Senator Al Franken on Steve Bannon

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  • #58817
    — X —
    Participant

    All I see is “yeah that’s THEIR kind of jokes” type humor.

    Well …. yeah.

    And … so?

    Why do people feel they need to police the internet for things that can (and will) offend them? I don’t think people really understand the /r/ community, and that’s understandable because it’s kind of its own anti-PC world where they can be politically incorrect. They try to out-shock each other, make ridiculous memes (again, for shock value), and are generally just being offensive for sport. That doesn’t freaking define anyone. I do it too.

    For example. Just last night. My wife and I were sitting on the couch at about 7:00 and I started patting my pockets, started looking around on the floor, feeling between the cushions and stuff, and my wife says, “What’re you looking for?” I stopped, looked at her with a very serious face and said, “My freaking dinner.” She gave a quick chuckle and said, “Jerk. What do you want? I can make stroganoff.” About two weeks before that, I absolutely CRUSHED my finger at work and blew the nail right off. It was bothering me to no end for two days, and I was fiddling around with the band-aid complaining how it’s putting pressure on the wound, and my wife said, “Pussy. Try and push a human being out of your body.” I chuckled and told her, “Yeah, but then you get to sit on your ass eating bon-bons for the next 18 years.” She also laughed. Know why? Because she knows I’m not serious. It’s just humor. It’s not widely accepted humor, but it’s humor nonetheless.

    Honestly, people just need to chill the fuck out about stuff like that. And Bannon’s ability to generate revenue for that website by hosting (and encouraging) politically incorrect commentary by the /r/ and 4chan communities is no more an indictment on his character than mine when I tell my wife to go fetch my dinner. So if you’re going to assault Bannon’s character, then assault mine too. Both of us will likely laugh at the notion and continue on with whatever it is what we wanna do. I’d also submit that his involvement with Breitbart will have NO bearing on his role as political adviser. He’s got an advanced degree in business (with honors) from Harvard and very good military experience. He’s not going to suggest to Trump that we roll back the clock to a bygone era and start suppressing women or rounding up Jews for slaughter. But that’s exactly what the alt-left is afraid of. And they combat it by dictating the rules of personal moral engagement.

    Pshh.

    Meanwhile I only even bring it up to expand the picture of what Bannon is all about.

    Nah. I appears more like perpetuating a false narrative.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    #58820
    bnw
    Blocked

    X I have to say I really enjoy your posts!

    The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

    Sprinkles are for winners.

    #58830
    — X —
    Participant

    X I have to say I really enjoy your posts!

    That’s because we’re both racist anti-Semites.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    #58834
    bnw
    Blocked

    X I have to say I really enjoy your posts!

    That’s because we’re both racist anti-Semites.

    Thanks, I forgot.

    The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

    Sprinkles are for winners.

    #58865
    zn
    Moderator

    Alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos gets schooled on live TV

    https://www.yahoo.com/tech/m/5053953d-3bf1-3058-8b8e-de01fb3f73ba/ss_alt-right-troll-milo.html

    The millennial mascot of the alt-right was forced into a confusing set of contradictions Thursday on live television.

    Breitbart News writer Milo Yiannopoulos was interviewed by Channel 4 News in the UK about his past statements that women offended online should just “log off” the internet and his assertion that, actually, Islam is the real culprit of rape culture.

    When journalist Cathy Newman challenged him on the empty and unsettling claim that Muslim immigration is somehow linked to rape culture, Yiannopoulos retorted with just, “Am I wrong about that?”

    And, rather than defending his words, he mostly tried to laugh them off. Newman wasn’t having it.

    “Are we supposed to just soak that up and take it all as just one big joke?” she asked him.

    “You’re supposed to treat it as it’s intended and not wrench it from context,” he replied, not explaining what the context was.

    Then, he switched strategies. He went back to calling it all a joke, or better yet, a “provocation.”

    “You know perfectly well that it is a provocation designed to make people think and perhaps to make them laugh.”

    Hmm … well, this is where it gets interesting.

    Newman then asked Yiannopoulos about his boss, alt-right extremist and Breitbart chairman-turned-chief White House strategist Steve Bannon, who led Breibart as it grew increasingly radical with headlines like, “Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy.”

    “What does it mean that someone who delighted in offending people, who delighted in having a laugh at Muslims and women, is now at the center of power?” Newman asked Yiannopoulos.

    “I delight in offending people. I think the grievance brigade, victimhood, the idea that hurt feelings are some kind of special currency — I think that needs to come to an end,” Yiannopoulos responded.

