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February 25, 2020 at 1:57 pm in reply to: Washington Post: Sanders a risk… the media hates Bernie thread #111623
Billy_TParticipantThey went too far. They know that now.
I don’t think they know that at all. I think the DNC is THAT out of touch.
You got everyone nodding their heads in unison over the Hillary claim that Sanders’ “Bernie Bros” are actually a thing, and that they are the reason she lost.
And you’ve got James Fucking Carville melting down and calling Sanders a Commie, FFS, and complaining that the media has failed to “educate” young people who are deluded by Sanders.
I think the DNC firmly BELIEVES the shit they sow, and they think their way is Practical, Sensible, Objectively Good for the Country, and so on. After all, poor people go to Starbucks (in their imagination), so it’s really not that bad out there.
The DNC is worst, except for the GOP.
No such thing as Bernie Bros. An invention of the Clintons, with an assist from Putin. I have to admit I didn’t think it would become a meme. Thought everyone could see through it, but it really caught on.
What a concept. A political candidate has supporters. Wow. Those supporters defend that candidate against lies, etc. Who woulda thunk it. But in this case, even though they’re doing what supporters have always done, they get tagged with a new label, and it sticks.
Are you still thinking of immigrating, Zooey? I’d leave in a heartbeat if I had the money.
February 25, 2020 at 12:39 pm in reply to: Washington Post: Sanders a risk… the media hates Bernie thread #111618Billy_TParticipantWell, my model is different than yours, BT. I see MSNBC as part of the Pro-Dem-Media. And Fox as part of the Pro-Rep-Media. Both of course are Pro-Corporate-Capitalist.
So, again, I do see a Pro-Dem-MSM.
As well as a Pro-Rep-MSM.
Both being Pro-Corporate-Capitalist.Sometimes them two elite-associations Fight. Sometimes they agree.
They both agree, that Bernie is too far left.
The Dems want Bloomberg etc. The Reps want Trump, etc.I dont think what I’m saying is too far-fetched. Just seems pretty obvious.
w
vI don’t think it’s far-fetched at all. I also know you’re in good company. A lot of folks agree with you.
I’m just saying if the MSM is pro-Dem, they have a truly funny way of showing it. Tune in or read their political reporting, and they constantly talk about the Dems in disarray, panicking, fighting amongst themselves, and, as mentioned, they don’t go after the GOP nearly as hard as they do the Dems, relative to what each party actually does.
As in, to me, the MSM is clearly tougher on the Dems, relative to their respective misdeeds and inaction.
Look at Fox. They’re just unabashedly pro-GOP, full stop. There is no Dem equivalent like that, outside specific Op Ed writers or a few partisan hosts. But even they tend to offer space to the opposition, unlike Fox or Talk Radio. They tend to self-censor, fearing the “liberal bias” charge. Pro-GOP media feel no such scruples.
As for MSNBC. Why would a pro-Dem network have so many Republican hosts and guests? Morning Joe lasts three hours in the morning, for instance, and Nicole Wallace gets an hour every afternoon. Seriously, how is that being pro-Dem?
Regardless, we both want an end to the duopoly and the system that controls it.
Hope all is well —
February 25, 2020 at 10:05 am in reply to: Washington Post: Sanders a risk… the media hates Bernie thread #111613Billy_TParticipantIMO, the MSM wants to keep us in a binary world, and they know we’ll wake up and leave it if it covers the two parties as they should be covered. As non-equivalent.
They’d have to dig much deeper into both, and expose wrong-doing in both they’ve never done before, but that deeper exposure wouldn’t show equivalency. It would still show the GOP as significantly worse, on all counts. Which would then, perhaps, give Americans the fuel they need to dump both of them.
But as long as they work their tails off to keep the fight going between Dumn and dumber, Americans likely won’t. They’ll still view our politics as a battle between the Blue and Red teams . . . which is why corporate American desperately wants. Not only does it take attention away from the real problem — them — it’s far easier to coral everyone and keep ’em stupified. If we actually have a wide array of independent parties and people, break up the duopoly, the Power Elite’s ability to herd us becomes nearly impossible, and they won’t be able to hedge their bets so easily now either.
They often support both parties now. They don’t want to lose the “simplicity” of that setup, the narrowness of it all. Hence, the media keep trying to convince us that the two parties are the only game in town and basically the same.
February 25, 2020 at 9:58 am in reply to: Washington Post: Sanders a risk… the media hates Bernie thread #111612Billy_TParticipantTo me, the single best aspect of the Bernie thing is that it caused more and more people to see the Dem-Corporate-Media for what it is.
They are STILL gonna be anti-progressive, btw. They just wont be quite so blatant about it. They went too far. They know that now. So, they’ll hire a few progressives now, and they wont be so blatant about what they want.
w
vThe MSM has always been anti-progressive, as you know. Nothing has changed along those lines. Or will. But what I think people should take from the Trump era is this: It’s now more obvious than ever that the Media never favored the Dems, much less that it’s a wing of the DNC. If it did favor them, why would they hire skads of Republicans to fight against Trump or shill for him? Why would it highlight so many ex-Bushies or current Trumpies? Wouldn’t a pro-Dem MSM push Dems to the fore instead?
