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October 10, 2020 at 3:41 pm in reply to: Insanity in the Trump Era: Cherry picked support for whistleblowers. #122762
wvParticipantWV,
Hope you’re well —
In no way do I see Assange in the same light as I do Stein, whom I voted for twice. Nor do I see him in the same light as Nader, whom I’ve defended in countless arguments about “who gave us Dubya.” As in, he didn’t. Not in the slightest.
To me, they’re just not in the same universe, as far as their deeds, their intentions, or their impact.
Assange worked directly with the Trump campaign to go after Clinton, while he said nothing, not a word about Trump, or the GOP. And I don’t buy that he had nothing to say about Trump or the Republicans. The man was a walking scandal machine his entire adult life, with known mob ties, rape and sexual assault charges, endless tax cheating, ripping off workers including the undocumented, seven bankruptcies that left workers and small business owners holding the bag, his phony charities, his phony university, etc. etc. Trump made and still makes the Clintons look like heavenly angels in comparison, and that was the case pre-2016.
And the public didn’t know that Comey and the FBI were investigating Trump and his campaign until after the election. Assange couldn’t have leaked that? We found out about Clinton’s investigation, twice. Why not Trump’s?
Not to mention what should be a rather important matter to leftists: Trump’s a fascist wannabe dictator, and he’s encouraging, directly, far-right nutcases to shut down the vote. He’s at least indirectly encouraged them to commit violent acts against Dems, which almost got Whitmer killed.
But, yeah, let’s spend all our time going after centrist, corporatist Dems, cuz they’re the real menace to Americans.
I picked the wrong day to stop drinking.
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Ok, we just see it differently. Assange told the Truth About Hillary. I dont care who he was working with.
And because he told the truth, he is being utterly, physically destroyed.
There is zero evidence that he suppressed any info on Trump. There is zero evidence he had any evidence against Trump. That is all speculation.
w
vwvParticipantThat said, as per the thread I started earlier, I’m feeling a bit “homeless” these days, politically. I think the smartest way out of that feeling is to concentrate a hell of a lot more on non-political stuff . . . more on the Arts, Music, Philosophy, life. More on what Fromm talks about as the move from “having” to “being.”
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Its tough for hardcore leftists to find the healthy balance.
Politics calls to us.
Like Sauron’s Ring.My Presh-us.
w
vwvParticipantFarmers arresting a sheriff for trying to evict a widow 1952. pic.twitter.com/SYpM4ZShxx
— Exterminate Racism (@Extrm8or) October 2, 2020
October 10, 2020 at 1:59 pm in reply to: Insanity in the Trump Era: Cherry picked support for whistleblowers. #122756wvParticipant“…This, I find appalling, especially when these same people sing the praises of Assange, a man partially responsible for placing the neo-fascist gorilla in office in the first place….”
============Well, I agree, and disagree. And agree, and disagree. I go round and round on this in my own head. I will never quite resolve it.
On the one hand, that view seems similar to the “blame Jill Stein” or “blame Ralph Nader” notions. I mean, i can see how people would think that, but i also know that what Assange published and what Nader says, and what Stein says — is all TRUE. Do i blame people for telling the truth?
Now the actual (and forseeable) results were — they gave us Republican Monsters.
So, I get that ‘there’s that.’I’ve often asked Assange-lovers about that fact that surely he could have exposed facts about Trump too. But who knows. Assange says he had nothing on Trump. No-one gave him documents on Trump.
But then it doesnt take a genius to know, Assange knew Hillary was against him. So maybe he tilted toward Trump hoping for the best. I dunno.
And of course, just because Assange didnt go after trump, doesnt justify the Western Governments unconscionable attack on him. Its the Snowden treatment and its unconscionable. Its what they do though. Call it the deep state or corporotacracy or whatever. Its what they do.
At any rate, while I am not one of those who thinks Assange is a saint (and there are a TON of those on the left), I am still probly thinking of him as a flawed-but-positive-force in the world. Wikileaks has fought the good fight imho. Not perfect, but I support them.
I saw a lot of lefties attacking AOC on Twitter. Because she was wrong about Venezuela or this, or that. And I’ve seen a lot of lefties attacking Bernie. He’s “too far to the right.” Etc and so forth.
Assange, Nader, Bernie, Jill, AOC…. as i have scrolled thru twitter the last week, I have found myself wanting to strangle Many-a-young-leftist. I want to say, “I know these people are flawed — but lets focus on how to create MORE leftists. We need MORE leftists. We need non-leftists to turn into Leftists. We need to turn them. Like vampires. Now how…do…we…do…THAT ?