    Bannon shouldn’t be worried about people’s feelings, he added. And why is that?

    “Because America has been ruled for 30 years by people who are too worried about what other people feel, not what other people think. And too worried about feelings versus facts,” he continued, saying “social justice warriors,” feminists and the Black Lives Matter movement are “preoccupied with feelings first and facts later.”

    “They spread conspiracy theories and propaganda about the wage gap and campus rape culture,” he said with a cringe. “This stuff isn’t real.”

    Well, actually, those things are real. Unfortunately, research has shown that at least one in five female college students has faced sexual abuse or assault (and many cases go unreported). And the wage gap is very real, with women earning consistently less — from 58 cents to 87 cents for every dollar earned by a man.

    Challenged again by Newman, he followed up the non-facts with this:

    “I care about facts,” he said. “I don’t care about your feelings.”

    And then things got more confusing. Newman brought up another past statement of his, in which he said we’re living in a “post-fact universe.”

    And then Yiannopoulos was like, actually, facts aren’t everything.

    “Just telling the facts are no longer enough,” he responded. “You now have to be persuasive, charismatic, interesting and funny. Just telling people things isn’t enough anymore.”

    What a tangled web we weave.

    #58874
    — X —
    Participant

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    #58875
    wv
    Participant

    Alt-right troll Milo Yiannopoulos gets schooled on live TV

    https://www.yahoo.com/tech/m/5053953d-3bf1-3058-8b8e-de01fb3f73ba/ss_alt-right-troll-milo.html

    The millennial mascot of the alt-right was forced into a confusing set of contradictions Thursday on live television

    ————
    Despite that headline, I am absolutely positive that the alt-righters thought the media person was the one who got schooled.

    w
    v

    #58877
    — X —
    Participant

    Despite that headline, I am absolutely positive that the alt-righters thought the media person was the one who got schooled.

    Just out of curiosity, how do you define an alt-righter.
    Are they all the same? What’s your definition of the term?

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    #58883
    wv
    Participant

    Despite that headline, I am absolutely positive that the alt-righters thought the media person was the one who got schooled.

    Just out of curiosity, how do you define an alt-righter.
    Are they all the same? What’s your definition of the term?

    ————
    You are getting good at these questions 🙂 I like good questions.

    Um…lets see….I dont really have a hard-and-fast definition of ‘alt-righters’. I just learned the term this year. When i use the term, I am generally thinking of folks
    who are indeed “people of the RIGHT”, but who dont identify with the mainstream Reps. I think of people like Pat Buchannon as an Alt-righter. Maybe even Ross Perot.
    Anti Nafta folks, with Tea-Party tendencies. Rightwing-Libertarian tendencies. That sort of thing. They have their ‘fringe’ wacko element like most political groups including leftists.

    Someone in the link below asked if there was an “alt left” btw.

    Other people’s answers:https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-American-alternative-right

    w
    v

    #58898
    — X —
    Participant

    You are getting good at these questions I like good questions.

    Um…lets see….I dont really have a hard-and-fast definition of ‘alt-righters’. I just learned the term this year. When i use the term, I am generally thinking of folks
    who are indeed “people of the RIGHT”, but who dont identify with the mainstream Reps. I think of people like Pat Buchannon as an Alt-righter. Maybe even Ross Perot.
    Anti Nafta folks, with Tea-Party tendencies. Rightwing-Libertarian tendencies. That sort of thing. They have their ‘fringe’ wacko element like most political groups including leftists.

    Someone in the link below asked if there was an “alt left” btw.

    Cool, thanks. I, too, just came to learn of the umbrella term, but I’ve been aware of that population for a while. 4chan and the /r/ communities aren’t new. I think it’s negligent to use it as an umbrella label though. There are many different political views and ideologies associated with that population. I wouldn’t put *them* in any one particular category. Some are far right, some are fundamentalists, some are neoreactionaries, some are white nationalists, and some are just trolls. I think the trolls are being spotlighted and unfairly maligned, btw. They’re just trolls, and trolls troll for reaction. Most of Breitbart is comprised of trolls, and that was recently confirmed by one of their editors. They get a kick out of pushing the boundaries of what’s socially acceptable. I’d tell you to hang out with them on the sites they frequent, but I don’t think you’d enjoy it at all. But if you can suspend outrage, you’ll see it’s a troll contest to see how can be the most troll-y. I’m willing to bet most of them are markedly different in real life and while dealing with real people – particularly the people they insult for sport. Most are young people too, obviously. I can give you another real life example. My son (I’ll call him B) has had a best friend for a long time (going on 15 years) who’s black (I’ll call him L). They constantly troll each other with stereotypes of their race just for fun. For example, here’s an exchange I overheard them having while playing video games in his room. They were 17 at the time.

