"I asked my student why he voted for Trump"

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January 25, 2017 at 9:58 pm #64373

zn
Moderator

Ozoneranger wrote:

The kid in the coveralls bought it hook, line and sinker.

Plus he thought Reconstruction was bad because the federal government SUCCEEDED at what it was trying to do.

That’s like saying, hey, we have to get rid of top-notch offensive coaching, because look what it did to the Rams offense last season.

To state the obvious because it;s fun to state the obvious in response to revisionary history. The federal government lost the battle of reconstruction.

Plus I like, we didn’t really have to force the end of slavery on them…it probably would have just gone away. Yeah the slaves in the civil war era were probably going “I dunno, just wait. Give em a chance. We’re patient. In the meanwhile, where’s the harm?”

January 26, 2017 at 1:15 am #64381

Mackeyser
Moderator

I dunno. With interest rates doing what they’re doing, you’re gonna be better off renting..

Just saying…

As for this lack of Clinton critique… I don’t particularly care to get into the semantics of “extravagantly corrupt”. I mean that’s really a bunch of pedantic masturbation meant to distract people who might otherwise be thoughtful and mindful about actual policies and processes of government.

However, there were REAL issues that were cause for genuine concern beyond the untenability of the gross expansion of her belligerent embrace of global neoliberalism including using the US Military to further its ends.

What I’m talking about in the near term is the regime change in Syria which would have started with the No-Fly zone. Sorry, but that would have been asking to engage in a proxy shooting war with the Russians if not an actual shooting war with them.

And let’s be clear. Much like the Chinese have NEVER not supported a satellite nation engaged in conflicts with the West, be it North Korea or North Vietnam, there is NO WAY the Russians were going to give up their ONLY deep water port which includes a Sub base in the Med. That wasn’t going to happen.

Anyone who thinks otherwise simply doesn’t understand the logistical importance of Sea Bases. There’s a REASON that the US has put them all around the world and fought to keep them open.

I can’t say this in strongly enough terms; Clinton was NOT simply a flawed candidate because she felt entitled to the job and she clung to harmful neoliberal economic policies. Her ACTIVE belief in regime change undermined the safety of US citizens at home and abroad.

So… while I think Donald Trump is a disaster and will be an ongoing disaster (I mean in the literal sense…like lives lost…wreckage physical and emotional…enduring harm to economy, etc), I do NOT by any means think Clinton would have been LESS of a disaster.

The difference would have been setting the front lawn and the living room on fire versus the back yard and the kitchen….without any means of putting out the fire…

It’s our fault as citizens we got to this point.

The ONE upside to this is that with Trump, the press…due to Trump being so pathological about his persona that he has to be the biggest and best at everything that he and his minions have to engage in pathological lying and outright propaganda to such a degree that incredulity set in EVEN TO CORPORATE SOCK PUPPETS LIKE CHUCK TODD… the press is beginning to embrace elements of becoming the fourth estate.

Not actually BEING the fourth estate, mind you, because…they’re still corporate hacks and sellouts and checks still need to be cashed, PEOPLE!!! But, the lies are so blatant, so apparent, so belligerent that the press can be total sellouts AND do some actual journalism on the side.

I can GUARANTEE that if Clinton had been elected, short of telling whopping lies about crowd size, she’d be engaging in much the same kind of corporate sellout neoliberal bullshit as well as neocon foreign policy bullshit like the no-fly zone over Syria and bringing us closer to war with Russia and the press would be rolled over on to their backs like a puppy waiting to have its belly rubbed. And while the cabinet might look like a Benetton ad, it’d still be full of policy sellouts who would engage in similar harm.

Although, that might change. Trump’s appointees might really want to be the best at everything including being the best at being the worst. Pretty sure Clinton wouldn’t have appointed someone like Betsy DeVos or Rick Perry. I’ll give her that. Rick Perry as head of the DoE. I’m thinking in order to be in charge of our nuclear stockpiles…you should be able to pronounce “nuclear” correctly.

I’m all for criticizing Trump on point. I only take breaks for health reasons. He does and will deserve every last bit of criticism he gets from me and most.

But man, the idea that anyone can look with a wistful eye towards Hillary Clinton just makes me ill.

Sorry, they both sucked EQUALLY badly and BOTH would have harmed real people in real and tangible ways. Just because they’re different groups doesn’t change the real harm.

At least when the Republicans lost, they had an “autopsy”. The Dems STILL DON’T FUCKING GET IT that neoliberalism is the cause, not just in losing the Presidency, but nearly 1000 government positions since 2008.

Here’s a scary thought… The Republicans are very close to capturing enough state houses to start passing Constitutional Amendments and having a rapid ratification process…. things like making gay marriage illegal UNDER THE CONSTITUTION.

