining the notion that they won the Civil War and the stand-in for the Spanish-American War, followed by losses in WWI and WWII. Mainly they were just portrayed as flat-out spiteful assholes.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 09:51
|
|
|
GhostofJohnMuir posted:This always really bugs me, Nixon instituted the EPA and other environmental protections because he was facing a sea change on the issue from the entire electorate and because the current business lobbies that fight against such issues now were not in existence. He didn't do it out of the kindness of his heart. He also famously thought that domestic policy wasn't the executive's job. icantfindaname posted:Yeah, Goldwater and Reagan were 100% through and through right wingers, they'd be right at home in the modern GOP. Goldwater seems a bit too reasonable for the modern GOP in this 1988 interview. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSGIAfpggeA
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 11:41
|
|
|
DynamicSloth posted:I'll disagree with you on the racist thing, mucking votes by exploiting people's bigotry is just about the most racist thing a person could do even if you don't have bigotry in your heart when you're doing it, black people suffered massive deleterious effects by becoming one party's scapegoat for the next six decades. How are southern racists more racist when they vote R than when they voted D?
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 16:32
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:How are southern racists more racist when they vote R than when they voted D? The individual people didn't change, they were exactly as racist as they ever were, but as a group there is a difference. Most D's on a national level weren't actively loving over black people to cater to that voting bloc. R's did. Also, a decent portion of the D's cared about civil rights even when southern racists were voting that way, and the southern racists helped elect some of them. So as a group, they are less racist just by the consequences of their actions. But the individual people were always racist.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 16:39
|
|
|
FAUXTON posted:I'll admit to reading the whole "What if the South was the Nazis" series but I didn't get the impression it was favorable to the CSA outside of entertaining the notion that they won the Civil War and the stand-in for the Spanish-American War, followed by losses in WWI and WWII. Mainly they were just portrayed as flat-out spiteful assholes. As someone who stopped reading those books just before WWII actually broke out, but I would agree that it wasn't favorable to the CSA. But Guns of the South has a Robert E. Lee led Confederacy banning slavery about a year after the war ends, because it turns out the war really was about states rights. I'm halfway convinced the character of Jake Featherstone is a several book long apology for ever writing Guns of the South
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 17:44
|
|
|
Patrick Spens posted:I'm halfway convinced the character of Jake Featherstone is a several book long apology for ever writing Guns of the South Nah it's just Hitler. The original plan for the series was to have the CSA be the good guys and the USA would be the nazis who hunted and killed catholics or some kind of poo poo like that. Like after the first great war books he had the idea that black people = jews would be a more compelling way to go, so that's why he had to put a Hitler in the south.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 17:49
|
|
|
Patrick Spens posted:As someone who stopped reading those books just before WWII actually broke out, but I would agree that it wasn't favorable to the CSA. But Guns of the South has a Robert E. Lee led Confederacy banning slavery about a year after the war ends, because it turns out the war really was about states rights. So how does Lee get around that little part of the CSA constitution which explicitly outlaws the ending of slavery? What I want to know is why are so many people so obsessed with whitewashing the CSA? I mean sure the easy answer is probably racism or something but it has to be more than that.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 17:50
|
|
|
SpRahl posted:So how does Lee get around that little part of the CSA constitution which explicitly outlaws the ending of slavery? Being told that a large part of your nation (never mind your own family) were a bunch of evil gremlins is kind of hard to swallow. People write perspectives on the Nazis all the time too, and they're Nazis. It also helps that Lee personally wasn't opposed to slavery, so the idea that not everyone on the Confederate side was a die hard slavery advocate has some theoretical merit(even if in reality it was the primary reason for secession*). *Incidentally there were slavery advocates that also were opposed to secession, because they correctly predicted that this would give Northerners an excuse to ban it entirely. Sam Houston is one such example.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 19:53
|
|
|
computer parts posted:Being told that a large part of your nation (never mind your own family) were a bunch of evil gremlins is kind of hard to swallow. People write perspectives on the Nazis all the time too, and they're Nazis. One might go as far as saying that Lee personally was in favor of slavery, as it enabled his comfortable lifestyle.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 20:54
|
|
|
Patrick Spens posted:But Guns of the South has a Robert E. Lee led Confederacy banning slavery about a year after the war ends, because it turns out the war really was about states rights. [/I]
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 21:38
|
|
|
sullat posted:One might go as far as saying that Lee personally was in favor of slavery, as it enabled his comfortable lifestyle. Fall of the House of Dixie gives some elaboration on Lee's stance regarding slavery. In short, he was all for it, and quite a disciplinarian to boot.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 22:48
|
|
|
SpRahl posted:So how does Lee get around that little part of the CSA constitution which explicitly outlaws the ending of slavery? It's been a long time since I read the book, but I would assume that Turtledove either ignored it, or the CSA passed a constitutional amendment.
|
|
#
?