    L: I’m hungry – got any food?
    B: Just grilled chicken. That’s not how you like it though.
    L: You saying we only like fried chicken?
    B: You saying you don’t?
    L: (laughing) No. Now go get your cracker food.
    B: I’m not Jeffrey (from Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) Get it yourself.
    L: Will your dad shoot me if he catches me walking through the house?
    B: Probably.
    L: Well then give me your sheet so he thinks he’s at a rally.
    B: (laughing)

    That’s just how the alt-right kids talk now. It’s nothing personal. And Breitbart isn’t racist or misogynist or anti-Semitic simply because they encourage the exchange of troll articles for purpose of providing humor and inciting moral outrage. It’s a game.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    #58899
    zn
    Moderator

    Despite that headline, I am absolutely positive that the alt-righters thought the media person was the one who got schooled.

    Just out of curiosity, how do you define an alt-righter.
    Are they all the same? What’s your definition of the term?

    Yeah I know.

    #58905
    zn
    Moderator

    That’s because we’re both racist anti-Semites.

    As a mod I consider this just a more light-hearted but still problematical version of name-calling and taunting.

    It’s one thing to defend Bannon against charges of racism (the real issue is that he acts as if race isn’t an issue in the USA, but that’s another story.)

    It’s another to get into this kind of taunting of posters who disagree, even if it is done jokingly.

    In any way shape or form, public figures and writers posted here are fair targets, posters here are not. Agree or disagree with points made, and don’t go after posters, even in indirect ways.

    This is not a debate topic, just me trying to keep an experiment (this forum) working.

    ….

    #58908
    zn
    Moderator

    All I see is “yeah that’s THEIR kind of jokes” type humor.

    Well …. yeah.

    And … so?

    And so I’m not interested.

    You can advocate their stuff and/or defend them.

    My own response to that is simply to say why I post them–and it was a long list of things, with WV’s contributions included. I just am going, who are they.

    If you want to know my own view, as a principled leftist, I think they are deeply misguided throwbacks and that their policies, to the degree they are put into practice through the election, represent huge steps backwards that the majority of americans don’t want.

    That’s just how I see it.

    The fact that they are trying to be funny about it? It doesn’t register to me. I consider them a bad thing, in general. That’s my view. I’ve encountered all this stuff before, so it’s a time-tested view.

    You of course can defend them at will, but obviously what I will be getting out of that is just your view of them. Which is different from my view.

    so there’s no real “exchange of ideas” point to be made about that. To you their humor is provocative, to me it’s just in-group cheerleading. That’s because we approach it completely different from the get-go. Our very premises are different.

    You are not, of course, to be offended because I scathingly dismiss them. That’s just the price of debating politics civilly. I am not personally offended that you defend them. That too is just the price of debating politics civilly.

    If we do this forum right, in addition to all that civil restraint plus free thinking when it comes to emotionally charged political flash issues, we will also post a lot of OTHER stuff we agree with and both like.

    #58909
    — X —
    Participant

    That’s because we’re both racist anti-Semites.

    As a mod I consider this just a more light-hearted but still problematical version of name-calling and taunting.

    It’s one thing to defend Bannon against charges of racism (the real issue is that he acts as if race isn’t an issue in the USA, but that’s another story.)

    It’s another to get into this kind of taunting of posters who disagree, even if it is done jokingly.

    In any way shape or form, public figures and writers posted here are fair targets, posters here are not. Agree or disagree with points made, and don’t go after posters, even in indirect ways.

    This is not a debate topic, just me trying to keep an experiment (this forum) working.

    ….

    Who said I was taunting anyone on the board? I was talking about how the mainstream media and the protesting millennials would view my opinions (as well as anyone who would appreciate or agree with them). They’re the ones calling people racists and anti-Semites. Are there any posters here doing that? No? Then I clearly wasn’t addressing them. I respect everyone on this board – some of whom I’ve known a long time – and would never taunt them or be spiteful towards them.

    Hope that clears things up.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    #58911
    zn
    Moderator

    That’s because we’re both racist anti-Semites.

    As a mod I consider this just a more light-hearted but still problematical version of name-calling and taunting.

    It’s one thing to defend Bannon against charges of racism (the real issue is that he acts as if race isn’t an issue in the USA, but that’s another story.)

    It’s another to get into this kind of taunting of posters who disagree, even if it is done jokingly.

