I know a Dominican immigrant who lost his small store to looting. They arrived in the US in 1977 and opened their store in 1995 after 18 years of saving and taking out a loan. I know these people children and they are very black skinned Dominicans. I am Dominican too and grew up seeing them visit every summer. Like most Dominicans, they have no idea of “Twitter battles” or America’s culture wars. These are just head down and work people minding their own business. Model immigrants —not the caricature many made us to be—and yet they suffered the wrath of looters. The insurance company will only cover a fraction of the damages and only after the underwriter has properly assessed the damages. Properly assess is a code name for indefinitely waiting until cities clear things and looting has officially stopped (kind of subjective right?) Also, the underwriters don’t get to your case after the area of looting had been cleared. For instance, if you were in Minneapolis and lost your business the first week of June, it’s very likely you still haven’t received a cent from the insurance company. I watch in disbelief how pundits parrot the same lies and dishonest that insurance companies will cover the damages. It’s reprehensible to see some multimillionaire pundits smirk at the destruction the looting caused when discussing this garbage book you mentioned. I have met disconnected people in my life. But no one can hold the candle to Twitter leftists, pundits, and white anarchists. They are a bunch of charlatans that only in America they’d make so much money and get so much adulation. In the DR they’d be cleaning latrines if they were lucky.
I seriously think that BLM/Antifa are the new KKK. Christian Walker (Hershel Walker’s son) says they are the KKK in blackface.
Same tactics. Thinks race is the most defining part of a human being. They are demanding everyone not vote Republican and they are burning everything down. And the separatist Dems have no problem using the media and this mob to further their agenda. The media literally covers for Antifa/BLM. You can see how bad it is with Kyle Rittenhouse.
I watched the Uncle Tom documentary and the black conservatives laid a very compelling argument that the Democrats NEVER switched. I highly recommend watching the documentary to get a different perspective on history.
I jumped over to Rotten Tomato to look at "Uncle Tom" reviews. Mostly positive 4 or 5 Star audience reviews. One 1/2 Star rating from the audience. That long drawn out complaint session lacked vital content for a movie review. It never mentioned the film. It seems apparent the author never saw the film but easily gave it a 1/2 Star review.
The best thing about the film is that it makes you want to go look up the black figures in the past mentioned in the film like Booker T Washington and Frederick Douglass and read their autobiographies. It asks people to question the narrative told to them and to seek out that history they don’t teach in school.
The movie also has a great criticism of the Republican Party for not going after the black vote. That Republican strategists aren’t bold enough to help black conservatives run in democrat strongholds because they think it’s a waste of money. The black conservatives note that they feel abandoned by both parties because of this.
It’s an excellent film with many inspirational biographical stories from many of the older black conservative pioneers like Herman Cain, Carol Swain, and Larry Elder. Here’s an excerpt of the film of his story they released after he passed away earlier this year:
I highly recommend even watching the deleted scenes they put up on the Uncle Tom YouTube channel (what I linked above) just to see if you’re interested in seeing more of the film.
Can’t recommend it enough even if it’s just so that one gets a differing perspective from black voices. It’s a narrative that is silenced, mocked, and ignored by the left wing media. So it’s good to see someone document their views produced and written by someone who is a black conservative (Larry Elder).
Are such Twitter personalities real people? I hate Twitter and only open it to read something cited elsewhere. I used to reply to tweets, but once got caught in a burst of hate-tweets after I rashly remarked that black people can be racist too. I wish Twitter could be wiped off the face of the earth, not by looters, but silently, stifled by a wise time traveler before the first round of funding so it suddenly no longer exists in our world -- which would immediately become a far better place.
Oh yeah. And homophobic. And Jews can be genocidal (that'll bring out hate) and on and on. And yes African nations did have active slave trades and were like mechants selling goods (people) to an overseas market. The bible is history. And again, on and on. I spent the first decades of my life absorbing all the "ideal" mainstream approved stories. I've spent the decades since (about age 32 on) going through one long series of disillusions after another. I can still remember when a good friend and next door worker, a black rodeo rider and part Chiricahua Apache revealed his homophobia in reference to gay friends I knew.
Or when I first heard about Palestinians at the Olympics and it took decades before I realized they were not merely savages without any cause. I learned about the Nakba and about the anti-Semetic reasons for Britain's Lord Balfour to set up means to send Jewish pogrom refugees to the Palestine mandate, keeping them out of the UK - and something similar after WWII - which, ironically means that Israel is in part an anti-Semetic creation - really really head-slamming irony.
Much the same for Iranians and the embassy and not realizing their rage came from somewhere. It was so long before I knew about Mossedegh (never heard Ted Koppel so much as mention the CIA coup in 1953 in all the years he anchored that program, either during the hostage crisis or after).
I remember cheering on Israel in the 1967 war with Jewish friends and only found out about the USS Liberty decades later.
Just because someone has been, or is still being victimized doesn't mean they are pure as the driven snow or innocent of victimizing someone else or even doing the same kind of thing to someone else.
And then, today we have the "rage culture." I really think the immediate feedback of Twitter and other social media, along with a mis-education and stupid "reality shows" leads people to go for the instant gratification of slamming someone. Woke was okay for the first few steps and then the very concept of "woke" was to find insults with which to be enraged. Same for just about any of the trends, including MeToo which also started okay and then went off the rails just like the rest. "Rage" is the mode of operation, seldom ever is nuance or reason or evidence allowed or wanted. That is a factor of the immediate medium.
I'd rather that Twitter just fall out of fashion as a forum for discussion of current events and politics, due to user frustration with the inherent weaknesses of the format. No longer a hip thing.
280 characters. Smug Twitter swarm lynch mobs, nut-grabbing and kneecapping with sarcastic one-line cliches. Too stupid.
I've never posted there. I grant that it can be very useful for some purposes. But hot takes and thoughtful discussion do not mix well.
I don't think any opinion site should be shut down. Let people put their foot in their mouths and live with it the rest of their lives. That's the REAL cost of freedom, your own misuse of it.
I understand. My objection is not to any particular opinion -- the more of those, the better, probably -- but to the 280-character message type and instantaneous delivery to an audience which is always available. I think that mode encourages mob thinking, because the thoughts are incomplete and the "bad news" travels so fast.
I think a worse problem than the requirement to be succinct (one against which I rage in vain!) is the dopamine "reward" people become used to from getting "likes". This incentivizes comments of which a known faction will approve, not any real thought.
FB is bad in a different way. Once it became a vehicle for selling things to its users, it became a service which was always selling the user and his/her data to advertisers. The whole phenomenon of advertising has been a big factor in poisoning the soul of the United States.
The irony being that Facebook owed much of its original appeal as competitor to Myspace to the falsehood that they were the "non-commercial alternative", keeping advertising off of the site. Then they snapped the trap shut.
You really need to qualify a statement like that one. Especially given the abysmal level of popular discourse in the US, where "the Left" is a term that routinely gets applied to multibillionaire capitalists, neoliberal politicians, and the set of all people opposing Donald Trump's re-election.
What if the people I mean when I say "those people" is an ill-defined smorgasboard of people who lack principles and think poorly? I will confess to calling them "lefties", Marxists, progressives (and progtards, NPCs, proglodytes, and SJWs-as-insult), and other terms that usually do not carefully identify who I mean.
It's a real problem, I admit. It's like when "those people" call their opponents "rednecks", "hillbillies", fascists, alt-right, etc. etc. 99.9% of the time THOSE identifiers are less than accurate. This is not whataboutism, just identifying the problem of labelling ill-defined groups.
I suggest using modifiers to narrow and focus observations like those.
If it were me, I'd call the group "the incoherent Left", "the extreme Left", "Left-wing nihilists"...something like that. Some nihilists were actually officially self-titled Nihilists- the members were a 19th century Russian anarchist faction.
I found this history book, The World That Never Was, to be a good readable overview of that era. Committed anarchist politicos (that oxymoron) would probably disagree, though.
I found that the ideas and philosophy of 19th century anarchist movements have a lot of resonance with present-day anarchism here in the US. It's worth pointing out that 19th century Europe experienced waves of anarchist disruption and terrorism a couple of orders of magnitude greater than anything we're seeing nowadays here in the States. Most of the terrorism of the era was assassination attempts, several of them successful.
Your sober analysis has merit. More people should know that it’s inaccurate to think that insurance will pay damages for looting. While your friends have worked hard to enjoy some semblance of “the American Dream,” for their sacrifices and work leading to the success of owning a business, there is no singular model of what immigrants should look like or be...unless an immigrant is being evaluated by the FBI or CIA. For each token success there are many failures, immigrant or not. A human is a human is a human, and each has their flaws. Business as usual is not for long in this world. People in power and making political decisions have really fucked things up, environmentally, while exploiting differences. I see this book as insincere and half Baird at best. Should I come into context with it, I’d use the pages to wipe my bum, and deliver the soiled pages to the author, one way or another. It gets a D- in my grade book. That said, we are all going to have to stop abiding by the rules and models that are supposedly rewarded and devise other ways of surviving and communing.
There are way more people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, etc, who lost their families and their business's due to the bipartisan corporate looting that the same pundits disregard and lie about on a daily basis and have for over a century now.
The issue comes down to distribution of resources and if you look at the score board we see how a very tiny fraction of society seem to have about half of everything while being responsible for the majority of the crime.
It seems some folks can legalize their crime and others can't. There in lies the problem.
Can you stop with the deflection. Twice I've seen posted "what about corporate looting". What about it? This isn't an article or critique of that, and not mentioning it is not a pass or show of support. It's simply writing about a specific topic. The what's about shit is so annoying. My korean born friend, who led they way in our city with paying all of his employees actual living wages and going out of his way to give jobs to undocumented folks had his store smashed. But tell me more about corporate looting that no one validated or mentioned.
It isn't deflection, it's just incoherent. Let me translate from Skutch to English for you: 'I hate the USA, I hate Western Civilization, I want them destroyed, and I'm in favor of everything that harms them. The USA is evil and has to be destroyed. People like Matt are evil too, because they are trying to prevent the destruction of the U.S.'
Your "translation" seems like its mostly assumptions and judgments.
I think it's cowardly to be afraid to criticize NATION-STATES.
The concept is outdated and it hurts humanity.
Western Civilization has serious issues - consumerism, war as a drive for economy.
The important thing is discussing it and separating it from the HUMANITY of every single living person.
People are not the problem - systems are.
People get all "but this is my system you can't take this down this is what things are made of".
The world and the country would be totally fine if we had radical restructuring. The largest roadblock is people that are afraid of change at an elemental level.
Your implying that what is happening in cities across America is actually radical restructuring of society when in fact it's just smash and grab from a population that by the looks of the demographics largely benefits from the system they claim to hate. It's the worst kind of activism. White people signaling to other white people about their radicalness as they use POC as pawns.
Be fair to the Bolshivek LARPERS, the black folk do get mutlitple Nikes and Playstations. To...ah...feed their families? Or is it to express their anarchic joy?
The book is for profit. Or do you actually believe someone would write a book for fun that wasn't a trust fund baby which are the only people who could afford to.
The inference you make is expected. I am used to people attempting to categorize me based on one interaction around one topic. Its the new norm. Check it out. I am a life long Activist. I don't need any self reflection about my own intentions or interpretations about the current situation. My activism comes from books like blood in my eye and to die for the people. My heroes are people like Bob Lafollette and Miriam Makeeba and Phil Ochs. I'm not confused or unaware of the history of the United States. Theres nothing critical about deflecting a conversation about the legitimacy of creating chaos as activism to one about the United States domestic and international thirst for greed and wanton destruction. Its such weird sophomoric gotcha bullshit and I dont understand how it thrives other than the people who perpetuate it would rather double down on some of these idiotic concepts than admit they are wrong.
Great comment David-- the categorizing thing and gotcha moves by invoking assumed worldviews is a huge problem right now-- and most don't address it in conversation or realize the game being played.
Americans cities aren’t a war zone. If people want to protest the government-military complex destroying the property of minorities isn’t the answer. This is a false equivalence. I doubt the small business owners will find comfort in your convoluted justification for gangster tactics.
War zones are not designated places. Do you propose that the places and people being bombed by the U.S. wanted their homes, hospitals, business, weddings, funerals, and country sacrificed to wars? You’re wrong.
You went all 2009 Glenn Beck on me. Stick to the bigger picture: rioters destroying private property of little guys to stick it up to Big Corp and war-profiteering thugs. —keen logic right there. In the meantime the likes of Amazon are seeing their stock soar as their “competition” (small businesses) are systematically being destroyed. First revolution swimming in corporate cash and indulging in corporate sponsorship.
Very much this. I'm not all tinfoil hatty about the origins of the Covid, but the effects of the *shutdowns* have been detrimental to the middle class, small businessmen and individual smaller entrepreneurs, as if they were designed to do so.
That the risks of the "pandemic" have been so hysterically (and sometimes fraudulently) overblown by the bought-and-paid-for legacy media does have me reaching for the Reynolds Wrap thouigh.
If this is really how you feel then I expect you'll be voting for Trump. He's the first President in my lifetime (and I'm 60) who hasn't initiated any new wars.
Just kidding. I know you won't. I have a friend who thinks like you who described Obama as a "war criminal" in 2012 and then voted for him anyway on the grounds that Mitt Romney would probably be a war criminal too. Can't let principals get in the way of tribalism.
As opposed to the all the POTUS's of both parties who looted the Treasury behind closed doors. Trump is an unique evil, we must return to the "normal" looting of working people and endless war, and probable nuclear war that Biden will bring.
You're not very well informed then. Keep voting and pretending it will make a difference when you live in a plutocracy. I can tell you have no idea what "principals" actually are when you vote for someone who's shunned them his entire life.
I did not initially favor Biden. I wanted Bernie. I agree that Biden will not likely be part of a lot of change. Unfortunately Trump is truly dangerous, as numerous of his associates as well as important Republicans have been testifying almost the whole time he has been in office. Trump must be removed from office. That is a true emergency. Don't you read anyone like David Frum or Jennifer Rubin or Max Boot or George Will, who have been staunch Republicans all their adult lives, as far as I know, and are now bitterly opposed to Trump's reelection?
Soon, maybe. Of course people over here don't want our "own medicine". I've been speaking out against foreign wars since I was about 13 years old. America has laid waste to a lot of the world.
You’ve made the same idiotic strawman argument three times in the comments section. Your ridiculous false equivalence is falling on deaf ears. It’s a lot easier to whine about corporate pillaging when your ability to make ends meet is protected behind the glow of a computer screen.
Nah it’s pretty clear to me that you’re never worked a day in your life. Maybe the campus bookstore is hiring, might diversify your experiences to receive money from someone besides mommy and daddy
I've worked for 40 years now and could still work your fat worthless ass under the table without a problem. But keep trying, it's amusing to see your need to lash out at someone with an opposing position to yours.
I've got plenty time to expose your pettiness and your emotional thought process.
Ysaias is concerned about another family, whom he knows, and you are projecting a huge whataboutism on corporate looting in countries that have been disorganized forever. What corporation did what to Libya or Afghanistan? Tell me of one, and I'll sell my stock in it and give the money to charity -- or, okay, the stupid mutual fund that "invested" there. Yes, Syria used to be better run, but the beneficiaries of the current regime are organized gangs, Russian thugs and oligarchs, not American companies, which shy away from countries (except China) that discriminate against and kill their own citizens.
The thing is, here, we at least talk about fairness for others because we understand ourselves to be fellow citizens. The ennoblement of the individual is a Christian and Enlightenment concept that never can be perfected, but Ysaias is trying, as our country does with elections and public schools, to seek justice for people whose lifelong investment has been trashed by other people who do not know them and who lack basic human respect for their efforts and, by extension, for them.
When anarchists destroy what others have built -- just because they can -- I'm with Ysaias. The Dominican family deserves justice to be served. Ideally, it deserves to be made whole by the people who destroyed what they have built.
Congratulations. You have hijacked a momentarily serious discussion thread with your know-it-all accusations and disinterest in what other people have to say. I'm leaving.
You might want to consider writing your own substack and see how many people care about your squeals.
You apparently define “corporate looting” as free markets. Huh.
I teach law to graduate students in China, and one thing I love about them, as compared to US law students, is that for my Chinese students, “profit”is not a dirty word, and profit-seeking corporations aren’t evil but just an economically efficient way to organize resources. They look at the US today and all the wine ness and say, that looks like the Cultural Revolution- which they know, deep in their bones, was evil and bad. None of them in the ten years I’ve been teaching has ever argued in favor of Marxism or socialism.
"Free markets" is an oxymoron. And you're kidding yourself if you don't realize that your students are simply mirroring what you want to hear on some of the political questions. They've learned early on to not contradict their instructors, who are granted deference as Authorities.
The Chinese Communist Party has gotten very flexible about incorporating some latitude for private enterprise into their political system. They do recognize some of its pragmatic advantages. But make no mistake, at the bedrock level, China is a command economy run with a heavy reliance on Marxist-Leninist principles. And the CCP is a totalitarian regime.
I teach at a traditional US style law school where students are expected to disagree with their professors, but on the basis of reasoned argument, not feelings or emotions. Our students are sick of being lectured at, that’s why they come to our school. Like all students in China in every grade, they still are required to take one “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics “ class every year -it’s taught by Party functionaries, not law professors - and they hate it, they say it’s just propaganda. However, my students are all very, extremely nationalistic.
I teach at a traditional US style law school where students are expected to disagree with their professors, but on the basis of reasoned argument, not feelings or emotions. Our students are sick of being lectured at, that’s why they come to our school. Like all students in China in every grade, they still are required to take one “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics “ class every year -it’s taught by Party functionaries, not law professors - and they hate it, they say it’s just propaganda. However, my students are all very, extremely nationalistic.
The bottom line is that the CCP holds the power, and your students won't advance unless its done within the CCP-approved framework. I can feature how they feel safe criticizing American LARPing on social justice. It's an easy target. But would any of them go on public record criticizing the CCP crackdown on Hong Kong, even while residing overseas?
There are taboo topics in China just like in the US. In US law schools, the taboo topics are affirmative action, gay marriage and transgender rights, for example. In China, the taboo topics are Tibet, Taiwan, Tienamen Square and now Hong Kong. But on non-taboo topics, like whether corporate law (either Chinese or US) should prioritize shareholder value, the students have strong (and differing) opinions which they are happy to share.
It wouldn't have to be if it weren't being used criminally. It wasn't Marxist or communists who committed crimes in order to make profit it was capitalists.
If only we could somehow express our antipathy to both -- if only this election were, say between a candidate who unequivocally opposes *both* looting at home *and* misadventures abroad vs. a candidate who hesitates to oppose either while attracting a lot of support from corporations, war-mongering neo-cons, and domestic looters and their apologists...
Wake up. Whatever merit you arguments might have had in the Bush era, they are obsolete post-Trump. All the nonsense the media has been throwing against the wall the past four years have completely obscured how Trump has completely turned the tables.
What corporate looting has the US done to Syria? Are you referring to Obama Training and funding the rebels in Syria? No one in America wanted to be embroiled in their CIVIL WAR, yet Congress OKed it. Probably why Congress has half the approval rating as Trump.
“If no one in the party says anything, Trump will argue, with some justice, this is the true face of his opposition.” That’s where I’m at. It’s why I’m voting for Trump. I grew up in the area impacted by the ‘92 LA Riots. The fact that these people believe that rioting and looting is justified disgusts me.
I was 10 years old and it was terrifying and horrible. I saw elderly Koreans crying as their businesses were looted and destroyed. I saw Reginald Denny get beaten for no reason except that he was white and in the wrong place at the wrong time. I could smell the toxic fumes from the market burning 3 blocks down.
I saw the media vilify the rooftop Koreans for protecting their stores after the LAPD abandoned Koreantown. I asked my father why the media said they were bad and I remember him cursing under his breath.
Much of why I hate war, violence, and racism comes from that experience when I was a child. Rioting and looting is not something to be celebrated. It’s not a right. And the Dems encouraged this behavior. Even if the Dems come out now and disavow the violence, it’s too late. It’s been 3 MONTHS! I’ll take the guy that’s been against the rioting since day 1.
I can’t believe NPR would highlight this author at all. How can anyone take NPR seriously after they would highlight such a book? How is this not a stepping stone into communism? This ideology needs to be stopped. It’s disturbing that it’s already manifested itself in all of our institutions and that they’re using TDS & propaganda to push people into siding with this ideology.
Once you get into advocating for violence, this peace-loving hippie is out.
But you are advocating violence in your name done by the US war machine and it's corporate masters all over the world. Are you saying looting is only acceptable when organized and perpetrated by the elite ? Do you know any one issue voters demanding more forever wars ?
You're looking right past what the real narrative is which is the double standard of corporate looting vs looting by individuals.
People keep saying this as though the many lefty people who subscribe to Matt are all gunning for the Pentagon. First off, nobody is sticking it to the corporations by burning small businesses-- they're literally eliminating those corporations' competition! Second of all, the many disgruntled leftish people in here mostly oppose war.. I bet a lot of the conservatives do too, and the libertarians, much as I disagree with them on economics, have whole sites like antiwar.com. One reason we're disgruntled with the current left is its abandonment of peace... the business Democrats welcoming neoconservative interventionists, the woke longing for violent revolution, and people telling you you're sexist if you accurately characterize someone like Hillary as a warmonger. Give me peace AND nonviolent protest instead of riots and war any day.
Oh, and, btw, nonviolence takes skill-- political skill, tactical, messaging, focus, ability to engage and converse with people with different opinions-- which is why many of our current "activists" hate it-- anybody can throw a brick or an insult, after all. I worked on police reform in Minneapolis a few years ago and can tell you all the stuff our local BLM and all-left city council wasted their time on, when they could have been turning their ire on the actual police department... BLM wasting months suing a private mall for the right to protest there instead of just going somewhere else, the city council throwing out >15,000 signatures on a police reform ballot initiative because it might make the city charter messy, Fight for 15 activists walking out of the city council chamber en masse the minute their presentation was done, rather than stay in solidarity with the local police reform group that was in the schedule next. (I support Fight for 15, that's why I showed up early for THEIR time slot and saw this happen.) "Nonviolence has been tied and didn't work" is only true in the same sense as I "tried" to be a basketball star by throwing the ball at a basket 10 times and gave up after only getting one in.
"nonviolence takes skill-- political skill, tactical, messaging, focus, ability to engage and converse with people with different opinions-- which is why many of our current "activists" hate it-- anybody can throw a brick or an insult, after all." You are exactly right. Destruction, hatred, chaos and ignorance require nothing. They are the default. Flourishing, love, order and wisdom require infinite work and attention.
"One reason we're disgruntled with the current left is its abandonment of peace" -- anyone who advocates corporate violence is not "the left" by any standards I've ever used. But I guess if you take the Soviet Union as a model for the left, ok. That would be fair, maybe, but to me the Soviet Union was a variant on authoritarianism, sometimes loosely called fascism. No one I have ever spoken to has tried to seriously support anything the Soviet Union ever did.
"That would be fair, maybe, but to me the Soviet Union was a variant on authoritarianism,"
Ah, yes. The Soviet Union is the ONLY example of communism we have to learn from.
I'm pretty sure you watched Michael Moore's documentary about universal health care in Cuba. He was like, "hey, this asthma inhaler only costs 25 cents in Cuba!"
Yeah, well, he was visiting something called a Potemkin Village in Cuba. That is, the pharmacy was fully stocked, unlike 99% of the pharmacies in the country that sold inhalers for 25 cents but had none to sell.
When I went there for a week on a resort vacation with my extended family in 2006, we did some research. You know, you want to know what the customs are about things like tipping. We were told don't bring money. Bring Tylenol. Bring Advil. Bring Benadryl. Bring pencils. Bring baseballs and baseball mitts. Bring hair ties, clips, pins and barrettes. Bring panty hose. Bring disposable razors. Bring 5-packs of cheap toothbrushes. Bring socks. Bring lined paper.
The websites also recommended you leave all your toiletries behind for housekeeping. Antiperspirant, soap, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, everything.
Why? Because they can't get that shit there.
My sister got a massage while we were there. She asked if the masseuse wanted $10CAD or a pair of dollar store panty hose. The woman opted for the panty hose. I asked a server once if she had daughters. She said no. I said, "oh, that's too bad, all I have are these barrettes or cash." She said her sister had daughters and took the 50 cent barrettes.
Two of the bartenders and one of the towel guys I got talking to were medical doctors. Being a bartender or a towel guy at a tourist resort paid them more than doing surgery.
But yeah. Only the Soviet Union showed us how communism failed.
Since you have apparently blocked it out of your mind, the term "Left" goes back to the French Revolution, and designated those who wanted to overturn the monarchial/aristocratic/theocratic system. They did overthrow it, violently.
Since then, many other Leftists have come to power violently.
And though your circle of acquaintances must be terrible small, I can assure you that many people seriously supported everything the Soviet Union did. You'd find out if you read the relevant history. E.g., one U.S. ambassador to the USSR praised the purge trials (see MISSION TO MOSCOW).
The Left =/= pacifism, and never has. And pacifism has never been a subset of the Left either. There have been many right-wing pacifists.
Yes, I know about the origins of Left and Right. I also know that there were some Americans who supported the Soviet Union, including Stalin. I was speaking of present-day Democrats or any American I've spoken with. No one I have known did so. Also, I never said I was a pacifist. I am just opposed to war. I would support using force if and only if there were no other way forward, and survival depended on going forward.
Well, if you don't call it communism then it's obviously not communism. It's just the Justice Democrats. Or the Squad. Or the Green New Deal. Or the Bernie movement. Or free college tuition for all. Or a guaranteed basic income for everyone.
Catherine McKinnon (radical second wave feminist) said, "socialism, communism and feminism are one and the same."
She advocated the dismantling of the cis-heteronormative, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. The first step toward that goal, would be eliminating marriage and the nuclear family, and having the state raise the children. And we're not talking just, "make people send their kids to public schools". She wanted parents to have no rights over their children. She wanted the children literally to be raised by the state.
Why? Because marriage and the nuclear family were the smallest but most ubiquitous and universal lego block that upheld the capitalist patriarchy. Women would never be "free" if they were "forced" to raise their own children within a consensual arrangement with a man. They could only be "free" if the state took on the burden of raising their children. Then they'd be "free" to work in factories and share in the fruits of the means of production.
If you really want to get down to brass tacks, she argued that a woman should care about money more than her own flesh and blood. And that the money handed to them on payday by their husbands in exchange for the "unpaid domestic labor" of nurturing their own children was somehow less noble than the money they could earn screwing the caps on toothpaste tubes 100,000 times a day.
