Billy_T wrote:

<
So Bernays and company figured if they can just make women believe it’s a great show of “freedom and emancipation” to be just like men and smoke yourself to death..

———–
fwiw, i get the impression Bernays was a huge self-promoter. He liked to brag about getting women to smoke, etc — and i’m sure his ‘work’ contributed to the upswing in women-smokers, but i also think he exaggerated the effect of his campaign.

But yeah, corporate-capitalism sucks.

Its here though, and we gotta live it out. 🙂

w
v

Zooey wrote:

I agree with the point about networking. I believe that is probably the most important outcome of the March. Not just creating contacts, but the expansion of awareness of related issues. There is no way to educate people on all of these issues efficiently. The best way is through conversations that take place when people’s interest is aroused, like these marches. So hopefully a lot of the Marchers who aren’t socialist feminists had their eyes open to a wide range of issues. That’s the best outcome of all of these demonstrations in my opinion.

————-
Well, it couldn’t hurt.

But my own experience at marches is that there
aint much ‘education’ goin on. There’s speeches, and walking, and goofing around, and smiling, and laughing and gawking, and people-watching, and chatting, some music… maybe some drugs maybe some alcohol. Some painted faces. Some signs. Lots of photos.

But i haven’t seen a whole lot of ‘education’ or networking, myself. I aint marched in a decade or so though.

w
v

PS — i sent that article to three of my leftist-radical-female friends.

Two liked it, one didnt.

So, there’s that.

This is tricky ground. Lots of views.

w
v

Zooey wrote:

I don’t think the women’s march was any one thing. It wasn’t even confined to women’s issues. There were a lot of people marching who marched in solidarity with women, but were motivated by, and promoting, other issues such as LGBT, gay, environmental, and so on. It was a broad coalition of causes that united under the banner of women’s issues with which everyone is sympathetic.

Moreover, I will say that I never heard of a pussyhat website until now. None of the marchers I know ever mentioned it, and they certainly weren’t following any kind of instructions, or lead from a webpage. So I agree that part of the article is just facile. This was not Bernays-level manipulation by any stretch.

But I also don’t see any Stalin-level demands for purity in the piece. I see a (correct) observation that most of the marchers have failed to recognized the big picture, the one that extends to women’s rights beyond their own personal concerns. I think that’s just true. They were largely out there because of concern about the chauvinistic tone of Trump and his supporters, and because of concern about Planned Parenthood etc. That, broadly speaking, was the impetus. The writer points out that that is hardly a comprehensive approach to women’s issues.

Unfortunately, I think he is dismissive of the march for that reason, when another person might have pointed out that it was a big step in the right direction that people are standing up for themselves. We haven’t even been doing THAT much in this country. So standing up for self may be the first step. Standing up for others comes later in the growth of the movement.

I don’t, however, think that the march means much unless it is followed with constant pressure, and a concerted effort to dislodge as many politicians as possible with alternatives who are farther to the left politically. Because – let’s face it – the march in itself was close to pointless. Marches don’t do much of anything except provide catharsis. They have little, if any, impact on policy. Just a few days after the march, Trump nominates a regressive judge to the SC, and while the women are marching, he signs the Global Gag Rule. So…you know…

————
I prettymuch agree with that. I mean, without going over each clause and doing a point by point, i prettymuch agree with that view.

One of the things I am in the process of learning or trying to learn is HOW to discuss Class issues with people who dont have class-consciousness,
as well as how to discuss Race/gender issues with Class-warriors (such as myself)

Its tricky ground. I’m still learning about where all the landmines are.

I’m getting better at seeing where writers are leaving stuff out and pounding the table too much about Class or Race or Gender, etc.

Its hard to converse constructively about how this system victimizes various groups. I think bell hooks like to use the umbrella term “domination”. Its a ‘dominator system’

w
v

Billy_T wrote:

<
WV,

I agree about the absence of class-consciousness. Big time. Your Wolff video deals with that indirectly. The Frankfurt School folks I’m reading about dealt with that directly.

The thing is, the author just didn’t need to make that point via a putdown of the women’s march. It actually makes zero sense to attack it from that angle. Shit. He should be applauding the activism, the passion, the enthusiasm for mass opposition to the status quo.

