October 2010
Tone, Rationality, and Sanity
jgh2 writes:
Rally to Restore Sanity = the tone argument in meatspace.
Not everyone is going to be nice and quiet when they ask for their rights. They’re not going to be sane, either. And they don’t have to be. Because you’re denying them the things to which they are entitled as human beings. To be detached and “rational” about things is a privilege of those a safe distance from the problems...
There are a lot of people saying something, “I’m glad that Jon Stewart is telling the Right to simmer down. Because the Right is crazy. But he shouldn’t tell the Left to simmer down because we’re not crazy. We consider ourselves awfully reasonable.”
I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the point.
yellowbricks asked: I know you're consumed by all things political right now, but I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on Bank of America's new eCommunications Disclosure Agreement.
I'm thinking about cutting down my mailbox.
Never watching television has spared me a lot of negative political advertisements. But the direct mailings still show up. Nothing stops the mail.
Nothing except a cross-cut saw.
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“Honestly, my hopes are completely shot that we can do anything useful...”
– Marco’s reply to my last post.
While progressives have a lot to be concerned and frustrated by, I think this sentiment is misplaced. There’s a lot wrong with the country right now. I think everybody agrees on that. The kind of progress we want is slow—but it is happening. We...
Virg Bernero
Michigan’s Democratic gubernatorial candidate occupies the unprecedented position of somebody I can’t vote for and somebody I must vote for. I can’t vote for him because he’s playing awful Us vs. Them political games. Yes, Virg, I’m concerned about the American worker. But making a bogeyman out of China isn’t responsible. Also, he spends most of his time...
I don’t know, guys.
A lot of the projections of doom and gloom for the Democrats rely on assumptions about “likely voters.” The Democrats still have a pretty darn good ground game. I don’ t know that the Republicans have that sort of organization.I think the Dems will do better than expected.
Robert Reich: Halliburton and the Upcoming... →
robertreich:
Next Tuesday Americans will be deciding whether to hand over even more of our government to corporations that have been plundering America – such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citibank, Wellpoint insurance, Massey Energy, and Halliburton, the giant oil services company.
“I’ve had eighteen straight whiskeys. I think that’s the record.”
– Dylan Thomas
He died shortly thereafter.
My favorite part about the Rally to Restore Sanity...
We may soon have Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck railing against the liberal tyranny of sanity. The more mainstream conservative commentators will be more circumspect about it. “Sanity sounds great in theory—but is it just an elitist idea to control acceptable discourse?”
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The greatest trick George W. Bush ever played was convincing the electorate he’d never existed.
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The Tea Party's Voter Suppression Plans →
Meaningful voter fraud is an incredibly difficult thing to pull off. Putting in fake registrations (while highly illegal) is fairly straight forward. However, getting fake people to the polls to vote is challenging. You have to use real people. And, since there are actual election workers watching, you can really only vote once per polling location. If you try very, very hard you might be able to...
savingpaper:
Let me get this straight: You have the right to participate in the political process, saying what you want about various candidates and protesting the ones you dislike, all while not being thrown to ground and having your head stomped upon? That’s in the First Amendment?
There appears to be a misunderstanding here. The head-stomping was done by private citizens exercising their...
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Election predictions
A few Tuesdays back, I made a wildly irresponsible statement that the Democrats’ performance in the election would correlate to the performance of the stock market. In order to make my prediction falsifiable, I offered a very specific metric. Since then, the stock market has done really, really well. In short, my prediction is hosed. For me to get it right, the Democrats would need to make...
“President Obama’s approval ratings have jumped substantially, crossing the magic...”
– Poll: Obama Approval Jumps, Dems More Fired Up - Newsweek
In 2008, Obama got roughly 53% of the vote. So … what exactly has changed in the two years?
“Far from helping at-risk homeowners, the Home Affordable Modification Program...”
– Federal Auditor Says Obama’s Anti-Foreclosure Effort Risks ‘Generating Public Anger And Mistrust’
This is … misleading. The HAMP program is set up to allow the big banks to figure out who is eligible. The banks have done a shockingly bad job at this. This is a case where a...
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Confronting (and defeating) poverty
correlationstonone responded to my earlier post:
[T]he fundamental flaw of engaging poverty as a systemic social issue: the poor are incapable of articulating or describing their issues, to say nothing of formulating solutions.