And, of course, a pro-Dem media never would have let Trump win. It never would have used its tried and true “false equivalency” machine in talking about Clinton versus Trump, which it did, over and over again. Her emails were the number one story of the campaign, even though Trump’s history of mob-ties, serial criminality, serial sexual-predation, serial-cons and serial lying should have been.
Emails? No one should have cared about them, and it shouldn’t have even been a “story, much less THE story.
The Clintons are horrible, definitely. But by portraying Clinton as worse, or on an even ground with Trump, the media tilted the coverage in favor of Trump. Because as bad as they are, he’s a thousand fold worse, and that very same media is still trying to convince Americans that the two parties are roughly equivalent.
That is all the proof we need that the MSM does not favor the Dems.
February 24, 2020 at 9:59 pm in reply to: Washington Post: Sanders a risk… the media hates Bernie thread #111606Billy_TParticipantMSNBC is going to have a tough time with that pivot, because they’ve made too many deals with the devil previously, purging the network of most of their “liberal” hosts, and choosing Republican insiders instead.
And that was even before Trump took office and it became home to those Never Trumper Republicans.
I tuned in at times because it’s actually one of the few TV stations that tells the unvarnished truth about Trump, without feeling the necessity to present “both sides” when truth only has one. I could always tune out when they talked about how awesome Reagan and the older generation of Republicans supposedly were, or how great real conservatism supposedly is, cuz I needed my fix. But with the rise of Sanders and their new focus, it’s too much to take. They all want to take him down, and to do so they’ve jettisoned the truth.
Glad to hear Sanders has said enough is enough, but I’m skeptical about it working with the owners/management of that network (owned by the ultra-conservative Comcast). They’ve invested too heavily in Republican conservatives/neocons as hosts and guests, so I don’t see how they’ll flip the scrip on that.
MSNBC is supposed to be the go-to place for “liberals,” but if Trump is gone, the Never Trumpers serve no purpose for the left. They’ll just revert to their true colors entirely, and take aim at everything left of center, especially Sanders.
Comcast is going to have to choose. Fox 2.0, or part ways with their conservative hires/guests from both parties.
February 23, 2020 at 5:21 pm in reply to: Washington Post: Sanders a risk… the media hates Bernie thread #111568Billy_TParticipantI have no idea why he still has a job there.
Unfortunately, it’s all across the media. And it seems all the newscasters and pundits have received a memo to say “socialist” as if they’ve just bitten down on a bad lemon, and to say “capitalist” as if they just won the lottery.
It’s especially annoying to see blacks on TV do this. I wish someone would remind them that MLK, W.E.B Dubois and most of the first wave of civil rights leaders were socialists . . . and that Frederick Douglass leaned that way.
In short, my thing isn’t just the treatment of Sanders. It’s the blatant gaslighting regarding socialism itself, as well as capitalism. Journalists aren’t supposed to put their thumbs on the scale like that, and they’re not even trying to hide it. It’s almost embarrassing to watch them make such asses of themselves on behalf of oligarchs and plutocrats.
February 23, 2020 at 5:14 pm in reply to: Washington Post: Sanders a risk… the media hates Bernie thread #111566Billy_TParticipantApologies if this has already been posted:
Blowback Hits MSNBC After Chris Matthews Compares Sanders’ Win to Nazis Conquering France
Blowback Hits MSNBC After Chris Matthews Compares Sanders’ Win to Nazis Conquering France
“Why is Chris Matthews on this air talking about the victory Bernie Sanders, who had kin murdered in the Holocaust, analogizing it to the Nazi conquest of France?” MSNBC guest Anand Giridharadas asked
MSNBC host Chris Matthews is taking heat for comparing Bernie Sanders’ win in Nevada on Saturday to the 1940 Nazi invasion of France.
After being asked about his take on Sanders’ win, Matthews said, “I was reading last night about the fall of France in the summer of 1940. And the general, Reynaud, calls up Churchill and says, ‘It’s over.’ And Churchill says, ‘How can that be? You’ve got the greatest army in Europe. How can it be over?’ He said, ‘It’s over.’”
Sanders’ communications director, Mike Casca, took to Twitter to express his dismay with Matthews’ comments, writing, “ never thought part of my job would be pleading with a national news network to stop likening the campaign of a Jewish presidential candidate whose family was wiped out by the Nazis to the Third Reich… but here we are.”
Author and Time magazine editor at large Anand Giridharadas was a guest on MSNBC Sunday morning and went after Matthews, while also taking others from the network to task about how Sanders’ success is being analyzed and who is doing the analysis.
