Jeez, just LOOKING at that "critique" guy makes me want to smash his smug white privileged-dick face in. He looks like a sociopathic frat-boy whose Daddy got him his first 6-figure job right out of college.
Oh, I see you met the same kind of frat boys I did. At the time, I just used the term "twerps". Now, in the fullness of time, seeing what that class of folks has been up to, I'd probably use a lot nastier phrases, and I'd attribute worse motives.
So let me see if I understand this: The guy uses splices, makes debatable statements about public-sector unions, uses splices, hand-waves away income consolidation at the top-end, uses splices, ignores soft money and other campaign finance loopholes, and uses SPLICES, yet the only issue you can find to discuss about him is that he appears to have/be a "privileged dick-face" for being white and wearing a collared shirt.
That gentlefilkers, is kinda bullcrap.
Gardnerhill: Way to go labeling somebody you don't know personally as "sociopathic" for, um disagreeing with you on the internet and maybe for being all "Ginger Splice" with the video. Good to know that my fellow progressives have been maintaining the higher ground regarding abelism, and stigma of mental illness. Thanks for that!
Do you have similar scorn for the privileged Dartmouth/Oxford/Yale graduate in the original video? Or does the fact that Reich is on our side, doesn't splice, and has a cool beard give him a pass?
The "smash" expression against the opposition was lovely as well. It's heartwarming when the side that recently had one of their own shot in the fraggin head for their politics start throwing out the violent eliminationist imagery. If I recall correctly, Tom himself has linked to stories on the very topic.
I'm surprised that you two looked at a skinny white dude with a dorky haircut, glasses, and a video-blog and said "this gentleman is clearly a Fratboy, or at least the stereotypical version of such!".
If he turned around and started supporting progressive tax reform, the righties would start dismissing him as a "pencil-necked panty-waist pipsqueak", and not one person here would be surprised at the characterization. Where would American discourse be without broad, lazy categories to put our opponents into?
Of course, I don't know Lee Doren personally, and all his site says about his early career is that he's a Michigan graduate...which is reason to dislike him in itself, I suppose.
Yes, he probably did well in the parental-financing lottery. He probably had more than a few easy breaks growing up. Heck, maybe he even was in a fraternity. I base this not on his appearance, or even his politics, but on the fact that he's there, making political ads and working for think-tanks in the first place. Guess what? A good majority of the ones on our side have the same story, except our think tanks and major activism organizations are more likely to have women and minorities involved, and also we happen to be right. Reich, for example, is from Lewisboro for crying out loud. If his background was any more privileged he'd be royalty.
Then again, I'm a skinny, bespectacled white male in a collared shirt, so I won't blame you if you dismiss my opinions as "privileged", or critique my presentation, without actually discussing the content. It's probably more satisfying that way, and certainly easier.
I agree, violent imagery is not exactly cooling rhetoric at this point. On your other point, progressives get dismissed all the time for how we look, or fail to look. Any excuse will do. And Reich doesn't *look* right to be a member of the thin white prince club, even if he actually should have been admitted. You know that's not at all the same club as the "ambitious kids who don't care if it was a scholarship that got you in."
So basically, it's okay to judge the other side based on how they look (or rather, attribute to somebody characteristics based on lazy stereotypes of how they look) because the people whose economic strategy is misguided, and whose social agenda and hateful tactics we find reprehensible and whose modus we decry totally did it first?
I can see why some would make that choice in an electoral situation (if, say, a Senate seat is on the line), but holding your nose to engage in realpolitik isn't the same as holding your "knows" when engaging the "reality-based community".
...okay, I admit. I'm kinda proud of the "real/real" and "nose/knows" thing in that paragraph . Probably more than it deserves.
The point is...I don't disagree with you at all. To the other side "any excuse will do" when it comes to ignoring progressives. And guess what? That's one of the reasons they are, if not bad people, certainly the "bad guys". We're not. We don't get that excuse.