And the ONLY reason McKinnon is frowned upon these days by the intersectional feminist community is because she's a TERF and a SWERF.
Now go read BLM's "about" page. Would you agree that "the community" has as much right to dictate how your child will be raised as you do? That's what BLM is espousing.
And that can work in a community that doesn't exceed Dunbar's number--where cheaters, dictators and free-riders are easily detected and deterred. But in a population of millions? Do you really think a network of strangers can be a better parent to your child than you are?
But, you know. It's worth it, because that's the only way women will ever be "free".
Where is the double standard? The war-mongering neo-cons have shifted to vote Biden, many even spoke at the DNC. The looters and their advocates will vote Biden too. Perfectly consistent.
On the other side, Trump obviously doesn't support looting, and doesn't seem to favor forever wars either. Heck even the accusations that he called veterans "suckers", however one takes them, suggest either he strongly opposes the war machine or the war machine strongly opposes him, either way hard to suggest he's the candidate who will keep it churning.
So whatever the merit of your argument in the pre-Trump era, I think now it is obsolete -- the parties have sorted it out themselves.
Yep. This is the other reason I’m voting for Trump. All I needed was to see that the war-mongering neocons decided to back Biden and boom! Made my choice for Trump that much more enjoyable. I don’t understand why people want to vote for Biden knowing that he has the war criminals like Colin Powell endorsing him. The Dems can have them. It means the Republican Party has changed for the better. I’ll always vote against the war mongering neocons and Trump is that candidate.
No corporation forces you to buy their hamburgers. Don't like corporations? Stop giving them your fucking money. Make do without the shit they sell. Don't like Chinese sweatshop labor? Don't shop at Walmart. Don't like the US war machine? Vote for Trump (since Democrat retards couldn't get behind Gabbard).
Trump pulled US troops out of Syria and negotiated an agreement between the Turks and the Kurds. He negotiated the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE. He declined to murder 150 Iranians over the shooting down of an unmanned US drone, despite his advisors recommending he do it. He fired John Bolton for being a war mongering cunt. When he retaliated with a missile strike for the Syrian gas attacks, he minimized loss of human life and the air strip he hit was back up and functional within a day. Al Baghdadi and Soleimani were taken out in surgical strikes with little collateral damage. ISIS is a mess he cleaned up, and can now walk away from, like a house-flipper who repaired a gutted home.
What the fuck more do you want?
Meanwhile, here you are refusing to condemn the burning and looting of small businesses, even though Jeff Bezos profits whenever someone can't get the things they need in their own neighborhood. To you, the police who stop the riots and save the small businesses are just as dastardly as the huge corporations that profit when small businesses die. To you, Trump is no different from Hillary, even though Hillary was a war hawk who blamed the deaths of Americans in Benghazi on a shitty Youtube movie and then when asked if she really believed that, said under oath, "what difference, at this point, does it make?"
So why don't you tell us, edgy boi: What is the "real narrative"? Just give me something more substantive than a Holden Caulfield soliloquy.
That was the Obama days, war machine. Trump is pulling US out of all that, including ending the "US army for hire" in German, Korean and Japan. All we need to do is tell Israel they are on their own. If they start a war, they need to fight it unlike their bombing IRAQ .
Just how Trump has given Israel everything they want, and the UAE state sponsored corruption seems ok with him too.
I’m afraid the two will get together and continue to wage war and rubblelization on the other countries in the Mid East we’ve left so weakened by our own war machine.
Then Trump can appear to have clean hands.
But I don’t know, I’m waiting for someone who knows more than me AND whom I trust (rare) to report on it.
And yeah there hasn’t really been much because we’re just having an election and riots and nothing else matters to us:/
The reason no one is reporting on it is because it makes Trump look good.
What on earth makes you think the UAE and Israel will join forces and wage war in the middle east?
I can understand being cautiously optimistic. What I can't understand is someone saying, "I think this is totally bogus, even though I have no information on it."
I'm beginning to think the entire Antifa/BLM/In Defense of Looting is an elaborate Roger Stone plot to re-election Trump. They can't all really be this stupid, can they?
They're stuck walking a razor thin tightrope. Think of it this way: the radicals are angry (often over nothing) and politically active. The more mainstream Democrat voter is more typically busy doing their own thing, politically complacent (or illiterate), and believes what the MSM tells them about the "mostly peaceful" protests (until those protests come to a neighborhood near them).
If the Party does not go along with the radicals, the radicals will DO something about it. Like splinter off? Spearhead a "write in Bernie" campaign and follow through? Organize giant "don't vote" protests? Burn down polling stations and steal/torch mailboxes? Any of those actions would disproportionately damage the Democrats because they'll be happening in the Bluest of Blue areas.
If the Party manages to walk the tightrope of not pissing off the mainstream voter TOO much, there's still TDS to leverage, and they're working that angle like crazy. It was so predictable I could have written their speeches myself. The violence finally hits them in the polls, so they offer a tepid condemnation of the violence, blame the entire debacle on Trump and continue to tacitly indulge the mob's activities by refusing to put a stop to them.
See? Something to please every Democrat voter! The radicals still get to have their fun, and the moderates get to vote for the alternative to the person we keep telling you is responsible for the violence.
Will it work? I don't think so. When you see Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo discussing on CNN how the Dems are taking a hit in the polls and the focus groups say it's the violence, so the Dems better do something pronto, and then the very next day Biden and Harris finally get off their asses (after 90+ days of mayhem) to say looting and violence is wrong? It's pretty obvious they don't think it's wrong because it hurts people--they think it's wrong because it hurts the Democrat Party. It's a cynical political gambit they had to employ because they were backed into a corner, not because they really believe what they're saying.
I mean, I watched a clip of Chris Wallace interviewing a Dem strategist or whatever, and she said that Donald Trump not only wasn't doing anything to stop the violence, he had spent all summer inciting the violence for his own political gain. Wallace had such a beautiful "brain.exe has stopped working" moment I burst out laughing. If you can say something negative about Trump and even Chris Wallace is unable to buy it, you've officially gone full retard.
I honestly think they weren't expecting the rioting to continue and spread the way it has. Their strategy (if it is indeed what I have described above) kind of depended on the riots petering out on their own.
They would support the "protests", and their Democrat state and local governments would allow them to happen, to appease the radicals, but eventually the radicals would tire themselves out. That would happen long before things got so bad it threatened their hold on the moderates, because the media would constantly remind those moderates that these are "peaceful" or "mostly peaceful" protests, for a just cause.
But yeah, they've been in a no-win situation for quite a while. Their only hope at this point is to convince people the violence is all Trump's fault, and they're going full steam ahead on that narrative.
My understanding, based on attending BLM protests in LA 1-3x/week for several weeks after George Floyd's murder, is that the riots DID peter out on their own pretty quickly. Not that it matters, since the media barely covcus unless we're burning something. The Democrats are never going to be able to convince voters they're as anti-looting as Republicans because they're not as willing to go full racist and equate all BLM protesting to rioting, but they could get away with walking the tightrope on that issue...
...IF they had a coherent economic policy. Which they don't.
Trump at the RNC made a clear self-interest argument to business owners: we won't tax or regulate or lock down your business, and we'll scare looters away with a big show of force. If Democrats had Bernie or similar as a candidate they'd be making a clear self-interest argument to working people: we'll give you free healthcare and free college education and a well-paying "green" job. Post-pandemic, they could have used the DNC to talk about Medicare for all or a national eviction moratorium or a federal aid program for small businesses hurt by the lockdowns. Instead, their only argument is that Trump and his supporters are awful and crazy. Which does nothing but alienate their base from the swing voters they might otherwise be able to talk to and convince. Oh, and that forcing people to wear masks is "patriotic". How the hell does any of that help the average person? Trump's idea of using military to crush the riots is an economic argument: now they won't break your store windows and steal your stuff. BLM's idea to defund the police is an economic argument: now we can use that money on better schools, community centers, job training, arts funding etc. Biden's campaign seems to be based entirely on in-ground smugness plus mandated virus virtue signaling, none of which will help pay the bills for anyone.
This is perhaps the silliest thing I've ever read.
"not as willing to go full racist and equate all BLM protesting to rioting"
Every Republican I have seen speak on this issue draws a distinction between peaceful protest (a good thing) and rioting/looting/arson (a bad thing). They encourage peaceful protest, and condemn the rioters as having hijacked those protests.
They have also almost universally condemned what happened to George Floyd. Trey Gowdy even said he could make the case for murder 1, given there's plenty of opportunity in the space of 8 minutes to for a murderer to develop malice aforethought.
I don't know how they could be any clearer on this. George Floyd was a victim of police brutality. Protesting good. Rioting bad. The rioters are hijacking the protests. The peaceful protesters are not to blame for the actions of rioters who hijack their protests.
"Trump at the RNC made a clear self-interest argument to business owners: we won't tax or regulate or lock down your business, and we'll scare looters away with a big show of force. If Democrats had Bernie or similar as a candidate they'd be making a clear self-interest argument to working people: we'll give you free healthcare and free college education and a well-paying "green" job."
What if I don't want free college and a green job? What if I just want to own a hair salon or a restaurant or a convenience store or a used car dealership and not see it burned to the ground? Also, who's going to pay for all these freebies?
"Post-pandemic, they could have used the DNC to talk about Medicare for all or a national eviction moratorium or a federal aid program for small businesses hurt by the lockdowns."
Or the riots. You know. They could have talked about that. Instead, they pretended the riots weren't happening.
"Instead, their only argument is that Trump and his supporters are awful and crazy."
We can agree on that.
"How the hell does any of that help the average person? Trump's idea of using military to crush the riots is an economic argument: now they won't break your store windows and steal your stuff."
It's not just an economic argument. It's a safety argument. It's a peace argument. It's a freedom argument. You think the people in CHOP, you know, the residents and business owners who lived and operated there before it was taken over, were only concerned about money? You think they weren't lying awake at night listening to gunfire? You think they weren't worried about getting hit by a stray bullet? You think they weren't scared to leave their homes after dark?
Come on.
"BLM's idea to defund the police is an economic argument: now we can use that money on better schools, community centers, job training, arts funding etc."
Here in Canada, we've been embracing that moronic suggestion. My son just graduated this spring, and he heard on the radio they're getting rid of the resource officer at his high school this fall. He was like, "WTF? Everyone liked the constable. Even my dipshit friends who like to get in trouble got along with the constable."
The reason we have better schools where I am than almost anywhere (Edmonton Public School System) is because we have school choice. You know, a Trump proposition. Let the funding follow the student, and schools will have to work harder to attract students. I've lived in two shitty, low income neighborhoods here, and the schools in our catchment areas were excellent. Why? It isn't because they get extra money. It's because if they weren't, I could send my kids somewhere else.
Biden's campaign is a train wreck, but I'm sorry. I can't support the "Bernie/BLM" agenda you describe.
Hey Karen I've been enjoying reading your responses in this thread and appreciate that you are fired up about this subject. I may not agree with all your points, but you make it clear where you're coming from and I respect that. However, I winced at you referring to Universal Healthcare and free community college as "freebies", which made it all the more confusing when you revealed that you're from Canada??
I'm just trying to understand how someone who lives in a country that provides universal healthcare to their people by way of taxes can laugh off the notion of Americans wanting the same for our people as us "just wanting freebies". In fact, you being from Canada paints all your responses in a completely different light. You can't understand why young people in the US are angry? This wildly out-of-touch author advocating for looting aside, I guess it is easier to paint all the people protesting as a bunch of spoiled crybabies who don't know what hardship really is instead of acknowledging the stark differences in opportunities in the US vs opportunities in Canada, which I'm sure you, your husband, and your son and daughter benefit from and enjoy. There are so many I don't even know where to begin- from college being way more affordable, higher quality education, 9% of the population living below the poverty line compared to the US's 15%, a more stable banking system, paid maternity leave (which I'm sure you enjoyed when you had your son and daughter but sadly mothers here don't get that luxury, including my own mother), paid sick leave, lower obesity rate, better work-life balance, overall higher quality of life, and fucking HEALTHCARE. Canada reacted to the covid pandemic responsibly? Cool, our politicians turned it into a wedge issue for political gain, sent mixed messages to the people, now 190,000 of my fellow Americans are dead. You guys have sensible gun laws? That's nice; deaths from gun violence are 4 times higher in the US than in Canada. On average, around 1,000 people die here at the hands of police per year vs around 20 in Canada. I'm sorry you and your son were incensed at the friendly high school constable getting dismissed (could not help busting up laughing at this)- he should try going to high school here where we have metal detectors, armed security guards, and school shooter drills starting as early as elementary school, which totally aren't traumatizing our kids-just kidding, they are! Seriously, your family should move down here for a trial, though I can't guarantee you'll be allowed back into Canada with how abysmally we've handled covid-19 here.
I am in no way stating all this to defend the violence and destruction that has ignited from these protests. I went to some marches in the first few weeks after Floyd's death and saw the clear difference in people peacefully and loudly protesting to make their voices heard, and the opportunists who showed up to cause havoc and benefit from the looting that ensued. I saw protestors actively trying to stop people hijacking the message by blocking store entrances they were attempting to break into and sometimes physically shoving them away from the march because they wanted no association with them. The anger and condemnation towards the destructive looters is justified. But the anger felt by a good number of the people protesting is as well. America looks great on the surface, our prosperity measured ultimately through the GDP, and by your measure of whether our young people can afford iPhones or not. If so, we have nothing to complain about! But our system is broken and wrought with corruption, our police are over militarized, our government is apathetic, the wealth divide grows as opportunities shrink, and people are rightfully fed up.
As you said in a previous comment, it's not that there aren't problems, there will never not be problems. I'm sure Canada has its fair share of problems. But you talk like you know what it feels like to be an American right now, and I'm sorry, but you fucking don't. Our problems aren't the local Organic Planet running out of gluten-free pizza- it's losing our job and our health insurance all at once. It's suffering a major traumatic injury and insisting on taking a lyft to the hospital in fear of the price of an ambulance ride. It's over half of all Americans unable to put away enough money for even a $500 emergency and living paycheck to paycheck, barely hovering above the poverty line. It's our politicians and media pitting us against each other to distract us from how badly they're screwing us over. It's the horror of watching our people gunning each other down daily. It's our politicians addressing poverty and despair with more aggressive, militarized policing instead addressing the root causes of crime. It's people having to resort to sites like GoFundMe to help pay for hospital bills and funerals. Do you know what it feels like to be so worried about the prospect of drowning in medical debt that you avoid going to get treated for an illness or an injury? I shutter thinking of how many Americans have died this way even before the pandemic. Did you ever have to have a special talk with your son on how to behave around the police because doing the wrong thing could put his life at risk? This is the reality for countless parents in the US. Do you know what it feels like to watch other countries handle this pandemic responsibly and protect their citizens by providing social and economic safety nets, while the death toll in your country continues to skyrocket, millions lose their jobs along with their healthcare, and the threat of eviction looms over them? Do you know what it feels like to know your country doesn't give a fuck about you and certainly doesn't care if hundreds of thousands of its people die? Because let me tell you: it feels hollowing. You're choosing to focus on a vocal minority of privileged twitter warriors engaging in woke olympics, while disregarding the generational hopelessness Americans are living through right now.
On a final note, your own family's experiences are completely anecdotal and are not pillars of inarguable truth. While I'm delighted you treated us to a rose-colored view of your fiscally-responsible children's lives loading Walmart trucks and making waffles while still being able to save for the future, this is NOT the reality for this young generation of Americans. Your kids can go to college without worrying about being shackled with tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt when they leave, only to be met with an ever-shrinking job market and limited prospects. They can work minimum wage jobs while still afford the luxury of a decent place to live and nice consumer products. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere in the US, this is laughably unattainable here without having 100 roommates. I will absolutely agree with you that a lot of the more vocal participants in these protests are Extremely Online sheltered dipshits larping as socialists. But in painting all the protestors with this broad brush, you're actively ignoring the majority working class young and middle-aged Americans who are rightfully angry and taking to the streets to voice their frustration. You're ignoring the pain of parents who continue to watch their sons killed by the people who are supposed to protect us. You and I can both agree that no one deserves to have their business and livelihood destroyed by senseless violence and destruction. But with all due respect, don't act like you know what it's like to be an American right now while you and your family benefit from so many things we are actively denied, because you don't know.
Yes, someone who is for liberty, individual sovereignty, the rule of law, civil rights and low taxation would totally be against the Boston Tea Party.
Hey, you know a protest I could get behind? The lockdown protest in Lansing. All those guns, and no on got shot. The only person hurt was a protester unlawfully removed from the public gallery. Hell, all the armed "terrorists" submitted to security and temperature screening before entering the building.
A good cause, a good crowd. Kind of like the Boson Tea Party. They destroyed tea owned by a major multinational, left the ships undamaged, physically harmed no one and replaced the other property they destroyed. Some of their members tried to loot, and the others did not allow them to.
It was a focused act against a specific target and did not devolve into looting or violence.
But hey, did you hear about that body found in a burned pawn shop in Minneapolis? You know, because people are angry at the police? So they burned down a pawn shop? Probably after looting it? Because reasons?
By Dems not going full racist, you must not know anything about Joe Biden, or the Clinton's or Obama.
Dimentia Joe was the architect for the racist mass incarceration. But since the Orange Interior Decorator says openly what all his buddies do policy wise, ie the Clinton's, then he is the racist along with those bubbas. Surely not Obama and his cages, or drone strikes or deportations were racist policy. That was all Nobel Peace Prize, caring policy.
Go Biden and Harris, which if you hate Mnuchin, just remember Harris let him walk when he should have gone to prison. I'm sure it wasn't because he was white though.
I’m going to be totally honest, it’s the reason I’ve decided to not vote for Biden I’m 2020. I was previously committed to holding my nose, but now I’m content to watch the left self destruct. They’ve earned it.
Biden isn't "the left". The Democratic Party is now the Republican Party with civility. The neocons switched sides because they don't like Trump. So did the banks and corporate. The Democrats welcomed them (or rather their millions) with open arms. The DNC was a big show of power letting the country know they've crushed the progressives once again. They had Republicans openly ridiculing "the left" ffs.
A vote for Biden is as much a vote against "the left" as a vote for Trump, if not more if you think strategically and game out the next few election cycles.
Did Nancy and Chuck pass Trumps Budget? Did they give money to his wall? Did they vote for the Cares Act? If so you need to stop watching Rachel Maddow.
I blame the media for being blatant propaganda and also sensationalizing the news.
I’ve known for a long time that the news has been propaganda since they ALL decided for us that the Iraq War was a good thing. Yes, CNN, NY Times, LA Times, MCNBC, Fox, etc. they all rammed the Iraq War down our throats and told us we were patriots if we supported it and silently that we were NOT patriots if we didn’t support it. Ever since that moment I have read all angles of news that I can to make sure I could read between the lines. My favorite being financial news because they only cared about money and would often report the truth because of how they understood that their readers needed to know the truth to make better financial decisions.
What really bothers me is that people continue to trust the news today! And they will assume that their preferred news is the truth without remembering how every single outlet fucking lied to us.
Now what’s sad is I also got caught up in this when I found alternative media. It was all mostly left leaning for a long time and I thought they were the ones telling the truth. I’ve realized my mistake after watching more conservative alternative media news channels now too.
We can’t believe anything they say is true, especially from the major networks. I watched the Portland rioters attack the Federal Courthouse live for a week because I wanted to see for myself if what the news was saying was real. I watched the media lie over and over again the next day. I can’t believe how blatant it is. It disturbs me to no end how much the media is lying to people.
It was then that I realized that President Trump wasn’t over exaggerating about fake news. He was telling the truth. How many more lies have the media been saying about him?
I stopped watching any media coverage about actual events or data that I can watch/read for myself. I watch Trump’s speeches and press briefings myself. I do this so I can see what the headlines will say about him the next day and I can compare my own conclusions with the media’s. So far, the media has shown me that they are absolutely not to be trusted one bit.
I blame them for all of this. If the news just reported the truth we wouldn’t have two factions in America. The media has driven this divide.
Agreed. I spend so much time checking sources when news reports come out. I can't trust anyone. I'm experienced in validating sources but I shouldn't have to do so with mainstream media. An event or a quote or a Vote on a piece of legislation should be simply described factually, and I will then decide how I feel about it. I don't need the partisan, post complex flow chart analysis , take on these things. Just. The. Facts.
Great comment! I've been doing the same thing ... collecting information, watching video, reading first hand accounts from independent journalists, then reading what the liberal and conservative outlets have to say and it's astounding how much the liberal outlets lie, deny and obfuscate .
Like you I always thought it was the opposite. It disturbs me how much they're lying, but it disturbs me how many people believe it.
That’s ageism. Another tool of the media to further divide the people into segments. One of the things I really detest about ppl today is that they blame everyone else but themselves. I do agree that the Boomers have a lot of issues. It’s obvious by the state of things today. My biggest gripe about them is their lack of commitment to their responsibilities which is clearly shown by the Boomer divorce rate. However, the younger generations have only furthered this by completing deflecting all of their own responsibilities. I would watch students at UCLA in the early 2000s throw away plastic bottles in the trash instead of recycling them in the recycle bin 3 ft away. This lack of responsibility exists in ALL generations. The Boomers are not the only ones and they may have in fact passed on their horrible habits into subsequent generations.
When I say Boomers are the issue, i don't mean that the rest of us and our generations aren't fucked up. My parents and inlaws are boomers along with alot of people i know. The Boomer leadership in government are terrible and have been for 3 plus decades. The boomer commoners have been so brainwashed by their respective sides that they are all either stuck in the idyllic tv version of the 50's, the right wingers or the radical 60's, the left wingers. They are stuck and see the world through those lenses which is what shaped them. I have been tired of the 60's nostalgia and glamorization for about 25 years now. Much of the so called radical part was small and concentrated and then blown out of proportion by the media. The reality is the Boomer politicians with the most power have been linked with Nixon whether for or against for decades. It's the same group of clowns and crooks and warmongers on each side. Hillary was against nix but loves Henry Kissinger. Cheney and Rumsfield were part of Nixons staff and then continued on. The Boomers need to die for real change to happen. My generation and the rest are going to mess some shit up but I'm ready to move on. Finally, ageism along with all the other isms don't matter to me. That is lib name calling that has been weaponized and only matters to those who are trying to conform to the lib propaganda line. There is a great old saying that I would agree with now as an adult. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me. That was garbage as a child but as an adult is there for the mature.
The 'left' as in centrists, then right on. The "left" as in anarchists, socialists, communists, progressives, not all will be voting for Biden, and in some of those populations (e.g. anarchists), I doubt you would see above 5% of those folks voting for Biden.
If any major group of us self destructs the rest of us will go with them. I would have thought that would be obvious. Voting for Trump -- or in this case, not voting for Biden in order to get rid of Trump -- is an act of cowardice in the face of a big-time criminal.
Lol and voting for Sleepy Joe "Credit Card Industry" Biden, and Kamala "the Cop" Harris is an act of bravery and heroism? Get real dude. You sound just like the NYTimes - a lot of anger and condescension to hide the well justified fear that your narrow little view of the world is no longer popular in this country.
I wanted Bernie, of course, but voting for Biden is now absolutely necessary to get rid of Trump. But don't trust me, ask any ethical Republican, say David Frum or Jennifer Rubin or... I can't even remember their names. There are dozens, probably hundreds of them. Actually if you don't know all that you have not been paying attention.
By criminal, you mean the guy that literally grabbed a woman by the pussy? You mean the guy that was called the Senator from MBNA? You mean the guy that passed the 95 crime bill? That guy? Or the failed Casino turd?
I haven't read anything about Biden's exploits in the pussy department, but the other things you wrote are true. And yes, horrible. I wanted Bernie, not Biden. But Trump scares me badly and I want him out of office. Maybe I'm eventually going to hell for supporting Biden, but right now I feel the real-world flames already playing around my feet and I want Trump out. For the record I hate MBNA and every crime bill.
You think there is nothing to fear from Trump? Now that is interesting. Please tell me why. (I am not arguing about any of this now, I'd just like to know what you mean.)
Do you think the AOC branch will split off and form another party before or after the election? That's why the Dems have been doing everything in their power to avoid mentioning the riots.
If they acknowledge the riots are happening, low information Dem voters will realize, "oh shit, there ARE riots. I thought it was mostly peaceful protests." And acknowledging them necessitates condemning them.
But by condemning the riots they piss off the radicals.
So they were stuck in a loop of 90+ days of not addressing them in any way other than as "peaceful protests". The typical low information Dem voter would be like, "look at all these peaceful protests! CNN tells me they're noble and righteous!" and the radicals would be, "yay! We keep our license to smash and burn things!"
The longer they waited, the worse acknowledging it would be, and they knew that. But I think they were hoping the riots would peter out on their own and they'd never have to address it.
An abundance of irrefutable evidence, much of it overwhelming in quality, that our way of life faces an existential threat from the forces you noted yourself and Donald Trump is all that’s standing between these fascistic movements and our way of life.
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and what remains of the Democratic establishment - if anything, are powerless to stop these forces of anarchy and destruction.
Vote for the re-election of President Trump in November 3rd.
His violations of the emoluments clause of the constitution. It's a newer strategy of theft the others before him refused to partake in to this extent.
Okay, you claim he's violated the emoluments clause. That would be impeachable, no?
There were calls for his impeachment since before he was even elected. You'd think if he violated the emoluments clause, it would be open and shut.
He has a team of lawyers and accountants to ensure he's never in violation. For example, if a foreign dignitary stays at one of his hotels, every penny from that is forwarded to the Treasury. He earns nothing on the room, and he's out of pocket for the paperwork.
Meanwhile, even liberal fact-checking websites have confirmed he donates his $400k yearly salary back into the Treasury.
I recall a bunch of idiots getting up in arms because he was "enriching" himself through stocks he owned in a company that makes hydroxychloroquine. Even liberal fact-checking websites had to admit that owning a couple of mutual funds, managed in a blind trust, that contain $2500-$5000 in said stock isn't going to enrich anyone, particularly since HCQ is a cheap generic, unlikely to double the value of the company, but which, even if it did, would only net him up to $5000 in profits.
The Democrats have been so far up his ass with a Hubble Telescope for years, one would think you'd have found SOME violation by now.
Dude, stop sniffing the Orange ones jock. Your as bad as the people your answering. He's obviously profiting off of his presidency. The reason they didn't impeach for anything other than a weak ass reason is because all of the congress clowns are criminals and doing the same thing.
