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Reply from last thread:SKULL.GIF posted:On the Russian thing, here's a thread: The problem is that this part: quote:5. If your concern is that it demobilizes opposition, what's the evidence for that? If your concern is that it undermines efforts to make the Dems more progressive, why not adopt @DavidKlion's argument that it *focuses* attention on oligarchic rent-extraction, capital mobility, &c? will absolutely never become the narrative used in the mainstream regarding Trump-Russia. In practice, the narrative will only serve to distract, even if it could hypothetically be turned towards something good. There is no practically good outcome from focusing on Trump's connections to Russia that couldn't be accomplished more effectively by just advocating for good policy and getting rid of Trump in 2020.
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Jul 14, 2018 18:50
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Barry Convex posted:one might argue that maybe things wouldn’t have played out this way had the left been less skeptical of Russian intervention in 2016-2017, and certainly I think Greenwald has embarrassed himself, but how much power to shape the narrative did they ever really have? My feeling about the Greenwald thing is that it's possible for someone to be "correctly wrong" in a situation like this. Like, it makes sense to be skeptical of intelligence agencies and attempts to claim foreign interference, even if those claims end up being true. Even if he ends up wrong, I think it's better to have the instinct to be skeptical in that situation than to instinctively just support everything the CIA/FBI and politicians claim. Basically, I think it's important that our media have people like Greenwald who default to skepticism of government claims, even if those claims have the possibility of ending up true. Given that almost all of the rest of the mainstream media just blindly accepts everything the government says, it's important to have that counter-voice.
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Jul 14, 2018 19:13
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comedyblissoption posted:expressing skepticism doesn't mean you're wrong if new evidence dispels the skepticism Yeah, this basically is what I'm saying. People act like someone was totally owned if they were skeptical and the thing they were skeptical about is later proved true, but that doesn't make any sense (and it especially doesn't make sense when the thing the person was skeptical about was "politicians/intelligence agencies lying").
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Jul 15, 2018 00:01
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World War Mammories posted:glenn greenwald is usually right, eg. that america... is bad, but he's let that preclude the possibility of "something occurs in which the USA suffers in any way, shape, or form can still be bad". thanks for reading my opinion. bernie would have won. succ I think that even under the most negative interpretation of Greenwald, he's still important and good within the greater context of American journalism, simply because virtually everyone else in the mainstream just blindly echoes whatever the Pentagon, etc want.
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Jul 15, 2018 00:11
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ThndrShk2k posted:Booker and Harris are lined up to be the next Obamas, with Harris being Hillary Obama Cop Fusion Cory Booker and Hillary doing the fusion dance, and suddenly a cop jumps between them at the last moment, causing Harris to pop out. Pener Kropoopkin posted:It isn't just a matter of being simpler, being a leftist who is concerned about Russiagate is politically meaningless. There's nothing to propose that isn't happening already. Yeah, when I think about Russiagate I just can't really link it to any significant outcomes. I think almost anyone would agree that we should improve our security and I never really see leftists actually wanting to stop the investigation, but people act like you're insane and a ~tankie~ for merely not showing the required level of enthusiasm. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 17:21 on Jul 16, 2018 |
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Jul 16, 2018 17:17
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AOC strikes me as being vulnerable to the pressure to adopt mainstream positions in order to get along better with the media and other politicians. It's one thing to be campaigning and saying this stuff in that context, and another to say it when under the full spotlight of the media and to the politicians who have the ability to make your life much harder.
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Jul 16, 2018 18:39
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cheese posted:She went from running bar to front page of CNN and late night talk shows in like 3 seconds. She is being flooded with attention and very convincing careerist Dem's trying to get a piece of her, but I still have faith. Going on a lovely podcast isn't the end of the world. It's impossible to understate how easy it is to just lean into all the positive attention from a bunch of people with money/power that you get if you go along with the stuff they want (that they happen to phrase in ways that allow you to keep feeling like you're a good person). I think it's impossible to predict how a person will react to that until they've been exposed to it (which is partly why I trust Sanders more than most other people).