Tom made a joke about this at a concert, once. He said regarding conservatives under liberal government "we love them to, and we'll bring them up with us!"
That "up" is important.
The other side, as Reich points out, builds divides. We build unions. The other side preaches the glory of selfishness. We preach the virtues of care and compassion. The other side dog whistles hate and fear. We plain-text hope and empathy. The other side appeals to faith, damn the facts. We appeal to reality, and have our faith in facts.
Our love of those facts, of being correct, of knowing that reality is on our side may make things hard for us in election season, but it is also a powerful source of our legitimacy. It's how we know (and how we show the world) that we're not just right, we're also rightful.
And every time one of us casually sinks to their level, it makes it a little bit harder to do that.
Y'know what? I'm fucking tired of "taking the high ground" - and I have been ever since I'd come home bruised and beaten from another day at school and Mom would order me to forgive my abusers cause it's what Jesus would do. Funny how forgiving and taking the high ground never seemed to stop the beating - but when I started hitting back they stopped hitting me.
Now you're waving your finger and tsk-tsking about how we're not being Nice to people who'd be happy to sell us all to tack another million on the billions they already have. Oooh, a couple of angry liberals are Using Eliminationist Rhetoric, which is exactly the same as Rush spending 10 hours a day on his radio show telling his followers that liberals deserve to die - and then pretending to act surprised when one of them takes him up on it.
I've dealt with Poindexter before, a dozen times over. There's a sameness to these 20something white boys who've never met anyone who made less than $100k/year in their pampered-prince lives, honestly think they earned every privilege they treat as their God-given right, and are nostalgic for the "good old days" of the Reagan presidency (when they were sucking on their feet and listening to Raffi tapes). They dismiss the concerns of women, the poor, the disabled and PoC as "Just work harder, you lazy bums, the way I did when Popster made me a junior partner in the law firm Whiteman, Whiteman & Whiteman."
I thought this response-thread was about sustainable political action, ideological legitimacy, and other good stuff. Well, when it wasn't about insulting people who aren't present to defend themselves for cheap applause. It clearly was never actually about economics and apparently it was actually "My Story Time". Fair enough.
I paid for college by carrying a rifle around in a desert, Gardnerhill. I know damn well that sometimes the whole goddamn diplomatic system falls on it's ass (for whatever reason), and you wind up sending in people like me and mine to do real, honest to fucking God violence for what you HOPE is a worthy cause. I was lucky. I had about the tamest, cuddliest visit anybody could ask for. Not everybody did.
Tell me, General Gardnerhill, how far are you willing to go? How far are you willing to let me go, the next time I find myself someplace where I don't speak the language, surrounded by people who want me dead? Can I shoot first? Can I start figuring out "acceptable civilian losses", do the arithmetic on the fly, and start calling for fire on villages? I figure that if you like to use violent language so damn much, you MUST have some really good insights on this one, Gardnerhill. Some keen perspective on Escalation of Force that will tell me how the hell to DE-escalate it again when things are over. Your battle-hardened genius has something like that for me, right?
Sound melodramatic? That's kinda the point...though how the hell do you think wars get STARTED? More importantly to the issue at hand, if you AREN'T willing to carry the fighting words that far, why would you start using them at all?
I'm also a filk enthusiast (and gamer, and Trekkie) who made it to my mid-twenties with only one chipped tooth. I know damn well that sometimes you have to make an example of somebody if you don't want to chip another one.
Know what MY mother told me, when looking not terribly unlike your "poindexter" started to cause me problems?
Forgive them. Talk to them. And if they won't be talked to, and the system breaks down, hit them in their damn face until they aren't interested in starting shit with you ever again. Make it messy enough that their friends don't think about it either.
But never, ever, do it because you want to. Or because it's possible. Or because it makes you feel good. You fight only the people you have to, only because you have to, and you do it well enough that maybe, God willing, you'll never have to do it again.