How do you solve that? You don’t. There’s no way out. We’re at loggerheads, forever, with interested parties either burning out or implementing...
kohenari asked: On your Israel and Archbishop post from a bit earlier: I think you might want to qualify what you mean by "significant and influential" there at the end. Are you saying that a large and powerful group of Israelis believes that Israel exists by divine grant and that this group also believes that God gives them carte blanche when it comes to human rights? If so, I think you need a...
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Deconstructing Power Hierarchies →
Abby Jean posted a fascinating and interesting discussion of how we approach and talk about poverty.
I hope we can understand how this kind of dynamic, in which the underprivileged have to explain and defend themselves to the privileged, merely reproduces the hierarchy of oppression we want to end. If we are unwilling to trust underprivileged people’s own insights on being underprivileged, who...
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Israel and Archbishops
Last night I posted an abbreviated exchange between Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister and Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros:
squashed via CNN:
Archbishop Cyril Salim Bustros: There is no longer a chosen people — all men and women of all countries have become the chosen people. Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon: We call on the Vatican to distant themselves from Archbishop Boutros’...
Arch Bishop Cyril Salim Bustros: There is no longer a chosen people -- all men and women of all countries have become the chosen people.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon: We call on the Vatican to distant themselves from Archbishop Boutros' comments which are a libel against the Jewish People and the State of Israel ....
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Today's prize for using numbers irresponsibly goes...
Politico cites the disparity between the many new voters on college campuses registered before the 2008 election and the comparably few new voters registered before the 2010 election as evidence that college students are less enthusiastic in 2010 than they were in 2008. (Or, to use the language Politico apparently believes college students use, it’s “so not 2008.”)
The general...
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Should We Ridicule Tea Party Protestors?
Matthew McVickar writes:
What do you make of this interview with Noam Chomsky where he says that the left has failed to organize Tea Party members, who have legitimate concerns but have instead fallen prey to right-wing ideologues whose voices are that of a massive propaganda campaign of tyrannical corporatism? On the one hand, I feel he’s right: it would be nice if figures on the left...
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The Democrats will do okay on November 2
There will be losses. That much is inevitable. Their 2008 wins were unsustainable. The 2010 losses probably won’t be catastrophic. Since this is just a midterm election, they’ll have time to get things together before 2012. Since the craziest of the Republicans will probably lose their elections, some more moderate Republicans will suddenly find themselves in power.
I think the...
“Charity is no substitute for justice withheld.”
– Saint Augustine (via azspot)
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On Free Speech (and Juan Williams)
Valuing freedom of expression doesn’t stop where Constitutional protection ends. It’s entirely possible for a corporation to stiffle certain forms of expression in a way that neither assault the Constitutional guarantee of free speech nor promotes a culture that welcomes good-faith dissent.
Before going further, I should say that I don’t care a whole lot one way or another...
Why Is Obama "Fighting to Keep DADT?" →
southpol:
Keven Drum states the most charitable case for Obama here.
Basically, the deal he made with Secretary Gates and the Joint Chiefs is this: I’ll let you control the process, write the rules, and move things along at a deliberate pace. In return, you’ll promise not to publicly oppose repeal. The tradeoff is simple: DADT repeal will take a little longer, but it will end up having the...
The Chamber of Commerce is Meddling in Politics... →
That shouldn’t surprise anybody. If a business group wants to endorse candidates it considers friendly to business, that’s okay.
But it’s going beyond endorsement. It is spending $144 million dollars on lobbying. Yes, that makes it the biggest lobbyist in the United States. And this isn’t money raised from a broad base of it’s hundred of thousands of members. The...
“It’s like a snake’s trying to swallow a rat, and it gets stuck halfway. We’re...”
– Arizona state treasurer Dean Martin, on what he believes will happen if foreclosures slow down. (via officialssay)
Technically that makes no sense. But it does sound like Dean is on the snakes’ side.
hehimself asked: I've seen a lot of talk recently about "makers and takers" with the bulk of it focusing on an alleged correlation between "hard work" and earned income. Who are these people kidding? Name a job that sucks, that's miserable and difficult and physically demanding. Is that person well compensated? Nearly without exception the answer is no. Now think of the most well-paid...