I dont think we do it, by focusing on whats wrong with this or that person of the left.
I’m just riffing here. Just wondering if there can ever be a unified approach on the ‘left’.
wvParticipantLefty Science
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Tweets by sftporgwvParticipantJust a chart floating around:
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wvParticipantmy opponent hasn’t even been killed, how can he lead the country in these trying times? https://t.co/pj6FqnmZw4
— two time pro bowler fred dryer (@CobrastanGuy) October 5, 2020
wvParticipantHappy #InternationalPodcastDay to these wonderful podcasts for their teachings & organizing!@MAKCapitalism @leftpagepod @LeftPOC @RevLeftRadio @coffeewcomrades @The_Red_Nation @east_podcast @redlifepodcast @Beyond_Prison @the_minyan @marxmadnesspod @RadReflections pic.twitter.com/Hz5rMXYB7F
— Jason Bean (@LookednBooked) September 30, 2020
October 10, 2020 at 11:13 am in reply to: Just a thread for different kindsa interesting things #122747wvParticipantJust some pod casts:
=======recently been listening to @MAKCapitalism @LeftPOC @rustbeltradio @RevLeftRadio @kitelineradio Groundings, I Don't Speak German, Reel Abstractions, @east_podcast @leftanc @CitationsPod @ttsgpod @deleteuracct, to name just a few!
— newspapers dot com influencer (@CharlotteERosen) October 6, 2020
wvParticipantNice article.
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police:https://www.radicalhistoryreview.org/abusablepast/abolition-or-bust-liberal-police-reform-as-an-engine-of-carceral-violence/
Abolition or Bust: Liberal Police Reform as an Engine of Carceral Violence“…………Because “knowledge” of Black criminality was understood as a scientific and neutral fact, rather than a narrow and racialized political construction, liberals understood heightened policing in Black urban neighborhoods not as a form of racism and ongoing white supremacist terror, but as a legitimate and necessary response to urban crime. In the process, they conveniently invisibilized ongoing structural racism and police terrorism against Black communities. Through such a framework, they could declare their proud support for civil rights while also believing it necessary to expand the policing and penal control of Black urban neighborhoods. When Black people rose up against racist police brutality and oppression in a series of urban rebellions throughout the 1960s, liberal policymakers hardened this “consensus” around the so-called criminal behavior of “rioters” and intensified rather than confronted the harmful role of law enforcement in these neighborhoods. As Elizabeth Hinton writes in From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime: The Making of Mass Incarceration in America, “racism embedded within federal policy and the social science research that rationalized it encouraged officials to embrace patrol, surveillance, and confinement as a means of exerting social control in neighborhoods of segregated poverty.” These twin features of liberal law and order – the belief in the criminal legal system’s objectivity and fairness on the one hand, and a racist belief in a “statistical and sociological ‘truth’ of black criminality” – have ensured liberal police reforms have not only failed to make police less violent against Black people. As historians have shown, these reforms have actually worsened police violence and paved the way for our contemporary crisis of mass imprisonment.
Johnson’s War on Crime is a case and point….see link…”
October 10, 2020 at 10:47 am in reply to: Just a thread for different kindsa interesting things #122741wvParticipantI suppose today is the right day to announce my new publication in @RadHistReview, a review essay on Rock Against Racism, which argues that defeating the political advances and street violence of fascists required creative & daring political organizing. https://t.co/XGJ00flBh4 pic.twitter.com/3IOljR7GgS
— Stuart Schrader (@stschrader1) September 30, 2020
wvParticipantI forgot how intense Olberman can get. I hope he gets that intense if Biden gets elected.
————Keith Olbermann forcefully makes the case that Amy Coney Barrett should be immediately arrested and prosecuted once Trump loses the election: https://t.co/3VFwZi6hva
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) October 9, 2020
October 9, 2020 at 10:13 pm in reply to: Rams v. Washington: another game against the dangerous NFC East #122723wvParticipantWell its tough to sweep an entire division. I am guessing the Rams have never ever swept the NFC East. All four teams.
I’m guessing the Over The Hill Gang learned a lot from the Giants.
