WV, thanks for the hat tip regarding James C. Scott.

Just finished his Two Cheers for Anarchism.

https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691161037/two-cheers-for-anarchism

It’s really good. Very accessible, almost “breezy” in style at times, it takes us on a journey through the whys and wherefores of societal change, resistance to change, resistance to the status quo, etc. etc. Only quibble with the book is it’s too short (roughly 200 pages). I wanted more.

It ties into your comments regarding the difficulties of breaking free . . . pretty much starting at the family level. A patriarchal family and how that already pretty much trains us to go along with authority, nearly without question, then onto school, the workplace, the economy, government and so on, and all the pressure points set up to tie us down. But Scott shows how often people still find ways to rebel, mostly small, mostly unnoticed, etc. So it’s that push/pull between nearly impossible odds, and persistent, often creative attempts to rebel.

You know a lot more about Scott than I do, but it seems, via the title and the book’s content, he’s not fully in the anarchist camp, but is open to much of its (wide-ranging) philosophy, and he gives examples why it makes sense. He talks about looking at things through an anarchist squint. Traffic lights and patterns, small farmers and artisans, getting rid of tests and metrics that end up leading to just getting better at those tests and metrics, etc. etc. The Heisenberg Effect as well.

Good stuff.

Anyway . . . NC is still a treasure. Don’t know how he does it, especially at 91.

This shit pissing me off to no end:

https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-anti-mask-navy-seal-bin-laden-2020-8

Robert O’Neill, the former Navy SEAL famous for his role in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, was banned by Delta Air Lines on Thursday for refusing to wear a mask on a flight the day before.

O’Neill tweeted a maskless selfie on Wednesday captioned, “I am not a p—-.” He deleted the tweet five hours later.

On Thursday, he tweeted that the airline had banned him.

Good on Delta. A thousand bravos!!

It’s not about you being a “p___”, you selfish fuck! Wearing the mask all but stops the transmission of the virus to others, you selfish piece of shit!

nittany ram wrote:

No, but his shirt looks “redder”. Maybe that’s what’s throwing you off.

Seriously I’ve seen a lot of talk about Goff putting on weight since last season but I can’t see it in any of the photos I’ve seen.

He needs to get stronger. It was a huge factor in Brady’s development. But more important, IMO, is his delivery, his mechanics. He just takes too long to wind up and throw.

Wish he’d study Peyton Manning, 24/7. Brady’s really good there too. Get the ball up around the ear, then fire, fast. Up fast, fire fast. No towel-whip windups.

All kinds of reasons why this is essential, but the obvious one is this: It takes the heat off the offensive line trying to protect him. Plus, it gives his receivers an advantage setting up DBs. Plus, it drives great pass-rushers bonkers. Just ask Aaron Donald.

Good article from Nathan “the hero” Robinson.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/08/sometimes-the-chicken-kills-you-though

A sidebar within the article will break your heart. It’s about the beyond obscene treatment of chickens, and by extension, pretty much all animals raised to be our food sources. Chickens as subject are introduced as a metaphor/(false) binary choice at the start of said article.

An excerpt:

We need to reject the view of politics embedded in Sedaris’ analogy. The reason I bring up salmonella is to point out that it’s not inherently a given that someone with a (D) after their name is the best choice. We have to examine the candidates carefully. Yes, the Republican Party in this country is so monstrous that there are almost no conceivable circumstances in which voting Republican is the better choice. But to refuse examine your own candidate, to ask even the most basic questions about “how are they cooked” and what they stand for, means that over time you’re probably going to end up being served worse and worse chicken, because the airline staff (DNC) realize they can get away with serving you something that’s extremely close to a plate of shit and you’ll still eat it.

My colleague Briahna Joy Gray explains this more eloquently and less disgustingly in her “Defense of Litmus Tests.” Briahna points out that when we make it clear at the outset that we have few standards for our party’s candidate, and we will vote for them regardless of how much they depart from or even betray our values, we are preemptively surrendering the leverage that we need to use to get better candidates. One of the most absurd moments in the Democratic primary was when progressives were asked if they would support the Democratic candidate even if it was Michael Bloomberg, a racist, sexist, Republican billionaire who might arguably have actually been worse than Trump. But this is what you get if you make it clear that you’re willing to be pushed around, to sit silently and eat your poisoned chicken.