Of course it didn't work like that. Once you've upset the hornet's nest by winning one you weren't supposed to win, you have to do it again for the people who didn't see it happen. And again for the new guy. And again because that first guy is getting shit for losing and (oh yeah!) this time he brought his buddies. Sometimes, you don't have a choice, but if talk that isn't punctuated by punches is still an option, then you bloody well do it.
That's what violence is, Gardnerhill. If you had a warm fuzzy "I stood up for myself and it was empowering and it all got better!" moment, then good for you. Write a damn children's book about it, but don't try to tell me that you have some unique insight into how violence, especially large-scale violence, works. Unless you've got some bit of experience or expertise you haven't felt the need to share between bouts of childish name-calling and pathetic excuse-making, I'm pretty sure you don't.
You aren't talking about punching anybody until they lose the will to fight, Gardnerhill. Your talking about violence because it feels good. Because it makes you feel better about yourself for a few minutes. Because you CAN. That doesn't make you a schoolyard avenger, Gardnerhill. That makes you the bully.
You aren't friggin' special, Gardnerhill. You're not some brave warrior-in-waiting for the cause, you're just another member of the 101st Fighting Keyboards, with your tough-girl talk and your "Gotta fight fire with fire!" posturing. If you want to wear your "IF RUSH DID IT, IT'S OKAY BY ME!" T-shirt, neither I nor anybody else has call to stop you, but don't go acting like it's some big damn heroic move on your part. It doesn't fool anybody.
The "smash" expression against the opposition was lovely as well. It's heartwarming when the side that recently had one of their own shot in the fraggin head for their politics start throwing out the violent eliminationist imagery. If I recall correctly, Tom himself has linked to stories on the very topic.
Maybe we're sick and tired of always taking the high road only to find it always leads off of a cliff?
Maybe we're finally wising up to the fact that it's pointless to constantly negotiate with people who, clearly, don't want to COMPROMISE us but ATOMIZE us?
Via typo, you've come to the heart of the matter. They very much do want to "compromise us".
It's a pity that you seem so keen to do their work for them.
And who the hell is talking about negotiation? Seriously, that's some Bushie-level "if you're not with us you're against us" insinuation of cowardice right there...is that what you meant about quitting the high road?
Here's how the pros do it: Unclelumpy, is your comment intended to be an endorsement of the rhetorical tone evidenced in Sara Palin's "Don't retreat, reload!" tweet, and Michele Bachmann's call for her supporters to be "armed and dangerous"? Cuz boygeehowdy, I sure find that sorta thing reprehensible m'own self, donchaknow!
More like Sean Connery's speech from "The Untouchables"
"You wanna know how to stop the right wing? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. They send one of ours to the hospital, we send one of theirs to the morgue. *That's* the *American* way! And that's how you stop the right wing. Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that? I'm offering you a deal. Do you want this deal?"
I try not to take my marching orders from historically inaccurate period movies featuring Scotsman doing atrocious Irish accents, but I accept that is just a personal preference.
Wait...you're not one of those people who treat 24 like a counter-terrorism documentary, are you?
I agree with Robert B. Reich's conclusion: "The only way we can have a strong economy is with a strong middle class." However, he does not connect that conclusion to his six points. He tried to trim too much down to 2 minutes and 15 seconds and left a logical gap.
On the other hand, the critique's argument is two orders of magnitude worse. That guy says that he can find flaws in each of Robert Reich's facts, therefore Reich is wrong and he is right. No, logic does not work that way at all.
I don't think it helps that he's speakingasfastashecantogetitalltofitinfourminutesandthirtyseconds. It's possible that they just sped up the recording by a small amount, but either way, I don't find it easy to listen to. If he slowed down, I might have been listening past the part about the lower class receiving tax benefits, or not paying taxes, or whatever his first point was.
He says the bottom forty per cent receive more money in tax credits than they pay out in taxes. I haven't checked his sources, nor am I likely to, but I flat out do not believe that any economy could or would function on that basis. Ours certainly doesn't.
So I'm not sure that there is any point listening past that bit.