I say this is a week for one of those weirdly-bad Goff-games.Washington: 17
Rams 16wvParticipantOctober 9, 2020 at 3:30 pm in reply to: Rightwing violent-fringe, rightwing conspiracy theories, etc. #122703wvParticipantDar Leaf was named "Sheriff of the Year" by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, a right-wing extremist group on the SPLC's radar: https://t.co/17FySzGPM8
— Stephanie Nakhleh (@StephNakhleh) October 9, 2020
October 9, 2020 at 3:25 pm in reply to: Rightwing violent-fringe, rightwing conspiracy theories, etc. #122702wvParticipantmichigan interview
—————-This interview with a sitting sheriff in Michigan is absolutely wild. pic.twitter.com/h7WKsrAqCZ
— Ross Jones (@rossjonesWXYZ) October 9, 2020
October 9, 2020 at 12:58 pm in reply to: Just a thread for different kindsa interesting things #122701wvParticipantAm reading Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver. My first kingsolver book.
Wanted to know more about her:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Kingsolver
Saw this and it made me wince. I dont want the american-riff-raff coming to WV:
“…..Kingsolver was criticized for a Los Angeles Times opinion piece following the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks. She wrote, “I feel like I’m standing on a playground where the little boys are all screaming at each other, ‘He started it!’ and throwing rocks that keep taking out another eye, another tooth. I keep looking around for somebody’s mother to come on the scene saying, ‘Boys! Boys! Who started it cannot possibly be the issue here. People are getting hurt.”[38] By some accounts, she was “denounced as a traitor,” but rebounded from these accusations and wrote about them.
……
………….Her major non-fiction works include her 1990 publication Holding the Line: Women in the Great Arizona Mine Strike of 1983
…..
……..Kingsolver lives in the Appalachia area of the United States. She has said that friends in the urban literary community disparage rural areas such as Appalachia, but also that the COVID-19 pandemic might change these types of opinions as people move away from cities to practice social distancing longterm.[15]….”============
w
vwvParticipantIMO GOP voters are intentionally stuck in the sand and either want to go back or at least slow the forward movement down as much as they can. When you add to that malaise the racists, truly ignorant, evangelicals, and wealthy business and corporation owners who want nothing more than getting rid of regulations so they can profit more-well there you have the GOP. I suppose you can add to that Nazis who want to take over the country and now I have to take a nap.
Yeah that’s a good summary.
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I dunno. I think Waterfield has become some sort of leftwing extremist.
Fires. Must be smoke inhalation or somethin.
w
vwvParticipantAlso, I’m kinda like Thomas insofar as I’ve had what I can only describe as supernatural experiences which I can only interpret as divine.
I’ve seen things, ya see…
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Yer talkin about the Proehl catch.
Granted, science cant explain it yet, but
I’m sure Nittany has some theory or other.w
vwvParticipantI wonder how Littleton is doing?
Does Fuller play the same position Littleton did?
w
vwvParticipantLiberals ARE condescending. Leftists, too. Maybe Leftists even more so. And so the masses hate universities and experts and everybody whom they feel look down their noses at them.
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Well, i dunno, but I know that I find myself being condescending all the time. I also find myself fighting my own habit of being condescending all the time.
I do it. But i try not to do it. And the pattern repeats.Why do i do it? Because I am dealing with people who choose some weird Bible phrase over Science. Religion over Science.
Or, they choose some comforting political-myth over actual History.So when I as a leftist am trying to communicate with a right-winger it is a huge challenge. How does one communicate with someone who believes in Myths/Religions and rejects History/Facts/Science?
It often either devolves into me being condescending, Or, I just find a way to change the subject to Football.
But….I do NOT find rightwingers being condescending to ME. Mainly they just pray for me, or shake their heads.
So, my personal experience has been that lefties are condescending and righties are not.
w
vWell, that last part is just BS. Not your personal experience, of course, but the overall conclusion.
As a reformed conservative, there is TONS of condescension among righties, but it manifests differently.
The left condescends about facts, reality, policies and the actual record.
Liberals condescend about identity, association and convenient intersectionality. Facts will be condescended about ONLY if it brings up hypocrisy on the right or furthers the needs of their corporate/donor masters.
The right condescends about conservative dogma…which has changed radically over the past 40 years… well except for that Liberals are weak and the Left is dangerous. Are you churchy enough? Are you 2A enough? Do you wanna kill brown people enough? That can look a lot of different ways from jingoism to racism and all sorts of dark combinations.
The right condescends plenty. If you’ve never had someone go further than “bless your heart”, then God bless, cuz they out there. I guess living in FL, we have a more concentrated sample to draw from.