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“For some, jobless benefits trump a job”
StandUpForHumanity links to an article titled Work sometimes pays less than benefits in such a weak job market by Allison Lynn, and submitted the following commentary, which I’m going to try to interrupt as few times as possible…
With the incentive to work and produce vanishing from society, it’s getting to be that people simply don’t even see the need to work. Why would you work...
What we do when we're not helping
Snarkiness can be fun. It can be nasty—but it can also be funny. It might be a net gain for the world. But sometimes … the snarkiness doesn’t help.
I think Gurl goes to Africa is one of the blogs that isn’t helping. (I know guys. There are a lot of blogs that aren’t helping. Singling one out is probably a waste of time. But everytime something from that blog comes...
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“Martin and Kirsten Davis, meanwhile, lost their home in Cleveland to foreclosure...”
– Cleveland.com - Mortgage foreclosure uproar sweeps up Northeast Ohioans
Curiously, the errors discussed here are not the reasons the banks did their foreclosure moratorium. For whatever reason, this sort of problem hasn’t gotten the sort of attention it deserves. I suspect that will change...
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A funny story about Colorado ...
The Tea Party Guy, Dan Maes won the Republican gubernatorial primary. It turns out he’s had some problems. He even upset enough of the other crazy-conservatives that Tom “Bomb Mecca” Tancredo entered the race on the Constitution Party. Tancredo is now polling well ahead of Maes but behind the Democrat.
Between Maes and Tancredo, it’s hard to decide who would be worse for...
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“Today it is fashionable to talk about the poor. Unfortunately, it is not...”
– Mother Teresa (via azspot)
Pentagon Lets Recruiters Take Openly Gay... →
“Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state? … You’re...”
– Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell, in a debate with her opponent Chris Coons, after he told her that the First Amendment calls for separation of church and state. (via officialssay)
I can only assume she followed this up by saying, “Seriously? Oh, wow. I’ve got...
Crazy "Rent Is Too Damn High" Candidate Steals the... →
Crazy? Hardly. He had a single issue. He brought it to state and national attention. He succeeded brilliantly.
The candidate for the Rent is Too Damn High Party doesn’t expect to win an election. He doesn’t expect to get enough votes to influence things one way or another. The goal is to raise awareness on an issue and force the other candidates to address it. Then, if 1% of New...
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Why We Vote the Way We Vote
stfuteabaggers writes:
No political party should have to reduce itself to five words. people shouldn’t need a catchy slogan to cast their vote. Americans are too damn stupid to know what they want, but they vote anyway. If you don’t have any opinions, don’t vote. It’s your civic duty, and a responsibility that you should be taking very seriously.
...
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“In a New York Times/CBS News Poll last month, fewer than one in 10 respondents...”
– What if a president cut Americans’ income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed? (via southpol)
The Democrats’ problem isn’t that they’re not doing things that people would like—if they knew it. Their actual record over the past two years may not be perfect—but...
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Obtuse Angle
Republican candidate Ms. Sharron Angle,
Decided that science could get kids’ brains tangled
That Mexicans menace and ought to be wrangled,
That social security funds should be strangled,
And spending on veterans should slowly be mangled,
That Sharia creeps, and our courts could be wangled,
That flouride in water is just too new-fangled,
And a fifty star flag is a little too spangled.
Making nothing out of something: Panopticomical →
correlationstonone:
You’re only bound by the internet and the modern self-surveillance society to the extent you want to express or embody that society’s norms. Keep in mind you are free and clear to engage in all sorts of clandestine social spelunking at the relatively cheap cost of the acceptance of parents, peers,…
The catch, of course, is how we feel about the approval of those...
Jonathan Coulton - Mandelbrot Set
Rest in Peace,...
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Challenged Assumptions about Autism
Earlier today, I made a pitch asking those who are able to for everybody to donate to a non-profit I’ve spent most of my Saturday mornings volunteering for. Here’s a story from my time there. (And, for anybody getting annoyed at the repeated appeals for the same worthy cause—this will be the last one.)
By now, I ought to have learned to be careful when making assumptions about...
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Republican hopeful Iott,
Says, “A Nazi? I’d never … I’m not …
I just like the S.S.
For the slick way they dress.
Power and guns get me hot.”