So, basically, he's saying that they aren't being paid enough in their jobs, and they're depending on tax credits to survive. Clearly, this boy is not a "starve the beast" advocate of smaller government.
Makes sense... and the obvious solution is to hike the taxes for the super rich to around the 80% mark, and cut taxes by 2-3% for the middle classes and raise the bottom limit so the poor can earn more without being taxed. Not to mention tax the hell out of the corporations and make them pay their taxes.
Increase tax revenues by taxing those with money in other words. Thus you'd have the resources to spend on improving infrastructure and subsidising things like solar power [or you know, just shift the subsidies from coal to solar] and other job creating industries.
Which given the current political set up, isn't going to happen. Because the rich control the government, and don;t give a f**k about anyone else.
One of the structural problems with the California economy has been critiqued as relying too much on income taxes on the super-wealthy, as their income is too unstable, and when the economy tanks, their return on investment takes a big write-off. Logically, the next step would be to spread the burden around, and as far as extracting more taxes out of the poor, that doesn't work so well when the economy isn't interesting in hiring them. Some of the Central Valley towns have an unemployment rate of 20%. (No joke.) SO what's left? They still try to justify why lawmakers are sheltering corporations, who still complain the state wants too much.
BOTH videos make fair and valid points. I think the real problem is that what's going on in the economy can't actually be summed up in two or even four minutes and take in all the relevant data.
I'm surprised Reich and MoveOn.org haven't put a citations list on the website...without acknowledging that Doren did, of course. That would make it easier for interested viewers to get more information...while also redirecting potential donors to MoveOn.org's other pages. I hope they change this in the next few days!
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-20 11:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-20 11:57 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 12:17 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 12:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 02:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 04:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 04:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 10:51 am (UTC)So let me see if I understand this: The guy uses splices, makes debatable statements about public-sector unions, uses splices, hand-waves away income consolidation at the top-end, uses splices, ignores soft money and other campaign finance loopholes, and uses SPLICES, yet the only issue you can find to discuss about him is that he appears to have/be a "privileged dick-face" for being white and wearing a collared shirt.
That gentlefilkers, is kinda bullcrap.
Gardnerhill: Way to go labeling somebody you don't know personally as "sociopathic" for, um disagreeing with you on the internet and maybe for being all "Ginger Splice" with the video. Good to know that my fellow progressives have been maintaining the higher ground regarding abelism, and stigma of mental illness. Thanks for that!
Do you have similar scorn for the privileged Dartmouth/Oxford/Yale graduate in the original video? Or does the fact that Reich is on our side, doesn't splice, and has a cool beard give him a pass?
The "smash" expression against the opposition was lovely as well. It's heartwarming when the side that recently had one of their own shot in the fraggin head for their politics start throwing out the violent eliminationist imagery. If I recall correctly, Tom himself has linked to stories on the very topic.
I'm surprised that you two looked at a skinny white dude with a dorky haircut, glasses, and a video-blog and said "this gentleman is clearly a Fratboy, or at least the stereotypical version of such!".
If he turned around and started supporting progressive tax reform, the righties would start dismissing him as a "pencil-necked panty-waist pipsqueak", and not one person here would be surprised at the characterization. Where would American discourse be without broad, lazy categories to put our opponents into?
Of course, I don't know Lee Doren personally, and all his site says about his early career is that he's a Michigan graduate...which is reason to dislike him in itself, I suppose.
Yes, he probably did well in the parental-financing lottery. He probably had more than a few easy breaks growing up. Heck, maybe he even was in a fraternity. I base this not on his appearance, or even his politics, but on the fact that he's there, making political ads and working for think-tanks in the first place. Guess what? A good majority of the ones on our side have the same story, except our think tanks and major activism organizations are more likely to have women and minorities involved, and also we happen to be right. Reich, for example, is from Lewisboro for crying out loud. If his background was any more privileged he'd be royalty.
Then again, I'm a skinny, bespectacled white male in a collared shirt, so I won't blame you if you dismiss my opinions as "privileged", or critique my presentation, without actually discussing the content. It's probably more satisfying that way, and certainly easier.