Try undoing that one. And that’s not a function of “if we only had Hillary”…

I know you guys aren’t Hillary supporters, but dammit, it’s time to shitcan any thought of any corporate Dem. We’re here. It’s now. Death to the DLC. Death to the corporate DNC.

Now…if they want to become Berniecrats or go younger with Tulsi Gabbard… that’s a start. But honestly, the two things that get me going are 1) Trump’s BS 2) Clinton apologists

Lastly, there’s a lawsuit before the FEC to change the Debate rules to allow for an independent to be on the final debate stage. Doesn’t change local, state or federal office below President…but it’s a start…

Sports is the crucible of human virtue. The distillate remains are human vice.

January 26, 2017 at 1:23 am #64382

zn
Moderator

Mack, no offense, and speaking just for myself, I don’t care about Clinton. Or the various views of her, from the most extravagantly overdone to the most understated.

That’s just me being bluntly honest in a tough time.

And I don’t even think the real issue is Trump. I think it’s Trump and the republicans, who are probably at this point 2 ships sailing in the night, both in the same direction.

Here we have a very interesting essay about the mindset that (most likely) got Trump elected. Lots to discuss there. And at least 2 responses take issue with the author’s brief and minor remarks about Clinton.

Others will have different responses I am sure. Mine is that I am not interested.

I don’t know…in comparison to endlessly debating a candidate who lost (something I have never done before, after any election)…to me, there are real things to worry about.

Besides. There is not a single sin we can hang on the dems that Trump isn’t going to make look like kid’s stuff in comparison. That to me is very real.
…

January 26, 2017 at 2:02 am #64385

Mackeyser
Moderator

Fair enough.

Well, the young man’s ignorance wasn’t surprising, not the fallacies nor the fears. That said, the reason those fallacies and fears found fertile ground was explicitly because the DLC led DNC abandoned the working class, the family farmer and the poor.

This young man’s revelations weren’t new. We’ve heard various strains of it since the Tea Party and before.

What’s frustrating is that the author treats this young man’s output as original, new or revelatory.

Good God. Seriously with this shit? Is he being serious that we need to take human beings’ fears and concerns regarding their economic security as a real concern, even if the vectors for some of the concerns are fallacious?

Maybe it’s me that doesn’t get it.

Cuz I keep reading variations of the same things and then keep reading about each time, how people are struck with these new insights.

Yeah…maybe it’s me. I dunno.

Sports is the crucible of human virtue. The distillate remains are human vice.

January 26, 2017 at 2:32 am #64390

zn
Moderator

Mackeyser wrote:

Cuz I keep reading variations of the same things and then keep reading about each time, how people are struck with these new insights.

Yeah…maybe it’s me. I dunno.

I liked the article, myself.

It’s especially good, I think, on how deflecting the issue of race is done in such a way that it appears to occupy higher ground while, in the end, being the same white nationalist stuff in essence.

Interesting movie review (…of a movie I will never see because it’s graphic horror):

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/77120

Plot: A young black man visits his white girlfriend’s diverse family estate only to learn that many of its black residents have gone missing, and the horrible truth when another frantic African-American warns him to “get out”. It becomes clear that this is easier said than done.

The surprise midnight screening at the Sundance Film Festival this year wasn’t much of a surprise by the time it began rolling, but I think it shocked more that a few attendees at just how strong, topical and occasionally shocking it was. First-time writer-director Jordan Peele (half of the great comedy team Key & Peele, who made KEANU last year) has been talking for a couple of years about his horror-comedy script GET OUT. But when the details of the plot begin to reveal themselves, I’m not quite sure anyone will be prepared for how he dives headfirst into the deep waters of racism in America, told through a story that makes it quite clear that, while racism might seem more at bay than ever before (I’m talking about the pre-President Trump era in which the film was conceived and made), the real fear amongst African-Americans is the white people are just better at hiding it.

GET OUT begins harmlessly enough. A young, interracial couple—Chris (Daniel Kaluuya of SICARIO) and Rose (Allison Williams from “Girls”)—decide to head to her parents’ palatial estate (I don’t recall if the film ever names the state in which the action takes place, but it was shot in Alabama), where Chris can finally meet the folks for the first time. He’s worried, as any new boyfriend would be, about what they’ll think of him, in particular, the fact that he’s black (apparently he’s Rose’s first black boyfriend). But parents Dean (Bradley Whitford) and Missy (Catherine Keener) seem positively darling, almost trying too hard to make Chris feel at home. (“I would have voted for Obama for a third time,” says Dean.)