Nov 27, 2014 23:39
|
|
|
SpRahl posted:So how does Lee get around that little part of the CSA constitution which explicitly outlaws the ending of slavery? Someone posted an essay in one of the D&D threads (maybe this one?) a couple years ago about this, from the perspective of a white southerner. Can't remember enough about it to find it. Basically it boiled down to people having a strong Southern identity, and needing to be proud of SOMETHING to do with that identity. There isn't really anything else that the entire South shares.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 00:39
|
|
|
VideoTapir posted:Someone posted an essay in one of the D&D threads (maybe this one?) a couple years ago about this, from the perspective of a white southerner. Can't remember enough about it to find it. Basically it boiled down to people having a strong Southern identity, and needing to be proud of SOMETHING to do with that identity. There isn't really anything else that the entire South shares. "We lost a treasonous war we started to perpetuate the lavish lifestyle of a tiny minority of super-rich slave owners, and lost it so completely and totally that had our enemies wished they could have scourged all life from our lands with nothing to stop them. Our cities were burned and our armies crushed and set to flight. This awful, self-inflicted wound brought untold devastation and misery upon us for generations and more yet to come and is still today responsible for nearly all the ugliness and division in our society." gently caress yeah. Who wouldn't love being part of this gang? We need a gang tag for all us Southerners, maybe "LOSERS" in a Civil War font with the rebel flag on fire in the background.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 00:58
|
|
|
SpRahl posted:What I want to know is why are so many people so obsessed with whitewashing the CSA? I mean sure the easy answer is probably racism or something but it has to be more than that. You know how the Secession happened because the tiny Southron elite was able to manipulate masses of gullible rural poor into acting against their own interests via racial politics? That is still happening. current rich white southroners love to think of themselves as the heirs to a legacy of sophistication and chivalry as represented by (their idea of) the antebellum southron arristocracy. This fetish is indulged in frat-houses, cocktail parties and state assemblies througout the region. It is politically advantageous for them to get dumb rednecks on board with idealizing the things they idealize, which, as it happens, is pretty easy to do if you exploit their hatred/fear/mistrust of Blacks, Messikans and City Folk. As a worldview, this is culturally pervasive enough that even people who should know better sometimes end up drifting toward it. JonathonSpectre posted:We need a gang tag for all us Southerners, maybe "LOSERS" in a Civil War font with the rebel flag on fire in the background. I'd shell out for that, and I am a mere border-stater PupsOfWar fucked around with this message at 01:20 on Nov 28, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 01:15
|
|
|
"There is little doubt in my mind now that the prevailing sentiment of the South would have been opposed to secession in 1860 and 1861, if there had been a fair and calm expression of opinion, unbiased by threats, and if the ballot of one legal voter had counted for as much as that of any other. But there was no calm discussion of the question. Demagogues who were too old to enter the army if there should be a war, others who entertained so high an opinion of their own ability that they did not believe they could be spared from the direction of the affairs of state in such an event, declaimed vehemently and unceasingly against the North; against its aggressions upon the South; its interference with Southern rights, etc., etc. They denounced the Northerners as cowards, poltroons, negro-worshippers; claimed that one Southern man was equal to five Northern men in battle; that if the South would stand up for its rights the North would back down. Mr. Jefferson Davis said in a speech, delivered at La Grange, Mississippi, before the secession of that State, that he would agree to drink all the blood spilled south of Mason and Dixon's line if there should be a war. The young men who would have the fighting to do in case of war, believed all these statements, both in regard to the aggressiveness of the North and its cowardice. They, too, cried out for a separation from such people. The great bulk of the legal voters of the South were men who owned no slaves; their homes were generally in the hills and poor country; their facilities for educating their children, even up to the point of reading and writing, were very limited; their interest in the contest was very meagre--what there was, if they had been capable of seeing it, was with the North; they too needed emancipation."
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 01:18
|
|
|
corn in the bible posted:If I find-replace "airplane" with "dragon" then that's fantasy alt-history, right? I don't know if  but:quote:The Darkness Series is a series of six fantasy novels by Harry Turtledove. Though a fantasy the general history, geography, and combatants are analogs of World War II, or the "Derlavai War" in this universe.[1] Many of the characters are also the equivalents of historical people. Magic and other fantastic beasts, like dragons, are also stand-ins for World War II technology. Important battles in the series are also based on famous World War II battles, like the Battle of Sulingen which is an analog to the Battle of Stalingrad.[2][3] EDIT: gently caress off, Harry: quote:The Naantali Project[edit] Pirate Radar fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Nov 28, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 01:42
|
|
|
JonathonSpectre posted:"We lost a treasonous war we started to perpetuate the lavish lifestyle of a tiny minority of super-rich slave owners, and lost it so completely and totally that had our enemies wished they could have scourged all life from our lands with nothing to stop them. Our cities were burned and our armies crushed and set to flight. This awful, self-inflicted wound brought untold devastation and misery upon us for generations and more yet to come and is still today responsible for nearly all the ugliness and division in our society." Dude made a much better case than I did. Doesn't help that I'm not a southerner and I'm in the Sherman-with-nukes camp.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 01:44
|
|
|
Chantilly Say posted:I don't know if He also combines the Jews and the Roman Empire so that the world really was controlled by Jews, so that the Germans can be justified in arguing that Jews want to take over the country again.
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 01:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 14:56 |
|
|
corn in the bible posted:He also combines the Jews and the Roman Empire so that the world really was controlled by Jews, so that the Germans can be justified in arguing that Jews want to take over the country again. Even in high school when I thought the Worldwar books were awesome poo poo I remember seeing one of those in a bookstore and thinking "man, that looks so loving dumb."
|
|
#
?
Nov 28, 2014 01:54
|
|