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Jul 17, 2018 20:40
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ikanreed posted:I used to think Warren was cool. I'm dumb All people who go "yeah I'm a left-leaning liberal but not a full socialist" gradually transition there over years of repeatedly experiencing things like this. basic hitler posted:Going fygm isnt unheard of and there's historically no reason to hope for the best here. John Lewis is pretty much the go-to example of how someone who bravely fought for justice while a victim of injustice can still switch teams once they find themselves with money/power. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 20:58 on Jul 17, 2018 |
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Jul 17, 2018 20:55
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Barry Convex posted:Jon Favreau's new podcast on What's Wrong with the Democrats has debuted. someone please document the atrocities for us c-spammers My guess from having heard other liberals talk on this subject is that it will focus on Democrats not doing enough to hold Republicans to account. That's usually the place liberals go to when criticizing Democrats, because everything on a policy-level must always revolve around the Republicans being bad, and the Democrats' only duty is to deal with that badness. Mainstream liberal views never include an actual disagreement with Democratic policy goals.
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Jul 18, 2018 02:10
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cenotaph posted:This is one of those things that makes me just want to scream incoherently. It's interesting because it's unequivocal proof that Joy Ann Reid is just deeply stupid to the extent that it's insane she even has a politics-related TV show. Like, I imagine even most people on FOX News at least know Russia isn't communist anymore.
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Jul 19, 2018 02:34
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RottenK posted:not being a bland focus grouped piece of poo poo would definitely help yeah I want to go to the parallel world where Hillary pantomimes a monkey during her DNC acceptance speech. Just runs around the stage on all fours hooting and hollering. And then all the pundits give their analysis.
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Jul 19, 2018 20:31
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Theris posted:Bryce is getting infected with succ to the point that he's sending out DCCC-style "WE'RE GOING TO LOSE In the future politicians will just sent an e-mail intended to appear hastily written with an attached photo taken from their smartphone of a gun held to their head. "THE REPUBLICANS ARE GOING TO SHOOT ME IN THE HEAD IF YOU DON'T GIVE ME $5. MY LIFE IS IN YOUR HANDS"
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Jul 19, 2018 20:55
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" fundraising emails.
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loquacius posted:Jesus Christ, Nate I optimistically think he is joking about how bad the original list was. Normally I wouldn't make such a generous assumption, but most of the centrist lib types have been ignoring the possibility of Clinton running, and the ones who wouldn't ignore it wouldn't also put AOC in the same list. Over Easy posted:Ossoff would be like "well, sir, I just don't think that under your leadership, America is thriving." Then Trump would say "Who gives a gently caress what you think pencil dick." So Ossoff would play the decorum card and be like "I'll have you know that is a disrespectful comment" And Trump would be like "No poo poo sherlock" Examination of the debate video would reveal that, if you zoom in, Ossoff's crotch starts gradually growing bigger as Trump insults him.
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Jul 19, 2018 23:28
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emdash posted:a family friend offered me their extra ticket to NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me tonight and it was an absolute succ nightmare. I thought I remembered this show as being not explicitly political but super bougie comedy. thinks it's very smart but isn't really that smart. But I last heard it like eight years ago This is exactly what I'd expect. In many ways I find your average "NPR liberal" type even more revolting than conservatives, because they have the gall to perceive themselves as good, progressive people. Unlike conservatives, who fully embrace the "garbage person" persona, the NPR liberal tries to maintain a "clean" self-image where they act out the part of a good person.
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Jul 20, 2018 20:17
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Yinlock posted:when u love centrism but are also horny I've always toyed with the hypothesis that your average "liberal who complains about leftists all the time" person had/has a crush on some leftist who rejected them. It just feels like their distaste is too personal sometimes for it to be entirely politically motivated.
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Jul 21, 2018 03:48
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DivineCoffeeBinge posted:No, that's perfectly valid; NPR has many, many problems and should be criticized. I'm just saying that listening to a chunk of a program on one NPR station that may or may not exist on other NPR stations, devoid of context, is an awfully shaky basis on which to base a sweeping "NPR is bad." There are some programs that are directly NPR-affiliated, like All Things Considered or Morning Edition, and those are usually where the worst things are. NPR is a very specific thing that is distinct from just "stuff that airs on public radio," and it is definitely all pretty bad, at least when it comes to news. Most of the stuff that is good isn't actually produced by NPR.