“This is a moment for curiosity in America,” Giridharadas said. “I think about this network, which I love, which you love. And I think we have to look within also. Why is a lobbyist for Uber and Mark Zuckerberg on the air many nights explaining a political revolution to us? Why is Chris Matthews on this air talking about the victory Bernie Sanders, who had kin murdered in the Holocaust, analogizing it to the Nazi conquest of France?”
Sanders Denounces Reported Russian Election Interference by ‘Thug’ Putin
pic.twitter.com/m85rszHnnt
— PoliticsVideo23 (@politicsvideo23) February 23, 2020
Matthews was also criticized earlier this month after he voiced fears of a Sanders presidency and talked about socialist-led “executions in Central Park.”
Some called for the host to resign over his latest remarks while others, like Sanders supporter and congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, advised people to “listen to what Anand is saying.” She added, “Mass movements are beginning to transform our political landscape in a way we haven’t seen in a long time. This kind of politics is an important shift away from saviorism. It’s not about ‘the one’ — it’s about the many.”
Billy_TParticipantHang in there, Billy.
If your doctor knew both needed additional work, he should have tried and scheduled it to do both at the same time (unless you had to drive yourself home; then I can see why they wouldn’t do that).
From a clinical standpoint, I think doctors don’t consider short term pain at all. They are focused on the end result.
By far and away, the worst surgery I have had was tonsil removal at 25. They cut them out and then basically took a flamethrower to the back of my throat. I couldn’t eat for a week and dropped about 10 lbs.
On my follow up, at 2 weeks past when I was basically back to normal, I asked my doctor why he didn’t warn me how shitty I was going to feel. He laughed and said, “You may never have brochitis again. Isn’t that worth it?”
I think that is how the majority of them think.
Yeah, I drove myself in for that visit. I think that’s why he didn’t just do the other one. Plus, he said they typically don’t. I’m guessing the “unsaid” part there was “Well, if we screw up and blind you, we can’t blind you in both eyes. One will do.”
;>)
Another pattern I’ve noticed with doctors and their staff — with exceptions, of course. More and more they seem to expect the patient to tell them if they need something else, X, Y or Z. They seem far less proactive about things than in the past.
For instance, the dilation was strong for both eyes, but they didn’t proactively hand me special sun glasses for the drive home, and I was kinda sorta out of it and forgot to ask. I had my own pair, but they proved woefully insufficient, it being a bright, but cold afternoon. The dilation created a situation almost as bad as the initial surgery. Well, not as bad. A different kind of “assault” on my senses, especially my sinuses.
I shouldn’t have driven, though I took my time, took back roads, got out and stopped here and there to break up the drive a bit.
Anyway . . . as a culture I think all of the self-service stuff has infected even the medical field. IMO, we can blame its beginnings on self-service gas stations, and then ATMs . . . from there, it’s been consumers as a part of the workforce ever since.
The young probably would just say “Ok Boomer” to all the above. But I think things were better when we weren’t expected to be both consumers and laborers in the same space and time.
Billy_TParticipantHave not dealt with anything similar and have no advice.
All I got is a ton of sympathy and support.
Oh! And pie.
Take yer pick.
Thanks, ZN.
I’m partial to blueberry. Or cherry. Or apple. Or coconut. Um, I’m just partial!!
February 15, 2020 at 11:26 am in reply to: Washington Post: Sanders a risk… the media hates Bernie thread #111353Billy_TParticipantThank you guys for all of those examples. Tragically sad and strangely funny at the same time.
First time I noticed how bad it was was when John Heilemann, on Morning Joe said (and I’m paraphrasing):
“Bernie is just kinda sitting there — at the top (in a very dismissive voice). But Klobuchar and the others are really making their move.”
Most of the guests were lauding the rise of everyone but Sanders, harping on that, and kinda making Sanders sound like he was losing by being Number One. I think it was Scarborough alone — a Republican conservative (Never Trumper) — who tried to give Sanders some kudos.
Strange Days, indeed.
Billy_TParticipantI could be wrong about this – I so often am — but I’m pretty sure the original graph is set up in such a way that it actually does have a straight, vertical line, separating right from left. If Mac is using the one from Political Compass, at least. As in, his additional red line, from the top left to the bottom right isn’t the actual left/right divide.
If I understand his point, he’s saying Williamson, for instance, is right on the edge of the left/right divide. I’m betting she, as the vertical line indicates, is roughly a sub-block and a half to the right of that.
No biggie, obviously. Just a very minor point. But I think the whole point of the way they created the quadrants was to upend the usual left to right horizontal line, by making it vertical, while adding a new factor in authoritarian versus libertarian . . . . the latter to show that both the left and the right can be authoritarian or anti-authoritarian.
That’s always news to most righties I talk to. Most can’t conceive of lefties being libertarian/anti-authoritarian. They assume we’re always basically Stalin — either openly Stalinist or covertly. I try to remind them that the history of anti-authoritarian/libertarian leftists goes back many centuries prior to its emergence on the right . . . and the left’s version has always been far more consistent, logical and comprehensive.