Just because he's not being impeached for something does not mean he isn't guilty. How do you come up with this goofy reasoning ? Both parties are complicit in war crimes and fraud. Do you think exposing that evidence might have something to do with it ?
He is stealing from every taxpayer in this country every single day. How can you not know that? Trump sends diplomats to his hotels. He helps Ivanka make deal overseas. He will not release his tax returns. He did not put his holdings into a trust, and he advances his own interests by practically every decision he makes. He is profiting massively from being president.
"He is stealing from every taxpayer in this country every single day."
That's a grand claim with little detail. Is this one of those, "we pay him to do a job, and I personally don't like how he performs that job" things? Because that would be a subjective claim even if it weren't objectively, factually incorrect (as I will explain below).
"Trump sends diplomats to his hotels."
So? He also sends every penny from that to the Treasury. Honestly, if one can even consider a foreign dignitary paying the going rate for a luxury hotel room a "gift", Trump earns nothing from it. He's actually out of pocket, because he has to pay lawyers and accountants to do the paperwork and transfer the money to the Treasury.
"He helps Ivanka make deal overseas."
Okay. How does this amount to Trump receiving a "gift" from a foreign king, prince or state? Is this kind of like Joe helping his son Hunter, who admitted he'd never have been hired by Burisma if his last name wasn't Biden? Unless Burisma is state-owned, even that is not a violation of the emoluments clause.
"He will not release his tax returns."
So? There's no law that says he has to.
"He did not put his holdings into a trust,"
Not illegal, and doing so does not prevent ethical violations. It only provides plausible deniability.
And how is this, in itself, a violation of the emoluments clause?
"and he advances his own interests by practically every decision he makes."
Like his decision to donate his $400k/year salary back to the Treasury? I wonder if he pays income tax on it before he puts that $400k check in the mail?
"He is profiting massively from being president."
You've given one example of how a family member might be benefitting from her association with him. But you haven't demonstrated how this is a violation of the emoluments clause. If it is, Biden is equally (or more) guilty of it, since Ivanka had a successful business before her daddy became an elected official. Hunter Biden? He's been living off of political nepotism since his daddy was a Senator.
I will never claim that Biden or Hunter is clean, because I have no idea. Hunter probably has been living off nepotism, and that is a fair point. What I do know is that Trump is deeply destructive to this nation. Your reams of arguments cannot hide obvious reality. And if you think it is ok for a family member to profit, you are not getting the point of the Constitution. You are sure making a lot of excuses and apologia for Trump's larceny. You can't really be serious, or you can't really be that badly deceived. You know how to write, so you are well educated. I just cannot think you are that delusional to believe the junk you are writing. What is your background?
Uh, are you new to America or just illiterate? Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. Any of those criminals ring a bell? I mean Obama was super wealthy when he was a Senator right? Bush the Dead, was running drugs into the US and selling arms to Iran and guns to Nicaragua. No not as bad as the Motel guy.
Uh, are you totally ignorant of Trumps war crimes ? Of the fraud he and Mnuchin are currently committing ? You know, the same fraud Obomber and the gang are guilty of ? Do pay attention when the Dems approve his "defense" budget and fast track his (not so) Supreme court appointments ?
So Biden/Harris are “powerless” to stop these “forces of anarchy and destruction” (whatever that means), but trump is capable of stopping it? How come he hasn’t yet? Also, what’s “our way of life”? How exactly is “your way of life” being threatened by either Biden/Harris or these “forces of anarchy”?
He could stop it in an instant if he invoked the Insurrection Act. That would allow him to override the wishes of governors and mayors, and put federal troops and LEOs on the ground. More than this, federal forces would be in charge, and state and local law enforcement would be subordinate to them.
But instead, he's offered federal assistance if requested. This means the state and local governments need to consent, and federal personnel are subordinate to state and local authority. He did that in Minneapolis and Kenosha, and what have we seen? Ooh, was it an end to the riots there? Why yes, I think it was.
The Democrats are not powerless to stop the riots. They just don't want to.
Every city with this problem is a Democrat city that refuses to call in the National Guard or accept federal help, and who orders their local and state police to stand down.
Okay, fine, I’ll bite. 1. I’m what people would consider “working-class” or “blue collar” or, more accurately, “poor.” My girlfriend has a real job and she supports us. I can’t get hired anywhere and haven’t had a job in three years. I do have Sprouts-brand organic Dijon mustard in the fridge, though. So I’m pretty fucking elitist, by your definition, anyway. And I live in California, too, which I guess automatically makes me a part of the Elitist Class on The Coast or whatever. Anyway...... More importantly, 2. If invoking the Insurrection Act would instantly stop protests/rioting etc, why hasn’t fat Donald invoked it yet?
Of course I’m serious. Aren’t you? My opinions are based in fact and supported by tons of evidence. Democrats cannot be trusted based on their behavior before, during, and after Trump’s election. Democrats with the help of like-minded members of the permanent federal bureaucracy and media undermined and obstructed the transition and the administration. How can you defend your support for a party that spied on their political opponents? How can you defend your support of a party that encourages, enables, and celebrates violent riots across the country? How can you defend your support for Joe Biden who’s had 5 decades to solve problems but only managed to enrich himself and his family? Donald Trump has been in office for a short period of time and has managed to keep all of his 2016 campaign promises. Don’t pity me. Save your piggy for our freedom, prosperity, and security should your party manage to steal this election.
Dude, he hasn't kept all his promises. Stop with the Fox News talking points. Are we out of Afghanistan? Did he repeal and replace Obamacare? Is his beautiful wall built? Or did he just give billionaires the largest tax break in history?
1.) I know of no evidence to suggest that democrats "with the help of like-minded members of the permanent federal bureaucracy and media undermined and obstructed the transition and the administration." I am open to any evidence you might be able to provide.
2.) I have no evidence that Democrats spied on their political opponents. Again, I am open to any evidence you might be able to provide.
3.) I know of no Democrat who "celebrates violent riots across the country". Evidence needed again.
4.)You wrote that Joe Biden "had 5 decades to solve problems but only managed to enrich himself and his family?" What are (some of) the particular problems Joe might have helped solve? That's important. You may very well be right about certain unsolved problems that he did not solve, or at least try to solve, but without more specificity I can't respond.
5.) You wrote, "Donald Trump has been in office for a short period of time and has managed to keep all of his 2016 campaign promises."
Trump fulfilled some campaign promises, had partial fulfillment of others, and no fulfillment of some.
"1.) I know of no evidence to suggest that democrats "with the help of like-minded members of the permanent federal bureaucracy and media undermined and obstructed the transition and the administration." I am open to any evidence you might be able to provide."
You really haven't been paying attention.
So back in September of 2016, an allegation was published in Yahoo News alleging that Trump campaign advisor Carter Page was in cahoots with the Russians. There was already an investigation (Crossfire Hurricane) open into possible shenanigans between members of Team Trump and Russian intelligent agents (IOs). General Flynn was also a person of interest, since he was working as a foreign lobbyist and had attended a gala dinner where Putin was a guest (and was seated next to Putin).
There are differences of opinion as to whether Crossfire Hurricane was sufficiently predicated, but the investigation as such mostly involved boring things like looking into publicly available information.
Meanwhile, the DNC and the Clinton Campaign had hired a company called Fusion GPS to put together some opposition research on Trump. Fusion GPS reached out to a British ex-spy, Christopher Steele, to contact his connections in Russia to see if they had any damning information on Trump. He leaned on a friend and Russian ex-pat who worked for liberal DC Think Tank the Brookings Institution to do the legwork.
Anyway, Carter Page read the Yahoo News article and immediately quit the Trump Campaign. Within 2 days, he had written a direct letter to James Comey denying the allegations and informing Comey that he had a decades-long history of interactions with American intelligence agencies, including the FBI and CIA. He asked the FBI to call him so they could clear the matter up.
The FBI did not contact page for 5 months. What they DID do was try to get a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Warrant against Page.
Another thing they didn't do (something that would be standard operating procedure even without Page's letter) was look through their files to see if they already had any information on Page. Or maybe they did, and just pretended they didn't. Because those files would have indicated Page had assisted the FBI and DoJ investigate and prosecute Russian bad guys by acting as a confidential informant for them.
Pretty sure SOP would have also involved contacting the CIA to see what his interactions with them were (again, confidential informant).
Despite them not including any of this exculpatory information in their FISA warrant application, what they had did not meet the extremely low bar for probable cause to be granted a warrant to surveil an American citizen.
Enter Fusion GPS and the oppo research bought and paid for by Clinton and the DNC. This was the infamous "Steele Dossier". It included many salacious claims about Trump (including the assertion that he'd hired hookers to pee on a Russian hotel bed Obama had once slept in). None of the information was verified, but they characterized it as reliable and stuck it in their next warrant application (late October) against Page. That put the application over the legal hurdle.
Now you might say, "well, Page wasn't even working for the Trump Campaign at that point, so there!"
Except that FISA warrants do 2 things:
1) it gives the FBI the right to go back 6 months to surveil the subject's communications (during which Page WAS working for the Campaign)
2) it gives the FBI the right to surveil the subject, the subject's contacts, and the subjects' contacts' contacts.
So basically, any friend of a friend of Page's during the 5-ish months when he was working for the campaign was fair game for the FBI to surveil.
Which would have been fair and above board, except they illegally excluded exculpatory information on Page, that they already had in their possession, from their warrant application, and they marked the dossier as "verified" when it had not been verified.
By early January, even with their license to surveil Flynn's communications, the case agents had determined there was "no derogatory information" on Flynn and wrote up paperwork removing him from the investigation.
Peter Strzok, the lead agent on the case, told them the "7th floor" (FBI leadership) wanted them to keep Flynn open. The next day, Strzok and Comey met in the Oval Office with Obama, Biden and a few others (Susan Rice, Sally Yates, etc) to discuss Flynn. They had transcripts of calls Flynn had made, as incoming national security advisor to the president elect, with a Russian diplomat called Kislyak.
Comey told Obama the calls were "legit".
Biden suggested they try to prosecute Flynn on a Logan Act violation (a law that most legal scholars believe is unconstitutional, and wouldn't apply here anyway).
Obama told Comey to keep Flynn open and "put the right people on it."
Shortly after the transition, Comey had Deputy Director McCabe call Flynn and set up a briefing. Flynn asked if he was under investigation and whether he needed counsel present. "No no, this isn't an interview, you're not under investigation, it's a briefing. You can HAVE counsel present, but if you want that then I need to bump this up to the DoJ and it's all kinds of red tape."
Comey bragged on camera that he literally circumvented standard procedure to send agents in under false premises to interview Flynn (who was still under surveillance, mind you). Strzok and an agent named Pientka go and interview Flynn about the contents of his calls with Kislyak.
Flynn immediately tells them he knows they have word for word transcripts of the calls. The agents do not advise him of rule 1001 (which is arguably illegal), because that might tip him off that this wasn't just a briefing.
Anyway, they talk to him and report back that Flynn was truthful and candid. Comey wasn't happy with that, so the 302 summary of the interview (a document based on notes and memory, mandated to be completed by the interviewing agents within 5 days) was passed back and forth between Strzok and his girlfriend Lisa Page for a whopping 22 days before if you squinted just right you could argue Flynn might have lied to the FBI.
The lie is the equivalent of the difference between wording, "I didn't tell them to do nothing," as "I didn't tell them not to do anything." You can argue that if he told them go ahead and do X but and not to do Y, wording things the second way is a lie. Kind of. Depending on how you read the sentence.
This is what Flynn was arrested for.
Around this same time, case agents with the FBI went and talked to the Brookings Institution guy, from whom 90% of the claims in the dossier were sourced by Steele. He told them half of what was in the dossier was exaggerated, and the other half was rumor, speculation and things said "in jest" over beers--and that some of it might have been Russian disinformation.
The FBI, knowing this, went ahead and used the dossier to get another warrant renewal. Even worse, FBI senior lawyer Kevin Clinesmith took an email from the CIA that confirmed Page was a confidential informant for them, and altered it. He added the word "not". As in, "Carter Page is not a confidential informant for us."
Now remember, this warrant gave them the right to surveil every friend of a friend of Page dating back to May 2016.
I would argue the warrant was illegal to begin with, since there is a legal requirement to include exculpatory information, and the FBI had lots of that in their own files but included none of it, and because the dossier was described to the court as "verified" when it was not.
So yes, illegally spying on the Trump Campaign (and transition and into the administration). With the assistance of the DNC and Clinton with the dossier that contained a bunch of nothing verifiable, and at the insistence of Barack Obama.
Every single thing I've said here is verified by documents, most of them FBI documents that have been declassified over the last few months.
And what I've described here isn't the end of it. When it came to the FBI's attention that Senator Feinstein's driver might be a foreign agent, the FBI warned her so she could fire him and take whatever action necessary to protect national security (like change her passwords, review conversations had in his presence, etc). When it came to the FBI's attention that someone in Trump's campaign might be a foreign agent, they didn't warn him. They used it as a pretext to obtain an illegal warrant to spy on him deep into his administration.
That you have zero knowledge about the evidence backing this tells me you are watching news media for whom these facts are inconvenient.
I admit that the level of detail you are discussing, perhaps brought out during Senate hearings or similar investigations, is not part of my news diet.
After the JFK assassination, for several months I interested myself in details of his shooting, the rifle, the alleged killer Oswald, and the actual killer of the alleged killer (that second shooting having happened on live TV), Jack Ruby. It turned out that there were many books and documents continually appearing in that time period, which argued a wide variety of theories about what really happened on Nov 23 and 24, 1963. I read a few of them and then gave up. It appeared that there was no way I could ever tell fact from rumor or fiction by reading those materials.
The "establishment" story, as related by the Warren Commission, was that Oswald acted alone and there was no conspiracy. Years later, a number of researchers made long and detailed retrospective studies of the evidence and the report. My recollection is that they all concluded the Warren Commission had been correct and that Oswald was the sole killer and Jack Ruby was just a man with some serious psychological problems (something to that effect, I think).
Today I remain very skeptical that those theories are correct (lone gunman Oswald and crazy Jack Ruby armed with a handgun). But that was a long time ago, and I have no feasible way of learning anything more. I remain skeptical and unsatisfied.
As a result of those prior experiences, I must confess that the collection of disputed stories and facts about Carter Page, Kevin Clinesmith, Dianne Feinstein's driver, Sally Yates, Crossfire Hurricane, Christopher Steele, Strzok and many others are not part of the materials I now think are useful for me to study at the present and likely not ever. My reasons are that the material is voluminous and would require a lot of time to read, and that my past efforts to investigate such matters have not proved very useful in subsequent decision making.
I have to content myself with information relayed by people such as yourself who decide to dig into many layers of information, as well as ordinary news articles and opinion pieces written by a diverse range of thinkers.
"3.) I know of no Democrat who "celebrates violent riots across the country". Evidence needed again."
Kamala Harris, on June 17, told Stephen Colbert that the protests would not stop and should not stop. She made no clear distinction that she was only talking about peaceful protests, nor did she call out the violence.
This is important because the protests had already been regularly devolving into rioting, arson and violence for more than 2 weeks.
So why wouldn't she make that distinction? How hard is it to say, "the protests should continue, the protesters should keep the pressure on, but the looting and rioting needs to stop"?
How is it a leap to interpret her comments as meaning, "what's going on now needs to continue"?
In fact, she did not come out and make any distinction between the protests and riots, or condemn the riots, until after Trump's RNC acceptance speech where he called her out for not yet having done so.
Kamala Harris said seven times in that interview that they were not going to stop. I had the impression she couldn't think of anything else to say about them. Same thing when Colbert asked her about her attack on Biden during the debate. "It was a debate!" Six or seven times.
Please tell us how you know what she's thinking Karen ? How did you prove anything by insinuating what she meant ? You're a very bad lawyer if think slander will prove anything in court.
Conflating someones statement in order to imply what they meant is just plain dishonest.
You're not very good at proving anything but your own bias and contempt.
Dude, sixty million people voted for trump. You think they’re the only stupid people in this country? There’s just as many dumb-ass “liberals” as there are right-wingers.
Bernie would have won in 2016 if Hillary wasn't a pile of garbage and the Democracts didn't cheat. He would be sailing into his 2nd term and we would think about politics...
Na, Bernie is a huge fraud and is being treated like the gimp he is by the Dems. If he had any integrity or actual belief in what he was saying he would've done to the Dems what Trump did to the Reps.
Yep. I’m annoyed with myself for voting for him in the primaries. I should have voted for Tulsi like I wanted to. She’s not perfect but you can tell she was the real deal since the Dems have iced her out of the party.
So taking all of those $5,$10,$20 donations, knowing he was going to do whatever the Dems told him to do, wasnt fraudulent? He knew he wasn't going to win and he wasnt going to burn down the Dem party because he wanted a cushy job till he retires. He is a fraud, like Trump is to working class people. Liars, both of them. Which is why it is hilarious to watch the Dems humiliate him. Just Desserts.
But it's not as stupid as it looks now. Over time, the Left has been winning. When the Right wins an election, it fulfills the Left's program, only more slowly and partially.
Until the Right rejects the Lefts moral principles, it will continue to lose.
History is full of useful idiots reacting to false flags events and covert actions. If you don't like US foreign policy here in America how do you think everyone else around the globe likes it ?
Before I deactivated my Facebook my very white and fairly wealthy friends were posting about why people cared more about property than people. I found that an odd virtue signal to make - considering both of them lived in pretty nice houses in really nice areas of Los Angeles. I wondered, how would they feel if their houses burned down after a shooting? Sure, they had insurance but what about what they would lose, their memories, their photographs (they're that old), paintings, furniture - what then? Are we not to feel for them? Would they feel too guilty to be angry or sad? I watched the old man in Kenosha take up a fire extinguisher as a weapon to protect his friend Sue's 100 year old mattress store. He was knocked unconscious and the store burned to the ground. I understand people supporting the protests, maybe even understanding why they would destroy a whole town and then threaten to do the same thing again. But I don't understand not feeling compassion for that old guy and his friend Sue. We have become systems of dehumanization. And weirdly, that's sort of where we were back in the late 60s and early 70s - and why when Charles Manson's family slaughtered rich "piggies" he was applauded for doing so by the Weathermen. Nixon took full advantage of it for the exact same reasons. The only difference between then and now are two things.
1) We did not yet have a completely muzzled and castrated left press that simply will not tell the truth about anything if it puts their jobs or their status in jeopardy - this is true all the way from The Atlantic to CNN.
2) The generation that read Steal This Book and their counter culture revolution blew open convention, censorship, artistic oppression, a stifling utopian vision of white American life in the 1950s - and spit it back out as free love, women's lib, black power - acid rock, rock n' roll, Woodstock. It was the era that produced the best American films ever made. Art, like information or anything else, wants to be free. Now Gen Z is exploding out of that generation and their counter culture movement seems to be to zip everything back up, purify films, books and ideas and thoughts into convention, to divide people up by race and force them to take a side against each other. You can't sympathize with the old man with a fire extinguisher because he's white and if you do that you are a racist who doesn't care about the murder of Jacob Blake.
What is cool, though, is that there are still free and courageous minds like yours, and a medium like this where they can be posted and read and shared. Your Substack is, I might offer, a Steal This Book of its own kind.
I think that you make a compelling argument here about "radicals" now/"radicals" then, the efficacy of riots and arson, generational differences, etc. A few points:
1. A lot of the most mainstream members of the democratic voting bloc have gone from being scared of sharing their opinions online to internalizing a lot of these phony radical talking points. I know some upper middle class, brunch-friendly dems who will gladly tell you they're supporting whatever "revolution" this is that's happening right now. The book Taibbi discusses here is a bestseller now, and I'm sure a lot of mainstream dems will read and agree with it, all the while enjoying a very expensive bottle of their favorite spirit.
2. The millennials made some great art, and continued some of the countercultural movements from previous generations. I now see a lot them apologizing from some perceived transgressions during all of the "the reckonings" of the past 5-6 years. The zoomers are inheriting some broken pieces to work with.
3. Jacob Blake is not dead! That's an important distinction, I think. I also think the circumstances between the horrific killing of George Floyd and what happened to Jacob Blake are radically different. What happened to Jacob Blake was brutal and a tragedy, but I think the forced correlation of the two events is not helpful to this moment. (Apple went as far to compare Blake to Emmett Till, which is sick really.)
And to the commenter directly below: I think it's important to keep a clear distinction between peaceful protestors and arsonists/looters/brawlers, and we've - on cue - seen right wing sources conflating them. What's worse, and I think what Mr. Taibbi is getting to in this piece, is that "establisment/democrat" media is not making the necessary distinctions between these movements, and conflating them themselves, while even advocating for street violence. (I'm old enough to remember when the mainstream media thought that hip-hop anthems "Fuck the Police" and "Cop Killer" were going to destroy all of humanity. Now, Apple played "Fuck the Police" on a continuous loop on their radio stations for 24 hours! And in the background, they became the first American company worth $2 trillion! What the hell is happening here?)
Catabolic capitalism. Any major social movement becomes the focus of massive advertising, it is turned into a brand.
So "loot culture" is now a brand, and you can't attack the brand because corporations are busy selling things to that brand. Any attack will be met with some online person discussing how this attack on the brand is bigoted and puts lives at risk.
Vigilantism is also being promoted to a brand, complete with logos and stickers and political support and marketing campaigns. Again, any discussion of the dangers of promoting vigilantism will result in strenuous defense by the people and companies that benefit from those brands.
Our civilization is being actively destroyed by branding.
It certainly appears that way. It's been really wild to see the mayors of Portland and Chicago in full support of "the movement" - even though the movement is in united in their condemnation of them - decide to outlaw certain protests, or even move, when the protests come to their neighborhood.
We're starting to see some of these market forces turn their back on the rioting/looting/murderous aspects of "the movement" now that some of the polling looks bad for Biden, but it's scattershot and some people haven't got the new memo. Seeing Trump go on Fox and ramble about shadowy back-room phantoms on an airplane, followed by Biden going into Kenosha and acting as if the awful staff of Jezebel just gave him a quick social justice primer, and fumbling that primer badly, rambling about the inventor of the lightbulb and re-education in high schools is not helping anyone. Really universe, are these our choices?
I fully believe, if Trump wins this thing, it's going to be primarily because the wild dissonance surrounding the events of Kenosha. Anyone who possesses a still-functional brain is seeing things very differently than any of the prevailing narratives. It's like were watching a never-ending Netflix adaptation of "Rashomon," as re-envisioned by Michael Avenatti and Robin DiAngelo, and it's god-awful, but all of the critics are raving about it anyway.
And saying "people are poor and desperate and losing hope in the system" indicates support for giving basic services and material support to American citizens in the middle of a pandemic and depression, which would piss off the donors (now's a great time to cut wages and benefits and charge as much as possible for treatments! This is an economy, not a "society"!).
So instead, it has to be reframed as a racial, social justice, woke thing, and that brand does not have bad actors, so all these desperate actions must be excused as moral by the elitists who ultimately are among the same group of well-off people who feel THEY should sacrifice nothing. So elite white radio hosts are reading elite white books telling poor business owners that they should suck it up.
The INSTANT these riots and looting start knocking down gates in elite neoliberal enclaves in CA and NY, they'll be calling for them to end, probably blaming Russia for seizing control of the movement.
Social Justice is a subset of Neoliberalism. Real social justice won't come from those clowns.
Interesting when corporations profit during a pandemic! (If/when they do- I haven't checked). Or turn Twitter outrage into free advertising. Or say "we're not running ads here" and get tons and tons of coverage. (Coke).
That's it! You too can purchase the experience-- (since the genuine act is disallowed).
All the critical theory stuff-- Baudrillard, Debord , Situationists etc. applies even more today. It's like a prediction/idea when the works were penned. Today they're reality-- but I suppose we've moved on/they seem to have never even escaped academic consideration to seep into the total culture, sadly.
Now we're fighting sides instead of recognizing that both parties are playing the corporatist game and sucking us all dry. I'd love to see people quit the sectarianism and get after the creators of wealth inequality-- right and left!
All the people I've ever met who claim they care more about people than property were obsessed with the fact that some people had more property than they. And they were all extremely eager to control other people's property. So I call horseshit.
Agreed. But the problem is the press is simply too muzzled to draw the distinction. For instance, no one knows who the guy was that hit that man in the head. No one knows who he was because no one cares because no one is properly covering the story.
That may or may not be true. I imagine some of the people who protest also looted. This is the kind of false distinction also used on the right, "the beefy white militia dudes are peacefully advocating for the police, with no overlap with the guys ramming their trucks into crowds or the random lone shooter."
We really need to knock it off with portraying everyone who agrees with us politically being some kind of saint who is totally above any wrongdoing (BLM! BIDEN2020!!). These protesters are out there because they are hurting and angry, AND they are poor and downtrodden and, being human, prone to violence when provoked.
That's right. I agree - I'd be more inclined to argue support of looting in terms of the bizarre culture dynamic of the Kardashians and their billions selling that lifestyle to people who can never get there. If status is the American dream, status is then defined by wealth which is defined by material goods, etc. It isn't "their stealing bread" so much as they are perhaps trying to level the score. But the white millennials or Gen Z (I know a few, am related to a few) who are doing this for purely ideological reasons, their borrowed rage from actually oppressed people, is what reminds me of the 1960s.
I kind of think about protest and civil unrest and looting and mob actions in general as a symptom rather than a choice. If society pisses off or impoverishes enough people, they wind up in the street. If their concerns aren't addressed, they stay there. If they stay there long enough, violence and looting will happen. If people are mad and desperate enough, the looting will be severe. This is a government problem, not an individual morality issue.
I look at these rioters, and they tend to fall into a few categories:
1) Poor people (most of whom I suspect are not unsheltered homeless).
2) Convicted criminals with rap sheets filled with violent felonies unrelated to political causes. You know, like child rape and domestic violence.
3) Middle class (often white) kids who went to college and live in the suburbs.
And please don't tell me I don't understand what it's like to be poor. My ex and I raised 3 kids and 2 stepsons while living well below the poverty line for 16 years. Neither of us felt we were owed a good living just because we existed, or because other people had more, and we taught our kids the same.
The people I know who support the protests and the riots? An engineer who works for a major oil company and earns $150k/year. A man who developed a technology that earned him millions, and who now teaches at a prestigious university. A woman with a masters in social whose government job is so cushy she can spend half her work day posting on facebook. Oh, and Target. And McDonalds. And Facebook. And Twitter. And Amazon. And nearly every other multi-billion dollar multinational corporation in existence.