It doesn’t take long for Chris to feel like something is amiss, especially when he meets the household staff, Walter (Marcus Henderson) and Georgina (Betty Gabriel), who seem more Stepford than Southern. They are overly smiley and surface-level nice, while seeming suspicious and not eager to engage in chit-chat with Chris. Peele is a smart enough filmmaker to drop subtle hints about what’s really going on in the house and community; even still he never gives away too much.

At the top of the film, we see a young black musician (played by Keith Stanfield of STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON, “Atlanta,” SHORT TERM 12, SNOWDEN) lost on the streets of this same affluent neighborhood; he’s plucked off the road by a passing car, and when we see him again, at an annual party thrown by Rose’s parents, he’s the date of a middle-aged woman, dressed like a codger at a pricey nursing home. But something unintentional happens that seems to snap him out of his condition, and he immediately begins to scream at Chris to run before he’s whisked away by others at the party and taken into a room with Missy, who just happens to by a psychiatrist who specializes in hypnotherapy. She even conducts a seemingly harmless experiment on Christ that results in him quitting smoking.

It seems unlikely that Jordan Peele would ever make something that didn’t have a great deal of subtext, and GET OUT is loaded with it—much of it not even sub-. The way the guests (all white) greet and speak to Chris is polite to the point of overreaching, attempting to appear friendly and even flirty, staring at him out of the corners of their eyes like a prize farm animal. More than being awkward for Chris, a gradual sense of being demeaned creeps in, especially from Rose’s troubled brother (Caleb Landry Jones), a character the film could have easily lived without, mostly because Jones overplays the part to such a degree that it breaks the mood of the perfectly toned movie.

One very necessary supporting character is that of Chris’s best friend, a TSA agent (LilRel Howery) who fancies himself an amateur detective. And when Chris and Rose don’t return home when scheduled, Howery begins the process of finding them using local authorities or his own intuition (he’s thinking the white people kidnapped Chris to turn him into a sex slave). I don’t want to say too much more about the plot, but the entire third act is certifiably nuts and occasionally grotesque. Every actor meant to be duplicitous here does a terrific job finding both good and awful qualities in their characters, especially Whitford and Keener. And Kaluuya is tremendous as a man placed in a situation that he could never have conceived of. He’s brave when he has no other choice and terrified when he has a moment to think about how deep and unspeakable certain actions are.

Peele also finds a few moments to make things genuinely tense and scary. Some of the jumps are cheap and obvious, but for the most part, the filmmaker wants the fear experience to be genuine and heartfelt. Nothing is more critical in a horror film’s success than getting the audience to care about the characters in danger. Then toss in veiled statements about cultural appropriation and how “cool” being black is (this is the old white people saying that, mind you), and you have a thought-provoking and entertaining offering.

This is a tough film to review without giving certain aspects away, so I’ll leave you with this: GET OUT is so damn smart, funny, and scary impressively directed by Peele, who embraces certain great horror tropes, but never forgetting that the best horror and sci-fi often includes clandestine messages and commentary on modern society. And the idea of using the monster of racism as the true villain here is handled beautifully. The filmmaker brings us into Chris’s life is by giving us a bit of his troubled and painful past regarding his parents, some of which are brought of the dark recess of his memories with a little hypnotic kick from Missy.

Peele doesn’t spare us a bit of the old gore, but he manages to find a few gross-out tricks in GET OUT that surprised even me. But his main goal seems to be to provide a sustained sense of dread, punctuated by a handful of genuinely terrifying moments. It’s an impressive debut that has me eager to see what Peele has to offer next both within and without of his comedy team.

January 26, 2017 at 3:05 am #64392
Mackeyser
Moderator
Very true.

And part of moving on is not repeating the mistake.

It’s not enough to “just” say that Clinton’s failed neoliberal economic policies doomed her or that she relied too much on access and privilege as part of the Establishment to intone in word and tone a sense of entitlement. Rather, it was the DLC’s purposeful abandonment of those without money for those with… essentially taking up arms in a class war they were determined to win…

That provided the fertile ground for others to divide and conquer along any number of lines…

So any number of bad actors can come in and feign taking the high ground while really doing despicable things and because the ground had been ceded, those who left…not just willingly, but purposefully…”we’re leaving you poor people because we lose being associated with you. So, we’re going to go get the corporate money so we can win. Not “we” like you and me, “we”, but “we” the Party and a different section of America that we’ll carve out that actually doesn’t really know or care about you…” It becomes extraordinarily difficult for those who abandoned the poor, the family farmer, the rural folks… to be able to swoop in before an election and say anything about the other guys, even if they are telling the truth about them acting badly, and have it have any meaningful effect.

