The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

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chuckrh
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by chuckrh »

beantownbubba wrote:
Sat Sep 11, 2021 12:43 pm
tinnitus photography wrote:
Sat Sep 11, 2021 9:20 am
Oh yeah, he couldn't do that since he cut taxes.
The way I remember it, he couldn't do infrastructure because he and his team were incompetent and clueless. I mean how hopeless do you have to be to turn the phrase "infrastructure week" into an actual joke? The same way he and his incompetent and clueless team couldn't provide better healthcare at lower cost, or provide more middle class jobs, or save the coal industry, or teach China a lesson or get NATO to pay for the defense we provide...or .... or ...;or.... The guy never had a clue and never had an interest in governing, at least not while the golf course beckoned (he would be working so hard for us that he'd never have time to golf). His 3 accomplishments: 1. A tax cut, which turned out to be for him and his buddies and which burdened the rest of us w/ hundreds of billions of dollars of more debt without providing any of the promised economic growth. 2. A NAFTA trade treaty which was necessary because he blew up the first one and achieved virtually nothing in the redo except we had NAFTA before him and we still have NAFTA now. 3. An astonishingly quick, surprisingly effective vaccine against a pandemic, which he disavows. Remember eliminating the deficit? Remember 8% annual growth? Remember better health care for less? Remember jobs? Well, neither does he. But he can probably walk his golf course blindfolded.

Edit: I really shouldn't ignore #4; it's just hard when his "achievement" is my disaster, but it has to be acknowledged that he re made the federal courts including the Supreme Court in just the way his supporters wanted. OTOH, it is my oft-stated belief that in 20 or 50 years this period will be looked back upon as the time when the decline of the judiciary accelerated and became irreversible. Hey, you say potato, I say potahto.
Lot of collective brain damage out there bubba....

Cole Younger
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Cole Younger »

tinnitus photography wrote:
Sat Sep 11, 2021 9:20 am
Cole Younger wrote:
Thu Sep 09, 2021 5:19 pm
tinnitus photography wrote:
Tue Sep 07, 2021 9:31 pm


totally agree that the Dem party needs to improve the lives of people, and between the infrastructure bill and the pullout it's progress for sure. what did Trump do other than give a tax break that heavily favored the guys he golfs with?
My taxes went down. I appreciated getting to keep more of my money.
and as always, Trump really took good care of people like himself (pass-through LLCs) and his cronies:
On a static basis, the plan would lead to at least 0.8 percent higher after-tax income for all taxpayer quintiles. The plan would lead to at least 10.2 percent higher incomes for the top 1 percent of taxpayers or as much as 16.0 percent higher, depending on the nature of a key business policy provision.
cool that everyone got a few hundred bucks back, though. and wasn't he gonna do great things w/ infrastructure? Oh yeah, he couldn't do that since he cut taxes.
Why do so many democrats who are financially well off white people act like they don’t like financially well off white people? One of the more obnoxious characteristics of the democrats is this myth they like to tell themselves and about themselves that they are the party of the working class. The most vocal democrats despise the working class. The Democratic Party is the party of white, financially well off, college educated, urbanites. They make fun of the people they claim to be for and it’s pretty plain they feel superior to those people. The Democratic Party stopped being the party of the working class and became the party of the HR Department years ago. Do you honestly think the average working class American cares about the things the Democratic Party is so preoccupied with? Gender pronouns and the obsession with race and climate change? Because if you think working class people spend any time at all thinking about that stuff it proves my point as to how far out of touch the Democratic Party is with working people and how badly they have fooled themselves. Joe Biden is the perfect face for this. At his peak he wasn’t much. He was an empty suit and political hack who has spent his entire life in Washington not doing much of anything. A low level of corruption style grifter who has sat on his ass and lined his pockets and helped credit card companies more than anyone besides himself and his family. He was always a guy who couldn’t quite get there but could pick up on just enough of the jargon from the more skilled politicians to cobble together this flimsy image of folksiness with his references to kitchen tables and Scranton. Good old blue collar Joe the “good Irish catholic”
has never really had a real job in his adult life. He’s caricature and not even a very convincing one. And this was all before he started falling up the stairs. The democrats and their obsession with identity groups while giving lip service to the working class even as they mock the working class as they demand more of their money while fighting for a multi trillion dollar alleged infrastructure bill that will crush working people lead by this demented old pervert who tells working class people to “trust in the government” are equal parts hilarious and insulting. The arrogance and narcissism of these people is astounding.
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tinnitus photography
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by tinnitus photography »

first off, why do you think i don't like financially well off white people? and secondly, do you know how this tax break significantly benefited a small silver of these white people? If you get compensation from a salary (reported as W2) or stock gains (1099-B), the provisions in that tax break do not apply. the big ones, anyway. as you mentioned, everybody got a little something.

read up on it here if you'd like:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... propublica


you raise other good points that i might address later but weren't the gist of my original post. if you like foreshadowing, i'll say this - the mainstream democratic party is all talk and is just as cozy w/ the business and lobbying interests as their counterparts. that's why people like Bernie and AOC scared them so much, because they actually do care about equality and fairness.