At least I'm not using splices.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 02:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 07:12 pm (UTC)I can see why some would make that choice in an electoral situation (if, say, a Senate seat is on the line), but holding your nose to engage in realpolitik isn't the same as holding your "knows" when engaging the "reality-based community".
...okay, I admit. I'm kinda proud of the "real/real" and "nose/knows" thing in that paragraph . Probably more than it deserves.
The point is...I don't disagree with you at all. To the other side "any excuse will do" when it comes to ignoring progressives. And guess what? That's one of the reasons they are, if not bad people, certainly the "bad guys". We're not. We don't get that excuse.
Tom made a joke about this at a concert, once. He said regarding conservatives under liberal government "we love them to, and we'll bring them up with us!"
That "up" is important.
The other side, as Reich points out, builds divides. We build unions.
The other side preaches the glory of selfishness. We preach the virtues of care and compassion.
The other side dog whistles hate and fear. We plain-text hope and empathy.
The other side appeals to faith, damn the facts. We appeal to reality, and have our faith in facts.
Our love of those facts, of being correct, of knowing that reality is on our side may make things hard for us in election season, but it is also a powerful source of our legitimacy. It's how we know (and how we show the world) that we're not just right, we're also rightful.
And every time one of us casually sinks to their level, it makes it a little bit harder to do that.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-22 08:38 am (UTC)Now you're waving your finger and tsk-tsking about how we're not being Nice to people who'd be happy to sell us all to tack another million on the billions they already have. Oooh, a couple of angry liberals are Using Eliminationist Rhetoric, which is exactly the same as Rush spending 10 hours a day on his radio show telling his followers that liberals deserve to die - and then pretending to act surprised when one of them takes him up on it.
I've dealt with Poindexter before, a dozen times over. There's a sameness to these 20something white boys who've never met anyone who made less than $100k/year in their pampered-prince lives, honestly think they earned every privilege they treat as their God-given right, and are nostalgic for the "good old days" of the Reagan presidency (when they were sucking on their feet and listening to Raffi tapes). They dismiss the concerns of women, the poor, the disabled and PoC as "Just work harder, you lazy bums, the way I did when Popster made me a junior partner in the law firm Whiteman, Whiteman & Whiteman."
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-22 12:25 pm (UTC)I paid for college by carrying a rifle around in a desert, Gardnerhill. I know damn well that sometimes the whole goddamn diplomatic system falls on it's ass (for whatever reason), and you wind up sending in people like me and mine to do real, honest to fucking God violence for what you HOPE is a worthy cause. I was lucky. I had about the tamest, cuddliest visit anybody could ask for. Not everybody did.
Tell me, General Gardnerhill, how far are you willing to go? How far are you willing to let me go, the next time I find myself someplace where I don't speak the language, surrounded by people who want me dead? Can I shoot first? Can I start figuring out "acceptable civilian losses", do the arithmetic on the fly, and start calling for fire on villages? I figure that if you like to use violent language so damn much, you MUST have some really good insights on this one, Gardnerhill. Some keen perspective on Escalation of Force that will tell me how the hell to DE-escalate it again when things are over. Your battle-hardened genius has something like that for me, right?
Sound melodramatic? That's kinda the point...though how the hell do you think wars get STARTED? More importantly to the issue at hand, if you AREN'T willing to carry the fighting words that far, why would you start using them at all?
I'm also a filk enthusiast (and gamer, and Trekkie) who made it to my mid-twenties with only one chipped tooth. I know damn well that sometimes you have to make an example of somebody if you don't want to chip another one.
Know what MY mother told me, when looking not terribly unlike your "poindexter" started to cause me problems?
Forgive them. Talk to them. And if they won't be talked to, and the system breaks down, hit them in their damn face until they aren't interested in starting shit with you ever again. Make it messy enough that their friends don't think about it either.