As you guys know, the left’s libertarian tradition has advocated for an end to all concentration of power and wealth, for instance . . . public, private, wherever . . . whereas the right’s seems solely concerned with ending it in the public realm. They actually advocate for more inequality via that concentration in the private realm. In fact, if they had their way, there wouldn’t be any public realm, outside their minarchy/night watchman model.
Anyway . . . the main point Mac is making is solid and important. There are so few politicians left of center. It’s actually pretty depressing.
February 14, 2020 at 10:40 am in reply to: Sanders will be good for American economy, top economist says #111311Billy_TParticipantPicketty is correct.
Don’t know if he mentions this in his new book, but I’m guessing he does . . . it’s also the case that rich people are a drag on any economy. They take money out of the flow in the very act of concentrating it.
To me, this is just common sense and math. I’d bet 99% of the businesses out there would much rather have 10,000 customers with a combined tally of X dollars to spend, than just one, or ten, or a thousand.
Again, it’s common sense. Rich people might buy the most expensive TV, car, house, etc. etc. . . . but chances are they’re buying one of each, maybe two? Ten thousand consumers with the same amount of disposable income combined make X times more economic transactions. It’s literally the difference between one TV sold versus thousands.
Under capitalism, consumerism reigns. Of course, that’s terrible for the environment. But if we’re just talking about a “good economy,” the less inequality the better it does. And the history of economic downturns shows the other side of that coin: the more unequal a society gets, the more likely it is to have economic contractions. The more money is concentrated in fewer hands, the fewer overall transactions occur, which leads to reductions in production, then jobs, then the vicious downward cycle, etc.
There is no greater “stimulus” to a capitalist economy than widespread income gains by the masses. Among the biggest drains is concentration of income and wealth.
Billy_TParticipantIf they’re covered as if there is that (false) balance, it helps the more rotten of the two, a ton.
Lol. Good point.
Yeah “balance” is a charade. Like with climate change. “What are the 2 sides saying?”
Yep, same thing with Evolution versus Creationism. “Teach the controversy!!” “Ya mean the one you invented out of whole-cloth?”
Basically, when the facts aren’t on their side, work the refs. American media for far too long has succumbed to right-wing whining/pressure. Righties, IMO, have always been far better at working the refs. The Coach Ks of politics. The Peyton Mannings of media, etc. etc.
February 13, 2020 at 6:42 pm in reply to: Washington Post: Sanders a risk… the media hates Bernie thread #111301Billy_TParticipantMax Boot, Republican neocon, Bushie, and one of the biggest proponents of the invasion of Iraq. The supposedly “liberal” WaPo hired all kinds of writers just like him. Take a look at this list. You can find all kinda conservative Republicans and righties in general. The Post is swimming in them!!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/
(under Opinion Writers)
Thiessen, Gerson, Kagan, Rubin, Lane, Abernathy, O’Rourke, Brooks, Daniels, Hewitt, McCardle, Olsen, Will, Parker, plus several centrists who could be from either party, like Ignatius and Samuelson. That’s just me skimming the list.
Admittedly, some of the folks above are now “Never Trumpers,” but they haven’t stopped being right-wing, and 99% are still Republicans.
No Dem and no one further to their left should give a damn what Boot says about Sanders. However, I do give him some credit for at least critiquing his own party’s slavish devotion to Trump. He’s been pretty good on that subject. But no one should take his advice when it comes to who should be the Dem nominee. He’s an old-school wingnut/neocon, with some regrets and reassessments, cuzza Trump.
Billy_TParticipantTrying to make this old hacker-sized:
The Media (except for Fox, Breitbart, etc.) work overtime to be “fair and balanced,” which guarantees that they skew reality. Because at no time in American political history has there been any “balance” between the various parties. They’ve never, ever been equally rotten or equally good or equally mendacious, etc. etc.
If they’re covered as if there is that (false) balance, it helps the more rotten of the two, a ton.
Right now, the GOP is worse, by far. It’s not close. Back in the 19th century, it was the Dems. Someday when the Dems have more misdeeds, at greater cost to the nation and the planet, the media have a duty to make that known, and to hell with the whining about “unfairness.” They should never hold back just to try to seem “fair.” Their only duty is to tell the truth, and the truth about the two parties is asymmetrical. Always has been.
Billy_TParticipantWell, what is your opinion of, say, three specific organizations — lets say, MSNBC, The NYT, and NPR/PBS — Dont you think they are DEM-oriented? Corporate-Dem-oriented. I mean the NYT just flat out endorses Dems for President every four years.
w
vIf we set aside — and we should — Op Ed writers, cuz they cheerlead for both parties . . . no. I don’t think the NYT, MSNBC or NPR/PBS are particularly pro-Dem. In fact, as mentioned, I think they’re tougher on the Dems than the GOP, relative to their respective misdeeds. And that’s key for me. I see both parties in a highly negative light. But the GOP is so clearly worse, I don’t see how any objective news organization wouldn’t spend more time exposing GOP wrongdoing, cuz there’s far more of it, and its effects are far more destructive.