—————-
Ok, but think about what you…just said: “I agree about the absence of class consciousness”.

Well, that was EXACTLY the writers whole entire point.

There is a great gaping galaxy-sized absence of it in this country. So why wouuld you think the March would be any different?

The Marchers were MAINLY lacking in ‘class consciousness’ — they were MAINLY Dems. Obama/Clinton Dems.

Now your second point — “the author didnt need to putdown the march” — well now you are talking STRATEGY. And yes, it may very well BE bad strategy to write that article that way. Sure. Thats a real concern. I’d have written it differently. But the main substantive POINT of it was that the marchers (men AND women) in this nation lack class consciousness. Wolff made exactly the same point he just didnt pick on anybody.

w
v

zn wrote:

wv wrote:

Well, i agree with the Writer. Completely.

Sure, no doubt there were plenty of women like the one’s you describe. But the majority were like what he described, imho

There’s nothing to agree with, it’s a bad analysis.

I am always resistant to “haven’t kept up” old left types like that. You can usually recognize them by their stalinist drive for purity. There’s only one doctrine that counts kind of thing. Purists are to me an internal problem of the left. They’re like the old drunk uncles of left analysis.

IMHO, for one thing, if we don’t have alliance politics now we will have nothing.

But that’s just to address one impulse there in an essay like that. He could have made the same overly-homogenizing, outdated pop culture analysis dependent on questionable and superseded concepts (such as the millions duped by images schtick) without ALSO being insulting. If so I would have only political/analytic objections.

But on top of it, he was insulting.

————
I think it was good analysis and it had nothing to do with ‘purity’.

I think he left a lot of things out but thats a different criticism.

If it had been ‘my’ article the last section would have been about alliances
and the groundwork that needs to be done.

w
v

zn wrote:

Most women demonstrators who marched against Trump were no doubt well intentioned within their limited perspective.

I can’t count the number of women I know who were in that march. And none of them are restricted to the stereotypes this limited-minded guy wants to promote. And we’re talking some heavy-duty, real-thing leftists here, and I mean people who could reduce that insulting essay to rubble without working up a sweat. I am talking about people who would hold their own here and fit right in and add a lot, except they’re not Rams fans so I probably couldn’t get them to post here.

He actually thinks that the female millions involved in and/or sympathetic with that march are homogenously the same and were all equally susceptible to the same centralized manipulation, so for example everyone wore pussyhats because that was promoted by one place/person/entity that says some stuff a certain way on their website. Sorry but. That. Is. Just. Stupid. Generally speaking, if someone from the left has dismissive stereotypes of an entire category of person, they are not shining examples of progressive analysis.

As a rule any form of top-down analysis (ie. “everyone but me is a victim of this thing because they were led to it by a chosen few”), it’s not real analysis at all and certainly not leftist in any reasonable way.

Oh and btw women were smoking in the 1890s.

https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/CXXV/513/491/525369/Women-and-Smoking-since-1890?redirectedFrom=fulltext

When a small number of intellectual or leisured society women began smoking hand-made Egyptian or Turkish cigarettes in the 1890s it was associated with emancipation and the ‘new woman’.

—————-

Well, i agree with the Writer. Completely.

Sure, no doubt there were plenty of women like the one’s you describe. But the majority were like what he described, imho. And the proof i offer is the last fifty years of elections. Women and Men vote over and over and over again for the Clintons or the Reagans or the Bushs or the Obamas. They do NOT vote for the leftist candidates. The leftist candidates always get under five percent of the vote. So where are these women you describe? How many are really out there? Not many. We are a small group, zn. A small group. I suspect you just happen to know a high percentage of that small group. I mean do you have any proof of anything or just the anecdotal stuff about knowing some leftist women who were at the march?

Most of those women (and men) were Clintonistas, zn. They just were. Just my opinion of course.

As to the meta-subject that keeps coming up — I do agree that we can all converse about Class And Gender And Race issues. They are all related.
I do think in this corporotacracy CLASS is the one that is understood the least and that is where most of the groundwork and education needs to be done.

w
v

zn wrote:

wv wrote:

Still, the Hellmouth has opened, the blood-demons and vampire-squids
are upon us, and there is no hope. Have a nice day.

w
v

How will that change the Rams draft this year, I wonder.

.