    In any way shape or form, public figures and writers posted here are fair targets, posters here are not. Agree or disagree with points made, and don’t go after posters, even in indirect ways.

    This is not a debate topic, just me trying to keep an experiment (this forum) working.

    ….

    Who said I was taunting anyone on the board? I was talking about how the mainstream media and the protesting millennials would view my opinions (as well as anyone who would appreciate or agree with them). They’re the ones calling people racists and anti-Semites. Are there any posters here doing that? No? Then I clearly wasn’t addressing them. I respect everyone on this board – some of whom I’ve known a long time – and would never taunt them or be spiteful towards them.

    Hope that clears things up.

    That’s a good clarification in terms of the board and well put.

    At the same time, the mod part of it completely aside, to me, the issues having to do with racism and the Trump inner circle people are real. (As are the issues with rolling back Roe v. Wade and the gains of diversity and so on.) To me, and so speaking personally, that’s the case regardless of how the mainstream frames it, which is not my touchstone on anything anyway. (I actually don’t watch any tv news whatsoever and rarely read a newspaper and when I do it’s a local paper with local news over breakfast in a diner.)

    I’ve been in lecture mode a couple of times, and as usual will put that and the mod suit aside for a while and try to mostly post in my civilian identity.

    #58919
    bnw
    Blocked

    So you’re naked under your trench coat?

    The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

    Sprinkles are for winners.

    #58931
    — X —
    Participant

    At the same time, the mod part of it completely aside, to me, the issues having to do with racism and the Trump inner circle people are real.

    I don’t think they are. I think they’re manufactured issues. Especially when you consider there isn’t a consensus and it hasn’t been corroborated. Unless you’re talking about the idea that he’s dismissive of the very notion that there’s a racial problem in this Country. If that’s the case, can you tell me how you’ve arrived at that conclusion? Without saying Breitbart.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    #58963
    — X —
    Participant

    Fail. Another completely unfounded racist charge.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    #58965
    zn
    Moderator

    At the same time, the mod part of it completely aside, to me, the issues having to do with racism and the Trump inner circle people are real.

    I don’t think they are. I think they’re manufactured issues. Especially when you consider there isn’t a consensus and it hasn’t been corroborated. Unless you’re talking about the idea that he’s dismissive of the very notion that there’s a racial problem in this Country. If that’s the case, can you tell me how you’ve arrived at that conclusion? Without saying Breitbart.

    I can only tell you how I see it from my position in the big political grid. (It being assumed that that’s how everyone will see it…that is, from their position in the political grid, there being no one who is outside of that.)

    In terms of what I have to see from him? I have already seen what I need to see for that. It’s based on this and it’s more than one thing. (1) I don’t do hunting for the “outrageous explicit bigot style racism” routine, because I don’t think it’s relevant. (2) Bannon himself says there’s no doubt though that type of outrageous sound byte overt racist is associated with the alt.right. So that’s the open, toxic racism…it’s there, and he doesn’t do much to repudiate it. This is not a “gotcha!” damnation, just one step in a bigger analysis. 3) My issue is whether or not someone in power is capable of recognizing the subtler, more complex issues of race that still pervade the country, and Bannon;s answer, directly, is that he does not see race as a real issue, while complaining about “victimhood” and making fun of “diversity.” That to me means he has a completely tin ear, a weak sense of how the present social system is doing, and is just in this “okay they criticized ‘merica long enough!” reactionary mode. That to me means he’s a poor choice to be advising anyone on the state of the country, since he’s blind to and dismissive of one of its biggest issues. So he comes across to me as this well-off guy with power type who does not see or hear what the problems are and so certainly is not going to help make things better.

    But at the same time he will just never, however, say or probably even think anything damning in the way the extremist race warriors do–the type who is the reviled bigot stereotype in a movie. He’s never going to be THAT, and I have no doubt his mind doesn’t even work that way. Those types are in his wake and look to him for making gains for them, but he isn’t one of them.

    But when I look for progress and enlightenment and a better grasp of the troubled social dynamic, I not only don’t expect anything from him, I think he will dismiss and block those kinds of things, if not go to war against them for what are (to me) misguided reasons.

    An analogy. I say, I want to discuss how multiple injuries to key units like the OL have an effect on execution. Bannon would say to me, there’s no such issue, all teams have injuries, it’s all simply coaching…good coaches win, no excuses. Yet to me that doesn’t describe the real world.

    .

    #58966
    Zooey
    Participant

    I find the attitude towards the concept of racism very interesting.

    And I don’t really have a point here, so don’t have any expectations from this post. As Mark Twain wrote in the preface to Huck Finn, “persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished.”

