nittany ram wrote:

Stone knapping and tool use isn’t known among any saber-toothed cats and Smilodon most likely couldn’t make fire because its lack of opposable thumbs would prevent it from striking a match.

————-

Yes of course. I meant to say Saber-Toothed Chickens. It was the chickens that hunted in packs, with flaming arrows.

As every well-read first grader knows, The fossil record suggests,
many of them wore corsets. Which is just plain weird. Still, one doesnt
argue with the fossil record.

w
v

“They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one–They promised to take our land…and they took it.”

Chief Red Cloud – Sioux

I want two things:

No blow-out,
and
No Injuries.

Is that too much to ask?

w
v

Ozoneranger wrote:

Greed.

Yep. As many of you know, I live in the BA. I felt for the fans in LA in 94 and I feel for the fans in the STL today. Let’s face it…we’re all pawns for dollars. This is the reason why I don’t buy much NFL gear. A hat here, maybe a jersey there. I do spend the dinero for Sunday Ticket..every other year, when I can threaten them with Comcast or ATT Uverse and get it for free. And when I do see the Rams live here in the South Bay, I drink a few beers pre game and they’re lucky to get $20 for the two I buy in the stadium.

See, back in the 80’s my dad told me stories about Georgia Frontiere. As told to him by Marv Goux, the defensive line coach under Robinson. They had a bond. Goux knocked out my dad in a high school practice at Santa Barbara High in the late 40s.

I cannot go into detail, since teams monitor every board, even a small one like this one. I found this out a couple years ago, to my great consternation.

It’s all about greed in sports. Even the Olympics. Nobody’s hands are clean. The players, the owners, the fans.

Greed.

Fuck em all. But I’m still gonna watch.

———–

Oh come on. Give us somethin. A tidbit.

w
v

zn wrote:

Williams on Quinn is must listen.

.

Yeah, I thot the whole Williams vid was good.

My gut (not my head) informs me, that Fisher
needs GW the way DV needed Martz.
I think they need each other, and are a complementary duo.

w
v

• This reply was modified 9 years, 8 months ago by wv.

zn wrote:

Because I see that that way, I do not separate any of the “issues.” They are all tied together, they are all mutually connected, it;s a web….you can’t touch one thing without touching the others.

————–
Do you agree or disagree that in the ‘cluster’ of ‘issues of domination’, in the mainstream-media,
CLASS is the one that gets minimized, marginalized, ignored, more than, say,
race, sex, gender…?

I rant about class, in part because i think its at the top of the hierarchy, and in part because it gets IGNORED. The other ‘inseparable issues’ do not get ignored. (though, they often get distorted)

…I’m actually quite glad there are people out there saying issues-of-domination-and-oppression are “inseparable.” I think its good to have those voices. In a way they ‘are’ inseparable — but the mass-media HAS separated them. They’ve ignored the biggest one. So, I rant about the biggest one. (i know you think they are all equally big, inseparable, etc)

I dont really care about the ‘inseparable’ issue, what i care about is that Class/Corporate-Capitalism is ignored by the corporate-capitalist press.

w
v

zn wrote:

And I think they’re inseparable issues (and I also note again that it’s only people who resist it who call race, gender, sexuality issues “identity politics.” That’s a rejection term. It’s similar to what happens in football when the neutral term “ball control” becomes “playing not to lose.” The latter term is a deliberate rejection.)

Imagine it this way, so at least my own view of this will seem more compatible to you. Imagine you could isolate a 100 people with real socio-economic power. The big owners and policy makers and biggest beneficiaries of how things are. Let’s say you knew you could give a speech that would change them and therefore change much of the ideological landscape. Make things better because that 100 is converted.

Well. What would they look like. All the hookers waiting for them back at the hotel, what would their sex be. Etc.

Just one hypothetical to stress why I don’t think this stuff is separable.

Plus, I wasn’t telling you there things were perspectives not truths. I was saying that conversation goes better if people act on that recognition and openly acknowledge that all upfront in how they talk (and no it’s not widely understood that that’s the case–more often than not it’s completely forgotten.)

I mean we’re either debating what the “real” priorities are, which is one kind of discussion, or we’re each saying where we’re coming from—which is just a better, less tense and less conflicted conversation.

Why does it look like X to me. Why does it look like Y to you. How do we answer that if the conversation rules of the game dictate in advance that we cannot say “because x/y is the truth.”

…

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

I totally agree “identity politics” is a ‘rejection term”. Thats why i use it.
I do it intentionally. And i understand why others (including you) reject the rejection-term. It reflects our disagreement.

As to whether identity politics is ‘inseparable’ from corporate-power-destroying-all-life-on-Earth….hmmmm. I think about that from regularly. I am not sure I would agree that it’s inseparable. Though, it might be.

I could live with it being ‘inseparable’ and I’d ‘still’ insist there is a hierarchy. And Identity politics is not at the top of the inseparable-hierarchy. To me.

But again, let me be perfectly clear — i do think ID-politix is very very important. It’s in the top five or so. Thats pretty damn important.
Just not as important as the whole-entire-fucking-Biosphere that all life depends on. Blacks, whites, women, the rich, the poor, the polar bears, the amphibians, the leatherneck turtles…..Mass extinction trumps all other issues to ‘me’.

I didn’t understand anything you wrote after your first paragraph, btw.