You know who doesn't support them? Me, a former waitress with a high school diploma. My husband's mom, who's worked as a prison guard her entire working life. My husband, who was raised in a shit neighborhood where you could get rolled for your shoes walking home from school. My dad, a retired mechanic who once lived with 4 other guys in a one room apartment with a hotplate, and my mom, a retired bookkeeper who grew up without an indoor toilet. My son who's a dishwasher. My daughter who unloads trucks at Walmart.
Gee. I'm sensing a pattern here. And that pattern is that this isn't an issue of poor people having had enough. In fact, it seems like the people most in support of this (at least in my experience) are in well-paying, stable jobs, or are wealthy corporations.
If that were true, the protesters would have suppressed the rioters. Supposedly, the rioters are a small minority, and the protesters could easily grab them, turn them in to the cops, and testify against them.
But that doesn't happen. And it doesn't happen because the protesters like the looting and burning, and frequently take part in it themselves. And the public knows this. Your snow job will not work.
I actually saw an instance where that happened. A black bloc type was using a pick-axe to chip a sidewalk and curb into throwable chunks. Peaceful protesters grabbed him, and delivered him into the arms of police, yelling, "take his ass!"
Exactly. All the peaceful protesters should come out against the violence wholeheartedly, and then vacate protests as soon as they turn violent. They are not doing that, so how in the world are we supposed to tell the difference? That's like going to a Phish show and being like, don't lump me in with all these Phish-heads, man!
They can't come out against the violence on the scene anymore. Remember that glorious woman with the braids who berated the rioters who were wrecking her neighborhood? And the African immigrant woman in DC who shouted, "I'm not oppressed! I'm free!", called BLM a joke, and told them to go to Chicago and do something about all the black on black violence there if they care so much about black lives?
I don't even think it's safe to do that in the middle of the day anymore.
BLM and antifa have learned that they can do violence, unprovoked, in front of police and news cameras, and face no consequences.
But the peaceful protesters (if they exist) need to start using their fucking brains. If there's a curfew, leave for home well before it. If it's dark, you have no business being out and about with a placard. If things start getting violent, just get the fuck out of there. Stop providing these thugs with cover.
The Wall of Moms and the Dads with Leaf Blowers can suck a hill of dicks. All they're doing is enabling violence and lawlessness.
I suppose the irony here, as Matt points out, is the generation that wants to bring American society crashing down is the generation that, by most accounts, can't change a tire or feed themselves without an app or a delivery service. The same generation that would probably acquiesce to having their phones sewn to their heads if that was the only way they could avoid giving up that little addiction. (Qualifier: I'm a 58 year old man with a flip phone. I refuse to join the smartphone cult. Y'all are creepy. One day, a few years back, I was sitting with my teenage son & daughter at a mall food court. My daughter said, "Poppy, look..." I turned around & the entire food court was staring at their phones. It didn't matter how many people were at each table, they were all staring at their phones & no one was talking. I thought, "Shit, the pod people have won." If this offends, oh well...)
I also love the added rip on heterosexuals. Do trans women not realize that, no matter how elaborate their woman costume is, they don't have a womb. If all women were trans women the human species would die out in a generation. For all of its faddish cache these days trans folk are an evolutionary & species dead end.
I happened to mention this book to a female coworker when I came in this morning and she said she had to read it for her college class. Fucking hilarious. Kids going into debt peonage so they can read this tripe and, no doubt, make the author a pretty penny. I wonder how she'd feel if her new found wealth was looted?
Your student friend should steal the book's content. Not from a bookstore, because the author would still get paid. But with a little ingenuity e-copies can be stolen.
After I realized you are the original poster, not someone coming to defend your post. I'd edit if I could but I'm reposting here instead for ya:
"lol lighten up. There's no ageism here, I'm only acknowledging that this corny story that *definitely happened* /s required no explanation that you are a 58 year old man with a flip phone because only 58 year old men with flip phones tell these stories.
Also, if you wanna get into ageism, ask yourself why you make sweeping generalizations about younger generations seeing as your grown children, that you raised, allegedly can't change a tire or feed themselves without an app or delivery service (unless of course you were the only parent out there up to the job of raising a proper child)? That kind of thinking is beyond parody and absolutely the root of the equally corny "OK Boomer" sentiment. I guess, though, at 58 that puts you at the very tail end of that generation."
I keep thinking that if the simulation hypothesis is true, then we’re all in a simulation created by comedians. Makes sense considering the sense of humor of the universe sometimes lol.
Pity she didn't have access to history books or more than a single anthropological antidote. She damns civilization flat out without considering the consequences -- every person or family will fight over the last edible animal, and every item, once liberated, will again be subject to seizure. She apparently does not consider the layers of cooperation that lead to farming and grocery stores, manufacturing and shoes, governing bodies and paved streets or innovations of any kind.
This sounds like pre-Marxist (very pre-Marxist) reductionism, the sort of thing that even a thoughtful five-year-old would reject out of hand. And yet it's been taken up by a publisher and theoretically serious news organizations.
This is hilarious! I laughed out loud several times. Talk about a generation suffering from arrested development. The snowflakes are alive and well, and coming to take your shit just cuz. The audacity, narcissism, and utter arrogance of a generation of people who think they're suffering more than anyone else ever has is beyond the pale. The cries of "just look at what you've done to us...given us a planet that's dying, doomed us to low-paying jobs, no universal healthcare....." and their disgust for "white privilege" as though all those complaints about their hardships don't smack of just that. Whiners. Read some history people -- you aren't the first and won't be the last generation to face epic problems. And shame on their parents' generation for creating these monsters because they gave their offspring no coping skills for when times get tough and now we all have to suffer for it. The "everybody hits, everybody wins," generation appropriately throws themselves on the floor and kicks and screams like petulant children when it doesn't go their way because that's what you get when people think it's better to be your kid's friend than to step up and do the hard thing and actually parent and set appropriate boundaries. And teach kids that sometimes life isn't fair and no Vicky, you don't always get what you want even when you think you can just take (loot) it. Boo hoo. They should learn that a little humility goes a long way and grow the fuck up.
So you're fine with forever war and corporate looting is what you're saying ? Everyone should accept the double standard and play by the rules no matter what ? You shouldn't ever stand up to authority and just roll over and accept your fate ?
I'm not sure you read it, as nothing I said even remotely suggests that. And the either-or choice you present of we either get corporate looters or we get common looters aren't the only two options. I dunno, how about NO looters? Are the common people rioting and looting right now in favor of corporate looting? If not, they've got a funny way of showing it. Standing up to corporate interests by doing the exact same things you accuse them of because you can't think of more productive ways to "fight the system" is ironic in the extreme. And sad. No, scratch that. Pathetic. THAT'S what my post is about....people who should stop navel gazing and more productively use their time to fight back rather than simply mimicking that which they detest.
Thank you for the sacrifice you have made on behalf of your readers. Reading this book could not have been easy, and you are, no doubt, dumber having exposed yourself to such drivel.
As an immigrant and a veteran, I cannot fathom the mentality of this woke generation. They truly do not know how good they have it. Sometimes I wish we would bring back compulsory military service....so folks would be forced together at boot camps and bases, and learn to respect each other for their differences and work to one common goal. We have lost that socialization ritual, and it has allowed for increased regional tribalism and echo chambers....some one should write a book about that. How about you Matt?
“We have lost that socialization ritual...” Couldn't agree more. Not that military service covers it (throughout US history, at any given time a pretty small percentage of people actually ever served), but in aggregate there used to be a myriad of “socialization rituals” that the majority of people participated in. Group things that by simply being in them taught how to be in a group. There's a skill set there, that may be at some level organic, but does take effort to actually learn and be good at.
Overall we have replaced our socialization rituals with commercial rituals. Rituals of consumption. Those are (by definition?), individual acts. With that we've lost a great deal of the skills to actually be with other people. Social media hasn't helped.
This is not well thought out, and I am not articulate about it. But it's something that's been in my thoughts for years now.
I think universal national service program would be a great idea, both for the reasons described in the above two posts and as a way to put together and organize the large labor force required to overhaul the infrastructure of the country, for labor intensive efforts like constructing new energy infrastructure, soil conservation, pollution amelioration, doing controlled burns of cover and brush in Western forests, building coffer dams and cistern reservoirs in the semiarid regions of the country...
And it can be done without requiring any of the provisions that skeptics of such a project find most objectionable:
1) Service should not be compulsory, like a military draft. But it should be incentivized, socially and financially.
2) Participation doesn't have to involve mandatory military training, with its emphasis on armed force and the necessity to obey a chain of command. Although there's no need to maintain a firewall between National Guard units and civilian service units.
3) The part-time "weekend warrior" commitment, a la the National Guard, is not a bad model for some of the civilian service projects. Devolution and local self-sufficiency should be encouraged.
4) The benefits package for all participants should resemble something like the GI Bill. With the acknowledgement that some types of service, like firefighting or National Guard service, should receive an extra benefit in accordance with the additional risks of those occupations.
5) In principle, I don't have an objection to regular US armed forces units taking a collaborative role in efforts like construction projects and the provision of community public health services. It's a much better use of military spending funds than sending troops to overseas postings. Or overseas combat troop commitments, unless warranted by dire necessity.
I'm a moderate social democrat on most issues, really. I think the people in the recent Presidential nomination contest who had the best ideas were some of the lower-tier Democratic candidates: Andrew Yang (universal basic income, advanced nuclear power designs to meet our energy needs, replacing the Drug War with rational, comprehensive, medically based drugs law reform); John Delaney (universal national service, carbon tax with rebates); Tim Ryan (soil conservation and transition to sustainable agriculture methods.) I also support shifting a large fraction of the reliance on income taxes as the principal source of Federal revenue toward a national sales tax, also with a rebate for low income earners. National sales tax is considered a "conservative Republican" proposal in this country, but strangely enough, the social democracies of Europe use double-digit percentage sales taxes to supply a share of revenue that's roughly equal to the amount they collect as income tax.
It's silly to me, this idea that the US is falling apart and ungovernable. The real problem is politics, and petty politics, at that- the Democratic leadership has a fatal bias for careerist bureaucratic stagnation and not entrepreneurial leadership, and the Republicans are corrupted by greed to the point where they'll kill the planet for money. There are Democrats and Republicans- and Independents of various ideological leanings- outside of the dismal stasis of the Duopoly, and some of them have all kinds of good ideas. But the outsiders don't have entrenched lobbies to obtain "access" to the corridors of entrenched power. So their ideas never get a serious hearing there.
And the real Privilege is economic. Take the media. Journalists who actually has the experience of risk and knew what is was like to have skin in the game would not be spending all their time going off on snipe hunts about insubstantial fluff, or indulging in hand-wringing neurosis that emphasizes worrying over every last problem while failing to report on the prospects for nuts and bolts solutions that can be applied to the most pressing ones. The affluent background of young journalists is a cushion that turns everything into an abstract concern, to be judged from an Olympian height. Absorption into careerism is like a narcotic. It's like the news staffs are waiting for someone to tell them that an issue is Hot, before they can get it more than random occasional sporadic attention. Advances in nuclear power plant design and the technology to speed up radioactive waste decay are Real. Advances in creating vaccines for drug addiction are Real. The advances in restoring the productivity of agricultural soil are Real. CRISPR advances are Real. By comparison, autonomous AGI is Bullshit. Driverless cars are Bullshit. Missions to Mars are Bullshit. (The notion of a permanent space station on the moon, by contrast, is Real.) The AI-assisted Panopticon is Bullshit. But also Real. Real, but nothing a free society should want anything to do with. Etc. Reporters, learn to tell the difference. Some of you are parents.
I blame our education system. My parents fled Communist China after the takeover in 1949, after the devastating war with Japan. A family of 8, they scratched out an existence in Taiwan, at that time a backwater Island. Most immigrated to the US where they started up, yes, grocery stores and restaurants. Their children, my generation, has reaped the benefits of their hard work and sacrifice. We are all happy, well adjusted, successful citizens. Some of us started small businesses that employ minorities, others are ER doctors or pediatricians. Very few, if any, of this type of generation would even think of writing a book like this because we know what the alternative to having a nation of fair laws is. It’s China, with its social credit score and dictatorial powers. Or it’s Venezuela, with its soaring inflation. Or it’s one of the myriad African nations that are in states of perpetual civil war. America for all its flaws is still one of the best places for people to work and realize their dreams. Work entails labor, not rioting, not getting a Masters in Gender Studies. People like this author have a myopic view of the world, watered and fertilized by our education system.
“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”
― George Orwell
The nearly insurmountable challenge in critiquing books like this -- and the related phenomenon of wokeness, critical race theory and all their variants -- is the almost supernatural level of stupidity that permeates it all. First, a "theory" is either provable or refutable through empirical experiment. Critical race "theory" is an assertion based on a form of selective perception, it's not a theory. It can't be refuted. It can't be proved. As a result, one can't "argue" with it. One can only produce a counter-narrative.
Take U.S. history and society. Imagine if someone took your life's 10 worst, most immature, cringe-worthy moments -- all of which now humiliate you, reflecting on them, which you would do-over if it were humanly possible, and which have formed the rungs of the ladder your soul has climbed in its wordly journey toward a higher state of consciousness. And then they made a movie about them. And the movie said THAT IS WHO YOU ARE! I don't know about you, but I'd find that devastating and unfair. But that's what they do -- with their theories.
The thing they don't do is look around the world and use the same perception. If they did, they'd see tribal conflicts, misogeny, racial hatreds, tribal hatreds, wars, pogroms, genocides, fantastic abuses that make Dante's hell seem like a refuge. How they can ignore all this is a reasonable point of inquiry - for which psychology and psychoanalytical theories do indeed offer insights. But these forms of intellectualizing are either -- like math and physics -- too hard for them, or they are simply unwilling to be so challenged.
One reader below mentioned Rene Girard. Indeed. And also James Frazer of The Golden Bough fame. And Gustav LeBon and Charles Mackay and of course the Big Guns Jung and Freud too. A deconstruction of the anti-whiteness hysteria, wokeness and CRT along those lines would be enlightening. Although indeed also fairly exhausting to perform. And probably the pay wouldn't be very good.
Such is the dilemma facing truth seekers in this world. Generally, the pay isn't very good and you might get yourself hurt. As a result, governments are instituted among men (and women and children) with laws that protect free speech, free inquiry, the press and assembly. One wonders how someone in academia, or those who call themselves theorists, can possibly ignore all this too. How it came to be, where and why and what all that means for the phenomenon they claim their are deconstructing. It's almost funny. It certainly is pathetic and ugly. It should be embarrassing. I suspect a few will find, as they get older, that it was and that they wish they'd seen it for what it was, at that time.
Malcolm X did. In an interview with the photographer Gordon Parks late in his life he said, "I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I'm sorry for now. I was a zombie then -- like all [Black] Muslims -- I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man's entitled to make a fool of himself if he's ready to pay the cost. It cost me twelve years."
Not that the Nation of Islam is any different, better or worse than any other group. The point is group think vs. the individual. And so much of real Western intellectual history is the difficult navigation of that impossible chasm. And much of world history is the ignorance of that chasm, for reasons that do indeed speak to theories of mind, of group, of consciousness itself. One would think an "intellectual" would understand that and not paint it all white and throw it all away.
In terms of the chasm, I think I'm on fairly solid ground when I say at some point, a line has to be drawn under history, some sort of reconciliation occurs, and strong institutions put in place to move forward.
If this doesn't happen, you get something like Ukraine**
__________
** By way of example, following the references in Richard Sakwa's "Frontline Ukraine" from 2015, I came across this article in Forbes of all places by Vladimir Golstein, a professor of Slavic studies at Brown University. (He was born in Moscow and emigrated to the United States in 1979.)
Some excerpts:
"....Western Ukraine was joined to Russia only during Stalin’s era. For centuries it was under the cultural, religious, and/or political control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Poland. Hating Soviet occupation, western Ukrainian nationalists viewed Stalin as a much greater villain than Hitler, so that the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists aligned themselves with Nazis and, led by their radical leader Stepan Bandera, proceeded to rid their land of other ethnic groups, including Poles and Jews.
Western Ukraine is unified in its hostility toward Russians, whom they see as invaders and occupiers. During the last 20 years, as Ukraine tried to distance itself from its Soviet past and its ideology, it chose the nationalism of western Ukraine as the alternative.
Easterners are angry that pro-Bandera banners, posters and graffiti are popping up all over Ukraine and with the rewriting of history in general, where violent nationalists who fought alongside the Nazis are treated as heroes while Russians, who suffered under Stalin no less than the Ukrainians, are denigrated.
For better or for worse, Putin has put an end to oligarch rule in Russia. Members of Putin’s inner circle may be immensely rich, but they know to whom they owe their wealth. By imprisoning Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Putin sent a clear message to the all-powerful oligarchs that controlled Russia during former president Boris Yeltsin’s time: stay out of politics. Ukraine didn’t have this experience, and the politicians seem to be working in unison with, if not under the control of, oligarchs.
The Western press, including Forbes, has underestimated the extent of oligarch Igor Kolomoisky’s influence. Taking the concept “corporate raiding” literally, Kolomoisky has employed paramilitary units at his disposal for all kinds of hostile takeovers...."
This book is clickbait made physical. The author won as soon as you bought it. The contents are irrelevant. NPR is ridiculous for giving it a platform.
1. How did such garbage manage to get published in the first place. 2. Why are people who can afford SUVs rioting and stealing? Didn't their parents teach them anything? 3. Well, current politicians are spineless and have been for sometime, but this just shows the Democratic Party doesn't care about voters and the little guy. No surprise there. The victims aren't their donors. This is how you lose an election. 4. The country will just move further right towards fascism because the right-wingers will restore order. This is a way to win an election. 5. The best thing to happen to the "Woke" generation might be to make them get a job and support themselves. If they have to support themselves by looting, they can get free meals and board in jail. 6. How is any of this sane, and why are these insane ideas even being given any credence? No wonder people are buying guns and there's shortages of both guns and ammo in gun stores. 7. How are the Democrats going to handle this mess if they somehow manage to win? You can't support the ideas of the movement and throw the people who believe in them in jail without looking like a complete hypocrite. And, what sane person would believe such nonsense?
2020 is a raging dumpster fire and the insane asylum inmates are dancing around the blaze, while the politicians waffle. This is going to end badly.
Foreign policy can be changed and must be changed, but how does mindless violence achieve those goals? People just want to raise families, enjoy life, and live in peace. We aren't the only ones stirring up shit overseas, though we are a major contributor. Your rant is just that a rant. And, technology is amoral. The goodness and badness of it depends on the application. Most technology is uplifting. You are using technology at this moment to communicate if you want to call it that. The Internet isn't evil. You at least get to pick and choose your news sources and your interests unlike TV.
That's fine and good, but we have almost no real political power or even voices to be heard. Everything is online, and political loyalists from both parties do as much as possible to control the narrative and silence disagreement. It consigns people like us to online backwaters like this, and even here, criticizing either party will instantly result in someone calling your opinion dangerous.
Short of violence or just trying to survive a collapse, how do we actually change anything anymore?
(I know, somehow find the economic independence to run for local office, overcome all the money and cheating from the party, build a coalition of like-minded progressive politicians to start changing the system from within right about the time the bombs start falling or non-stop hurricanes start.)
It always amuses me, seeing people complain in public that they have been silenced.
You haven't been silenced, Mr. Hungus. You've lost the argument. What you want, most people don't want. You might realize this if you actually spoke with them.
And most people will continue to vote against what you want. They have no desire to live in the world you with to live in.
You want to live in progressive society, we'll let you and your progressive friends move into the same area and remake it to your satisfaction, but you never settle for that. You insist on trying to remake out lives too. Ain't going to happen.
I hope Matt writes a piece about the endless wars we're engaged in. I think you'll see the majority of the people here are against that shit, too. But this article isn't about war. It's about a book that says looting is good, hence all the comments about that, and not about war.
Personally, I think ending all of our endless wars is the most important thing we can do as a society, and, like you, I'm incredibly frustrated that we stopped talking about that and stopped working toward it as soon as we elected Obama. Sometimes I wonder if all this shit isn't just a distraction from that. But here we are.
I know a Dominican immigrant who lost his small store to looting. They arrived in the US in 1977 and opened their store in 1995 after 18 years of saving and taking out a loan. I know these people children and they are very black skinned Dominicans. I am Dominican too and grew up seeing them visit every summer. Like most Dominicans, they have no idea of “Twitter battles” or America’s culture wars. These are just head down and work people minding their own business. Model immigrants —not the caricature many made us to be—and yet they suffered the wrath of looters. The insurance company will only cover a fraction of the damages and only after the underwriter has properly assessed the damages. Properly assess is a code name for indefinitely waiting until cities clear things and looting has officially stopped (kind of subjective right?) Also, the underwriters don’t get to your case after the area of looting had been cleared. For instance, if you were in Minneapolis and lost your business the first week of June, it’s very likely you still haven’t received a cent from the insurance company. I watch in disbelief how pundits parrot the same lies and dishonest that insurance companies will cover the damages. It’s reprehensible to see some multimillionaire pundits smirk at the destruction the looting caused when discussing this garbage book you mentioned. I have met disconnected people in my life. But no one can hold the candle to Twitter leftists, pundits, and white anarchists. They are a bunch of charlatans that only in America they’d make so much money and get so much adulation. In the DR they’d be cleaning latrines if they were lucky.
This is yet another example that convinced me that today's democrats are a bunch of racist elites who really don't care about us minorities.
I seriously think that BLM/Antifa are the new KKK. Christian Walker (Hershel Walker’s son) says they are the KKK in blackface.
Same tactics. Thinks race is the most defining part of a human being. They are demanding everyone not vote Republican and they are burning everything down. And the separatist Dems have no problem using the media and this mob to further their agenda. The media literally covers for Antifa/BLM. You can see how bad it is with Kyle Rittenhouse.
I watched the Uncle Tom documentary and the black conservatives laid a very compelling argument that the Democrats NEVER switched. I highly recommend watching the documentary to get a different perspective on history.
I jumped over to Rotten Tomato to look at "Uncle Tom" reviews. Mostly positive 4 or 5 Star audience reviews. One 1/2 Star rating from the audience. That long drawn out complaint session lacked vital content for a movie review. It never mentioned the film. It seems apparent the author never saw the film but easily gave it a 1/2 Star review.
The best thing about the film is that it makes you want to go look up the black figures in the past mentioned in the film like Booker T Washington and Frederick Douglass and read their autobiographies. It asks people to question the narrative told to them and to seek out that history they don’t teach in school.
The movie also has a great criticism of the Republican Party for not going after the black vote. That Republican strategists aren’t bold enough to help black conservatives run in democrat strongholds because they think it’s a waste of money. The black conservatives note that they feel abandoned by both parties because of this.
It’s an excellent film with many inspirational biographical stories from many of the older black conservative pioneers like Herman Cain, Carol Swain, and Larry Elder. Here’s an excerpt of the film of his story they released after he passed away earlier this year:
https://youtu.be/HpHykRCu-kA
I highly recommend even watching the deleted scenes they put up on the Uncle Tom YouTube channel (what I linked above) just to see if you’re interested in seeing more of the film.
Can’t recommend it enough even if it’s just so that one gets a differing perspective from black voices. It’s a narrative that is silenced, mocked, and ignored by the left wing media. So it’s good to see someone document their views produced and written by someone who is a black conservative (Larry Elder).
Sorry... the link is for Herman Cain’s story. I forgot to include his name while I was editing the post.
And you believe black republicans would tell the truth about racism within the democratic party ? That's hilarious.
Are such Twitter personalities real people? I hate Twitter and only open it to read something cited elsewhere. I used to reply to tweets, but once got caught in a burst of hate-tweets after I rashly remarked that black people can be racist too. I wish Twitter could be wiped off the face of the earth, not by looters, but silently, stifled by a wise time traveler before the first round of funding so it suddenly no longer exists in our world -- which would immediately become a far better place.
Oh yeah. And homophobic. And Jews can be genocidal (that'll bring out hate) and on and on. And yes African nations did have active slave trades and were like mechants selling goods (people) to an overseas market. The bible is history. And again, on and on. I spent the first decades of my life absorbing all the "ideal" mainstream approved stories. I've spent the decades since (about age 32 on) going through one long series of disillusions after another. I can still remember when a good friend and next door worker, a black rodeo rider and part Chiricahua Apache revealed his homophobia in reference to gay friends I knew.
Or when I first heard about Palestinians at the Olympics and it took decades before I realized they were not merely savages without any cause. I learned about the Nakba and about the anti-Semetic reasons for Britain's Lord Balfour to set up means to send Jewish pogrom refugees to the Palestine mandate, keeping them out of the UK - and something similar after WWII - which, ironically means that Israel is in part an anti-Semetic creation - really really head-slamming irony.
Much the same for Iranians and the embassy and not realizing their rage came from somewhere. It was so long before I knew about Mossedegh (never heard Ted Koppel so much as mention the CIA coup in 1953 in all the years he anchored that program, either during the hostage crisis or after).
I remember cheering on Israel in the 1967 war with Jewish friends and only found out about the USS Liberty decades later.
Just because someone has been, or is still being victimized doesn't mean they are pure as the driven snow or innocent of victimizing someone else or even doing the same kind of thing to someone else.
And then, today we have the "rage culture." I really think the immediate feedback of Twitter and other social media, along with a mis-education and stupid "reality shows" leads people to go for the instant gratification of slamming someone. Woke was okay for the first few steps and then the very concept of "woke" was to find insults with which to be enraged. Same for just about any of the trends, including MeToo which also started okay and then went off the rails just like the rest. "Rage" is the mode of operation, seldom ever is nuance or reason or evidence allowed or wanted. That is a factor of the immediate medium.
I agree and that is why I think Twitter is a net bad thing for our civilization. I would favor regulating it heavily or shutting it down.
I'd rather that Twitter just fall out of fashion as a forum for discussion of current events and politics, due to user frustration with the inherent weaknesses of the format. No longer a hip thing.
280 characters. Smug Twitter swarm lynch mobs, nut-grabbing and kneecapping with sarcastic one-line cliches. Too stupid.
I've never posted there. I grant that it can be very useful for some purposes. But hot takes and thoughtful discussion do not mix well.
I don't think any opinion site should be shut down. Let people put their foot in their mouths and live with it the rest of their lives. That's the REAL cost of freedom, your own misuse of it.