Notice how passive the voter is in Sedaris’ analogy. They are strapped into their seat, and their only ability is to make a binary choice between two meals. Presumably, since this is supposed to represent an election, it is not possible to “not eat at all”—they’re going to get something, and if they remain undecided, the airline staff will force-feed them the plate of shit with tiny bits of broken glass. (Not even Spirit does that yet.) We do not participate in making the meal, we just have to accept what we are given.

But we can’t accept that candidates are just going to be handed to us and that our role is to pick the least fecal one. There is no reason we cannot have good meals, but voters have to see themselves as active participants in the political process who get to make demands of their parties, who do not just have to accept a menu of options that has been pre-decided for them.

My own two cents. Just this thread alone shows how “diverse” we leftists are. Just the examples of ZN, Zooey and WV show that. We’re a very small group here, but we don’t sing from the same hymnal, necessarily, and this diversity literally gets multiplied as we zoom out on the whole of Leftist World. Btw, HBO should do a show about that. A theme park of sorts. No robots, obviously. A lot of unruly cat-herding, though.

That said, when I look back, I wish I had done a better job, especially regarding WV’s posts, of making this point:

There is a huge difference between what individual leftists say, and what folks with audiences say, especially when it comes to elections. I don’t always follow my own advice on stuff like this, but I know this is the case: We shouldn’t get wound up about those individual voices.

It’s really just shooting the shit more often than not, though it does have the potential for more: revising one’s views, working on one’s own arguments, trying to express and exchange thoughts, feelings, letting folks know where we stand, etc. etc. But we shouldn’t kid ourselves. What we say here, or in 99% of the rest of the Internetz, won’t budge the folks in power one iota. Knowing this means it really is okay to dissent, disagree, diverge on the issues. It really is okay that WV prefers Krystal Ball to the far cooler Francesca Fiorentini and Zoë Amanda Wilson. It really is okay that ZN has this very odd fixation on pies. And Zooey? Well, I reread Salinger’s collection the other day, and man, his namesake can be annoying at times, especially when he’s going after Franny for using the Jesus Prayer.

Bottom line for me? I can’t stand orthodoxy. I’m not so thrilled when the supposedly heterodox start to sound alike either. Like when I was taking Art classes in college and a group of “outsiders” within that college basically dressed the same and sang from the same hymnal on all too much. Vive la différence!

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

…Of course, we don’t know what the Dem establishment does (or did) behind the scenes, but at least they’re publicly supporting their leftward most flank. That’s encouraging.

Baby steps, etc.

================

We know the 99 to 1 number. Whats the algebra in the House. How many leftist-squad members are there, compared to the Dem/Rep Corporatist-Biosphere-Killers ?

I’ve been trying to figure it out. Its harder than i thought because there’s so many ways to define progressive/radical/leftist, etc.

If we look at the term ‘Democratic Socialist’ its easy – the algebra is:

432 to 3.

AOC, Talib, and….Danny Davis? Why have i never heard of fucking Danny Davis?
From Illinois, since 1997.

link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Democratic_Socialists_of_America_members_who_have_held_office_in_the_United_States
w
v

Had not heard of Danny Davis either. But I am surprised that Omar and Pressley aren’t considered DSA. Haven’t really done the legwork on the subject. Just assumed they were.

As we’ve talked about before . . . lotsa room for differences even among leftists . . . and my conception of “democratic socialism” is likely different from some others. As in, not sure every leftist sees it meaning/calling for the full replacement of capitalism with economic democracy, as I do and advocate for . . . as did Orwell, Gandhi, Einstein, Camus, Dorothy Day, Upton Sinclair, Bertrand Russell and, more recently, the Dalai Lama.

And so on and so forth . . .

But it gives me great hope that the fear seems to be fading a bit when it comes to using the two words, identifying with them, etc. . . . and recent studies suggest Gen Z is even more left-leaning than the Millennials.

Green shoots.

wv wrote:

Cornell, talking the usual leftist-talk. Which is good, of course.

“i dont endorse them, i vote for them…”
—

Good stuff, but timing is everything. As are mixed messages.

As mentioned elsewhere, I’d suggest that left-public-intellectuals and any lefty with an audience simply refrain from the “Trump is horrible and we need to vote him out, but so are Democrats!” — for now. Give it a pause. Just three months. Then return to our normally scheduled legitimate and absolutely necessary critiques. Make the points about Trump, the GOP, and the far-right instead, and stop there.