    I think we have a big race problem in this country. I think racism is very real. I think it is largely invisible, though, because most people think real racism comes in white sheets, and that everything else is some kind of over-reaction at best. I don’t agree with that. I think the problem is much bigger, and much more invisible than anybody realizes.

    I find it interesting how quickly people jump to defend themselves against the charge of racism. I don’t know that there is anything that people are more touchy about, and more quick to deny.

    And people go overboard in the other direction trying to dismiss the charge as “the race card.” Even when nobody said anything directly about racism, or made a direct accusation. People are hypersensitive about it. People HATE being accused of racism.

    Right now, I am teaching two pieces of literature in my college classes. One of the classes is reading Huckleberry Finn. And the other class is reading a play called “Master Harold…and the boys” which is set in apartheid South Africa.

    We are reading the play out loud in class, and discussing Huck Finn.

    Huck Finn uses the “N” word over 200 times.

    And it is used a handful of times in Master Harold.

    In our discussions of Huck Finn, I am the only person – ever – who will say the “N” word out loud…when reading a relevant passage to highlight something, or whatever. Students will not do it. They will skip it. They will say “n-word” sometimes. Most of the time, they hurdle the word as if it isn’t on the page. But they won’t say it. Even though it is right there in the text, a text written in the 1880s by a man who was more pissed off by racism than almost anybody else in his generation.

    In reading “Master Harold,” students will say the F word, “Jesus,” and “shit” out loud when they are in the text, but they will not say the N word when we come to that. Their horses come to an immediate halt, and they fly off the saddle over the head of the horse. It is the Worst Word in the English language.

    And I find that really interesting.

    Because often my classes are 100% Anglo-Saxon. My “Huck Finn” class right now is not. My “Master Harold” class is. 100% Anglo-Saxon.

    But kids will NOT say the N-word. Even when reading somebody else’s work.

    It is like “he who shall not be named.”

    Voldemort.

    Nigger.

    Told you. No moral.

    #58981
    — X —
    Participant

    I can only tell you how I see it from my position in the big political grid.

    Okay, I get it. I understand where you’re coming from, and those are good points. I can only respond (not disagree) this way. There’s a difference between having a reluctance to repudiate something and *being* something. My whole issue this whole time has been the quick-trigger of not only the media – but society – to hastily attach a label like ‘racist’ or ‘misogynist’ or ‘anti-Semite’ on someone that uses unaccepted speech, or isn’t a Champion of a cause, or is either directly or indirectly affiliated with someone else who *might* actually *be* one of those things. Maybe he marginalizes the problem, but that doesn’t, by default, make him the root of the problem. Not saying those are your views – I’m just thinking out loud.

    That goes to what Zooey said above. People are so worried that they’ll be labeled nowadays, that it makes them go out of their way to clear up the misconception before it even hints at becoming an appearance. They’ll refuse to use certain words, or start sentences with qualifiers like “I have black friends”, or “I’m absolutely not a racist, so…”. It’s a defense mechanism brought about by conditioning. There are people out there who consider themselves to be Super-Hero social justice warriors, and they actively look for meta data in people that can give them cause to put you neatly into one of the piles of hate groups. They seek it out like a prize. They’ll twist words and conversations with the goal of making *that thing* manifest. It’s fucking annoying. And do you know what the backlash to that is? The alt-right movement. Not the lunatic fringe of the alt-right that builds bunkers and wants America to be White as fuck. We’re talking about the majority of the alt-right that *wants* to offend you. That *wants* you to feel uncomfortable. That *wants* you to go crazy with blood-lust when you see a real example of (manufactured) racism or misogyny or anti-Semitism pasted right in your face. They want to take away the hunt and just deliver that fat prized carcass right onto your doorstep. For sport. The alt-right is the terrorist organization against the PC police.

    So unless or until people can just accept other people for being different, this back and forth will continue to grow and continue to gain more power. There are people who have biases or prejudices, and no amount of condemnation or rehabilitation is going to change that. So let them be who they are. Who cares? If a Klansman can’t find peace, then that’s his sorry lot in life. Similarly, if a racist-hunter can’t find peace, then that’s his or her lot as well. The struggle comes from needing to change people, and that’s going to be an eternal struggle. The one piece of advice my grandfather ever gave me that was worth a shit was exactly that. “Don’t try to change anyone to be more like you. You’ll just make them less interesting if you succeed.”