As for endorsing Dem presidents, the above applies. I don’t see any of those organizations cheerleading for the Dems — unlike Fox and its peers with regard to Republicans. I see them as choosing the lesser of two evils when they go for the Dems in that way. In our tragically binary political landscape, it’s the rational thing to do. The evidence supports it. Logic supports it. In a two-party world, rational, intelligent human-beings should choose the Dems. That, to me, is no indication that they’re a part of the DNC. It’s just the logical choice between two rotten options, if one doesn’t except the concept of voting third party.
Case in point: the MSM spent the most time on Clinton’s email story, in the 2016 election. No other story came close. If we weigh and balance the impact of her misdeeds versus Trump’s, should that have been the biggest story? No way. The MSM actually favored Trump because it didn’t cover his misdeeds relative to their existence or impact. It tried to balance the coverage between the two parties instead.
Another case in point: The New York Times withheld key information regarding Bush’s lies about FICA until after the election of 2004, because they said it would have impacted the vote. Withholding the info did just that and helped defeat Kerry.
And remember the MSM coverage in the run-up to the (2003) Iraq invasion? It was decidedly in Dubya’s favor. WaPo, NYT, MSNBC beat the war drums, which helped the GOP and hurt the Dems.
Billy_TParticipantWV,
My earlier reply to you was delayed in the spam queue. Hope you’ve noticed it by now, above.
___
Anyway . . . we’ve been through this before, and sorry to rehash it, but you and I don’t see the MSM in the same way. I think on most stuff, we’re on the same page. On the same page with pretty much all the important stuff. But I don’t view the MSM as the Dem-establishment at all, if I’m reading you correctly and you do see it that way (?)
Again, tough to express this in a short form. But, if the two parties were given points for bad behavior, and for stuff that real journalists should be exposing, they’d both get a ton. But the GOP would get ten times more points. So when the MSM try their damndest to be “fair and balanced,” they’re actually going a lot easier on the GOP than the Dems. They’re skewing reality. It’s not, in fact, the Dem-establishment. It’s tougher on them than on the GOP (in relative terms), given what each party actually does. That “liberal bias” the right always screams about is nonsense, in my view. They have a conservative bias, and always have. It’s just that conservatives give them a hell of a lot more ammunition via wrong-doing, so they have to cover that stuff more. The Dems give them fewer examples, but they struggle to try to “balance” it all, plus conflict and horse races sell. Lopsided, but truthful description of reality doesn’t.
Not to mention, as I’ve brought up before, networks like CNN and MSNBC are crawling with conservatives, Republicans, Republican operatives, and ex-Republicans, and when they book folks for the Sunday shows, they tend to book more Republicans than Dems.
Also, the media are owned by, as you know, conservative corporations. They prefer the Republicans to the Dems, cuz they get better deals from them. They get really good deals from the Dems, too. But they get great deals from the Republicans.
IMO, the MSM is not the Dem-establishment, or the DNC-establishment. However, Fox and most baldly partisan right-wing media are openly, without apology, arms of the GOP.
That’s the way I see it, anyway.
I still detest both parties. But I see the GOP as a far bigger existential threat, especially to the planet.
Billy_TParticipantOn Tucker Carlson:
We shouldn’t forget that he’s been raging at “the left” for decades, and that he’s a pathological liar when it comes to the subject. He openly despises and demonizes “socialism” and “progressives” at every turn, and when he does have a leftist on air, he trashes them and gives them his patented “WTF” look every other second.
He is not our friend.
The only reason he’s saying anything positive about Sanders right now is that he sees the chance to sow division on the left in general, and among Dems in particular. No one should fall for this nonsense — including K Ball, who should know better. .
====================
True, he is a Vile Repugnant. Absolutely. Its always a ‘given’ for me, BT. Dont think because i post his vids, i dont see all that. Its…a…given.
But. I think he Genuinely does believe some of the things he says. Sometimes he just says what he really, actually thinks. And i think he genuinely thinks the DNC-establishment (CNN, MSNBC, NYTimes, etc) is smearing/ignoring Bernie.
A rightwinger ‘can’ see all that. They are still rightwingers but they can sometimes see what the DNC is doing, clearly. Heck, I think a LOT of Foxers see it, clearly.As for K.Ball falling for something — what did she fall for? She went on Fox because she wanted to influence the VIEWERS. Millions of Viewers. At least thats what she said on her show. Makes sense to me. And the fact she was received more warmly on Fox than on CNN or MSNBC is not surprising. And that was her experience.
w
vWV, I know you know that. I try to preface stuff I say with “public figures” or “pundits” or something to that effect. I’m not talking about the folks here, like you, who have been into this stuff for longer than I have, etc.