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Jul 22, 2018 05:02
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gradenko_2000 posted:it's the same poo poo when people say "but under Medicare 4 All, your taxes will go up!!!" without ever comparing that against what people already pay for as a health insurance premium This is why it's stupid when liberals like to bring up "but when you mention taxes people don't support MfA!" Like, no poo poo, the wording in those polls will imply to the average person that those taxes are on top of what they're currently spending. They're usually not going to put 2 and 2 together and realize that those taxes will be replacing an existing (usually much higher) payment. A truly representative poll would say something like "under MfA (or whatever) the typical person would pay $X less for healthcare." It would be kind of difficult to make 100% accurate since taxes being less than current healthcare expenses wouldn't apply to everyone, but it would be more accurate than a misleading "would you like MfA if it meant higher taxes?" poll. The whole situation is a good example of liberals trying to be "a smart, objective, ~data-oriented~ person" but not actually being smart enough to do that correctly (and trying to interpret data incorrectly is arguably worse than not doing so at all).
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Jul 22, 2018 17:30
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I just read the second one as "Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Bring A Joint" and was imagining them just walking over to some people and smoking up.
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Jul 22, 2018 17:34
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cenotaph posted:I think it's more insidious than just technocracy. There's definitely a strong undercurrent of aristocracy to it, like the person chosen by the ~meritocracy~ with the right ideas os clearly the best choice based and the challenger is an upstart prole, or is at least a tool of the upstart proles. A certain sort of "serious professional person" tone and way of speaking is basically analogous to upper received English pronunciation in England or something. Just a certain way of speaking and cultural norms that are assumed by default to be necessary to be treated as a "respectable" person.
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Jul 23, 2018 00:03
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Skypie posted:i make like $60k but boy howdy doesn't feel like it goes far when rent's $1200 and health insurance premiums are $6000 Why in the world would you adjust your income for 1977 and then compare that with the current median wage?
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Jul 24, 2018 18:08
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Far into the future, after The Collapse occurs in 30 years or w/e, historians will be sifting through data trying to find answers, come across this gif, and just nod in understanding.
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Jul 25, 2018 20:21
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nah posted:Greenwald rules. he'll just post like "well here's another guy blaming Russia for bad things when we do the same poo poo" and then 750,000 incentivizing brunchists call him a threat to democracy and a puppet for the KGB etc Greenwald is useful as a stand-out example of someone mainstream liberals react to in an obviously exaggerated and crazy way. Like, even the most negative reasonable evaluation of Greenwald still leaves him looking better than most other American media/journalism figures, but the rhetoric liberals (in places like the Russia thread) use against him is at least as vicious as the rhetoric they use against actual right-wingers. The guy isn't even pro-Russia or anything, but apparently has "gone too far" by merely expressing what could be considered slightly excessive skepticism relative to the evidence available (and even that isn't clear, since this whole situation is one where the right instinct could potentially lead you to the wrong conclusion). edit: If you read some of the commentary of your typical D&D types, it's obvious that "Greenwald is a loony pro-Russian stooge" is just something they take as an obvious fact of reality, to the extent that even questioning it means that you must also be crazy. In their minds, not believing Greenwald is a loony crazyman is literally the same as thinking 9/11 was an inside job (or something similar). They will not even argue you on the subject, because they've mentally filed it away under the category of "things that are so obviously true they need no discussion and warrant only ridicule towards those who question them." docbeard posted:Greenwald's a big ol' contrarian where anything Russia-related is concerned (I think what set this latest thing off is him saying that there's no reason to take Michael Cohen's accusations on faith, which, whatever), but he's probably no worse in this regard than, say, Joementum*. This is basically my interpretation. At worst he is just contrarian (in a context where some contrarianism on the part of journalists is probably a good thing!) on this one single topic, while being good on most other topics (most of which are far more important than Russia). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:47 on Jul 27, 2018 |
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Jul 27, 2018 22:42
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steinrokkan posted:If Kaniela Ing wins, he's actually going to be the future progressive leader figure that people imagine ACO to be. Yeah, nothing I've seen from the guy has given me any reason to doubt that he's actually as good as he seems. Sheng-Ji Yang posted:assad sucks but whatever, her real dumbness is supporting BJP and Modi This is the #1 thing that makes me strongly doubt Gabbard being reliable. It just flat-out doesn't make sense if she's actually genuine in holding leftist ideology.
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Jul 27, 2018 22:54
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The funny thing is that they think the "life experiences" of someone like Cuomo are somehow less "narrow" than (what is obviously hinted to be) someone like AOC. Rich people don't have any life experiences to speak of. A non-rich 15 year old has more useful life experience than them.