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    #58984
    nittany ram
    Moderator

    There are people who have biases or prejudices, and no amount of condemnation or rehabilitation is going to change that. So let them be who they are. Who cares? If a Klansman can’t find peace, then that’s his sorry lot in life. Similarly, if a racist-hunter can’t find peace, then that’s his or her lot as well.

    The problem is not what they believe, but how their beliefs affect others. Because those beliefs will ultimately be turned into actions. Sometimes overtly but usually more subtly and less obvious. But those actions have a negative impact on people with less power and privilege. I want to live in a society where those actions are immediately exposed and condemned.

    I don’t want to be offended. I don’t need to be offended. The alt-right has nothing to teach me. What you see as a brave fight against manufactured racism I see as an attempt to legitimize their racism.

    I just want people to be kind to one another and to stop punching down.

    #58987
    zn
    Moderator

    There’s a difference between having a reluctance to repudiate something and *being* something. My whole issue this whole time has been the quick-trigger of not only the media – but society – to hastily attach a label like ‘racist’ or ‘misogynist’ or ‘anti-Semite’ on someone that uses unaccepted speech,

    yes, we differ. For me, there’s things that have to be done, and leaders either enable that or obstruct it, and he obstructs it. I say that based on his own words. To me, he obstructs it because he himself does not believe there’s an issue. I see that as a bad step backwards. As for what he’s called? Well he’s a word warrior and a political smack talker and his mag attacks people all the time. The entire alt.right thing consists of repudiating what are to me genuine gains, against which he fights…because he does not believe there is a real problem.

    So to me he represents a denial of racial problems while tolerating actual racists, a rollback of Roe v. Wade, a tendency to promote people like Sarah Palin while repudiating–largely through negative stereotyping—women whose vision of gender progress differs from hers, and so on. Then there’s the efforts to roll back what I see as progress and gains in other areas too.

    I see him as being a knight arrayed in full battle dress against what I happen to believe is enlightenment and progress. In terms of him being called things, he makes a living calling different people, ideas, and things bad names. I mean it’s not like he’s a thinker–he’s a high-tone editorialist. Basically, to me, he’s Bernie.

    The main thing, just narrowing it back down to the issue of race, is that he’s on the side of denial. To me that’s a problem in its own right. There’s more than one position on race, and so to me, it doesn’t reduce to “being okay” v. “outspoken throwback bigot type.”

    Anyway, I am going to take a break from this one for a bit.

    It’s Goff time.

    Goff is either for touchdowns, or he denies they exist. I want to see which it is.

    #58988
    — X —
    Participant

    The problem is not what they believe, but how their beliefs affect others. Because those beliefs will ultimately be turned into actions. Sometimes overtly but usually more subtly and less obvious. But those actions have a negative impact on people with less power and privilege. I want to live in a society where those actions are immediately exposed and condemned.

    I don’t want to be offended. I don’t need to be offended. The alt-right has nothing to teach me. What you see as a brave fight against manufactured racism I see as an attempt to legitimize their racism.

    I just want people to be kind to one another and to stop punching down.

    How will people with biases turn their beliefs into actions? What actions are you talking about, exactly? I can see how you’d want to see *actions* exposed and condemned, because that’s warranted. That’s also different than condemning someone for how they think or how they’re wired. Just like you don’t need or want to be offended, I don’t need or want to be TOLD to be offended. See the distinction?

    I, too, would prefer people just be kind to one another. I think everyone wants that with the exception of those who *need* to be engaged and angry about something. But I’m also cognizant of the fact that it will never happen. There will never be a Utopian World Society. There’s just too much divide, globally, that will continue to be fueled by differences in either race, religion, ideology, or class. No Political leader is going to solve it either. Everyone thought Obama would be this great Uniter, and he did exactly shit to heal the Country. It’s worse now than when he gained office. Markedly worse. Even if Trump had the vision and the perfect plan to close the racial divide, it would still be met with stiff resistance simply because he’s him.

    It’s just never gonna happen. So in the meantime, people just have to focus on what they can do, individually, to make their lives better. Will their lives be better if they compulsively and obsessively try to make everyone adhere to a specific moral code? Not likely. So don’t do that. Will their lives be better if they actively try to find fault in or ridicule other people because of how they think, look, or speak? Not likely. So don’t do that. Will their lives be better if they finally accept the fact that people are different and you can’t control who they are or how they’re wired? Yeah, probably. So start with that.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    #58990
    bnw
    Blocked

    I find the attitude towards the concept of racism very interesting.

    And I don’t really have a point here, so don’t have any expectations from this post. As Mark Twain wrote in the preface to Huck Finn, “persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished.”