Abandoned is abandoned. People may not be rocket scientists, but they get something as simple as that.

It’s not just race.

My child is transgender and it’s happening between binary and non-binary trans people.

With the Women’s March, there was some discord over all of the “pussy” hats being associated with “Women” because Transgender women don’t necessarily have pussies or wombs (I’ve heard the hats represent both or either). I told my child that I thought the way forward was not to buy into division, but work for inclusion and bring more power through combined purpose.

So, these bad actors will seek any possible avenue for division and it’s gross and unfortunate.

I just really, really want to see the DLC’s influence buried once and for all, even if we see the rise of a Progressive party. For the first time in a while, I find myself in an advocacy role, even if it’s advocating for the death of something (same with trickle down economics, for example…)

As for Jordan Peele, that dude’s got all 5 tools as they say in baseball. That looks like the first horror film in awhile I’ll see. On cable, but still. Looks really good and he’s very smart.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 3 months ago by Mackeyser.
Sports is the crucible of human virtue. The distillate remains are human vice.
January 26, 2017 at 9:06 am #64401

zn
Moderator

Mackeyser wrote:

And part of moving on is not repeating the mistake.

Except…we’re not saying anything now that we weren’t already saying in the 2008 primaries.

The only real difference between now and then, when it comes to discussing the dems anyway, is that no one anticipated how well Sanders would do.

The rest? We could have made a board banner listing the complaints with the dems in 2008 and would never have had to change it to this day.

Meanwhile to me the real story right now is not Clinton v. Trump, it’s Trump plus a republican congress. So while we bar the doors against dracula and hang garlic and crosses all over the place, turns out there’s also a werewolf clawing at the door too. And the whole time the witch is still dead.

..

January 27, 2017 at 12:16 am #64429

Mackeyser
Moderator

The best friend a Republican House and Senate ever had has been a Dem President.

Do we need to go through the list of Republican garbage Clinton and Obama passed that no Republican President could have?

And by having a Dem President do it, Reps can not only get what they originally wanted, but bitch about it and argue for more.

So, are we really going to entertain that another Clinton with a Republican Congress wouldn’t be the moderate Republican she really is and basically pass their agenda?

The only difference is that there would be a soporific quality about it.

Oh, and instead of Steve Bannon telling the press to STFU, it would be a White House staffer to Progressives…

Sports is the crucible of human virtue. The distillate remains are human vice.

January 27, 2017 at 1:47 am #64432

zn
Moderator

Mackeyser wrote:

The only difference is that there would be a soporific quality about it.

We’ll never agree on this Mack. Which is fine.

What we will get with Trump…ARE getting with Trump…is not only far worse than any other alternative, it’s even worse than we have yet imagined.

And that’s not being said by a dem apologist.

That’s worse in every area. Foreign. Domestic. Cultural. Economic.

We may just have to agree to disagree on this.

All I know is that I am living under both LePage and Trump, and if Trump gets ousted, then it’s Pence.

January 29, 2017 at 1:24 am #64479

Zooey
Participant

Mackeyser wrote:

The best friend a Republican House and Senate ever had has been a Dem President.

Do we need to go through the list of Republican garbage Clinton and Obama passed that no Republican President could have?

And by having a Dem President do it, Reps can not only get what they originally wanted, but bitch about it and argue for more.

So, are we really going to entertain that another Clinton with a Republican Congress wouldn’t be the moderate Republican she really is and basically pass their agenda?

The only difference is that there would be a soporific quality about it.

Oh, and instead of Steve Bannon telling the press to STFU, it would be a White House staffer to Progressives…

I think that was true in the past, but I don’t think it is true now. Trump is a completely different ballgame because he is not only going to give the Republican congress more than they ever imagined was possible, he is going to take all the credit for it. So while they got some rewards out of Clinton and Obama, Trump is going to take it all the way to the house. He is going to build a big, beautiful wall, build more nukes, gut the EPA, siphon billions out of public education and set standards that can’t be met so that schools will appear to be failing en masse, he will loot and pollute, institutionalize voter suppression, give tax cuts to the rich, and dismantle all the government oversight, and maybe even fight with Iran…and…best of all…he is going to BRAG about it, and take all the credit for it.

Then McConnell and Ryan and the rest of the posse will weave a narrative about their heroic self-sacrifice to Save America, and impeach him when it’s politically timely to do so. They will have a smorgasbord of reasons to choose from, and they will get rid of Trump, and install their fascist evangelical man Pence who is every bit as insane on a policy level, but wears a suit that actually fits him, has an expensive haircut, and avoids Twitter.

Trump is a gift from God for the fascists, and fascism is what we are looking at right now. The real thing.
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