I’ll post more about this tomorrow. Have been dealing with eye surgery (recovery), on both eyes, cheap temp glasses, new eye-floaters and all kinds of other fun stuff. It’s time for me to go offline.
;>)
Hope all is well.
Billy_TParticipantAlso, to me, those right-wing libertarians are wannabes too.
They basically are pissed off at not being let into the country club, which they lust for. More often than not, right-wing libertarians, depending upon how old they are, are either hoping to own a business, own a small business already, are big fishes in small ponds . . . but long to be big fishes in the biggest ponds.
They don’t have anything against those country clubs or hoarding massive amounts of wealth, or doing what needs to be done to gain that wealth. They’re pissed off that they’re not allowed inside the club yet.
Leftists like Sanders say those clubs shouldn’t exist at all. We shouldn’t exclude people, especially based on ability to pay, etc.
So it’s a seriously different kind of anger toward “the establishment,” IMO.
The right wants even more concentration of wealth and power. If they don’t have it at the moment, they’re really, really pissed about that and want to blame someon — usually POCs, migrants, leftists, etc.
The left doesn’t think that concentration should exist at all, or to obscene degrees, depending upon where we fall along the leftward spectrum.
I struggle thinking of a way to bridge that divide.
Billy_TParticipantIn short, I don’t think they should ever be paired as “anti-establishment” rebels. Not ever. Nunca Jamas!!
===============
Well, we could quibble about whether Trump is really anti-establishment, but that would require fine-tuning and defining the term.
The thing is, its the ‘perception’. He’s ‘perceived’ as anti-establishment by the tea-party-types, and the evangelicals and the organized-racists. Thats a LOT of voters, who see him as anti-establishment.
We leftists are a small small small minority. WE see him as Super-Turbo-Charged-Establishment. But we dont count for much, BT.
The ‘perception’ among most voters is that Trump and Bernie are anti-establishment. It matters because Bernie can cash in on that, perhaps. Some rightwingers might switch over to Bernie. Cause of that perception.
w
vYeah, I agree with all of that. Tragic, isn’t it? Those perceptions?
Sanders trashes Trump often on the stump. Which makes me like him a hell of a lot more than I already do. He’s not trying to do what some of his fans in the punditry seem to be trying. He’s not trying to create some bridge to Trump, in order to appeal to his base. Bernie’s just being Bernie, and if he gets some crossovers, kewl. But he never panders to them.
This is just me, but I don’t think KB should go on Carlson trying to forge bridges like that. Ever. Basically, “they’re both victims of the establishment/press” etc. To me, that’s absolute nonsense. Sanders is. Trump isn’t. Trump earns all of his bad press and then some.
Going on there is fine. But she should stick to her progressive guns and not even hint at some “common cause” with far-right, uber-racist, migrant-hating, leftist-hating,” global-warming-is-a-hoax Carlson, Hannity and company.
Billy_TParticipantI’ve been trying to figure out the best way to express this, and I keep failing. But I’ll give it a shot.
In my view, the difference between Sanders being “anti-establishment” and Trump being . . . not at all . . . is a grand canyon’s worth of difference.
I’m not a fan of anyone trying to pair them as two people in the same boat in that sense, and Trump is no victim.
To me, Trump wants exactly what the Establishment wants: More wealth and more power — for himself and his family. The only reason he gets into trouble with them is the way he goes about his acquisition of said wealth and power. They want at least a veneer of decorum and the perception of playing by the rules. They want this largely because they think it’s important to hide how much the game is rigged from the masses so they can keep the golden goose alive. Trump? He knows it’s rigged, cuz he’s been making millions exploiting that rigging his entire life. In fact, he’s always gone many factors above (or below) the normal rigging, needing subterranean methods to make his mint. Cheat students, philanthropists, workers, supply chains, banks, taxpayers, etc. etc . . . even more than the built-in cheating inherent in the capitalist system.
As in, the normalized, legal rigging doesn’t really work so well for him. He needs to go underground to make his fortune, which has never endeared him to his business peers. They’ve never welcomed him into “polite” (rapacious) society, and he’s always lusted for that welcoming.
That’s not “anti-establishment.” That’s wannabe-ism.
Sanders, OTOH, wants an end to a society where wealth and power can be concentrated obscenely. Trump loves the very idea of that concentration. Sanders takes an ethical and moral stand against that concentration. Trump has no ethics or morals. Sanders truly is “anti-establishment.” Trump is just a vulgar, vile crook who wants to be seen as a legit tycoon, who’s supposedly earned his ginormous wealth and power “honestly.”
In short, I don’t think they should ever be paired as “anti-establishment” rebels. Not ever. Nunca Jamas!!
Billy_TParticipantZooey introduced me to Robinson. Thanks. He’s a great voice and young enough to keep this thing going.
He has a new book out, which I’m hoping the local libraries get soon.