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Jul 28, 2018 21:01
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Speaking of the Greenwald tweet stuff, do we know why he deleted all those tweets? Was it just a blanket delete of everything during a particular time period?
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Jul 29, 2018 08:09
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Pener Kropoopkin posted:He’s not. Greenwald didn’t do the Reality Winner story. Greenwald fascinates me because he's occupied this bizarre niche in the liberal worldview where he's like some punching bag they can use to say "I may be left, but I'm not ~loony~ like those guys!" and just uncritically accept everything negative they see/hear about him. I honestly don't fully understand it. It's like they derive some satisfaction by attacking less mainstream figures in order to establish their own intelligence and "reasonability," and Greenwald is someone they can attack without anyone ever questioning it (and anyone who does question it can just be filed away as a "~loony leftist~" who is probably also Russian or something I dunno.
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Jul 29, 2018 23:45
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Main Paineframe posted:greenwald is one of those types who, after years of assuming that America was good and all America's enemies were bad, figured out that America was actually bad - and decided that, by extension, that meant all of America's enemies were good. That's the thing, though; the guy doesn't even tack on "therefore, Russia good." His worst crimes can basically be described as "excessive skepticism towards claims of Russia malfeasance," and even if that ends up being wrong our media is in dire need of people who default to being skeptical of our government, seeing as pretty much everyone else just echos the US perspective verbatim. Overall, he is pretty unremarkable, which is why the sheer intensity of liberal attacks on him is so remarkable to me.
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Jul 30, 2018 00:46
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Jose posted:He doesn't say Russia is good though. He has been saying since the election that the Dems are using Russia as an excuse not to learn any lessons or move to the left The thing about this is that even though you can plausibly say "but that doesn't make it (the Russia stuff) any less important," they already have the entire mainstream media echoing their point of view, so it's absurd when they get so salty over a small minority of figures in non-mainstream journalism (or just random people online) trying to draw attention to other things. Like, they might have a point if there was any real risk of the Trump-Russia stuff being ignored because of people trying to focus elsewhere, but there isn't! They're just like conservatives who whine about "the war on Christmas" or whatever; they're people in the majority with entire TV channels and newspapers devoted to representing their views, and they just can't cope with a minority of people on the internet having a different opinion. Main Paineframe posted:he certainly has been of the opinion that Russia is totally innocent and had no involvement at all in the election. i remember him being real red-faced when the Reality Winner stuff came out This is the thing people just sort of blindly accept, but I haven't seen anything indicating this is the case. He has said that there wasn't evidence of various things (aside from things unlikely to have had a major impact, like the internet troll bots), but I don't think he's ever flat-out denied Russia could have colluded with Trump, or that he would be surprised if they did. I remember a while back joepinetree posted about this (maybe in the Russia D&D thread, it was a while back), and he quoted Greenwald himself on this, and I remember his opinions were not exactly wrong. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Jul 30, 2018 |
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Jul 30, 2018 05:21
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Joementum posted:Mad? You're drat right I'm mad. Look at how mad I am. This is missing the small awkward pause before he says "drat" (followed by an expression indicating "can't believe I did that!") because he is awkward about saying such a naughty word. But he says it anyways, because he is just so emotionally involved that he can't help but curse up a storm!
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Jul 31, 2018 21:30
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Calibanibal posted:Feng shui child concentration camps Look, are you saying you'd rather have non-Feng Shui child concentration camps? We aren't afford to let perfect be the enemy of good, and a vote against Feng Shui concentration camps is basically the same as supporting non-Feng Shui concentration camps.
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Jul 31, 2018 22:00
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ThndrShk2k posted:This is the race with Angus King running as the incumbent, so take it as you will lol all of these people are confused and have no idea what they're talking about, even the people defending democratic socialism
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Jul 31, 2018 22:31
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WampaLord posted:I mean, it certainly didn't hurt. I have a confession to make - I caused Trump's presidency. All this time I have hidden the fact that I have a super power - the power to predict the butterfly effect my actions will have on the future. One day I saw a dog and realized that kicking that dog would lead to Donald J Trump becoming President of the United States. I kicked that dog.
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Aug 2, 2018 02:09
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Sheng-Ji Yang posted:found the old hillary thread and read my posts and just want to extremely brag about how right i was. dont care that this is tacky and its been like 2 years I'm Right And The Hillarymen Were Wrong The frustrating thing is that you see this exact same belittling "heh look at this loony leftist" tone in discussions with liberals on the forums now. Just like last time, the future will prove them wrong, but it won't matter because they'll continue to be smugly confident that they're correct about everything.