    I think we have a big race problem in this country. I think racism is very real. I think it is largely invisible, though, because most people think real racism comes in white sheets, and that everything else is some kind of over-reaction at best. I don’t agree with that. I think the problem is much bigger, and much more invisible than anybody realizes.

    I find it interesting how quickly people jump to defend themselves against the charge of racism. I don’t know that there is anything that people are more touchy about, and more quick to deny.

    And people go overboard in the other direction trying to dismiss the charge as “the race card.” Even when nobody said anything directly about racism, or made a direct accusation. People are hypersensitive about it. People HATE being accused of racism.

    Right now, I am teaching two pieces of literature in my college classes. One of the classes is reading Huckleberry Finn. And the other class is reading a play called “Master Harold…and the boys” which is set in apartheid South Africa.

    We are reading the play out loud in class, and discussing Huck Finn.

    Huck Finn uses the “N” word over 200 times.

    And it is used a handful of times in Master Harold.

    In our discussions of Huck Finn, I am the only person – ever – who will say the “N” word out loud…when reading a relevant passage to highlight something, or whatever. Students will not do it. They will skip it. They will say “n-word” sometimes. Most of the time, they hurdle the word as if it isn’t on the page. But they won’t say it. Even though it is right there in the text, a text written in the 1880s by a man who was more pissed off by racism than almost anybody else in his generation.

    In reading “Master Harold,” students will say the F word, “Jesus,” and “shit” out loud when they are in the text, but they will not say the N word when we come to that. Their horses come to an immediate halt, and they fly off the saddle over the head of the horse. It is the Worst Word in the English language.

    And I find that really interesting.

    Because often my classes are 100% Anglo-Saxon. My “Huck Finn” class right now is not. My “Master Harold” class is. 100% Anglo-Saxon.

    But kids will NOT say the N-word. Even when reading somebody else’s work.

    It is like “he who shall not be named.”

    Voldemort.

    Nigger.

    Told you. No moral.

    Your students have been abused by the PC police throughout their entire education. Like prisoners they know what they can and can’t say no matter the context.

    The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

    Sprinkles are for winners.

    #58991
    bnw
    Blocked

    There are people who have biases or prejudices, and no amount of condemnation or rehabilitation is going to change that. So let them be who they are. Who cares? If a Klansman can’t find peace, then that’s his sorry lot in life. Similarly, if a racist-hunter can’t find peace, then that’s his or her lot as well.

    The problem is not what they believe, but how their beliefs affect others. Because those beliefs will ultimately be turned into actions. Sometimes overtly but usually more subtly and less obvious. But those actions have a negative impact on people with less power and privilege. I want to live in a society where those actions are immediately exposed and condemned.

    I don’t want to be offended. I don’t need to be offended. The alt-right has nothing to teach me. What you see as a brave fight against manufactured racism I see as an attempt to legitimize their racism.

    I just want people to be kind to one another and to stop punching down.

    You do not have the right to not be offended. Welcome to my world.

    The upside to being a Rams fan is heartbreak.

    Sprinkles are for winners.

    #58992
    nittany ram
    Moderator

    The problem is not what they believe, but how their beliefs affect others. Because those beliefs will ultimately be turned into actions. Sometimes overtly but usually more subtly and less obvious. But those actions have a negative impact on people with less power and privilege. I want to live in a society where those actions are immediately exposed and condemned.

    I don’t want to be offended. I don’t need to be offended. The alt-right has nothing to teach me. What you see as a brave fight against manufactured racism I see as an attempt to legitimize their racism.

    I just want people to be kind to one another and to stop punching down.

    How will people with biases turn their beliefs into actions? What actions are you talking about, exactly? I can see how you’d want to see *actions* exposed and condemned, because that’s warranted. That’s also different than condemning someone for how they think or how they’re wired. Just like you don’t need or want to be offended, I don’t need or want to be TOLD to be offended. See the distinction?

    I, too, would prefer people just be kind to one another. I think everyone wants that with the exception of those who *need* to be engaged and angry about something. But I’m also cognizant of the fact that it will never happen. There will never be a Utopian World Society. There’s just too much divide, globally, that will continue to be fueled by differences in either race, religion, ideology, or class. No Political leader is going to solve it either. Everyone thought Obama would be this great Uniter, and he did exactly shit to heal the Country. It’s worse now than when he gained office. Markedly worse. Even if Trump had the vision and the perfect plan to close the racial divide, it would still be met with stiff resistance simply because he’s him.