As for Buddhajudge. Big surprise to me that he did so well in NH. Right now, I see the race boiling down to Sanders, Mayor Pete, Warren and possibly Klobuchar. I think Biden will drop out if he loses in South Carolina, or even if he just barely wins.
Sanders should win this. And his being in the field is pretty much the only reason I care. Otherwise, I’d be able to do a hell of a lot better in fulfilling one of my (never-fulfilled) new year promises:
Ignore American politics in 2020.
Billy_TParticipantI would have to do some homework to support this theory, but it occurred to me a couple of decades ago that voters tend to go for candidates who are strong where the disagreeable predecessor was weakest. You don’t like a Quisling, you vote for a Hawk. Don’t like a dumbshit, you vote for a wonk. A kind of dialectic thing.
The opposite of a wildly erratic, bullshitfest guy is a consistent, no-nonsense guy.
Sanders 2020.
To some degree, I think your theory holds, Zooey. But, I also think some voter traits override the ping pong effects — at least a bit. I think “strong” remains a big attraction for a large portion of the electorate, and I don’t think that large portion ever likes “wonks.”
So I don’t think we’ll ever go from “too strong” to “too weak,” or “too simplistic” to “too professorial.” I really think voters are just looking for a different style of strong or simplistic, a new spin on traits they seem to like with at least some consistency.
And it’s never been about policy, unfortunately, and the different fates of Sanders and Warren crystalize that, IMO. Most pundits are saying Warren’s rise ended the second she went all in on Medicare for All, and tried to spell out the details. But if that were the case — that the policy itself sent her off rails — then why didn’t this happen to Sanders, who’s even more supportive of the policy?
In America, it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. And to win in the general, and to maintain power — as Trump has shown — it’s even more than that:
If your party and your allies back you 100%, never back down, ignore the criticisms, forge ahead regardless, then it really doesn’t matter what your agenda is. America loves (the appearance of) personal strength and strong, unbreakable support in solid, sustained numbers. That will overcome most head-winds.
Billy_TParticipantOn Tucker Carlson:
We shouldn’t forget that he’s been raging at “the left” for decades, and that he’s a pathological liar when it comes to the subject. He openly despises and demonizes “socialism” and “progressives” at every turn, and when he does have a leftist on air, he trashes them and gives them his patented “WTF” look every other second.
He is not our friend.
The only reason he’s saying anything positive about Sanders right now is that he sees the chance to sow division on the left in general, and among Dems in particular. No one should fall for this nonsense — including K Ball, who should know better.
Which also brings me to the point about “media coverage.” The left should know better about that as well. Chomsky has spelled this out for decades, as everyone here knows. The left should always keep in mind that journalists aren’t supposed to be nice to politicians or people in power. They’re supposed to go after them, afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted, etc. They’re not ever supposed to be “welcoming” or “friendly” to them.
Of course, they should be tough on all and sundry, and not pick favorites. But our fellow leftists are losing the argument if it’s about “Such and such station says mean things about Sanders, but look at Fox!! They says nicey nice things about him!!”
Fox is so obviously being strategic about this, it baffles me to no end how any lefty pundit would miss that — given its history of endlessly trashing “the left” at every turn.
The enemy of my enemy. They’re not our friends, in the case of Carlson and Fox. They’re are enemies, the enemies of the planet and the 90-99%.
Billy_TParticipantLogic tells us that to win, the Dems should never go with a centrist, a moderate, a reach across the aisle type, unless they happen to be so electric a personality, relatively speaking, no one really seems to see them as such — like Obama — and they certainly don’t campaign as that guy or gal.
Base versus base, the Dems win. No one will turn out the base like Sanders for the Dems. It’s not even close.
And for all the people who keep saying, like Chris Matthews, that he’ll lose all of those (Republican) suburbanites . . . well, they weren’t likely to vote Dem anyway . . . and if they were, there is a huge cost to that:
For every Republican a centrist Dem woos, he or she will lose three or five or ten potential votes to “I’m staying home. This is BS.”
I will never understand why Dems can’t do math, or learn from history, or see how Republicans keep winning elections, despite having fewer total voters to draw from, and a far worse policy agenda. I. Will. Never. Understand. That.
Billy_TParticipantI think Dems have a really bad habit of never, ever learning from political history, and they seem incapable of understanding numbers, percentages, etc.
As in, the GOP, at least since Nixon, has won with “appeal only to the base” candidates and strategies. They don’t even try to “appeal to the center.” They don’t even try to push policies that would help the 90%. They’re rather openly for the 1% and just their own team.
Reagan, Bush, Dubya and then Trump, all basically said to hell with the center, with “expanding the tent,” and ran a base-vote campaign on steroids.
But the Dems in the media keep telling us that they (the Dems) have to “appeal to the center,” and they have to “reach across the aisle,” and they have to “attract Republican voters” in order to win, even though their own base is larger than the GOP’s. A good bit larger.