Maybe it’s because I used to be a conservative and I still speak the language or because I considered going to seminary and have been an elder at several churches or because I served in the military, but I’m usually able to have a conversation with conservatives.
I mean… I like guns. I do. I’m a devout Christian and know my Bible. I guess I get what’s important to them.
There is a method and it’s basically the same as how I became a lefty… ask them straight questions and let them come to their own conclusions.
Like…
Cons: I’ll never have a gay son. I’ll have a dead son, but not a gay one.
Me: Wait. You love your son so little that you’d kill him over that?
Cons: You bet. No. Wait. I love my son.
Me: So you’re saying you’re better than Dick Cheney? He shoulda killed his daughter?
Cons: What? No! But the Bible says…
Me: Now wait a minute. It says in Revelation that anyone that changes one word of the book is doomed for all eternity. Right? Okay, well, then how come the story of Lot in the Bible was rewritten after a US businessman in the late 1800s went to Germany to commission a Bible that changed that story?
Cons: Wait…what?
Me: And even if you don’t want to go that deep, talking about the Council of Nicea and how the Bible we read in English… one of MANY translations…has been changed from the original Aramaic and Greek… Didn’t Jesus tell us to love one another as he loved us?
Cons: Well, now I don’t think he meant all that. My Pastor says…
Me: So, it was okay for him to break bread with prostitutes and tax collectors who in the ancient world were literally the lowest of the low, but in a world with Greek traditions and a Hebrew Orthodoxy that recognized SIX genders at that time, Jesus wanted us to love everyone but the gays?
Cons: Six what?
Me: yeah…six.
Cons: How does that even work?
Me: Well… that’s another conversation, but suffice it to say that Jesus wanted us to love everyone…even our enemies. And if he wanted us to love our enemies, then how could he not want us to love our own children?
And… it goes on from there.
Now… this can’t work on anyone stuck in dogma and that goes for anyone of any stripe. I’ve had convos where folks had all the barriers torn down and they just said, “nope, not changing my mind because I don’t want to even as you’re pointing out why I’m wrong using my own reference materials” Not much you can do there.
If a conversation can be made, then I usually have good success talking about things.
But yeah, one way to sort of judo pivot away from condescension is to frame new information as being part of the group that’s “in the know”
We all had to learn sometime, right?
I dunno… I descended into riffing like half way into this post…
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Now wait just a damn minute here, how can you be a Christian? 🙂
I knew you used to be one, but i figured you’d left that behind.
What kinda Christian are you? I mean, do you think a guy named Jesus rose from the dead and went up to heaven to save us, etc?
w
vwvParticipantwvParticipantwvParticipantwvParticipantYale Study Says Medicare for All Would Save U.S. $450 Billion, Prevent Nearly 70,000 Deaths a Year https://t.co/NQPPbtSpfd
— Katalin Pota 🌹 (@katalin_pota) October 7, 2020
wvParticipantThe Snowden story, and the Assange story and whistleblower stories in general, just…get to me. Its like, the ultimate betrayal, when your country tries to destroy you for telling the truth.
And the mainstreamers dont care. I say that, because they just keep voting for the same bastards.
w
vwvParticipantBiden and Harris have not done very well in the debates and it's partly BECAUSE they're centrists, and centrists end up getting into fights with the right over "who will cut taxes more," a fight the right will always win because it presumes their premises are correct.
— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) October 8, 2020
wvParticipantThe reason liberals lose debates to right-wingers is that they refuse to defend taxes, government spending, more immigration, etc. as good things. So they essentially concede that conservatives are correct about everything. See Kamala going "No no we love fracking!"
— Nathan J Robinson (@NathanJRobinson) October 8, 2020
October 7, 2020 at 2:56 pm in reply to: Just a thread for different kindsa interesting things #122599wvParticipantIt annoys me, that so many things happen around the world,
that i know nuthin about. I mean who the hell is the Golden Dawn?
=============Here’s the moment thousands of people in Athens hear the verdict declaring the fascist Golden Dawn party a criminal organization pic.twitter.com/dOKf4yndxz
— Noah Hurowitz (@NoahHurowitz) October 7, 2020
wvParticipantSigh. Just when i think Biden has it in the bag.
Newsweek poll:https://www.newsweek.com/less-month-until-election-donald-trump-doing-better-swing-state-polls-this-time-2016-1535611
With Less Than a Month Until the Election, Donald Trump Is Doing Better in Swing State Polls Than This Time in 2016 -
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