    It’s just never gonna happen. So in the meantime, people just have to focus on what they can do, individually, to make their lives better. Will their lives be better if they compulsively and obsessively try to make everyone adhere to a specific moral code? Not likely. So don’t do that. Will their lives be better if they try tod find fault in or ridicule other people because of how they think or how they speak? Not likely. So don’t do that. Will their lives be better if they finally accept the fact that people are different and you can’t control who they are or how they’re wired? Yeah, probably. So start with that.

    Well, no you can’t legislate morality. All that you can do is make laws that don’t allow the beliefs of one group to impinge upon the rights of another.

    But I do think people can be taught to see the differences of other groups as just differences and not to automatically judge those differences as being better or worse. The world continues to get smaller and different groups are exposed to one another at a rate far greater than at any time in history. I think the exposure to other cultures makes some people feel uncomfortable. They think their way of life is in jeopardy and right now there is a lot of backlash against that. This leads to groups like the alt-right. They take a defensive posture instead of trying to understand or see the positives. But as the world continues to get smaller eventually the differences will seem less important. That’s my hope anyway.

    #58993
    — X —
    Participant

    The main thing, just narrowing it back down to the issue of race, is that he’s on the side of denial. To me that’s a problem in its own right. There’s more than one position on race, and so to me, it doesn’t reduce to “being okay” v. “outspoken throwback bigot type.”

    Anyway, I am going to take a break from this one for a bit.

    It’s Goff time.

    Goff is either for touchdowns, or he denies they exist. I want to see which it is.

    I hope you’re not taking a break because you think this is getting – or is going to get – contentious. Far from it. I love reading your (and everyone else’s) thoughts on this. I like the dialogue and the hashing out of beliefs and ideas. I think we’re making progress in as far as gaining a better understanding of each other. We may never see eye-to-eye, but we can certainly become more aware of how each other thinks; and maybe from there, we can become more tolerant.

    And I can tell you, with 100% certainty, that Goff is pro-touchdown. The problem is he’s raging against the anti-TD establishment led by that run game authoritarian, Jeff Fisher. I have an idea though. I have lots of different colored sharpies. If you have some extra cardboard, we can take to Figueroa Street and really show them what’s what.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    #58995
    — X —
    Participant

    Well, no you can’t legislate morality. All that you can do is make laws that don’t allow the beliefs of one group to impinge upon the rights of another.

    But I do think people can be taught to see the differences of other groups as just differences and not to automatically judge those differences as being better or worse. The world continues to get smaller and different groups are exposed to one another at a rate far greater than at any time in history. I think the exposure to other cultures makes some people feel uncomfortable. They think their way of life is in jeopardy and right now there is a lot of backlash against that. This leads to groups like the alt-right. They take a defensive posture instead of trying to understand or see the positives. But as the world continues to get smaller eventually the differences will seem less important. That’s my hope anyway.

    Good stuff, Nitt. I agree that there shouldn’t be any laws enacted that would serve to penalize another race unjustly. You mention that people are fearful that their way of life is in jeopardy, and subsequently there’s some backlash over it, and I agree. But I think it’s misguided. I think it’s safe to assume that we’re talking about immigration. Most of what I hear from people across multiple platforms is that this administration is going to arbitrarily deport everyone and quickly erect a giant wall behind them. Break up families, leave children homeless, deny access to America, etc. That’s not the case. He was very clear that he was targeting criminals, and is flexible in his immigration reform policies. He wants people here — legally. He wants prosperity for all people, but he also wants the rules and laws of the land to be applied to everyone. I don’t know how it’s going to shake out, but I’m very confident that there won’t be an arbitrary mass deportation. He knows that local police forces know who the illegal criminals are. He knows they know who the gangs and drug dealers are and whether or not they’re here legally. He wants to give them the power to help remove those people from our society, and I’m all for it. Everyone should be for that. Otherwise, remove border police from the borders, open it up to Columbian Drug Lords, Islamic terrorists, drug smugglers, and anyone else who wants to come over and destroy the United States. Freedom and equal rights for all, yeah?

    And I agree about the alt-right. They’re instigators and trolls, and aren’t doing anything to improve society. I just understand their motivation. Similarly, I understand the New Moral Order and their life mission to make everyone become tolerant whether they like it or not. I don’t understand or agree with how they attack people for being 20 steps removed from racism, but are racists anyway — just because. But it is what it is. The only thing I can do, personally, is ignore it when I know it’s unwarranted. More people on the right could benefit from doing the same. Then it might at least quiet down a little.

    You have to be odd, to be number one.
    -- Dr Seuss

    #59047
    wv
    Participant

    Good discussion boyz.

    Race, Politics — difficult conversations.

    w
    v

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