There’s just no way around the fact that the “but so are Democrats” balancing act encourages confusion in voters — consciously and/or subconsciously — which likely results in fewer people voting overall, which likely helps Trump win reelection.

So if the aim truly is to defeat Trump, which West said must be done, then it’s logical to avoid largely canceling out that message with “Harris is empty and Biden single-handedly created our carceral system disaster,” etc. etc.

We leftists can’t work with Biden/Harris on reforms, or push them leftward, if we leftists provoke too much “Fuck this, I’m staying home!” — thus helping Trump win reelection in the process. Again, to me, this is just common sense, human psychology, and the way politics works.

TSRF wrote:

We all get caught in traps of our own devising. I’m willing to bet that Trump wishes he never ran for president right about now.

This is not in defense of him, and gods know, I want anybody but him in office, but I’m starting to feel a strange emotion. Certainly nothing I ever felt growing up, but I think it is “pity”.

When all is said and done, and there is nothing left to say or do, he may unleash nuclear hell for all I know, but I can’t help but feel sorry for his lonely, scared inner child. I heard an Abe Lincoln quote that went, “I don’t like that man; I need to get to know him better.” Not sure what he meant by “know”, but whatever.

Maybe Donald needs to be locked in a room and forced to listen to Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” non-stop for a few days…

TSRF,

Just my own two cents: Don’t pity him. Evah. He’s flat out evil. Seriously. And I don’t mean that in the religious sense. I mean it in the sense of his actual deeds. What he’s done. Before and during the presidency.

The list is endless and we’re becoming numb to it. Mob ties, racist business practices, self-dealing from his own charity, Trump U, his serial lying and sexual predations . . . and on to his kids and cages, selling off millions of acres of protected public lands, reopening pipe lines on indigenous lands, gutting our all too meager environmental laws and regs, . . . . and currently, openly attempting to bottle up the mail system so only GOP votes count.

We have not seen his like as far as psychotic, morally reprehensible and dangerously ignorant behavior, ever . . . and his actions regarding the pandemic have cost the lives of well over 100,000 Americans. IMO, it’s completely correct and “fair” to pin the blame for that on Trump, directly.

Yes, Clinton would have governed as a moderate Republican, and would have sucked up to corporate America. But she also never would have let 168,000 Americans (and counting) die of Covid-19 to this point. America might not have been in the South Korea range (300, roughly), much less New Zealand (25, roughly). But I have no doubt that she would have listened to the science enough to keep things at least in the very low thousands.

Of course, one death is one too many. But 1% or 2% of current totals means a massive reduction in lost dreams, hopes and mourning.

Trump is beneath contempt, and he’s getting worse by the day.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by Billy_T.

wv wrote:

The DNC-Corporatists gave AOC an entire sixty seconds. What a shock.

===========

Apparently, Pelosi got the message and publicly supported Tlaib and Omar in their respective intra-Dem election battles. Looks like she did the same for AOC. The last member of the Squad, Pressley, isn’t being challenged by a fellow Dem. So it looks like they’ll all return for Round Two.

Of course, we don’t know what the Dem establishment does (or did) behind the scenes, but at least they’re publicly supporting their leftward most flank. That’s encouraging.

Baby steps, etc.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by Billy_T.

wv wrote:

Zooey wrote:

================

Jeezus fucking christ, zooey. I just ate.

Lord.

This is way worse than calling an Admin a bozo. Something needs to be done about zooey.

w
v

;>)

Don’t know the writer, but I think she gets some of that right. Some of it wrong. But it mostly sounds like excuses.

No, Sanders didn’t do that. Didn’t try to do that. If anything, he was far too easy on her in 2016.

Yes, Russia and Trump created a faux she-devil out of Clinton, who is, IMO, just a garden-variety moderate Republican in Dem clothes, and not uniquely horrible, as some would have it. Oh, and Bill Clinton was/is much worse.

Yes, the MSM trashed her. Multiple studies have shown that her emails (nothing burger) garnered far more media attention than anything Trump ever did, and that’s media malpractice, by definition.

Yes, Republican Comey did stick a knife in her, going against FBI policy of not swaying the election in the last 90 days. He did this ten days before the election, while hiding the fact that Trump was under investigation too.

Some Dems blamed her. Not enough, though. Most Dems won’t let this go, nor will Trump, nor will Russia, etc. etc.