———————–

I dunno, but we know they cant draft a Bust-LT in the first round this year. So there’s that.

w
v

waterfield wrote:

After this election I’m trying my best to avoid being so cynical. However, reading you and Zooey, and your all is lost posts, I’m having a difficult time.

——————-
Well as of now, i suppose we are not “totally” screwed.

I mean there’s still Dogs,
and there’s still surfing.

And toast. There’s still toast.

So, there’s that.

Still, the Hellmouth has opened, the blood-demons and vampire-squids
are upon us, and there is no hope. Have a nice day.

w
v

Mackeyser wrote:

I told my child after Trump won in November that the one thing Trump would bring…was…clarity.

————-
Well except the Dem-Party hasn’t changed any. And thats where the ‘clarity’
would have to emerge.

So, we dont even have that there one thing.

w
v

The “gish gallop”

LinK:http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39271-trump-and-the-gish-gallop-a-million-lies-and-one-truth

Imagine being such a consummate bullshit artist that you have an entire debate tactic named after you. Enter the late Duane Tolbert Gish, neuroscientist and hardcore creationist who, at the time of his death in 2013, held the position of senior vice president emeritus at the Institute for Creation Research. His favorite activity in the world involved squaring off in public debates against advocates of evolution within the scientific community.

Mr. Gish’s chief tactic, known in debate terminology as “spreading,” was to fire off as many points as possible in a short span of time. Nearly every point delivered is either partially or completely false, but the opponent faces a daunting task when confronted with so many issues to refute at once. Like as not, they are overwhelmed, and the spreader emerges victorious while seeming to be a master of voluminous data. Eugenie Scott, anthropologist and director of the National Center for Science Education, was a frequent debate opponent of Gish. Dr. Scott coined the term “Gish Gallop” after being on the receiving end of the tactic numerous times, and it stuck.

Examples of the Gish Gallop can be found all over the political and media landscape today. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney used it to great effect during his first debate against then-President Obama in October of 2012. Deploying a rapid-fire fusillade of half-truths and outright falsehoods, he left his overwhelmed opponent stammering through replies. Most observers said at the time that Mr. Obama lost that debate. He didn’t lose; he got Gish Galloped off the stage. Notably, the tactic did not fare nearly so well in their second meeting. A prepared opponent can handle the barrage, often dismantling many points at once by undermining a single false premise. Woe be, however, to the unready.

Nowhere is the tactic more evidently used than within the confines of the corporate “news” media. Turn on your television right now, and odds are better than good that you’ll be confronted with a screen full of commentators Galloping at each other with all their might. It is a marvelous way to fill precious air time with the nitrous oxide of nonsense that comes from a bunch of people shouting lies simultaneously at the top of their voices. The best Gish Gallopers are the ones who keep getting invited back onto the shows. Good television, you see.

Without doubt or question, the reigning world heavyweight champion of the Gish Gallop also happens to be the president of the United States. Donald Trump modeled his entire presidential campaign on the tactic — outrageous tweets, bizarre proclamations, an ocean of lies deployed on the hour at all hours of day and night — to such mighty effect that his opponents and the “news” media covering him were left sputtering in his wake. The Gallop did not skip a beat after he assumed the White House; indeed, it appears to have found a whole new gear.

Consider Trump’s recent remarks at CIA headquarters:

When I was young — and I think we’re all sort of young. When I was young, we were always winning things in this country. We’d win with trade. We’d win with wars. At a certain age, I remember hearing from one of my instructors, “The United States has never lost a war.” And then, after that, it’s like we haven’t won anything. We don’t win anymore. The old expression, “to the victor belong the spoils” — you remember. I always used to say, keep the oil. I wasn’t a fan of Iraq. I didn’t want to go into Iraq. But I will tell you, when we were in, we got out wrong. And I always said, in addition to that, keep the oil. Now, I said it for economic reasons. But if you think about it, Mike, if we kept the oil you probably wouldn’t have ISIS because that’s where they made their money in the first place. So we should have kept the oil. But okay. Maybe you’ll have another chance. But the fact is, should have kept the oil.