I understand. My objection is not to any particular opinion -- the more of those, the better, probably -- but to the 280-character message type and instantaneous delivery to an audience which is always available. I think that mode encourages mob thinking, because the thoughts are incomplete and the "bad news" travels so fast.
I think a worse problem than the requirement to be succinct (one against which I rage in vain!) is the dopamine "reward" people become used to from getting "likes". This incentivizes comments of which a known faction will approve, not any real thought.
Facebook too.
FB is bad in a different way. Once it became a vehicle for selling things to its users, it became a service which was always selling the user and his/her data to advertisers. The whole phenomenon of advertising has been a big factor in poisoning the soul of the United States.
The irony being that Facebook owed much of its original appeal as competitor to Myspace to the falsehood that they were the "non-commercial alternative", keeping advertising off of the site. Then they snapped the trap shut.
The Left has always been about rage. The important thing has always been to destroy what exists, seize power, and oppress the survivors.
Read the biographies of communists and revolutionaries, you usually find terrible anger from childhood on.
You really need to qualify a statement like that one. Especially given the abysmal level of popular discourse in the US, where "the Left" is a term that routinely gets applied to multibillionaire capitalists, neoliberal politicians, and the set of all people opposing Donald Trump's re-election.
What if the people I mean when I say "those people" is an ill-defined smorgasboard of people who lack principles and think poorly? I will confess to calling them "lefties", Marxists, progressives (and progtards, NPCs, proglodytes, and SJWs-as-insult), and other terms that usually do not carefully identify who I mean.
It's a real problem, I admit. It's like when "those people" call their opponents "rednecks", "hillbillies", fascists, alt-right, etc. etc. 99.9% of the time THOSE identifiers are less than accurate. This is not whataboutism, just identifying the problem of labelling ill-defined groups.
I suggest using modifiers to narrow and focus observations like those.
If it were me, I'd call the group "the incoherent Left", "the extreme Left", "Left-wing nihilists"...something like that. Some nihilists were actually officially self-titled Nihilists- the members were a 19th century Russian anarchist faction.
I found this history book, The World That Never Was, to be a good readable overview of that era. Committed anarchist politicos (that oxymoron) would probably disagree, though.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7640470-the-world-that-never-was
I found that the ideas and philosophy of 19th century anarchist movements have a lot of resonance with present-day anarchism here in the US. It's worth pointing out that 19th century Europe experienced waves of anarchist disruption and terrorism a couple of orders of magnitude greater than anything we're seeing nowadays here in the States. Most of the terrorism of the era was assassination attempts, several of them successful.
Your sober analysis has merit. More people should know that it’s inaccurate to think that insurance will pay damages for looting. While your friends have worked hard to enjoy some semblance of “the American Dream,” for their sacrifices and work leading to the success of owning a business, there is no singular model of what immigrants should look like or be...unless an immigrant is being evaluated by the FBI or CIA. For each token success there are many failures, immigrant or not. A human is a human is a human, and each has their flaws. Business as usual is not for long in this world. People in power and making political decisions have really fucked things up, environmentally, while exploiting differences. I see this book as insincere and half Baird at best. Should I come into context with it, I’d use the pages to wipe my bum, and deliver the soiled pages to the author, one way or another. It gets a D- in my grade book. That said, we are all going to have to stop abiding by the rules and models that are supposedly rewarded and devise other ways of surviving and communing.
That’s supposed to read “half baked,” not Baird 🤷🏻♀️
I thought you might have meant "half Bard" and had a Level 3 outrage prepared, lol.
There are way more people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, etc, who lost their families and their business's due to the bipartisan corporate looting that the same pundits disregard and lie about on a daily basis and have for over a century now.
The issue comes down to distribution of resources and if you look at the score board we see how a very tiny fraction of society seem to have about half of everything while being responsible for the majority of the crime.
It seems some folks can legalize their crime and others can't. There in lies the problem.
Can you stop with the deflection. Twice I've seen posted "what about corporate looting". What about it? This isn't an article or critique of that, and not mentioning it is not a pass or show of support. It's simply writing about a specific topic. The what's about shit is so annoying. My korean born friend, who led they way in our city with paying all of his employees actual living wages and going out of his way to give jobs to undocumented folks had his store smashed. But tell me more about corporate looting that no one validated or mentioned.
It isn't deflection, it's just incoherent. Let me translate from Skutch to English for you: 'I hate the USA, I hate Western Civilization, I want them destroyed, and I'm in favor of everything that harms them. The USA is evil and has to be destroyed. People like Matt are evil too, because they are trying to prevent the destruction of the U.S.'
Your "translation" seems like its mostly assumptions and judgments.
I think it's cowardly to be afraid to criticize NATION-STATES.
The concept is outdated and it hurts humanity.
Western Civilization has serious issues - consumerism, war as a drive for economy.
The important thing is discussing it and separating it from the HUMANITY of every single living person.
People are not the problem - systems are.
People get all "but this is my system you can't take this down this is what things are made of".
The world and the country would be totally fine if we had radical restructuring. The largest roadblock is people that are afraid of change at an elemental level.
Your implying that what is happening in cities across America is actually radical restructuring of society when in fact it's just smash and grab from a population that by the looks of the demographics largely benefits from the system they claim to hate. It's the worst kind of activism. White people signaling to other white people about their radicalness as they use POC as pawns.
Be fair to the Bolshivek LARPERS, the black folk do get mutlitple Nikes and Playstations. To...ah...feed their families? Or is it to express their anarchic joy?
This is a free form message board bro. SMOKE WEED.
Why is critical thinking a crime in your world ? Do you think people do this sort of stuff for fun ?
uhh...according to this book the answer is yes for the most part
The book is for profit. Or do you actually believe someone would write a book for fun that wasn't a trust fund baby which are the only people who could afford to.
What book?
Why were they smashing it ? What were they mad about ? You don't ever care do you ?
The inference you make is expected. I am used to people attempting to categorize me based on one interaction around one topic. Its the new norm. Check it out. I am a life long Activist. I don't need any self reflection about my own intentions or interpretations about the current situation. My activism comes from books like blood in my eye and to die for the people. My heroes are people like Bob Lafollette and Miriam Makeeba and Phil Ochs. I'm not confused or unaware of the history of the United States. Theres nothing critical about deflecting a conversation about the legitimacy of creating chaos as activism to one about the United States domestic and international thirst for greed and wanton destruction. Its such weird sophomoric gotcha bullshit and I dont understand how it thrives other than the people who perpetuate it would rather double down on some of these idiotic concepts than admit they are wrong.
Great comment David-- the categorizing thing and gotcha moves by invoking assumed worldviews is a huge problem right now-- and most don't address it in conversation or realize the game being played.
"Forget it, Jake. It's Internettown."
It's what is actually happening, so there is that. Funny you can't recognize your countries own foreign policy.
It's like you're trying to obfuscate. Did you actually read what I wrote?
Americans cities aren’t a war zone. If people want to protest the government-military complex destroying the property of minorities isn’t the answer. This is a false equivalence. I doubt the small business owners will find comfort in your convoluted justification for gangster tactics.
War zones are not designated places. Do you propose that the places and people being bombed by the U.S. wanted their homes, hospitals, business, weddings, funerals, and country sacrificed to wars? You’re wrong.
You went all 2009 Glenn Beck on me. Stick to the bigger picture: rioters destroying private property of little guys to stick it up to Big Corp and war-profiteering thugs. —keen logic right there. In the meantime the likes of Amazon are seeing their stock soar as their “competition” (small businesses) are systematically being destroyed. First revolution swimming in corporate cash and indulging in corporate sponsorship.
Very much this. I'm not all tinfoil hatty about the origins of the Covid, but the effects of the *shutdowns* have been detrimental to the middle class, small businessmen and individual smaller entrepreneurs, as if they were designed to do so.
That the risks of the "pandemic" have been so hysterically (and sometimes fraudulently) overblown by the bought-and-paid-for legacy media does have me reaching for the Reynolds Wrap thouigh.
They are now. What's the matter ? You don't like getting some of your own medicine ?
If this is really how you feel then I expect you'll be voting for Trump. He's the first President in my lifetime (and I'm 60) who hasn't initiated any new wars.
Just kidding. I know you won't. I have a friend who thinks like you who described Obama as a "war criminal" in 2012 and then voted for him anyway on the grounds that Mitt Romney would probably be a war criminal too. Can't let principals get in the way of tribalism.
All presidents are war criminals.
And most of them are puppets as well.
Trump is also the first president to have so openly looted the treasury with brazen disregard for the well-being of anyone.
As opposed to the all the POTUS's of both parties who looted the Treasury behind closed doors. Trump is an unique evil, we must return to the "normal" looting of working people and endless war, and probable nuclear war that Biden will bring.
You're not very well informed then. Keep voting and pretending it will make a difference when you live in a plutocracy. I can tell you have no idea what "principals" actually are when you vote for someone who's shunned them his entire life.
It did make a difference. We are in no new wars and have more peace in the Mideast and more peace in Korea.
Trump fired Bolton because he wanted to invade Syria.
So...you're voting Green Party?
I did not initially favor Biden. I wanted Bernie. I agree that Biden will not likely be part of a lot of change. Unfortunately Trump is truly dangerous, as numerous of his associates as well as important Republicans have been testifying almost the whole time he has been in office. Trump must be removed from office. That is a true emergency. Don't you read anyone like David Frum or Jennifer Rubin or Max Boot or George Will, who have been staunch Republicans all their adult lives, as far as I know, and are now bitterly opposed to Trump's reelection?
Soon, maybe. Of course people over here don't want our "own medicine". I've been speaking out against foreign wars since I was about 13 years old. America has laid waste to a lot of the world.
You’ve made the same idiotic strawman argument three times in the comments section. Your ridiculous false equivalence is falling on deaf ears. It’s a lot easier to whine about corporate pillaging when your ability to make ends meet is protected behind the glow of a computer screen.
Then why bother replying ? DERP
If your college professors won’t tell you that your ideas are valid garbage then somebody has to do it.
Someone should also tell him (her?) not to use the term DERP if he wants to be believable as a 54-year-old.
Or you could not judge people, ohy wait, you're a right wing dickhead so that's out of the question now isn't it ?
Your ASSumptions are hilarious and your inability to see double standards typically American.
I can tell I’m hitting a sore spot. It’s okay champ, college is a great time, enjoy yourself.
"It’s a lot easier to whine about corporate pillaging when your ability to make ends meet is protected behind the glow of a computer screen."
Talk about idiotic straw man arguments.
Nah it’s pretty clear to me that you’re never worked a day in your life. Maybe the campus bookstore is hiring, might diversify your experiences to receive money from someone besides mommy and daddy
I've worked for 40 years now and could still work your fat worthless ass under the table without a problem. But keep trying, it's amusing to see your need to lash out at someone with an opposing position to yours.
I've got plenty time to expose your pettiness and your emotional thought process.
Lol “work my fat ass under the table” also clearly a statement by a 19 year old whose never actually had a job. Why you so worked up bro?
Ysaias is concerned about another family, whom he knows, and you are projecting a huge whataboutism on corporate looting in countries that have been disorganized forever. What corporation did what to Libya or Afghanistan? Tell me of one, and I'll sell my stock in it and give the money to charity -- or, okay, the stupid mutual fund that "invested" there. Yes, Syria used to be better run, but the beneficiaries of the current regime are organized gangs, Russian thugs and oligarchs, not American companies, which shy away from countries (except China) that discriminate against and kill their own citizens.
The thing is, here, we at least talk about fairness for others because we understand ourselves to be fellow citizens. The ennoblement of the individual is a Christian and Enlightenment concept that never can be perfected, but Ysaias is trying, as our country does with elections and public schools, to seek justice for people whose lifelong investment has been trashed by other people who do not know them and who lack basic human respect for their efforts and, by extension, for them.
When anarchists destroy what others have built -- just because they can -- I'm with Ysaias. The Dominican family deserves justice to be served. Ideally, it deserves to be made whole by the people who destroyed what they have built.
When the Pentagon destroys what others have built it's just fine though.
So what you're saying is that only like US foreign policy when it's in someone else's country.
Congratulations. You have hijacked a momentarily serious discussion thread with your know-it-all accusations and disinterest in what other people have to say. I'm leaving.
You might want to consider writing your own substack and see how many people care about your squeals.
Or you could just live with the fact I interrupted the right wing reader's two minutes of hate before they could enjoy it.
Delusional exaggeration of their effectiveness is another trait of gammas. He must have achieved something important, because he posted.
#KnowHowGammasThink
You apparently define “corporate looting” as free markets. Huh.
I teach law to graduate students in China, and one thing I love about them, as compared to US law students, is that for my Chinese students, “profit”is not a dirty word, and profit-seeking corporations aren’t evil but just an economically efficient way to organize resources. They look at the US today and all the wine ness and say, that looks like the Cultural Revolution- which they know, deep in their bones, was evil and bad. None of them in the ten years I’ve been teaching has ever argued in favor of Marxism or socialism.
"Free markets" is an oxymoron. And you're kidding yourself if you don't realize that your students are simply mirroring what you want to hear on some of the political questions. They've learned early on to not contradict their instructors, who are granted deference as Authorities.
The Chinese Communist Party has gotten very flexible about incorporating some latitude for private enterprise into their political system. They do recognize some of its pragmatic advantages. But make no mistake, at the bedrock level, China is a command economy run with a heavy reliance on Marxist-Leninist principles. And the CCP is a totalitarian regime.
I teach at a traditional US style law school where students are expected to disagree with their professors, but on the basis of reasoned argument, not feelings or emotions. Our students are sick of being lectured at, that’s why they come to our school. Like all students in China in every grade, they still are required to take one “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics “ class every year -it’s taught by Party functionaries, not law professors - and they hate it, they say it’s just propaganda. However, my students are all very, extremely nationalistic.
I teach at a traditional US style law school where students are expected to disagree with their professors, but on the basis of reasoned argument, not feelings or emotions. Our students are sick of being lectured at, that’s why they come to our school. Like all students in China in every grade, they still are required to take one “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics “ class every year -it’s taught by Party functionaries, not law professors - and they hate it, they say it’s just propaganda. However, my students are all very, extremely nationalistic.
The bottom line is that the CCP holds the power, and your students won't advance unless its done within the CCP-approved framework. I can feature how they feel safe criticizing American LARPing on social justice. It's an easy target. But would any of them go on public record criticizing the CCP crackdown on Hong Kong, even while residing overseas?
There are taboo topics in China just like in the US. In US law schools, the taboo topics are affirmative action, gay marriage and transgender rights, for example. In China, the taboo topics are Tibet, Taiwan, Tienamen Square and now Hong Kong. But on non-taboo topics, like whether corporate law (either Chinese or US) should prioritize shareholder value, the students have strong (and differing) opinions which they are happy to share.
It wouldn't have to be if it weren't being used criminally. It wasn't Marxist or communists who committed crimes in order to make profit it was capitalists.
You ignorance of the crimes that communists committed for profit is highly amusing.
*wokeness
If only we could somehow express our antipathy to both -- if only this election were, say between a candidate who unequivocally opposes *both* looting at home *and* misadventures abroad vs. a candidate who hesitates to oppose either while attracting a lot of support from corporations, war-mongering neo-cons, and domestic looters and their apologists...
Wake up. Whatever merit you arguments might have had in the Bush era, they are obsolete post-Trump. All the nonsense the media has been throwing against the wall the past four years have completely obscured how Trump has completely turned the tables.
Except he doesn't oppose looting abroad. Stop lying..
nice whataboutism bro
Thanks bro, I really am sorry you couldn't enjoy your two minutes of hate and making a mountain out of a mole hill.
What corporate looting has the US done to Syria? Are you referring to Obama Training and funding the rebels in Syria? No one in America wanted to be embroiled in their CIVIL WAR, yet Congress OKed it. Probably why Congress has half the approval rating as Trump.
Indeed. The reason Trump was elected was Obama.
Nonsense. If it were possible to run for a third Presidential term, Obama would have cleaned Trump's clock.
“If no one in the party says anything, Trump will argue, with some justice, this is the true face of his opposition.” That’s where I’m at. It’s why I’m voting for Trump. I grew up in the area impacted by the ‘92 LA Riots. The fact that these people believe that rioting and looting is justified disgusts me.
I was 10 years old and it was terrifying and horrible. I saw elderly Koreans crying as their businesses were looted and destroyed. I saw Reginald Denny get beaten for no reason except that he was white and in the wrong place at the wrong time. I could smell the toxic fumes from the market burning 3 blocks down.
I saw the media vilify the rooftop Koreans for protecting their stores after the LAPD abandoned Koreantown. I asked my father why the media said they were bad and I remember him cursing under his breath.
Much of why I hate war, violence, and racism comes from that experience when I was a child. Rioting and looting is not something to be celebrated. It’s not a right. And the Dems encouraged this behavior. Even if the Dems come out now and disavow the violence, it’s too late. It’s been 3 MONTHS! I’ll take the guy that’s been against the rioting since day 1.
I can’t believe NPR would highlight this author at all. How can anyone take NPR seriously after they would highlight such a book? How is this not a stepping stone into communism? This ideology needs to be stopped. It’s disturbing that it’s already manifested itself in all of our institutions and that they’re using TDS & propaganda to push people into siding with this ideology.
Once you get into advocating for violence, this peace-loving hippie is out.
But you are advocating violence in your name done by the US war machine and it's corporate masters all over the world. Are you saying looting is only acceptable when organized and perpetrated by the elite ? Do you know any one issue voters demanding more forever wars ?
You're looking right past what the real narrative is which is the double standard of corporate looting vs looting by individuals.
People keep saying this as though the many lefty people who subscribe to Matt are all gunning for the Pentagon. First off, nobody is sticking it to the corporations by burning small businesses-- they're literally eliminating those corporations' competition! Second of all, the many disgruntled leftish people in here mostly oppose war.. I bet a lot of the conservatives do too, and the libertarians, much as I disagree with them on economics, have whole sites like antiwar.com. One reason we're disgruntled with the current left is its abandonment of peace... the business Democrats welcoming neoconservative interventionists, the woke longing for violent revolution, and people telling you you're sexist if you accurately characterize someone like Hillary as a warmonger. Give me peace AND nonviolent protest instead of riots and war any day.
Oh, and, btw, nonviolence takes skill-- political skill, tactical, messaging, focus, ability to engage and converse with people with different opinions-- which is why many of our current "activists" hate it-- anybody can throw a brick or an insult, after all. I worked on police reform in Minneapolis a few years ago and can tell you all the stuff our local BLM and all-left city council wasted their time on, when they could have been turning their ire on the actual police department... BLM wasting months suing a private mall for the right to protest there instead of just going somewhere else, the city council throwing out >15,000 signatures on a police reform ballot initiative because it might make the city charter messy, Fight for 15 activists walking out of the city council chamber en masse the minute their presentation was done, rather than stay in solidarity with the local police reform group that was in the schedule next. (I support Fight for 15, that's why I showed up early for THEIR time slot and saw this happen.) "Nonviolence has been tied and didn't work" is only true in the same sense as I "tried" to be a basketball star by throwing the ball at a basket 10 times and gave up after only getting one in.
Fellow Minnesotan here. :)
"nonviolence takes skill-- political skill, tactical, messaging, focus, ability to engage and converse with people with different opinions-- which is why many of our current "activists" hate it-- anybody can throw a brick or an insult, after all." You are exactly right. Destruction, hatred, chaos and ignorance require nothing. They are the default. Flourishing, love, order and wisdom require infinite work and attention.
"One reason we're disgruntled with the current left is its abandonment of peace" -- anyone who advocates corporate violence is not "the left" by any standards I've ever used. But I guess if you take the Soviet Union as a model for the left, ok. That would be fair, maybe, but to me the Soviet Union was a variant on authoritarianism, sometimes loosely called fascism. No one I have ever spoken to has tried to seriously support anything the Soviet Union ever did.
"That would be fair, maybe, but to me the Soviet Union was a variant on authoritarianism,"
Ah, yes. The Soviet Union is the ONLY example of communism we have to learn from.
I'm pretty sure you watched Michael Moore's documentary about universal health care in Cuba. He was like, "hey, this asthma inhaler only costs 25 cents in Cuba!"
Yeah, well, he was visiting something called a Potemkin Village in Cuba. That is, the pharmacy was fully stocked, unlike 99% of the pharmacies in the country that sold inhalers for 25 cents but had none to sell.
When I went there for a week on a resort vacation with my extended family in 2006, we did some research. You know, you want to know what the customs are about things like tipping. We were told don't bring money. Bring Tylenol. Bring Advil. Bring Benadryl. Bring pencils. Bring baseballs and baseball mitts. Bring hair ties, clips, pins and barrettes. Bring panty hose. Bring disposable razors. Bring 5-packs of cheap toothbrushes. Bring socks. Bring lined paper.
The websites also recommended you leave all your toiletries behind for housekeeping. Antiperspirant, soap, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, everything.
Why? Because they can't get that shit there.
My sister got a massage while we were there. She asked if the masseuse wanted $10CAD or a pair of dollar store panty hose. The woman opted for the panty hose. I asked a server once if she had daughters. She said no. I said, "oh, that's too bad, all I have are these barrettes or cash." She said her sister had daughters and took the 50 cent barrettes.
Two of the bartenders and one of the towel guys I got talking to were medical doctors. Being a bartender or a towel guy at a tourist resort paid them more than doing surgery.
But yeah. Only the Soviet Union showed us how communism failed.
Since you have apparently blocked it out of your mind, the term "Left" goes back to the French Revolution, and designated those who wanted to overturn the monarchial/aristocratic/theocratic system. They did overthrow it, violently.
Since then, many other Leftists have come to power violently.
And though your circle of acquaintances must be terrible small, I can assure you that many people seriously supported everything the Soviet Union did. You'd find out if you read the relevant history. E.g., one U.S. ambassador to the USSR praised the purge trials (see MISSION TO MOSCOW).
The Left =/= pacifism, and never has. And pacifism has never been a subset of the Left either. There have been many right-wing pacifists.
Yes, I know about the origins of Left and Right. I also know that there were some Americans who supported the Soviet Union, including Stalin. I was speaking of present-day Democrats or any American I've spoken with. No one I have known did so. Also, I never said I was a pacifist. I am just opposed to war. I would support using force if and only if there were no other way forward, and survival depended on going forward.
Well, if you don't call it communism then it's obviously not communism. It's just the Justice Democrats. Or the Squad. Or the Green New Deal. Or the Bernie movement. Or free college tuition for all. Or a guaranteed basic income for everyone.
Catherine McKinnon (radical second wave feminist) said, "socialism, communism and feminism are one and the same."
She advocated the dismantling of the cis-heteronormative, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. The first step toward that goal, would be eliminating marriage and the nuclear family, and having the state raise the children. And we're not talking just, "make people send their kids to public schools". She wanted parents to have no rights over their children. She wanted the children literally to be raised by the state.
Why? Because marriage and the nuclear family were the smallest but most ubiquitous and universal lego block that upheld the capitalist patriarchy. Women would never be "free" if they were "forced" to raise their own children within a consensual arrangement with a man. They could only be "free" if the state took on the burden of raising their children. Then they'd be "free" to work in factories and share in the fruits of the means of production.
If you really want to get down to brass tacks, she argued that a woman should care about money more than her own flesh and blood. And that the money handed to them on payday by their husbands in exchange for the "unpaid domestic labor" of nurturing their own children was somehow less noble than the money they could earn screwing the caps on toothpaste tubes 100,000 times a day.
And the ONLY reason McKinnon is frowned upon these days by the intersectional feminist community is because she's a TERF and a SWERF.
Now go read BLM's "about" page. Would you agree that "the community" has as much right to dictate how your child will be raised as you do? That's what BLM is espousing.
And that can work in a community that doesn't exceed Dunbar's number--where cheaters, dictators and free-riders are easily detected and deterred. But in a population of millions? Do you really think a network of strangers can be a better parent to your child than you are?
But, you know. It's worth it, because that's the only way women will ever be "free".
Where is the double standard? The war-mongering neo-cons have shifted to vote Biden, many even spoke at the DNC. The looters and their advocates will vote Biden too. Perfectly consistent.
On the other side, Trump obviously doesn't support looting, and doesn't seem to favor forever wars either. Heck even the accusations that he called veterans "suckers", however one takes them, suggest either he strongly opposes the war machine or the war machine strongly opposes him, either way hard to suggest he's the candidate who will keep it churning.
So whatever the merit of your argument in the pre-Trump era, I think now it is obsolete -- the parties have sorted it out themselves.
Yep. This is the other reason I’m voting for Trump. All I needed was to see that the war-mongering neocons decided to back Biden and boom! Made my choice for Trump that much more enjoyable. I don’t understand why people want to vote for Biden knowing that he has the war criminals like Colin Powell endorsing him. The Dems can have them. It means the Republican Party has changed for the better. I’ll always vote against the war mongering neocons and Trump is that candidate.
Christ, you are such an asshole.
No corporation forces you to buy their hamburgers. Don't like corporations? Stop giving them your fucking money. Make do without the shit they sell. Don't like Chinese sweatshop labor? Don't shop at Walmart. Don't like the US war machine? Vote for Trump (since Democrat retards couldn't get behind Gabbard).
Trump pulled US troops out of Syria and negotiated an agreement between the Turks and the Kurds. He negotiated the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE. He declined to murder 150 Iranians over the shooting down of an unmanned US drone, despite his advisors recommending he do it. He fired John Bolton for being a war mongering cunt. When he retaliated with a missile strike for the Syrian gas attacks, he minimized loss of human life and the air strip he hit was back up and functional within a day. Al Baghdadi and Soleimani were taken out in surgical strikes with little collateral damage. ISIS is a mess he cleaned up, and can now walk away from, like a house-flipper who repaired a gutted home.
What the fuck more do you want?
Meanwhile, here you are refusing to condemn the burning and looting of small businesses, even though Jeff Bezos profits whenever someone can't get the things they need in their own neighborhood. To you, the police who stop the riots and save the small businesses are just as dastardly as the huge corporations that profit when small businesses die. To you, Trump is no different from Hillary, even though Hillary was a war hawk who blamed the deaths of Americans in Benghazi on a shitty Youtube movie and then when asked if she really believed that, said under oath, "what difference, at this point, does it make?"
So why don't you tell us, edgy boi: What is the "real narrative"? Just give me something more substantive than a Holden Caulfield soliloquy.
I don't see that someone who condemns looting is thereby supporting the US war machine. I detest both with a deep passion.
But can you see how we don't condemn the larger of the two offenders and by omission are condoning it ?