I am in the middle of a yard-sale. Yard-sales are second in wv-ram’s-inseparable-Hierarchy-of-critical-Issues. What price should i put on a snow-globe with elves in it? What about a dvd of “punch drunk love” ? Fifty cents?

PS — …if i were talking to 100 strangers about all this, I would use a much softer, gentler, more neutral language, etc. I rant HERE because I know I can. I speak differently to different audiences. My principles are the same, but my ‘terms’ and pace and language would be different. Fwiw.

PPS — How do YOU interpret what bell is saying below?

w
v
“… I have to engage feminism because that becomes the vehicle by which I project myself as a female into the heart of the struggle, but the heart of the struggle does not begin with feminism. It begins with an understanding of domination and with a critique of domination in all its forms. I think it is in fact, a danger to think of the starting point as being feminism. …I think we need a much more sophisticated vision of what it means to have a radical political consciousness. That is why I stress so much the need for African Americans to take on a political language of colonialism…. to frame our issues in a larger political context that looks at imperialism and colonialism and our place as Africans in the Diaspora so that class becomes a central factor….” bell hooks

• This reply was modified 9 years, 8 months ago by wv.

This is my favorite Identity Politics
song.

zn wrote:

wv wrote:

Her policies are essentially the same as Bill’s and Obamas. More of the same, with some likely Identity Politix window-dressing.

AND stuff on women’s choice, race, sexuality…that’s only window dressing if you’re a white male. Don’t be shocked at me saying that…it’s true. Sometimes we tell each other truths here so they can be looked at hard. That’s among friends. It should at least be open for discussion. I know I have been told that it’s heavily pro-Hillary whites males who say that, but I am not one of those. I say it because I think it’s an unavoidable deep issue in our world, and I say it as a decades long left progressive who could give a shit what Hillary loyalist nazis say.

When a man drives out to pick up a crabmeat club sandwich, there are times when his mind drifts to the great issues of his time, and he thinks…I didn’t misread anyone on the public forum did I.

And yes, I did. I took WV as saying that race/gender/sexuality are window dressing.

No, on 2nd read, he is saying those things are window dressing for Hillary.

I disagree with that but still, it’s a far cry from saying those issues in themselves are that.

So I take back my misreading, and humbly ask the gods to have mercy on me.

—————
No, you were right the first time. I was not saying they are window-dressing for Hillary. I was saying they are window-dressing compared to the complete destruction of the Biosphere by corporate-power. They are window dressing compared to the sixth great extinction which is in process now, due to corporate-power….

So, the gods will strike you down for taking back your non-mis-reading.

…like i said though, my “window-dressing” language is always me
being grouchy and fed up with the media’s lack of coverage of
the LINK between the destruction the biosphere and corporate-capitalism.
They cover the destruction but dont LINK it to corporate-capitalism.
So that pisses me off. It pisses me off that they cover identity politics twenty-four hours a day, but never LINK anything to corporate-capitalism.
Blah blah blah….

And as for my criticism being a ‘white male perspective’, no its not. And yes it is. And no, its not. It would take a LONG post to flesh that all out, and i dont have the energy for that.

w
v

Zooey wrote:

Well, I don’t care very much about discussing the policies this time around because it’s like discussing whether I would rather be drawn and quartered, or tied down naked on top of an agitated nest of bullet ants. I imagine being drawn and quartered is worse, but I wouldn’t get any pleasure out of going into the details of either of these events.

————
I basically agree with that. And i think we KNOW Hillary’s policies.
She’s been around for a long time. Her policies are essentially the same as Bill’s and Obamas. More of the same, with some likely Identity Politix window-dressing.

Trump? We ‘cant’ know a lot of his policies, cause he’s Trump. But we know he’s got some hideous ideas and his supreme court appointments would be mind-bogglingly dangerous.

w
v

Zooey wrote:

Trump, who is on to something, will still probably fail to win simply because he’s an asshole.

So we can debate his opinions all we want, but the plain truth is that he expresses his opinions in such an irresponsible way that many people will refuse to vote for him.

————–

He’s toast. He’s Linehan. Remember when Linehan was losing the team
he kinda tried to change his style a bit, near the end. Trump is doing that.
Its a sure sign of desperation.

It is done. President Hillary Clinton.

I’m hoping Jill breaks five percent. I’d like to see that.

w
v

…and…of course…they are endangered for all the usual reasons. Including Plastic.

w
v
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090315224258.htm
They survived the extinction of the dinosaurs. They’re descendants of one of the oldest family trees in history, spanning 100 million years. But today leatherback turtles, the most widely distributed reptiles on Earth, are threatened with extinction themselves, in large part due to the carelessness of humans…

…Since leatherbacks prefer eating jellyfish, it’s widely believed they mistake bags or other plastics for their meals. Since jellyfish and marine debris concentrate where ocean water masses meet, leatherbacks feeding in these areas are vulnerable to ingesting plastic.

Once leatherbacks ingest plastic, thousands of spines lining the throat and esophagus make it nearly impossible to regurgitate. The plastic can lead to partial or even complete obstruction of the gastrointestinal tract, resulting in decreased digestive efficiency, energetic and reproductive costs and, for some, starvation.

“Plastics ingestion doesn’t always cause death, but there are clearly health risks to the turtles,” says Dr.James.

….Leatherback turtles are classified as critically endangered world-wide. The true population size is not precisely known, as only adult females come ashore for nesting in remote tropical locations. During the summer and fall, Canadian waters support the highest density of foraging leatherbacks in the North Atlantic.