No, we were not always winning. No, we can’t keep the oil. No, he actually was a fan of the Iraq invasion. No, we don’t have ISIS because of the oil. No, they shouldn’t get another chance. Five dollops of galactic nonsense delivered in an avalanche of jumbled verbiage, all of which is abandoned without correction or refutation as the next avalanche comes sliding down the hill. That was how he campaigned, and that is how he is governing: One long Gish Gallop that leaves the logic centers of the average brain stunned and grasping for purchase.

Not everyone is bothered by Trump’s use of the Gish Gallop. For instance, the far-right bunch over at The American Spectator sure seem pleased with the practice. “The hacks covering Trump are as lazy as they are partisan,” wrote Scot McKay regarding the phenomenon, “so feeding them clickbait such as manufactured controversies over inaugural crowds is a guaranteed way of keeping them occupied while things of real substance are done. At this rate, he’ll have the country well on its way to recovery from the Obama malaise, and the enemies in the newsrooms will have hardly noticed his actual work.”

There is more to this than right-wing wishful thinking — “Look how the president plays pan-dimensional chess! He’s a genius!” — when you pile up the aftermath of this first week of Trump’s administration. Torture is back on the table. “The Wall” is one step closer to realization. The Environmental Protection Agency has essentially ceased to exist as a governmental entity. The strongest version of the global gag rule ever deployed is in place. The Dakota Access and Keystone XL pipelines have been advanced. Trump’s horrible cabinet nominees are sailing through the confirmation process largely untouched. All of this is happening without the GOP-controlled House and Senate getting fully into the game yet; when they do, it is going to be a hard day’s night for a very long time to come.

Consider the events of this past weekend. Amid a blizzard of hastily-prepared paperwork came an executive missive on immigration that turned the nation on its collective ear. According to The New York Times, “The order bars entry to refugees from anywhere in the world for 120 days and from Syria indefinitely. It blocks any visitors for 90 days from seven designated countries: Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.” The order also affected people with green cards, but the administration had crabbed its way back from that stance by Sunday. All of this initially took place on Holocaust Remembrance Day, which the administration took note of in a formal proclamation that omitted any mention of Jews.

Here was the Muslim ban come to life. The order galvanized a national protest the likes of which have never been seen. When word got out that people were being detained at Kennedy Airport in New York and faced forced deportation due to Trump’s order, hundreds and then thousands of protesters rushed to Kennedy. Airports all across the nation saw similar actions erupt, and the streets of cities from Washington DC to Los Angeles came alive as thousands more shouted down the administration for its cruelty and its cowardice.

The ACLU and other rights groups flew into action, and a temporary restraining order was obtained that blocked the administration from executing its order. A court will decide the constitutionality of the Trump order, but given the black-letter wording of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, it seems ultimately doomed. By Sunday night, some refugees and green-card travelers who had been detained were being released, and the administration found itself in a full crouch trying to defend its actions.

True to form, however, another game was afoot. On the same night that all Hell was breaking loose over immigration, Trump quietly released another executive order that gave White House strategist and white nationalist leader Steve Bannon a regular seat on the National Security Council (NSC). Simultaneously, the order barred both the director of national intelligence and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from joining Council meetings unless they are specifically invited. The unprecedented move was met with horror by virtually the entire intelligence community, and for good reason. Even George W. Bush had enough sense to bar Karl Rove from attending NSC meetings, keeping to the long-standing “No political hacks” rule pertaining to the Council. Amidst the din of the uproar over the immigration order, the astonishing Bannon-to-NSC order went largely unnoticed.

Immigration over here, but wait! Steve Bannon over there. The Gish Gallop government strikes again.

That’s one week. If your metric for success is measured by what has been accomplished to date, Donald Trump is Abraham Lincoln in a Superman cape… after fooling everyone into thinking he’s just a bumbling Clark Kent. For sure and certain, much of the “news” media bypassed any serious analysis of Trump’s first week in favor of an ongoing and utterly meaningless rhubarb over the nose count at the inauguration. Why? Because if given the choice, the corporate media will always pursue the easiest story to cover. After all, it beats working.

Trump and his team are playing the media like so many fiddles. All I know for certain is that a million lies have led to one truth: Donald Trump is Gish Galloping at speed, he and his people are almost completely running the table — the pushback on immigration being a profoundly noteworthy exception — and much of the media are eating it up.

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled,” said Keyser Soze, “was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Who is Trump, really? We’re all going to find out soon enough