Are you listening? I condemn the US government's actions abroad with all my heart, as well as a good number of its actions right here in the US!
Are you listening, they are the same thing. US foreign policy is what you are witnessing right here in the US.
I understand that.
That was the Obama days, war machine. Trump is pulling US out of all that, including ending the "US army for hire" in German, Korean and Japan. All we need to do is tell Israel they are on their own. If they start a war, they need to fight it unlike their bombing IRAQ .
If Trump gets reelected, I hope you are proved right in that respect. But Trump is backing Israel to the hilt, just the opposite of what you envisage.
At least there is an attempt at WORLD peace. Israel is the fly in the Mideast ointment.
Yeah that deal between USE and Israel though makes my skin crawl.
I haven’t waded into those waters though, so I don’t know.
Do you have any particular thing that upsets you. I don't have any specific details.
Just how Trump has given Israel everything they want, and the UAE state sponsored corruption seems ok with him too.
I’m afraid the two will get together and continue to wage war and rubblelization on the other countries in the Mid East we’ve left so weakened by our own war machine.
Then Trump can appear to have clean hands.
But I don’t know, I’m waiting for someone who knows more than me AND whom I trust (rare) to report on it.
And yeah there hasn’t really been much because we’re just having an election and riots and nothing else matters to us:/
The reason no one is reporting on it is because it makes Trump look good.
What on earth makes you think the UAE and Israel will join forces and wage war in the middle east?
I can understand being cautiously optimistic. What I can't understand is someone saying, "I think this is totally bogus, even though I have no information on it."
My word you're special.
Don’t be naive.
Which book is that?
The book that this article is written about.
I'm beginning to think the entire Antifa/BLM/In Defense of Looting is an elaborate Roger Stone plot to re-election Trump. They can't all really be this stupid, can they?
They're stuck walking a razor thin tightrope. Think of it this way: the radicals are angry (often over nothing) and politically active. The more mainstream Democrat voter is more typically busy doing their own thing, politically complacent (or illiterate), and believes what the MSM tells them about the "mostly peaceful" protests (until those protests come to a neighborhood near them).
If the Party does not go along with the radicals, the radicals will DO something about it. Like splinter off? Spearhead a "write in Bernie" campaign and follow through? Organize giant "don't vote" protests? Burn down polling stations and steal/torch mailboxes? Any of those actions would disproportionately damage the Democrats because they'll be happening in the Bluest of Blue areas.
If the Party manages to walk the tightrope of not pissing off the mainstream voter TOO much, there's still TDS to leverage, and they're working that angle like crazy. It was so predictable I could have written their speeches myself. The violence finally hits them in the polls, so they offer a tepid condemnation of the violence, blame the entire debacle on Trump and continue to tacitly indulge the mob's activities by refusing to put a stop to them.
See? Something to please every Democrat voter! The radicals still get to have their fun, and the moderates get to vote for the alternative to the person we keep telling you is responsible for the violence.
Will it work? I don't think so. When you see Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo discussing on CNN how the Dems are taking a hit in the polls and the focus groups say it's the violence, so the Dems better do something pronto, and then the very next day Biden and Harris finally get off their asses (after 90+ days of mayhem) to say looting and violence is wrong? It's pretty obvious they don't think it's wrong because it hurts people--they think it's wrong because it hurts the Democrat Party. It's a cynical political gambit they had to employ because they were backed into a corner, not because they really believe what they're saying.
I mean, I watched a clip of Chris Wallace interviewing a Dem strategist or whatever, and she said that Donald Trump not only wasn't doing anything to stop the violence, he had spent all summer inciting the violence for his own political gain. Wallace had such a beautiful "brain.exe has stopped working" moment I burst out laughing. If you can say something negative about Trump and even Chris Wallace is unable to buy it, you've officially gone full retard.
I honestly think they weren't expecting the rioting to continue and spread the way it has. Their strategy (if it is indeed what I have described above) kind of depended on the riots petering out on their own.
They would support the "protests", and their Democrat state and local governments would allow them to happen, to appease the radicals, but eventually the radicals would tire themselves out. That would happen long before things got so bad it threatened their hold on the moderates, because the media would constantly remind those moderates that these are "peaceful" or "mostly peaceful" protests, for a just cause.
But yeah, they've been in a no-win situation for quite a while. Their only hope at this point is to convince people the violence is all Trump's fault, and they're going full steam ahead on that narrative.
My understanding, based on attending BLM protests in LA 1-3x/week for several weeks after George Floyd's murder, is that the riots DID peter out on their own pretty quickly. Not that it matters, since the media barely covcus unless we're burning something. The Democrats are never going to be able to convince voters they're as anti-looting as Republicans because they're not as willing to go full racist and equate all BLM protesting to rioting, but they could get away with walking the tightrope on that issue...
...IF they had a coherent economic policy. Which they don't.
Trump at the RNC made a clear self-interest argument to business owners: we won't tax or regulate or lock down your business, and we'll scare looters away with a big show of force. If Democrats had Bernie or similar as a candidate they'd be making a clear self-interest argument to working people: we'll give you free healthcare and free college education and a well-paying "green" job. Post-pandemic, they could have used the DNC to talk about Medicare for all or a national eviction moratorium or a federal aid program for small businesses hurt by the lockdowns. Instead, their only argument is that Trump and his supporters are awful and crazy. Which does nothing but alienate their base from the swing voters they might otherwise be able to talk to and convince. Oh, and that forcing people to wear masks is "patriotic". How the hell does any of that help the average person? Trump's idea of using military to crush the riots is an economic argument: now they won't break your store windows and steal your stuff. BLM's idea to defund the police is an economic argument: now we can use that money on better schools, community centers, job training, arts funding etc. Biden's campaign seems to be based entirely on in-ground smugness plus mandated virus virtue signaling, none of which will help pay the bills for anyone.
This is perhaps the silliest thing I've ever read.
"not as willing to go full racist and equate all BLM protesting to rioting"
Every Republican I have seen speak on this issue draws a distinction between peaceful protest (a good thing) and rioting/looting/arson (a bad thing). They encourage peaceful protest, and condemn the rioters as having hijacked those protests.
They have also almost universally condemned what happened to George Floyd. Trey Gowdy even said he could make the case for murder 1, given there's plenty of opportunity in the space of 8 minutes to for a murderer to develop malice aforethought.
I don't know how they could be any clearer on this. George Floyd was a victim of police brutality. Protesting good. Rioting bad. The rioters are hijacking the protests. The peaceful protesters are not to blame for the actions of rioters who hijack their protests.
"Trump at the RNC made a clear self-interest argument to business owners: we won't tax or regulate or lock down your business, and we'll scare looters away with a big show of force. If Democrats had Bernie or similar as a candidate they'd be making a clear self-interest argument to working people: we'll give you free healthcare and free college education and a well-paying "green" job."
What if I don't want free college and a green job? What if I just want to own a hair salon or a restaurant or a convenience store or a used car dealership and not see it burned to the ground? Also, who's going to pay for all these freebies?
"Post-pandemic, they could have used the DNC to talk about Medicare for all or a national eviction moratorium or a federal aid program for small businesses hurt by the lockdowns."
Or the riots. You know. They could have talked about that. Instead, they pretended the riots weren't happening.
"Instead, their only argument is that Trump and his supporters are awful and crazy."
We can agree on that.
"How the hell does any of that help the average person? Trump's idea of using military to crush the riots is an economic argument: now they won't break your store windows and steal your stuff."
It's not just an economic argument. It's a safety argument. It's a peace argument. It's a freedom argument. You think the people in CHOP, you know, the residents and business owners who lived and operated there before it was taken over, were only concerned about money? You think they weren't lying awake at night listening to gunfire? You think they weren't worried about getting hit by a stray bullet? You think they weren't scared to leave their homes after dark?
Come on.
"BLM's idea to defund the police is an economic argument: now we can use that money on better schools, community centers, job training, arts funding etc."
Here in Canada, we've been embracing that moronic suggestion. My son just graduated this spring, and he heard on the radio they're getting rid of the resource officer at his high school this fall. He was like, "WTF? Everyone liked the constable. Even my dipshit friends who like to get in trouble got along with the constable."
The reason we have better schools where I am than almost anywhere (Edmonton Public School System) is because we have school choice. You know, a Trump proposition. Let the funding follow the student, and schools will have to work harder to attract students. I've lived in two shitty, low income neighborhoods here, and the schools in our catchment areas were excellent. Why? It isn't because they get extra money. It's because if they weren't, I could send my kids somewhere else.
Biden's campaign is a train wreck, but I'm sorry. I can't support the "Bernie/BLM" agenda you describe.
Hey Karen I've been enjoying reading your responses in this thread and appreciate that you are fired up about this subject. I may not agree with all your points, but you make it clear where you're coming from and I respect that. However, I winced at you referring to Universal Healthcare and free community college as "freebies", which made it all the more confusing when you revealed that you're from Canada??
I'm just trying to understand how someone who lives in a country that provides universal healthcare to their people by way of taxes can laugh off the notion of Americans wanting the same for our people as us "just wanting freebies". In fact, you being from Canada paints all your responses in a completely different light. You can't understand why young people in the US are angry? This wildly out-of-touch author advocating for looting aside, I guess it is easier to paint all the people protesting as a bunch of spoiled crybabies who don't know what hardship really is instead of acknowledging the stark differences in opportunities in the US vs opportunities in Canada, which I'm sure you, your husband, and your son and daughter benefit from and enjoy. There are so many I don't even know where to begin- from college being way more affordable, higher quality education, 9% of the population living below the poverty line compared to the US's 15%, a more stable banking system, paid maternity leave (which I'm sure you enjoyed when you had your son and daughter but sadly mothers here don't get that luxury, including my own mother), paid sick leave, lower obesity rate, better work-life balance, overall higher quality of life, and fucking HEALTHCARE. Canada reacted to the covid pandemic responsibly? Cool, our politicians turned it into a wedge issue for political gain, sent mixed messages to the people, now 190,000 of my fellow Americans are dead. You guys have sensible gun laws? That's nice; deaths from gun violence are 4 times higher in the US than in Canada. On average, around 1,000 people die here at the hands of police per year vs around 20 in Canada. I'm sorry you and your son were incensed at the friendly high school constable getting dismissed (could not help busting up laughing at this)- he should try going to high school here where we have metal detectors, armed security guards, and school shooter drills starting as early as elementary school, which totally aren't traumatizing our kids-just kidding, they are! Seriously, your family should move down here for a trial, though I can't guarantee you'll be allowed back into Canada with how abysmally we've handled covid-19 here.
I am in no way stating all this to defend the violence and destruction that has ignited from these protests. I went to some marches in the first few weeks after Floyd's death and saw the clear difference in people peacefully and loudly protesting to make their voices heard, and the opportunists who showed up to cause havoc and benefit from the looting that ensued. I saw protestors actively trying to stop people hijacking the message by blocking store entrances they were attempting to break into and sometimes physically shoving them away from the march because they wanted no association with them. The anger and condemnation towards the destructive looters is justified. But the anger felt by a good number of the people protesting is as well. America looks great on the surface, our prosperity measured ultimately through the GDP, and by your measure of whether our young people can afford iPhones or not. If so, we have nothing to complain about! But our system is broken and wrought with corruption, our police are over militarized, our government is apathetic, the wealth divide grows as opportunities shrink, and people are rightfully fed up.
As you said in a previous comment, it's not that there aren't problems, there will never not be problems. I'm sure Canada has its fair share of problems. But you talk like you know what it feels like to be an American right now, and I'm sorry, but you fucking don't. Our problems aren't the local Organic Planet running out of gluten-free pizza- it's losing our job and our health insurance all at once. It's suffering a major traumatic injury and insisting on taking a lyft to the hospital in fear of the price of an ambulance ride. It's over half of all Americans unable to put away enough money for even a $500 emergency and living paycheck to paycheck, barely hovering above the poverty line. It's our politicians and media pitting us against each other to distract us from how badly they're screwing us over. It's the horror of watching our people gunning each other down daily. It's our politicians addressing poverty and despair with more aggressive, militarized policing instead addressing the root causes of crime. It's people having to resort to sites like GoFundMe to help pay for hospital bills and funerals. Do you know what it feels like to be so worried about the prospect of drowning in medical debt that you avoid going to get treated for an illness or an injury? I shutter thinking of how many Americans have died this way even before the pandemic. Did you ever have to have a special talk with your son on how to behave around the police because doing the wrong thing could put his life at risk? This is the reality for countless parents in the US. Do you know what it feels like to watch other countries handle this pandemic responsibly and protect their citizens by providing social and economic safety nets, while the death toll in your country continues to skyrocket, millions lose their jobs along with their healthcare, and the threat of eviction looms over them? Do you know what it feels like to know your country doesn't give a fuck about you and certainly doesn't care if hundreds of thousands of its people die? Because let me tell you: it feels hollowing. You're choosing to focus on a vocal minority of privileged twitter warriors engaging in woke olympics, while disregarding the generational hopelessness Americans are living through right now.
On a final note, your own family's experiences are completely anecdotal and are not pillars of inarguable truth. While I'm delighted you treated us to a rose-colored view of your fiscally-responsible children's lives loading Walmart trucks and making waffles while still being able to save for the future, this is NOT the reality for this young generation of Americans. Your kids can go to college without worrying about being shackled with tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt when they leave, only to be met with an ever-shrinking job market and limited prospects. They can work minimum wage jobs while still afford the luxury of a decent place to live and nice consumer products. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere in the US, this is laughably unattainable here without having 100 roommates. I will absolutely agree with you that a lot of the more vocal participants in these protests are Extremely Online sheltered dipshits larping as socialists. But in painting all the protestors with this broad brush, you're actively ignoring the majority working class young and middle-aged Americans who are rightfully angry and taking to the streets to voice their frustration. You're ignoring the pain of parents who continue to watch their sons killed by the people who are supposed to protect us. You and I can both agree that no one deserves to have their business and livelihood destroyed by senseless violence and destruction. But with all due respect, don't act like you know what it's like to be an American right now while you and your family benefit from so many things we are actively denied, because you don't know.
You'd have been against the Boston Tea party. You're such a tribal thinker it's hilarious.
Yes, someone who is for liberty, individual sovereignty, the rule of law, civil rights and low taxation would totally be against the Boston Tea Party.
Hey, you know a protest I could get behind? The lockdown protest in Lansing. All those guns, and no on got shot. The only person hurt was a protester unlawfully removed from the public gallery. Hell, all the armed "terrorists" submitted to security and temperature screening before entering the building.
A good cause, a good crowd. Kind of like the Boson Tea Party. They destroyed tea owned by a major multinational, left the ships undamaged, physically harmed no one and replaced the other property they destroyed. Some of their members tried to loot, and the others did not allow them to.
It was a focused act against a specific target and did not devolve into looting or violence.
But hey, did you hear about that body found in a burned pawn shop in Minneapolis? You know, because people are angry at the police? So they burned down a pawn shop? Probably after looting it? Because reasons?
By Dems not going full racist, you must not know anything about Joe Biden, or the Clinton's or Obama.
Dimentia Joe was the architect for the racist mass incarceration. But since the Orange Interior Decorator says openly what all his buddies do policy wise, ie the Clinton's, then he is the racist along with those bubbas. Surely not Obama and his cages, or drone strikes or deportations were racist policy. That was all Nobel Peace Prize, caring policy.
Go Biden and Harris, which if you hate Mnuchin, just remember Harris let him walk when he should have gone to prison. I'm sure it wasn't because he was white though.
The mass incarceration was a bipartisan effort. The uniparty is guilty as hell.
I agree.
I’m going to be totally honest, it’s the reason I’ve decided to not vote for Biden I’m 2020. I was previously committed to holding my nose, but now I’m content to watch the left self destruct. They’ve earned it.
Biden isn't "the left". The Democratic Party is now the Republican Party with civility. The neocons switched sides because they don't like Trump. So did the banks and corporate. The Democrats welcomed them (or rather their millions) with open arms. The DNC was a big show of power letting the country know they've crushed the progressives once again. They had Republicans openly ridiculing "the left" ffs.
A vote for Biden is as much a vote against "the left" as a vote for Trump, if not more if you think strategically and game out the next few election cycles.
Fair point. Replace left with “The Democratic Party”
If during the presidency of Trump you believe the Democratic Party is a big enemy to be vanquished now, you are a prize chump.
Lol, it's precisely this kind of coastal liberal arrogance that is going to win Trump his re-election.
Yup, you are a prize chump. Or more likely, just a provocateur. Or maybe a bot.
Did Nancy and Chuck pass Trumps Budget? Did they give money to his wall? Did they vote for the Cares Act? If so you need to stop watching Rachel Maddow.
I haven't watched Rachel Maddow since 2011. And unfortunately I have not kept track of which legislators voted for what during Trump's time in office.
Hawkins/Walker 2020. Green Party.
This country is self destructing.
I blame the media for being blatant propaganda and also sensationalizing the news.
I’ve known for a long time that the news has been propaganda since they ALL decided for us that the Iraq War was a good thing. Yes, CNN, NY Times, LA Times, MCNBC, Fox, etc. they all rammed the Iraq War down our throats and told us we were patriots if we supported it and silently that we were NOT patriots if we didn’t support it. Ever since that moment I have read all angles of news that I can to make sure I could read between the lines. My favorite being financial news because they only cared about money and would often report the truth because of how they understood that their readers needed to know the truth to make better financial decisions.
What really bothers me is that people continue to trust the news today! And they will assume that their preferred news is the truth without remembering how every single outlet fucking lied to us.
Now what’s sad is I also got caught up in this when I found alternative media. It was all mostly left leaning for a long time and I thought they were the ones telling the truth. I’ve realized my mistake after watching more conservative alternative media news channels now too.
We can’t believe anything they say is true, especially from the major networks. I watched the Portland rioters attack the Federal Courthouse live for a week because I wanted to see for myself if what the news was saying was real. I watched the media lie over and over again the next day. I can’t believe how blatant it is. It disturbs me to no end how much the media is lying to people.
It was then that I realized that President Trump wasn’t over exaggerating about fake news. He was telling the truth. How many more lies have the media been saying about him?
I stopped watching any media coverage about actual events or data that I can watch/read for myself. I watch Trump’s speeches and press briefings myself. I do this so I can see what the headlines will say about him the next day and I can compare my own conclusions with the media’s. So far, the media has shown me that they are absolutely not to be trusted one bit.
I blame them for all of this. If the news just reported the truth we wouldn’t have two factions in America. The media has driven this divide.
Agreed. I spend so much time checking sources when news reports come out. I can't trust anyone. I'm experienced in validating sources but I shouldn't have to do so with mainstream media. An event or a quote or a Vote on a piece of legislation should be simply described factually, and I will then decide how I feel about it. I don't need the partisan, post complex flow chart analysis , take on these things. Just. The. Facts.
Bring back the fairness doctrine. It worked.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine
Great comment! I've been doing the same thing ... collecting information, watching video, reading first hand accounts from independent journalists, then reading what the liberal and conservative outlets have to say and it's astounding how much the liberal outlets lie, deny and obfuscate .
Like you I always thought it was the opposite. It disturbs me how much they're lying, but it disturbs me how many people believe it.
The new WGN station NewsNation seems worth a look.
It's just more CIA Mockingbird MSM schlock.
Exactly, but some of us still have to live in it.
Its the Boomers. As they die off something better will come along.
That’s ageism. Another tool of the media to further divide the people into segments. One of the things I really detest about ppl today is that they blame everyone else but themselves. I do agree that the Boomers have a lot of issues. It’s obvious by the state of things today. My biggest gripe about them is their lack of commitment to their responsibilities which is clearly shown by the Boomer divorce rate. However, the younger generations have only furthered this by completing deflecting all of their own responsibilities. I would watch students at UCLA in the early 2000s throw away plastic bottles in the trash instead of recycling them in the recycle bin 3 ft away. This lack of responsibility exists in ALL generations. The Boomers are not the only ones and they may have in fact passed on their horrible habits into subsequent generations.
When I say Boomers are the issue, i don't mean that the rest of us and our generations aren't fucked up. My parents and inlaws are boomers along with alot of people i know. The Boomer leadership in government are terrible and have been for 3 plus decades. The boomer commoners have been so brainwashed by their respective sides that they are all either stuck in the idyllic tv version of the 50's, the right wingers or the radical 60's, the left wingers. They are stuck and see the world through those lenses which is what shaped them. I have been tired of the 60's nostalgia and glamorization for about 25 years now. Much of the so called radical part was small and concentrated and then blown out of proportion by the media. The reality is the Boomer politicians with the most power have been linked with Nixon whether for or against for decades. It's the same group of clowns and crooks and warmongers on each side. Hillary was against nix but loves Henry Kissinger. Cheney and Rumsfield were part of Nixons staff and then continued on. The Boomers need to die for real change to happen. My generation and the rest are going to mess some shit up but I'm ready to move on. Finally, ageism along with all the other isms don't matter to me. That is lib name calling that has been weaponized and only matters to those who are trying to conform to the lib propaganda line. There is a great old saying that I would agree with now as an adult. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me. That was garbage as a child but as an adult is there for the mature.
The 'left' as in centrists, then right on. The "left" as in anarchists, socialists, communists, progressives, not all will be voting for Biden, and in some of those populations (e.g. anarchists), I doubt you would see above 5% of those folks voting for Biden.
If any major group of us self destructs the rest of us will go with them. I would have thought that would be obvious. Voting for Trump -- or in this case, not voting for Biden in order to get rid of Trump -- is an act of cowardice in the face of a big-time criminal.
Lol and voting for Sleepy Joe "Credit Card Industry" Biden, and Kamala "the Cop" Harris is an act of bravery and heroism? Get real dude. You sound just like the NYTimes - a lot of anger and condescension to hide the well justified fear that your narrow little view of the world is no longer popular in this country.
I wanted Bernie, of course, but voting for Biden is now absolutely necessary to get rid of Trump. But don't trust me, ask any ethical Republican, say David Frum or Jennifer Rubin or... I can't even remember their names. There are dozens, probably hundreds of them. Actually if you don't know all that you have not been paying attention.
I'm not sure that "ethical" and "David Frum" have ever appeared together in the same sentence non-ironically.
All right. I'm honestly not sure about From. Let's say "prominent" and not an officeholder who is compelled to support Trump now.
Well done sir.
'Ask any Republican with a history of hating Trump, and who continues to hate him, and that Republican will say Trump has to go.'
What earthshaking revelation will we receive next? Maybe this: People who like ice cream enjoy eating it?
By criminal, you mean the guy that literally grabbed a woman by the pussy? You mean the guy that was called the Senator from MBNA? You mean the guy that passed the 95 crime bill? That guy? Or the failed Casino turd?
I haven't read anything about Biden's exploits in the pussy department, but the other things you wrote are true. And yes, horrible. I wanted Bernie, not Biden. But Trump scares me badly and I want him out of office. Maybe I'm eventually going to hell for supporting Biden, but right now I feel the real-world flames already playing around my feet and I want Trump out. For the record I hate MBNA and every crime bill.
At last some honesty. Trump scares Ralph, so he's voting for Biden.
Actually a respectable position, even though the fear is totally irrational.
You think there is nothing to fear from Trump? Now that is interesting. Please tell me why. (I am not arguing about any of this now, I'd just like to know what you mean.)
Tara Reade. He digitally penetrated her. Then the president of the Me Too, nonprofit ignored her because she is working for the Biden campaign.
Thank you. Now I remember Tara Reade.
Do you think the AOC branch will split off and form another party before or after the election? That's why the Dems have been doing everything in their power to avoid mentioning the riots.
If they acknowledge the riots are happening, low information Dem voters will realize, "oh shit, there ARE riots. I thought it was mostly peaceful protests." And acknowledging them necessitates condemning them.
But by condemning the riots they piss off the radicals.
So they were stuck in a loop of 90+ days of not addressing them in any way other than as "peaceful protests". The typical low information Dem voter would be like, "look at all these peaceful protests! CNN tells me they're noble and righteous!" and the radicals would be, "yay! We keep our license to smash and burn things!"
The longer they waited, the worse acknowledging it would be, and they knew that. But I think they were hoping the riots would peter out on their own and they'd never have to address it.
An abundance of irrefutable evidence, much of it overwhelming in quality, that our way of life faces an existential threat from the forces you noted yourself and Donald Trump is all that’s standing between these fascistic movements and our way of life.
Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and what remains of the Democratic establishment - if anything, are powerless to stop these forces of anarchy and destruction.
Vote for the re-election of President Trump in November 3rd.
Absurd. Trump is the most larcenous and destructive politician ever to hold that office, and that is not a low bar.
"larcenous" Explain.
His violations of the emoluments clause of the constitution. It's a newer strategy of theft the others before him refused to partake in to this extent.
Okay, you claim he's violated the emoluments clause. That would be impeachable, no?
There were calls for his impeachment since before he was even elected. You'd think if he violated the emoluments clause, it would be open and shut.
He has a team of lawyers and accountants to ensure he's never in violation. For example, if a foreign dignitary stays at one of his hotels, every penny from that is forwarded to the Treasury. He earns nothing on the room, and he's out of pocket for the paperwork.
Meanwhile, even liberal fact-checking websites have confirmed he donates his $400k yearly salary back into the Treasury.
I recall a bunch of idiots getting up in arms because he was "enriching" himself through stocks he owned in a company that makes hydroxychloroquine. Even liberal fact-checking websites had to admit that owning a couple of mutual funds, managed in a blind trust, that contain $2500-$5000 in said stock isn't going to enrich anyone, particularly since HCQ is a cheap generic, unlikely to double the value of the company, but which, even if it did, would only net him up to $5000 in profits.
The Democrats have been so far up his ass with a Hubble Telescope for years, one would think you'd have found SOME violation by now.
Dude, stop sniffing the Orange ones jock. Your as bad as the people your answering. He's obviously profiting off of his presidency. The reason they didn't impeach for anything other than a weak ass reason is because all of the congress clowns are criminals and doing the same thing.
Come on now.
Just because he's not being impeached for something does not mean he isn't guilty. How do you come up with this goofy reasoning ? Both parties are complicit in war crimes and fraud. Do you think exposing that evidence might have something to do with it ?
If your ALL your sources claim Trump has not violated the Emolument clause, you are reading ONLY garbage.
He is stealing from every taxpayer in this country every single day. How can you not know that? Trump sends diplomats to his hotels. He helps Ivanka make deal overseas. He will not release his tax returns. He did not put his holdings into a trust, and he advances his own interests by practically every decision he makes. He is profiting massively from being president.