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Aug 2, 2018 02:15
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Condiv posted:deteriorata still roams free and is as condescending and idiotic as when he was declaring hillary inevitable and the greatest candidate of all time For some reason the phrasing "roams free" here makes me laugh. Just imagining a nature documentary where they're filming a Hillary apologist in their natural habit of the Trump Thread or something. Taintrunner posted:Everywhere on the internet and in real life was like this. It was a loving cult, all to make an infinitely rich and powerful white woman with blood on her hands out to be some savior of all humanity. loving absolute mass derangement. It's really surreal to remember. It's characteristic of just how privileged a large portion of this forum's population is; the nerdy kids of years past are now adults making six figures (because most of them come from very privileged families), and their politics are exactly what you'd expect. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Aug 2, 2018 |
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Aug 2, 2018 02:41
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Axetrain posted:Ugh reading through that old thread, I forgot how much of an obnoxious shithead A Winner is Jew was. He kept bragging about how rich he was and how noble it was of him to vote Hillary anyway lol. Something like this happened back when the Trump tax cuts were passed; the Trump thread was full of posters saying how much money they'd save from the tax cuts (because they all make a poo poo ton of money), but that they still don't want it! What saints they are, to be willing to reject Trump's tax cut!
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Aug 2, 2018 17:44
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basic hitler posted:People whine about identity politics on the left, sometimes in pretty lovely and crass ways because center right dems openly and brazenly use race, gender, and lgbt issues as a means to sideline and silence people advancing for wider labor and economic problems. They're so comfortable doing it they more or less just go "basic hitler people hate you for sucking cock and considering HRT so you need to stop loving caring about UHC, living wages, and expanded worker rights" without ever really offering solutions to racial, lgbtq, or gender issues other than "we promise to work tirelessly to ensure your oppressors are sufficiently diverse" The thing they refuse to ever acknowledge is that most of the options government actually has control over for dealing with social justice issues are material in nature (or otherwise require some concrete government action, like eliminating for-profit prisons). Government can't magically eliminate interpersonal racism/bigotry, but these people act like any attempt to focus on what it can eliminate is the same thing as saying the more social/interpersonal manifestations of bigotry don't exist (or downplaying them).
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Aug 5, 2018 01:28
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theCalamity posted:From ResetEra in response to Schumer's hard-on for Republicans This does a good job at getting at the biggest difference in worldview between this type of liberal and the left. As that post basically makes clear, they simply don't think economic injustice is the same level of serious as something like civil rights. They view stuff like wealth/income inequality as basically an academic question where reasonable people can disagree, as opposed to a clear moral issue like, say, whether gay people should be able to get married. They usually won't express this outright in the way the person you quoted is, but it's always extremely obvious from the way they talk about these issues. The easiest way you can tell is that if you took their words about material inequality and applied them to an issue like racism, they would come off really bad (because someone who gets annoyed at people who care about such an obvious moral issue naturally ends up coming off like a piece of poo poo who doesn't care about that issue).
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Aug 5, 2018 01:36
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Zoran posted:I mean as much as we rag on this idea, it's true that wealthier suburbanites did swing toward Hillary compared to their voting patterns with Obama. a lot of this was driven by a big shift among college-educated women Also the fact that winning over wealthy suburbanites is about the same as winning over racists or any other lovely group of people; it's not good in the long term even if it did increase votes overall (which it totally didn't in this case).
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Aug 6, 2018 06:38
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Concerned Citizen posted:https://twitter.com/zackstanton/status/1026818132374167554 Isn't this just saying "if a majority of people aren't voting, there's plenty of potential voters with as-yet-unknown preferences who you can leverage to win." Like, it seems pretty obvious to me that it's referring to motivating non-voters to vote.
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Aug 8, 2018 03:07
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I imagine Whitmer basically got the "default choice" vote (both because she's the more mainstream option and because she doesn't have a "foreign" name), which is a huge deal in elections where a big percent of voters won't be that familiar with the candidates (like most local elections and non-presidential primaries). I wonder how they choose who is at the top of the list on ballots, because I imagine that actually has a huge impact (since most people are going to just vote for the first name for any position where they're not sure who they prefer).
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Aug 8, 2018 03:18
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