But never, ever, do it because you want to. Or because it's possible. Or because it makes you feel good. You fight only the people you have to, only because you have to, and you do it well enough that maybe, God willing, you'll never have to do it again.
Of course it didn't work like that. Once you've upset the hornet's nest by winning one you weren't supposed to win, you have to do it again for the people who didn't see it happen. And again for the new guy. And again because that first guy is getting shit for losing and (oh yeah!) this time he brought his buddies. Sometimes, you don't have a choice, but if talk that isn't punctuated by punches is still an option, then you bloody well do it.
That's what violence is, Gardnerhill. If you had a warm fuzzy "I stood up for myself and it was empowering and it all got better!" moment, then good for you. Write a damn children's book about it, but don't try to tell me that you have some unique insight into how violence, especially large-scale violence, works. Unless you've got some bit of experience or expertise you haven't felt the need to share between bouts of childish name-calling and pathetic excuse-making, I'm pretty sure you don't.
You aren't talking about punching anybody until they lose the will to fight, Gardnerhill. Your talking about violence because it feels good. Because it makes you feel better about yourself for a few minutes. Because you CAN. That doesn't make you a schoolyard avenger, Gardnerhill. That makes you the bully.
You aren't friggin' special, Gardnerhill. You're not some brave warrior-in-waiting for the cause, you're just another member of the 101st Fighting Keyboards, with your tough-girl talk and your "Gotta fight fire with fire!" posturing. If you want to wear your "IF RUSH DID IT, IT'S OKAY BY ME!" T-shirt, neither I nor anybody else has call to stop you, but don't go acting like it's some big damn heroic move on your part. It doesn't fool anybody.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 08:34 pm (UTC)Maybe we're sick and tired of always taking the high road only to find it always leads off of a cliff?
Maybe we're finally wising up to the fact that it's pointless to constantly negotiate with people who, clearly, don't want to COMPROMISE us but ATOMIZE us?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 09:01 pm (UTC)It's a pity that you seem so keen to do their work for them.
And who the hell is talking about negotiation? Seriously, that's some Bushie-level "if you're not with us you're against us" insinuation of cowardice right there...is that what you meant about quitting the high road?
Here's how the pros do it: Unclelumpy, is your comment intended to be an endorsement of the rhetorical tone evidenced in Sara Palin's "Don't retreat, reload!" tweet, and Michele Bachmann's call for her supporters to be "armed and dangerous"? Cuz boygeehowdy, I sure find that sorta thing reprehensible m'own self, donchaknow!
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 11:56 pm (UTC)"You wanna know how to stop the right wing? They pull a knife, you pull a gun. They send one of ours to the hospital, we send one of theirs to the morgue. *That's* the *American* way! And that's how you stop the right wing. Now do you want to do that? Are you ready to do that? I'm offering you a deal. Do you want this deal?"
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-22 03:23 am (UTC)Wait...you're not one of those people who treat 24 like a counter-terrorism documentary, are you?
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 11:16 am (UTC)On the other hand, the critique's argument is two orders of magnitude worse. That guy says that he can find flaws in each of Robert Reich's facts, therefore Reich is wrong and he is right. No, logic does not work that way at all.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 12:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 07:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 08:47 am (UTC)So I'm not sure that there is any point listening past that bit.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 02:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 04:02 pm (UTC)Well, I hope he isn't.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 11:18 am (UTC)Increase tax revenues by taxing those with money in other words. Thus you'd have the resources to spend on improving infrastructure and subsidising things like solar power [or you know, just shift the subsidies from coal to solar] and other job creating industries.
Which given the current political set up, isn't going to happen. Because the rich control the government, and don;t give a f**k about anyone else.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 02:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 12:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 01:16 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-06-21 09:05 pm (UTC)I'm surprised Reich and MoveOn.org haven't put a citations list on the website...without acknowledging that Doren did, of course. That would make it easier for interested viewers to get more information...while also redirecting potential donors to MoveOn.org's other pages. I hope they change this in the next few days!