"He is stealing from every taxpayer in this country every single day."
That's a grand claim with little detail. Is this one of those, "we pay him to do a job, and I personally don't like how he performs that job" things? Because that would be a subjective claim even if it weren't objectively, factually incorrect (as I will explain below).
"Trump sends diplomats to his hotels."
So? He also sends every penny from that to the Treasury. Honestly, if one can even consider a foreign dignitary paying the going rate for a luxury hotel room a "gift", Trump earns nothing from it. He's actually out of pocket, because he has to pay lawyers and accountants to do the paperwork and transfer the money to the Treasury.
"He helps Ivanka make deal overseas."
Okay. How does this amount to Trump receiving a "gift" from a foreign king, prince or state? Is this kind of like Joe helping his son Hunter, who admitted he'd never have been hired by Burisma if his last name wasn't Biden? Unless Burisma is state-owned, even that is not a violation of the emoluments clause.
"He will not release his tax returns."
So? There's no law that says he has to.
"He did not put his holdings into a trust,"
Not illegal, and doing so does not prevent ethical violations. It only provides plausible deniability.
And how is this, in itself, a violation of the emoluments clause?
"and he advances his own interests by practically every decision he makes."
Like his decision to donate his $400k/year salary back to the Treasury? I wonder if he pays income tax on it before he puts that $400k check in the mail?
"He is profiting massively from being president."
You've given one example of how a family member might be benefitting from her association with him. But you haven't demonstrated how this is a violation of the emoluments clause. If it is, Biden is equally (or more) guilty of it, since Ivanka had a successful business before her daddy became an elected official. Hunter Biden? He's been living off of political nepotism since his daddy was a Senator.
But you keep on keeping on.
I will never claim that Biden or Hunter is clean, because I have no idea. Hunter probably has been living off nepotism, and that is a fair point. What I do know is that Trump is deeply destructive to this nation. Your reams of arguments cannot hide obvious reality. And if you think it is ok for a family member to profit, you are not getting the point of the Constitution. You are sure making a lot of excuses and apologia for Trump's larceny. You can't really be serious, or you can't really be that badly deceived. You know how to write, so you are well educated. I just cannot think you are that delusional to believe the junk you are writing. What is your background?
Uh, are you new to America or just illiterate? Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama. Any of those criminals ring a bell? I mean Obama was super wealthy when he was a Senator right? Bush the Dead, was running drugs into the US and selling arms to Iran and guns to Nicaragua. No not as bad as the Motel guy.
Uh, are you totally ignorant of Trumps war crimes ? Of the fraud he and Mnuchin are currently committing ? You know, the same fraud Obomber and the gang are guilty of ? Do pay attention when the Dems approve his "defense" budget and fast track his (not so) Supreme court appointments ?
Yes I am aware and since Kami Harris decided to not betray her class and prosecute numb nuts Mnuchin, he is the Treasury Secretary.
So no comment on the war crimes I guess or the fact that no matter who you elect the war crimes and fraud will continue.
That is very interesting. I am from the US. I know those names, yes. But I do not understand the substance of your comment. Could you please clarify?
All the Presidents are criminals and thieves. Not just the Orange one.
But who is The Motel Guy?
Sticking up for that guy means one thing: You have childhood trauma or are brainwashed by years of watching television.
So Biden/Harris are “powerless” to stop these “forces of anarchy and destruction” (whatever that means), but trump is capable of stopping it? How come he hasn’t yet? Also, what’s “our way of life”? How exactly is “your way of life” being threatened by either Biden/Harris or these “forces of anarchy”?
Take a civics class, moron.
He could stop it in an instant if he invoked the Insurrection Act. That would allow him to override the wishes of governors and mayors, and put federal troops and LEOs on the ground. More than this, federal forces would be in charge, and state and local law enforcement would be subordinate to them.
But instead, he's offered federal assistance if requested. This means the state and local governments need to consent, and federal personnel are subordinate to state and local authority. He did that in Minneapolis and Kenosha, and what have we seen? Ooh, was it an end to the riots there? Why yes, I think it was.
The Democrats are not powerless to stop the riots. They just don't want to.
Every city with this problem is a Democrat city that refuses to call in the National Guard or accept federal help, and who orders their local and state police to stand down.
Moron? While I’m loathe to get into little social media back-and-forths, um, fuck you. That is all.
Ooh. Someone told me "fuck you." And he did so as an exception to his general rule of being above it all.
Do you have any Grey Poupon? I hear it's the most popular mustard for snooty people.
Okay, fine, I’ll bite. 1. I’m what people would consider “working-class” or “blue collar” or, more accurately, “poor.” My girlfriend has a real job and she supports us. I can’t get hired anywhere and haven’t had a job in three years. I do have Sprouts-brand organic Dijon mustard in the fridge, though. So I’m pretty fucking elitist, by your definition, anyway. And I live in California, too, which I guess automatically makes me a part of the Elitist Class on The Coast or whatever. Anyway...... More importantly, 2. If invoking the Insurrection Act would instantly stop protests/rioting etc, why hasn’t fat Donald invoked it yet?
You can't be serious. If you are, I pity you.
Of course I’m serious. Aren’t you? My opinions are based in fact and supported by tons of evidence. Democrats cannot be trusted based on their behavior before, during, and after Trump’s election. Democrats with the help of like-minded members of the permanent federal bureaucracy and media undermined and obstructed the transition and the administration. How can you defend your support for a party that spied on their political opponents? How can you defend your support of a party that encourages, enables, and celebrates violent riots across the country? How can you defend your support for Joe Biden who’s had 5 decades to solve problems but only managed to enrich himself and his family? Donald Trump has been in office for a short period of time and has managed to keep all of his 2016 campaign promises. Don’t pity me. Save your piggy for our freedom, prosperity, and security should your party manage to steal this election.
Dude, he hasn't kept all his promises. Stop with the Fox News talking points. Are we out of Afghanistan? Did he repeal and replace Obamacare? Is his beautiful wall built? Or did he just give billionaires the largest tax break in history?
Someone needs to take a civics class.
As far as what?
1.) I know of no evidence to suggest that democrats "with the help of like-minded members of the permanent federal bureaucracy and media undermined and obstructed the transition and the administration." I am open to any evidence you might be able to provide.
2.) I have no evidence that Democrats spied on their political opponents. Again, I am open to any evidence you might be able to provide.
3.) I know of no Democrat who "celebrates violent riots across the country". Evidence needed again.
4.)You wrote that Joe Biden "had 5 decades to solve problems but only managed to enrich himself and his family?" What are (some of) the particular problems Joe might have helped solve? That's important. You may very well be right about certain unsolved problems that he did not solve, or at least try to solve, but without more specificity I can't respond.
5.) You wrote, "Donald Trump has been in office for a short period of time and has managed to keep all of his 2016 campaign promises."
Trump fulfilled some campaign promises, had partial fulfillment of others, and no fulfillment of some.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-37982000
But many of his campaign promises were policies I strongly disagree with, so I can hardly count that in his favor.
------------------
Now, can you please try to reply with some attempt at objectivity, as I just did?
"1.) I know of no evidence to suggest that democrats "with the help of like-minded members of the permanent federal bureaucracy and media undermined and obstructed the transition and the administration." I am open to any evidence you might be able to provide."
You really haven't been paying attention.
So back in September of 2016, an allegation was published in Yahoo News alleging that Trump campaign advisor Carter Page was in cahoots with the Russians. There was already an investigation (Crossfire Hurricane) open into possible shenanigans between members of Team Trump and Russian intelligent agents (IOs). General Flynn was also a person of interest, since he was working as a foreign lobbyist and had attended a gala dinner where Putin was a guest (and was seated next to Putin).
There are differences of opinion as to whether Crossfire Hurricane was sufficiently predicated, but the investigation as such mostly involved boring things like looking into publicly available information.
Meanwhile, the DNC and the Clinton Campaign had hired a company called Fusion GPS to put together some opposition research on Trump. Fusion GPS reached out to a British ex-spy, Christopher Steele, to contact his connections in Russia to see if they had any damning information on Trump. He leaned on a friend and Russian ex-pat who worked for liberal DC Think Tank the Brookings Institution to do the legwork.
Anyway, Carter Page read the Yahoo News article and immediately quit the Trump Campaign. Within 2 days, he had written a direct letter to James Comey denying the allegations and informing Comey that he had a decades-long history of interactions with American intelligence agencies, including the FBI and CIA. He asked the FBI to call him so they could clear the matter up.
The FBI did not contact page for 5 months. What they DID do was try to get a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Warrant against Page.
Another thing they didn't do (something that would be standard operating procedure even without Page's letter) was look through their files to see if they already had any information on Page. Or maybe they did, and just pretended they didn't. Because those files would have indicated Page had assisted the FBI and DoJ investigate and prosecute Russian bad guys by acting as a confidential informant for them.
Pretty sure SOP would have also involved contacting the CIA to see what his interactions with them were (again, confidential informant).
Despite them not including any of this exculpatory information in their FISA warrant application, what they had did not meet the extremely low bar for probable cause to be granted a warrant to surveil an American citizen.
Enter Fusion GPS and the oppo research bought and paid for by Clinton and the DNC. This was the infamous "Steele Dossier". It included many salacious claims about Trump (including the assertion that he'd hired hookers to pee on a Russian hotel bed Obama had once slept in). None of the information was verified, but they characterized it as reliable and stuck it in their next warrant application (late October) against Page. That put the application over the legal hurdle.
Now you might say, "well, Page wasn't even working for the Trump Campaign at that point, so there!"
Except that FISA warrants do 2 things:
1) it gives the FBI the right to go back 6 months to surveil the subject's communications (during which Page WAS working for the Campaign)
2) it gives the FBI the right to surveil the subject, the subject's contacts, and the subjects' contacts' contacts.
So basically, any friend of a friend of Page's during the 5-ish months when he was working for the campaign was fair game for the FBI to surveil.
Which would have been fair and above board, except they illegally excluded exculpatory information on Page, that they already had in their possession, from their warrant application, and they marked the dossier as "verified" when it had not been verified.
By early January, even with their license to surveil Flynn's communications, the case agents had determined there was "no derogatory information" on Flynn and wrote up paperwork removing him from the investigation.
Peter Strzok, the lead agent on the case, told them the "7th floor" (FBI leadership) wanted them to keep Flynn open. The next day, Strzok and Comey met in the Oval Office with Obama, Biden and a few others (Susan Rice, Sally Yates, etc) to discuss Flynn. They had transcripts of calls Flynn had made, as incoming national security advisor to the president elect, with a Russian diplomat called Kislyak.
Comey told Obama the calls were "legit".
Biden suggested they try to prosecute Flynn on a Logan Act violation (a law that most legal scholars believe is unconstitutional, and wouldn't apply here anyway).
Obama told Comey to keep Flynn open and "put the right people on it."
Shortly after the transition, Comey had Deputy Director McCabe call Flynn and set up a briefing. Flynn asked if he was under investigation and whether he needed counsel present. "No no, this isn't an interview, you're not under investigation, it's a briefing. You can HAVE counsel present, but if you want that then I need to bump this up to the DoJ and it's all kinds of red tape."
Comey bragged on camera that he literally circumvented standard procedure to send agents in under false premises to interview Flynn (who was still under surveillance, mind you). Strzok and an agent named Pientka go and interview Flynn about the contents of his calls with Kislyak.
Flynn immediately tells them he knows they have word for word transcripts of the calls. The agents do not advise him of rule 1001 (which is arguably illegal), because that might tip him off that this wasn't just a briefing.
Anyway, they talk to him and report back that Flynn was truthful and candid. Comey wasn't happy with that, so the 302 summary of the interview (a document based on notes and memory, mandated to be completed by the interviewing agents within 5 days) was passed back and forth between Strzok and his girlfriend Lisa Page for a whopping 22 days before if you squinted just right you could argue Flynn might have lied to the FBI.
The lie is the equivalent of the difference between wording, "I didn't tell them to do nothing," as "I didn't tell them not to do anything." You can argue that if he told them go ahead and do X but and not to do Y, wording things the second way is a lie. Kind of. Depending on how you read the sentence.
This is what Flynn was arrested for.
Around this same time, case agents with the FBI went and talked to the Brookings Institution guy, from whom 90% of the claims in the dossier were sourced by Steele. He told them half of what was in the dossier was exaggerated, and the other half was rumor, speculation and things said "in jest" over beers--and that some of it might have been Russian disinformation.
The FBI, knowing this, went ahead and used the dossier to get another warrant renewal. Even worse, FBI senior lawyer Kevin Clinesmith took an email from the CIA that confirmed Page was a confidential informant for them, and altered it. He added the word "not". As in, "Carter Page is not a confidential informant for us."
Now remember, this warrant gave them the right to surveil every friend of a friend of Page dating back to May 2016.
I would argue the warrant was illegal to begin with, since there is a legal requirement to include exculpatory information, and the FBI had lots of that in their own files but included none of it, and because the dossier was described to the court as "verified" when it was not.
So yes, illegally spying on the Trump Campaign (and transition and into the administration). With the assistance of the DNC and Clinton with the dossier that contained a bunch of nothing verifiable, and at the insistence of Barack Obama.
Every single thing I've said here is verified by documents, most of them FBI documents that have been declassified over the last few months.
And what I've described here isn't the end of it. When it came to the FBI's attention that Senator Feinstein's driver might be a foreign agent, the FBI warned her so she could fire him and take whatever action necessary to protect national security (like change her passwords, review conversations had in his presence, etc). When it came to the FBI's attention that someone in Trump's campaign might be a foreign agent, they didn't warn him. They used it as a pretext to obtain an illegal warrant to spy on him deep into his administration.
That you have zero knowledge about the evidence backing this tells me you are watching news media for whom these facts are inconvenient.
Very good synopsis Karen. I can vouch for your accuracy; not that anyone else cares. But well done.
I admit that the level of detail you are discussing, perhaps brought out during Senate hearings or similar investigations, is not part of my news diet.
After the JFK assassination, for several months I interested myself in details of his shooting, the rifle, the alleged killer Oswald, and the actual killer of the alleged killer (that second shooting having happened on live TV), Jack Ruby. It turned out that there were many books and documents continually appearing in that time period, which argued a wide variety of theories about what really happened on Nov 23 and 24, 1963. I read a few of them and then gave up. It appeared that there was no way I could ever tell fact from rumor or fiction by reading those materials.
The "establishment" story, as related by the Warren Commission, was that Oswald acted alone and there was no conspiracy. Years later, a number of researchers made long and detailed retrospective studies of the evidence and the report. My recollection is that they all concluded the Warren Commission had been correct and that Oswald was the sole killer and Jack Ruby was just a man with some serious psychological problems (something to that effect, I think).
Today I remain very skeptical that those theories are correct (lone gunman Oswald and crazy Jack Ruby armed with a handgun). But that was a long time ago, and I have no feasible way of learning anything more. I remain skeptical and unsatisfied.
As a result of those prior experiences, I must confess that the collection of disputed stories and facts about Carter Page, Kevin Clinesmith, Dianne Feinstein's driver, Sally Yates, Crossfire Hurricane, Christopher Steele, Strzok and many others are not part of the materials I now think are useful for me to study at the present and likely not ever. My reasons are that the material is voluminous and would require a lot of time to read, and that my past efforts to investigate such matters have not proved very useful in subsequent decision making.
I have to content myself with information relayed by people such as yourself who decide to dig into many layers of information, as well as ordinary news articles and opinion pieces written by a diverse range of thinkers.
You're very good at demonizing your political party's opponents. How come the press is 100% propaganda unless it supports your agenda ?
"3.) I know of no Democrat who "celebrates violent riots across the country". Evidence needed again."
Kamala Harris, on June 17, told Stephen Colbert that the protests would not stop and should not stop. She made no clear distinction that she was only talking about peaceful protests, nor did she call out the violence.
This is important because the protests had already been regularly devolving into rioting, arson and violence for more than 2 weeks.
So why wouldn't she make that distinction? How hard is it to say, "the protests should continue, the protesters should keep the pressure on, but the looting and rioting needs to stop"?
How is it a leap to interpret her comments as meaning, "what's going on now needs to continue"?
In fact, she did not come out and make any distinction between the protests and riots, or condemn the riots, until after Trump's RNC acceptance speech where he called her out for not yet having done so.
Kamala Harris said seven times in that interview that they were not going to stop. I had the impression she couldn't think of anything else to say about them. Same thing when Colbert asked her about her attack on Biden during the debate. "It was a debate!" Six or seven times.
She really is unintelligent.
Please tell us how you know what she's thinking Karen ? How did you prove anything by insinuating what she meant ? You're a very bad lawyer if think slander will prove anything in court.
Conflating someones statement in order to imply what they meant is just plain dishonest.
You're not very good at proving anything but your own bias and contempt.
You're conflating protests with riots and looting again. You're very biased.
I would not call Harris's comments "celebrating", but I think she should have specified peaceful protests as acceptable.
You actually believe this garbage ? How come we're still at war and he's now a war criminal if he's kept all his promises ?
Ah yes, the whole, "he got stuck with a situation created by others, and hasn't completely fixed it yet! Checkmate!"
Also, you literally keep throwing around allegations that are criminal in nature, as if other people will know what you're talking about.
How is he a war criminal?
He's dropped more bombs than Obomber now. Sorry to burst your bubble.
You pretend to be informed and you don't know about his war crimes ?
That hasn't changed anything yet and it never will. You live in a plutocracy.
Dude, sixty million people voted for trump. You think they’re the only stupid people in this country? There’s just as many dumb-ass “liberals” as there are right-wingers.
Here, here!
I mean just watch this video. Clinton won Rochester 54-39 in 2016. How many Trump voters do you think may have emerged from this little stunt? https://mobile.twitter.com/mrandyngo/status/1302072620871856128
That is disgusting. Anyone who does that kind of thing deserves prison time.
Bernie would have won in 2016 if Hillary wasn't a pile of garbage and the Democracts didn't cheat. He would be sailing into his 2nd term and we would think about politics...
Na, Bernie is a huge fraud and is being treated like the gimp he is by the Dems. If he had any integrity or actual belief in what he was saying he would've done to the Dems what Trump did to the Reps.
Yep. I’m annoyed with myself for voting for him in the primaries. I should have voted for Tulsi like I wanted to. She’s not perfect but you can tell she was the real deal since the Dems have iced her out of the party.
Bernie's not a fraud. He's just weak.
So taking all of those $5,$10,$20 donations, knowing he was going to do whatever the Dems told him to do, wasnt fraudulent? He knew he wasn't going to win and he wasnt going to burn down the Dem party because he wanted a cushy job till he retires. He is a fraud, like Trump is to working class people. Liars, both of them. Which is why it is hilarious to watch the Dems humiliate him. Just Desserts.
They really can be this stupid.
Yes, they really can be that stupid.
But it's not as stupid as it looks now. Over time, the Left has been winning. When the Right wins an election, it fulfills the Left's program, only more slowly and partially.
Until the Right rejects the Lefts moral principles, it will continue to lose.
History is full of useful idiots reacting to false flags events and covert actions. If you don't like US foreign policy here in America how do you think everyone else around the globe likes it ?
Before I deactivated my Facebook my very white and fairly wealthy friends were posting about why people cared more about property than people. I found that an odd virtue signal to make - considering both of them lived in pretty nice houses in really nice areas of Los Angeles. I wondered, how would they feel if their houses burned down after a shooting? Sure, they had insurance but what about what they would lose, their memories, their photographs (they're that old), paintings, furniture - what then? Are we not to feel for them? Would they feel too guilty to be angry or sad? I watched the old man in Kenosha take up a fire extinguisher as a weapon to protect his friend Sue's 100 year old mattress store. He was knocked unconscious and the store burned to the ground. I understand people supporting the protests, maybe even understanding why they would destroy a whole town and then threaten to do the same thing again. But I don't understand not feeling compassion for that old guy and his friend Sue. We have become systems of dehumanization. And weirdly, that's sort of where we were back in the late 60s and early 70s - and why when Charles Manson's family slaughtered rich "piggies" he was applauded for doing so by the Weathermen. Nixon took full advantage of it for the exact same reasons. The only difference between then and now are two things.
1) We did not yet have a completely muzzled and castrated left press that simply will not tell the truth about anything if it puts their jobs or their status in jeopardy - this is true all the way from The Atlantic to CNN.
2) The generation that read Steal This Book and their counter culture revolution blew open convention, censorship, artistic oppression, a stifling utopian vision of white American life in the 1950s - and spit it back out as free love, women's lib, black power - acid rock, rock n' roll, Woodstock. It was the era that produced the best American films ever made. Art, like information or anything else, wants to be free. Now Gen Z is exploding out of that generation and their counter culture movement seems to be to zip everything back up, purify films, books and ideas and thoughts into convention, to divide people up by race and force them to take a side against each other. You can't sympathize with the old man with a fire extinguisher because he's white and if you do that you are a racist who doesn't care about the murder of Jacob Blake.
What is cool, though, is that there are still free and courageous minds like yours, and a medium like this where they can be posted and read and shared. Your Substack is, I might offer, a Steal This Book of its own kind.
I think that you make a compelling argument here about "radicals" now/"radicals" then, the efficacy of riots and arson, generational differences, etc. A few points:
1. A lot of the most mainstream members of the democratic voting bloc have gone from being scared of sharing their opinions online to internalizing a lot of these phony radical talking points. I know some upper middle class, brunch-friendly dems who will gladly tell you they're supporting whatever "revolution" this is that's happening right now. The book Taibbi discusses here is a bestseller now, and I'm sure a lot of mainstream dems will read and agree with it, all the while enjoying a very expensive bottle of their favorite spirit.
2. The millennials made some great art, and continued some of the countercultural movements from previous generations. I now see a lot them apologizing from some perceived transgressions during all of the "the reckonings" of the past 5-6 years. The zoomers are inheriting some broken pieces to work with.
3. Jacob Blake is not dead! That's an important distinction, I think. I also think the circumstances between the horrific killing of George Floyd and what happened to Jacob Blake are radically different. What happened to Jacob Blake was brutal and a tragedy, but I think the forced correlation of the two events is not helpful to this moment. (Apple went as far to compare Blake to Emmett Till, which is sick really.)
And to the commenter directly below: I think it's important to keep a clear distinction between peaceful protestors and arsonists/looters/brawlers, and we've - on cue - seen right wing sources conflating them. What's worse, and I think what Mr. Taibbi is getting to in this piece, is that "establisment/democrat" media is not making the necessary distinctions between these movements, and conflating them themselves, while even advocating for street violence. (I'm old enough to remember when the mainstream media thought that hip-hop anthems "Fuck the Police" and "Cop Killer" were going to destroy all of humanity. Now, Apple played "Fuck the Police" on a continuous loop on their radio stations for 24 hours! And in the background, they became the first American company worth $2 trillion! What the hell is happening here?)
Catabolic capitalism. Any major social movement becomes the focus of massive advertising, it is turned into a brand.
So "loot culture" is now a brand, and you can't attack the brand because corporations are busy selling things to that brand. Any attack will be met with some online person discussing how this attack on the brand is bigoted and puts lives at risk.
Vigilantism is also being promoted to a brand, complete with logos and stickers and political support and marketing campaigns. Again, any discussion of the dangers of promoting vigilantism will result in strenuous defense by the people and companies that benefit from those brands.
Our civilization is being actively destroyed by branding.
It certainly appears that way. It's been really wild to see the mayors of Portland and Chicago in full support of "the movement" - even though the movement is in united in their condemnation of them - decide to outlaw certain protests, or even move, when the protests come to their neighborhood.
We're starting to see some of these market forces turn their back on the rioting/looting/murderous aspects of "the movement" now that some of the polling looks bad for Biden, but it's scattershot and some people haven't got the new memo. Seeing Trump go on Fox and ramble about shadowy back-room phantoms on an airplane, followed by Biden going into Kenosha and acting as if the awful staff of Jezebel just gave him a quick social justice primer, and fumbling that primer badly, rambling about the inventor of the lightbulb and re-education in high schools is not helping anyone. Really universe, are these our choices?
I fully believe, if Trump wins this thing, it's going to be primarily because the wild dissonance surrounding the events of Kenosha. Anyone who possesses a still-functional brain is seeing things very differently than any of the prevailing narratives. It's like were watching a never-ending Netflix adaptation of "Rashomon," as re-envisioned by Michael Avenatti and Robin DiAngelo, and it's god-awful, but all of the critics are raving about it anyway.
And saying "people are poor and desperate and losing hope in the system" indicates support for giving basic services and material support to American citizens in the middle of a pandemic and depression, which would piss off the donors (now's a great time to cut wages and benefits and charge as much as possible for treatments! This is an economy, not a "society"!).
So instead, it has to be reframed as a racial, social justice, woke thing, and that brand does not have bad actors, so all these desperate actions must be excused as moral by the elitists who ultimately are among the same group of well-off people who feel THEY should sacrifice nothing. So elite white radio hosts are reading elite white books telling poor business owners that they should suck it up.
The INSTANT these riots and looting start knocking down gates in elite neoliberal enclaves in CA and NY, they'll be calling for them to end, probably blaming Russia for seizing control of the movement.
Social Justice is a subset of Neoliberalism. Real social justice won't come from those clowns.
Society of the Spectacle!
Interesting when corporations profit during a pandemic! (If/when they do- I haven't checked). Or turn Twitter outrage into free advertising. Or say "we're not running ads here" and get tons and tons of coverage. (Coke).
https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/800/1*sLqSbURf3MZt_5JrngVCJw.jpeg
That's it! You too can purchase the experience-- (since the genuine act is disallowed).
All the critical theory stuff-- Baudrillard, Debord , Situationists etc. applies even more today. It's like a prediction/idea when the works were penned. Today they're reality-- but I suppose we've moved on/they seem to have never even escaped academic consideration to seep into the total culture, sadly.
Now we're fighting sides instead of recognizing that both parties are playing the corporatist game and sucking us all dry. I'd love to see people quit the sectarianism and get after the creators of wealth inequality-- right and left!
All the people I've ever met who claim they care more about people than property were obsessed with the fact that some people had more property than they. And they were all extremely eager to control other people's property. So I call horseshit.
This is, "all I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten" level shit.
This is actually lower primates than humans level shit.
It actually takes a lot of programming and mental gymnastics to unlearn, "it's not nice to take things that don't belong to you."
Very good points. There's little that's more terrifying than selective compassion.
It does need to be reiterated and emphasized that the looting and burning is likely not being carried out by those who are protesting.