If you put up base versus base, and both “sides” max out, guess who wins 99 out of 100 times? The Dems. And centrist, conservative Dems/moderate Republican types never, ever revv up that base. They, in fact, routinely cause high numbers of potential Dem voters to stay home.
So . . .
Billy_TParticipantWhat do you guys think of this strategy, which I’ve mentioned before, and never see anyone do in public: When media try to demonize “democratic socialism,” I think Sanders and others should push back list some key socialists: MLK, Gandhi, Einstein, Orwell, Camus, Helen Keller, Dorothy Day, Upton Sinclair, the Dalai Lama and Bertrand Russell, for starters. Orwell, in fact, prefaced his Animal Farm with his advocacy of “democratic socialism” (which the CIA initially removed/censored).
To me, it’s logical, if folks see socialists as scary, to mention great humanitarians, civil rights leaders, philosophers, scientists, etc. etc. who were/are socialists.
Thoughts?
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I dunno, comrad. I dunno. I’m not sure Joe and Jane American care or know about Camus, Russell, Orwell, etc.
For So many decades now the corporate-powers-that-be have SUCCESSFULLY demonized Socialism that its a fucking miracle Bernie has gotten as far as he has.
Figuring out the right strategy for getting another five or ten percent of the public to buy into it….is the conundrum. I got no answers. I got nuthin.
How in the hell does one overcome all that propaganda. Decades and Decades of propaganda. Fruited Plains of Propaganda. Purple Mountain Majesties of it. Amber Waves of it. Shining Seas of it. Spacious Skies…. 🙂w
vYou might be right. Capitalist propaganda may well be the greatest “success” story of all time, as far as indoctrination of BS.
Yeah, it probably wouldn’t work. But I once stayed in a Holiday Inn Express, so maybe I do know a thing or two. Or is that if you get Farmer’s Insurance?
Anyway . . . a year or so ago I listened to this social media nerdy guy on the radio, who studied political trends from a different angle: Google searches. The bottom line for his research was this:
Whenever people think someone or some group is scolding them for their views, they dig in deeper with their prejudices, fears, anger, etc. However, if someone just offers new information about X person or group, tied to something they see as positive, minds can be changed. IOW, no judgments, just new info.
He used Muslims and Obama as examples for most of the talk, and found that if people received info that, say, there were American Muslim military heroes, views changed toward Muslims in general for some of the previously Islamophobic folk.
So I wonder if people discovered X was a socialist, and the great things he or she did?
Oh, well.
Billy_TParticipantI havent seen Joker yet either. I’ll see it at some point.
I figured Parasite would never make it to WV, so i bought a used dvd on the evil-amazon. Lookin forward to seein it. I’m gonna avoid the spoilers till then.
In the vid i posted on writers and film, Joe Abercrombie alludes to the fact that the best story telling seems to be done on the small screen these days as opposed to the Big Budget Theater releases. Parasite is an exception that, i spose.
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vWill take a look at that video. Sounds like I’d agree with the writer bout a lot of stuff.
The small screen: also probably the best place to go for laughs. Love Mrs. Maisel (Amazon), for instance. In the process of watching its latest season. It’s enjoyable spending time with her and her fictional family, etc. . . . and that’s a big plus for me in my old age. I want to actually like the characters and care what happens to them. In my younger days, that wasn’t especially important to me. Now it seems to be.
Billy_TParticipantHave been watching more series TV than movies lately. Three stand out from this past year, though I’ve just finished one of them this year — free Amazon trial, etc.
Watchmen (HBO) was fantastic. Just brilliant TV. A few scenes I could have done without, but, overall, loved it. A riff off the graphic novel and the movie, but better than both.
The Last Kingdom (Netflix). Also really, really good TV. Alfred the Great is one of the focal points. Saxons battling Danes. Court intrigue, etc. Really well done.
And The Man in the High Castle. Also brilliant TV. I’m assuming it’s the final season. Seemed to wrap things up. Loved the Philip K Dick book, then the series, and the way the series moved on from the book.
Billy_TParticipantDidn’t know that he directed Snowpiercer too. One of my all-time favorites as well. I need to see Parasite, which will likely come back to theaters due to the Oscar.
Saw Marriage Story, and thought it was good, but not sure it was Oscar-worthy. I’m a big fan of Noah Baumback’s work, though, especially his Kicking and Screaming, which I re-watch every few years. I think it’s one of the best coming of age/college/post-college movies ever made . . . despite its very modest budget. Perhaps because of that.
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000876/
The most baffling reaction (this season) to a film for me was The Irishman, which I really wanted to like, but couldn’t. Scorsese is a master, and perhaps much of the love for that movie was really directed at his life-time of work, which is also the case, IMO, for the main actors. I just didn’t buy any of them in their roles. Just thought each one of them was twenty, thirty years past what was being asked of them to portray.
Good speech by Joaquin. I haven’t seen Joker yet, either.
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