Agreed. But the problem is the press is simply too muzzled to draw the distinction. For instance, no one knows who the guy was that hit that man in the head. No one knows who he was because no one cares because no one is properly covering the story.
The press is muzzled? No. The press is complicit.
That may or may not be true. I imagine some of the people who protest also looted. This is the kind of false distinction also used on the right, "the beefy white militia dudes are peacefully advocating for the police, with no overlap with the guys ramming their trucks into crowds or the random lone shooter."
We really need to knock it off with portraying everyone who agrees with us politically being some kind of saint who is totally above any wrongdoing (BLM! BIDEN2020!!). These protesters are out there because they are hurting and angry, AND they are poor and downtrodden and, being human, prone to violence when provoked.
That's right. I agree - I'd be more inclined to argue support of looting in terms of the bizarre culture dynamic of the Kardashians and their billions selling that lifestyle to people who can never get there. If status is the American dream, status is then defined by wealth which is defined by material goods, etc. It isn't "their stealing bread" so much as they are perhaps trying to level the score. But the white millennials or Gen Z (I know a few, am related to a few) who are doing this for purely ideological reasons, their borrowed rage from actually oppressed people, is what reminds me of the 1960s.
Also Karl Hungus for the win. "He fixes her cable?"
I kind of think about protest and civil unrest and looting and mob actions in general as a symptom rather than a choice. If society pisses off or impoverishes enough people, they wind up in the street. If their concerns aren't addressed, they stay there. If they stay there long enough, violence and looting will happen. If people are mad and desperate enough, the looting will be severe. This is a government problem, not an individual morality issue.
I look at these rioters, and they tend to fall into a few categories:
1) Poor people (most of whom I suspect are not unsheltered homeless).
2) Convicted criminals with rap sheets filled with violent felonies unrelated to political causes. You know, like child rape and domestic violence.
3) Middle class (often white) kids who went to college and live in the suburbs.
And please don't tell me I don't understand what it's like to be poor. My ex and I raised 3 kids and 2 stepsons while living well below the poverty line for 16 years. Neither of us felt we were owed a good living just because we existed, or because other people had more, and we taught our kids the same.
The people I know who support the protests and the riots? An engineer who works for a major oil company and earns $150k/year. A man who developed a technology that earned him millions, and who now teaches at a prestigious university. A woman with a masters in social whose government job is so cushy she can spend half her work day posting on facebook. Oh, and Target. And McDonalds. And Facebook. And Twitter. And Amazon. And nearly every other multi-billion dollar multinational corporation in existence.
You know who doesn't support them? Me, a former waitress with a high school diploma. My husband's mom, who's worked as a prison guard her entire working life. My husband, who was raised in a shit neighborhood where you could get rolled for your shoes walking home from school. My dad, a retired mechanic who once lived with 4 other guys in a one room apartment with a hotplate, and my mom, a retired bookkeeper who grew up without an indoor toilet. My son who's a dishwasher. My daughter who unloads trucks at Walmart.
Gee. I'm sensing a pattern here. And that pattern is that this isn't an issue of poor people having had enough. In fact, it seems like the people most in support of this (at least in my experience) are in well-paying, stable jobs, or are wealthy corporations.
If that were true, the protesters would have suppressed the rioters. Supposedly, the rioters are a small minority, and the protesters could easily grab them, turn them in to the cops, and testify against them.
But that doesn't happen. And it doesn't happen because the protesters like the looting and burning, and frequently take part in it themselves. And the public knows this. Your snow job will not work.
I actually saw an instance where that happened. A black bloc type was using a pick-axe to chip a sidewalk and curb into throwable chunks. Peaceful protesters grabbed him, and delivered him into the arms of police, yelling, "take his ass!"
But that was in the early days.
Exactly. All the peaceful protesters should come out against the violence wholeheartedly, and then vacate protests as soon as they turn violent. They are not doing that, so how in the world are we supposed to tell the difference? That's like going to a Phish show and being like, don't lump me in with all these Phish-heads, man!
They can't come out against the violence on the scene anymore. Remember that glorious woman with the braids who berated the rioters who were wrecking her neighborhood? And the African immigrant woman in DC who shouted, "I'm not oppressed! I'm free!", called BLM a joke, and told them to go to Chicago and do something about all the black on black violence there if they care so much about black lives?
I don't even think it's safe to do that in the middle of the day anymore.
BLM and antifa have learned that they can do violence, unprovoked, in front of police and news cameras, and face no consequences.
But the peaceful protesters (if they exist) need to start using their fucking brains. If there's a curfew, leave for home well before it. If it's dark, you have no business being out and about with a placard. If things start getting violent, just get the fuck out of there. Stop providing these thugs with cover.
The Wall of Moms and the Dads with Leaf Blowers can suck a hill of dicks. All they're doing is enabling violence and lawlessness.
I suppose the irony here, as Matt points out, is the generation that wants to bring American society crashing down is the generation that, by most accounts, can't change a tire or feed themselves without an app or a delivery service. The same generation that would probably acquiesce to having their phones sewn to their heads if that was the only way they could avoid giving up that little addiction. (Qualifier: I'm a 58 year old man with a flip phone. I refuse to join the smartphone cult. Y'all are creepy. One day, a few years back, I was sitting with my teenage son & daughter at a mall food court. My daughter said, "Poppy, look..." I turned around & the entire food court was staring at their phones. It didn't matter how many people were at each table, they were all staring at their phones & no one was talking. I thought, "Shit, the pod people have won." If this offends, oh well...)
I also love the added rip on heterosexuals. Do trans women not realize that, no matter how elaborate their woman costume is, they don't have a womb. If all women were trans women the human species would die out in a generation. For all of its faddish cache these days trans folk are an evolutionary & species dead end.
I happened to mention this book to a female coworker when I came in this morning and she said she had to read it for her college class. Fucking hilarious. Kids going into debt peonage so they can read this tripe and, no doubt, make the author a pretty penny. I wonder how she'd feel if her new found wealth was looted?
Would it be celebratory & empowering?
Or would she be speed dialing 911?
Your student friend should steal the book's content. Not from a bookstore, because the author would still get paid. But with a little ingenuity e-copies can be stolen.
Never did anyone deserve to be ripped off more.
You are very obviously a 58 year old man with a flip phone.
Can you see what I'm flipping now?
Nothing like a little age-ism tossed in with your anti-racism eh pigeon shit?
After I realized you are the original poster, not someone coming to defend your post. I'd edit if I could but I'm reposting here instead for ya:
"lol lighten up. There's no ageism here, I'm only acknowledging that this corny story that *definitely happened* /s required no explanation that you are a 58 year old man with a flip phone because only 58 year old men with flip phones tell these stories.
Also, if you wanna get into ageism, ask yourself why you make sweeping generalizations about younger generations seeing as your grown children, that you raised, allegedly can't change a tire or feed themselves without an app or delivery service (unless of course you were the only parent out there up to the job of raising a proper child)? That kind of thinking is beyond parody and absolutely the root of the equally corny "OK Boomer" sentiment. I guess, though, at 58 that puts you at the very tail end of that generation."
Before choosing a life partner be sure they can 1)change a tire; 2)build a book case; 3) make a fire; 4) copy & send Morse code.
Who created that world ?
Honestly, Matt. Just charge me more money. This is some of the best literary entertainment Ive had.
Gift subscriptions!
I can't help wondering at what point did reality become a Monty Python skit?
I think it always has been. Their humor was in discovering and demonstrating this.
I keep thinking that if the simulation hypothesis is true, then we’re all in a simulation created by comedians. Makes sense considering the sense of humor of the universe sometimes lol.
The simulation has been hacked by a bunch of wise-ass sophomores.
Pity she didn't have access to history books or more than a single anthropological antidote. She damns civilization flat out without considering the consequences -- every person or family will fight over the last edible animal, and every item, once liberated, will again be subject to seizure. She apparently does not consider the layers of cooperation that lead to farming and grocery stores, manufacturing and shoes, governing bodies and paved streets or innovations of any kind.
This sounds like pre-Marxist (very pre-Marxist) reductionism, the sort of thing that even a thoughtful five-year-old would reject out of hand. And yet it's been taken up by a publisher and theoretically serious news organizations.
a single anthropological ANECDOTE. Sorry.
Right, for some reason one can't edit comments here.
This is hilarious! I laughed out loud several times. Talk about a generation suffering from arrested development. The snowflakes are alive and well, and coming to take your shit just cuz. The audacity, narcissism, and utter arrogance of a generation of people who think they're suffering more than anyone else ever has is beyond the pale. The cries of "just look at what you've done to us...given us a planet that's dying, doomed us to low-paying jobs, no universal healthcare....." and their disgust for "white privilege" as though all those complaints about their hardships don't smack of just that. Whiners. Read some history people -- you aren't the first and won't be the last generation to face epic problems. And shame on their parents' generation for creating these monsters because they gave their offspring no coping skills for when times get tough and now we all have to suffer for it. The "everybody hits, everybody wins," generation appropriately throws themselves on the floor and kicks and screams like petulant children when it doesn't go their way because that's what you get when people think it's better to be your kid's friend than to step up and do the hard thing and actually parent and set appropriate boundaries. And teach kids that sometimes life isn't fair and no Vicky, you don't always get what you want even when you think you can just take (loot) it. Boo hoo. They should learn that a little humility goes a long way and grow the fuck up.
So you're fine with forever war and corporate looting is what you're saying ? Everyone should accept the double standard and play by the rules no matter what ? You shouldn't ever stand up to authority and just roll over and accept your fate ?
I'm not sure you read it, as nothing I said even remotely suggests that. And the either-or choice you present of we either get corporate looters or we get common looters aren't the only two options. I dunno, how about NO looters? Are the common people rioting and looting right now in favor of corporate looting? If not, they've got a funny way of showing it. Standing up to corporate interests by doing the exact same things you accuse them of because you can't think of more productive ways to "fight the system" is ironic in the extreme. And sad. No, scratch that. Pathetic. THAT'S what my post is about....people who should stop navel gazing and more productively use their time to fight back rather than simply mimicking that which they detest.
"nothing I said even remotely suggests that."
Skutch, and his fellow Lefties, know what they're doing.
They consistently use straw man, because they know that most of their flock is, not educated, but pseudo-educated.
Those who have no idea about straw man, and still pontificate about the ideas of others, should be dismissed as we do barroom drunks.
Thank you for the sacrifice you have made on behalf of your readers. Reading this book could not have been easy, and you are, no doubt, dumber having exposed yourself to such drivel.
"Gen-Z geniuses who think the world will run on magic intersectionality dust once they get rid of the cops and the kulaks" -- comedy gold.
As an immigrant and a veteran, I cannot fathom the mentality of this woke generation. They truly do not know how good they have it. Sometimes I wish we would bring back compulsory military service....so folks would be forced together at boot camps and bases, and learn to respect each other for their differences and work to one common goal. We have lost that socialization ritual, and it has allowed for increased regional tribalism and echo chambers....some one should write a book about that. How about you Matt?
“We have lost that socialization ritual...” Couldn't agree more. Not that military service covers it (throughout US history, at any given time a pretty small percentage of people actually ever served), but in aggregate there used to be a myriad of “socialization rituals” that the majority of people participated in. Group things that by simply being in them taught how to be in a group. There's a skill set there, that may be at some level organic, but does take effort to actually learn and be good at.
Overall we have replaced our socialization rituals with commercial rituals. Rituals of consumption. Those are (by definition?), individual acts. With that we've lost a great deal of the skills to actually be with other people. Social media hasn't helped.
This is not well thought out, and I am not articulate about it. But it's something that's been in my thoughts for years now.
I think universal national service program would be a great idea, both for the reasons described in the above two posts and as a way to put together and organize the large labor force required to overhaul the infrastructure of the country, for labor intensive efforts like constructing new energy infrastructure, soil conservation, pollution amelioration, doing controlled burns of cover and brush in Western forests, building coffer dams and cistern reservoirs in the semiarid regions of the country...
And it can be done without requiring any of the provisions that skeptics of such a project find most objectionable:
1) Service should not be compulsory, like a military draft. But it should be incentivized, socially and financially.
2) Participation doesn't have to involve mandatory military training, with its emphasis on armed force and the necessity to obey a chain of command. Although there's no need to maintain a firewall between National Guard units and civilian service units.
3) The part-time "weekend warrior" commitment, a la the National Guard, is not a bad model for some of the civilian service projects. Devolution and local self-sufficiency should be encouraged.
4) The benefits package for all participants should resemble something like the GI Bill. With the acknowledgement that some types of service, like firefighting or National Guard service, should receive an extra benefit in accordance with the additional risks of those occupations.
5) In principle, I don't have an objection to regular US armed forces units taking a collaborative role in efforts like construction projects and the provision of community public health services. It's a much better use of military spending funds than sending troops to overseas postings. Or overseas combat troop commitments, unless warranted by dire necessity.
I'm a moderate social democrat on most issues, really. I think the people in the recent Presidential nomination contest who had the best ideas were some of the lower-tier Democratic candidates: Andrew Yang (universal basic income, advanced nuclear power designs to meet our energy needs, replacing the Drug War with rational, comprehensive, medically based drugs law reform); John Delaney (universal national service, carbon tax with rebates); Tim Ryan (soil conservation and transition to sustainable agriculture methods.) I also support shifting a large fraction of the reliance on income taxes as the principal source of Federal revenue toward a national sales tax, also with a rebate for low income earners. National sales tax is considered a "conservative Republican" proposal in this country, but strangely enough, the social democracies of Europe use double-digit percentage sales taxes to supply a share of revenue that's roughly equal to the amount they collect as income tax.
It's silly to me, this idea that the US is falling apart and ungovernable. The real problem is politics, and petty politics, at that- the Democratic leadership has a fatal bias for careerist bureaucratic stagnation and not entrepreneurial leadership, and the Republicans are corrupted by greed to the point where they'll kill the planet for money. There are Democrats and Republicans- and Independents of various ideological leanings- outside of the dismal stasis of the Duopoly, and some of them have all kinds of good ideas. But the outsiders don't have entrenched lobbies to obtain "access" to the corridors of entrenched power. So their ideas never get a serious hearing there.
And the real Privilege is economic. Take the media. Journalists who actually has the experience of risk and knew what is was like to have skin in the game would not be spending all their time going off on snipe hunts about insubstantial fluff, or indulging in hand-wringing neurosis that emphasizes worrying over every last problem while failing to report on the prospects for nuts and bolts solutions that can be applied to the most pressing ones. The affluent background of young journalists is a cushion that turns everything into an abstract concern, to be judged from an Olympian height. Absorption into careerism is like a narcotic. It's like the news staffs are waiting for someone to tell them that an issue is Hot, before they can get it more than random occasional sporadic attention. Advances in nuclear power plant design and the technology to speed up radioactive waste decay are Real. Advances in creating vaccines for drug addiction are Real. The advances in restoring the productivity of agricultural soil are Real. CRISPR advances are Real. By comparison, autonomous AGI is Bullshit. Driverless cars are Bullshit. Missions to Mars are Bullshit. (The notion of a permanent space station on the moon, by contrast, is Real.) The AI-assisted Panopticon is Bullshit. But also Real. Real, but nothing a free society should want anything to do with. Etc. Reporters, learn to tell the difference. Some of you are parents.
I blame our education system. My parents fled Communist China after the takeover in 1949, after the devastating war with Japan. A family of 8, they scratched out an existence in Taiwan, at that time a backwater Island. Most immigrated to the US where they started up, yes, grocery stores and restaurants. Their children, my generation, has reaped the benefits of their hard work and sacrifice. We are all happy, well adjusted, successful citizens. Some of us started small businesses that employ minorities, others are ER doctors or pediatricians. Very few, if any, of this type of generation would even think of writing a book like this because we know what the alternative to having a nation of fair laws is. It’s China, with its social credit score and dictatorial powers. Or it’s Venezuela, with its soaring inflation. Or it’s one of the myriad African nations that are in states of perpetual civil war. America for all its flaws is still one of the best places for people to work and realize their dreams. Work entails labor, not rioting, not getting a Masters in Gender Studies. People like this author have a myopic view of the world, watered and fertilized by our education system.
You overlook the great, unforgivable evil of the United States, which is that the Lefties aren't in power, and can't have you shot on a whim.
Obviously, a society like that must be destroyed, root and branch.
“Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.”
― George Orwell
The nearly insurmountable challenge in critiquing books like this -- and the related phenomenon of wokeness, critical race theory and all their variants -- is the almost supernatural level of stupidity that permeates it all. First, a "theory" is either provable or refutable through empirical experiment. Critical race "theory" is an assertion based on a form of selective perception, it's not a theory. It can't be refuted. It can't be proved. As a result, one can't "argue" with it. One can only produce a counter-narrative.
Take U.S. history and society. Imagine if someone took your life's 10 worst, most immature, cringe-worthy moments -- all of which now humiliate you, reflecting on them, which you would do-over if it were humanly possible, and which have formed the rungs of the ladder your soul has climbed in its wordly journey toward a higher state of consciousness. And then they made a movie about them. And the movie said THAT IS WHO YOU ARE! I don't know about you, but I'd find that devastating and unfair. But that's what they do -- with their theories.
The thing they don't do is look around the world and use the same perception. If they did, they'd see tribal conflicts, misogeny, racial hatreds, tribal hatreds, wars, pogroms, genocides, fantastic abuses that make Dante's hell seem like a refuge. How they can ignore all this is a reasonable point of inquiry - for which psychology and psychoanalytical theories do indeed offer insights. But these forms of intellectualizing are either -- like math and physics -- too hard for them, or they are simply unwilling to be so challenged.
One reader below mentioned Rene Girard. Indeed. And also James Frazer of The Golden Bough fame. And Gustav LeBon and Charles Mackay and of course the Big Guns Jung and Freud too. A deconstruction of the anti-whiteness hysteria, wokeness and CRT along those lines would be enlightening. Although indeed also fairly exhausting to perform. And probably the pay wouldn't be very good.
Such is the dilemma facing truth seekers in this world. Generally, the pay isn't very good and you might get yourself hurt. As a result, governments are instituted among men (and women and children) with laws that protect free speech, free inquiry, the press and assembly. One wonders how someone in academia, or those who call themselves theorists, can possibly ignore all this too. How it came to be, where and why and what all that means for the phenomenon they claim their are deconstructing. It's almost funny. It certainly is pathetic and ugly. It should be embarrassing. I suspect a few will find, as they get older, that it was and that they wish they'd seen it for what it was, at that time.
Malcolm X did. In an interview with the photographer Gordon Parks late in his life he said, "I did many things as a [Black] Muslim that I'm sorry for now. I was a zombie then -- like all [Black] Muslims -- I was hypnotized, pointed in a certain direction and told to march. Well, I guess a man's entitled to make a fool of himself if he's ready to pay the cost. It cost me twelve years."
Not that the Nation of Islam is any different, better or worse than any other group. The point is group think vs. the individual. And so much of real Western intellectual history is the difficult navigation of that impossible chasm. And much of world history is the ignorance of that chasm, for reasons that do indeed speak to theories of mind, of group, of consciousness itself. One would think an "intellectual" would understand that and not paint it all white and throw it all away.
Revolution is the opiate of the intellectuals.
That is a great comment, craazyman.
In terms of the chasm, I think I'm on fairly solid ground when I say at some point, a line has to be drawn under history, some sort of reconciliation occurs, and strong institutions put in place to move forward.
If this doesn't happen, you get something like Ukraine**
__________
** By way of example, following the references in Richard Sakwa's "Frontline Ukraine" from 2015, I came across this article in Forbes of all places by Vladimir Golstein, a professor of Slavic studies at Brown University. (He was born in Moscow and emigrated to the United States in 1979.)
Some excerpts:
"....Western Ukraine was joined to Russia only during Stalin’s era. For centuries it was under the cultural, religious, and/or political control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Poland. Hating Soviet occupation, western Ukrainian nationalists viewed Stalin as a much greater villain than Hitler, so that the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists aligned themselves with Nazis and, led by their radical leader Stepan Bandera, proceeded to rid their land of other ethnic groups, including Poles and Jews.
Western Ukraine is unified in its hostility toward Russians, whom they see as invaders and occupiers. During the last 20 years, as Ukraine tried to distance itself from its Soviet past and its ideology, it chose the nationalism of western Ukraine as the alternative.
Easterners are angry that pro-Bandera banners, posters and graffiti are popping up all over Ukraine and with the rewriting of history in general, where violent nationalists who fought alongside the Nazis are treated as heroes while Russians, who suffered under Stalin no less than the Ukrainians, are denigrated.
For better or for worse, Putin has put an end to oligarch rule in Russia. Members of Putin’s inner circle may be immensely rich, but they know to whom they owe their wealth. By imprisoning Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Putin sent a clear message to the all-powerful oligarchs that controlled Russia during former president Boris Yeltsin’s time: stay out of politics. Ukraine didn’t have this experience, and the politicians seem to be working in unison with, if not under the control of, oligarchs.
The Western press, including Forbes, has underestimated the extent of oligarch Igor Kolomoisky’s influence. Taking the concept “corporate raiding” literally, Kolomoisky has employed paramilitary units at his disposal for all kinds of hostile takeovers...."
** Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesleadershipforum/2014/05/19/why-everything-youve-read-about-ukraine-is-wrong/#1412b18c510e
This book is clickbait made physical. The author won as soon as you bought it. The contents are irrelevant. NPR is ridiculous for giving it a platform.
You could have stopped at "NPR is ridiculous"
*the author won as soon as he gave it attention
1. How did such garbage manage to get published in the first place. 2. Why are people who can afford SUVs rioting and stealing? Didn't their parents teach them anything? 3. Well, current politicians are spineless and have been for sometime, but this just shows the Democratic Party doesn't care about voters and the little guy. No surprise there. The victims aren't their donors. This is how you lose an election. 4. The country will just move further right towards fascism because the right-wingers will restore order. This is a way to win an election. 5. The best thing to happen to the "Woke" generation might be to make them get a job and support themselves. If they have to support themselves by looting, they can get free meals and board in jail. 6. How is any of this sane, and why are these insane ideas even being given any credence? No wonder people are buying guns and there's shortages of both guns and ammo in gun stores. 7. How are the Democrats going to handle this mess if they somehow manage to win? You can't support the ideas of the movement and throw the people who believe in them in jail without looking like a complete hypocrite. And, what sane person would believe such nonsense?
2020 is a raging dumpster fire and the insane asylum inmates are dancing around the blaze, while the politicians waffle. This is going to end badly.
Or you could work towards a positive narrative and try to manage the outcome - you have a nihilist reactionary narrative.
Your words read to me like I imagine what it feels to be a looter.
Media itself influences us to be captured by a National and International narrative.
If you don't live in Portland, or Wisconsin, you just don't know how it feels.
I think looting and rioting is not a good idea AT ALL.
But what's worse is a SAVAGE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX with the veil of Techno-Utopian International Media Content HQ for the planet.
Our country is fucked up. And we should not turn on people if they lose their minds.
Pharma, War, and Pollution have fucked us up, BIG TIME.
WE MUST HAVE EMPATHY FOR OUR FELLOW COUNTRYMEN.
The politicians are corrupt, almost all of them. Their philosophies and ideologies are basic, out of date, and entropic.
Is there rioting going on around you?
How about systemic racism?
To have so much raw emotion for shit that's not going on near you??
We see middle eastern countries DESTROYED by OUR tax money.
Because we have not gone on a general strike to end war...
But when spray painting and stealing from department stores
(93% of protests have been peaceful)
..gets such a high engagement and rate of disgust..
I know a lot of it is media, but you gotta commit to due diligence.
The shit that is being destroyed in our country vs.
HIROSHIMA.
It's fucking childs play.
I get it, the small businesses. It is tragic and sad.
BUT PEOPLE IN THIS COUNTRY ARE INSANE BECAUSE THE COUNTRY IS INSANE.
Everyday I meet nice people who are nice to me. I have been to every state in America. Mostly nice people.
MOSTLY EVERYONE ON EARTH WANTS PEACE AND HAPPINESS
and time with their families.
TECHNOLOGY HAS TORN US TO SHREDS.
Have you gone without television and internet for one month in the past 10 years?
If not consider television and the internet to be more addictive and more powerful than METH.
How could you possibly know yourself on the other side of your dependency?
George Floyd was on drugs when he was arrested. This does not make him a criminal.
This makes our country a criminal for leaving our fellow countrymen behind.
No health safety.
No mental safety.
AND NOW WE BLAME EACH OTHER FOR SPRAY PAINT.
And let the drones bomb on.
Foreign policy can be changed and must be changed, but how does mindless violence achieve those goals? People just want to raise families, enjoy life, and live in peace. We aren't the only ones stirring up shit overseas, though we are a major contributor. Your rant is just that a rant. And, technology is amoral. The goodness and badness of it depends on the application. Most technology is uplifting. You are using technology at this moment to communicate if you want to call it that. The Internet isn't evil. You at least get to pick and choose your news sources and your interests unlike TV.
"Our country is fucked up. And we should not turn on people if they lose their minds."
Somehow, you neglected to mention what people who have lost their minds sometimes turn on you.
That's fine and good, but we have almost no real political power or even voices to be heard. Everything is online, and political loyalists from both parties do as much as possible to control the narrative and silence disagreement. It consigns people like us to online backwaters like this, and even here, criticizing either party will instantly result in someone calling your opinion dangerous.
Short of violence or just trying to survive a collapse, how do we actually change anything anymore?
(I know, somehow find the economic independence to run for local office, overcome all the money and cheating from the party, build a coalition of like-minded progressive politicians to start changing the system from within right about the time the bombs start falling or non-stop hurricanes start.)
It always amuses me, seeing people complain in public that they have been silenced.
You haven't been silenced, Mr. Hungus. You've lost the argument. What you want, most people don't want. You might realize this if you actually spoke with them.
And most people will continue to vote against what you want. They have no desire to live in the world you with to live in.
You want to live in progressive society, we'll let you and your progressive friends move into the same area and remake it to your satisfaction, but you never settle for that. You insist on trying to remake out lives too. Ain't going to happen.
Sorry that I'm not sorry about that.
I hope Matt writes a piece about the endless wars we're engaged in. I think you'll see the majority of the people here are against that shit, too. But this article isn't about war. It's about a book that says looting is good, hence all the comments about that, and not about war.
Personally, I think ending all of our endless wars is the most important thing we can do as a society, and, like you, I'm incredibly frustrated that we stopped talking about that and stopped working toward it as soon as we elected Obama. Sometimes I wonder if all this shit isn't just a distraction from that. But here we are.