Cole Younger
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Cole Younger »

tinnitus photography wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 9:51 am
first off, why do you think i don't like financially well off white people? and secondly, do you know how this tax break significantly benefited a small silver of these white people? If you get compensation from a salary (reported as W2) or stock gains (1099-B), the provisions in that tax break do not apply. the big ones, anyway. as you mentioned, everybody got a little something.

read up on it here if you'd like:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... propublica


you raise other good points that i might address later but weren't the gist of my original post. if you like foreshadowing, i'll say this - the mainstream democratic party is all talk and is just as cozy w/ the business and lobbying interests as their counterparts. that's why people like Bernie and AOC scared them so much, because they actually do care about equality and fairness.
Well I would love to hear more. I mean that. I’m in total agreement that the Democratic Party is as full of it as a Christmas turkey and that makes me wonder why so many people here vote for them for the reasons they state.


I think Bernie Sanders is horribly misguided but I do think he truly believes what he says and thinks it would work. I do t know how genuine I think AOC is but I think she’s pretty harmless to the people who freak out about her because I don’t think she’s all that skilled of a politician. Of course Joe Biden isn’t either and he’s the president.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by tinnitus photography »

we all done talking about why Trump's tax bill sucked?

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Zip City »

Curious why blue collar voters choose to vote Republican if neither party actually cares about the working class? If we agree that neither party is doing jack or shit for the working man, then the tie breaker goes to those social issues.
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Cole Younger
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Cole Younger »

Zip City wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:35 am
Curious why blue collar voters choose to vote Republican if neither party actually cares about the working class? If we agree that neither party is doing jack or shit for the working man, then the tie breaker goes to those social issues.
Yep. Plus, the Republicans hate the working class too but they aren’t openly insulting them and high fiving each other when they do it. Pretty easy to default to the people who don’t call you deplorable, bitter clingers, etc and don’t openly mock you for being those stupid gun/truck/Jesus people.
I don’t know why that’s hard to understand.
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Cole Younger
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Cole Younger »

tinnitus photography wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 10:09 am
we all done talking about why Trump's tax bill sucked?
We don’t have to be. Is my role supposed to be to defend it? About all I can say about it is my taxes went down under Trump and maybe I’m not supposed to have likes that but I did. That’s pretty much the long and short of what I can say in favor of it.
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Zip City
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Zip City »

Cole Younger wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 12:13 pm
Zip City wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:35 am
Curious why blue collar voters choose to vote Republican if neither party actually cares about the working class? If we agree that neither party is doing jack or shit for the working man, then the tie breaker goes to those social issues.
Yep. Plus, the Republicans hate the working class too but they aren’t openly insulting them and high fiving each other when they do it. Pretty easy to default to the people who don’t call you deplorable, bitter clingers, etc and don’t openly mock you for being those stupid gun/truck/Jesus people.
I don’t know why that’s hard to understand.
One side is calling them deplorable, the other side is turning them against one another to line their own pockets. I don't know how one is worst than the other? Is it because Republicans lie to them and tell them what they want to hear (while doing the opposite)?
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Cole Younger
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Cole Younger »

Zip City wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 1:17 pm
Cole Younger wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 12:13 pm
Zip City wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 11:35 am
Curious why blue collar voters choose to vote Republican if neither party actually cares about the working class? If we agree that neither party is doing jack or shit for the working man, then the tie breaker goes to those social issues.
Yep. Plus, the Republicans hate the working class too but they aren’t openly insulting them and high fiving each other when they do it. Pretty easy to default to the people who don’t call you deplorable, bitter clingers, etc and don’t openly mock you for being those stupid gun/truck/Jesus people.
I don’t know why that’s hard to understand.
One side is calling them deplorable, the other side is turning them against one another to line their own pockets. I don't know how one is worst than the other? Is it because Republicans lie to them and tell them what they want to hear (while doing the opposite)?
Probably. I’m sure there are people who really think the Republicans are better. I mean I know there are Inguess it’s just a matter of how much do think they’re better. The open contempt the democrats have for the working class can’t be overstated in terms of why working class people tend to prefer the Republicans. But I do think there is a shift taking place. Conservatives seem to be waking up to the fact that not only do the Republicans not like them either, the two political parties aren’t even the worst of it.

If you’re a conservative and you think about who holds you and your values in greater contempt, the democrats or the New York Times editorial board, the average faculty at an American university, there’s no comparison.

Washington is irredeemable and conservatives are finally realizing A they have no friends there and B once it gets there it’s the fourth quarter and all you can do is play defense.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

Cole Younger wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:00 pm
conservatives are finally realizing A they have no friends there
I assume you mean except for the tax cut thing and the Supreme Court thing and the voting rights thing and the environment thing...

But of course you do raise the important question of what does it mean to be "conservative" in the USA in 2021? I don't know, the Republican Party doesn't know, self-proclaimed conservatives don't know, so it makes it difficult to tell the players and the teams even w/ a scorecard.
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Cole Younger
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Cole Younger »

beantownbubba wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:31 pm
Cole Younger wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:00 pm
conservatives are finally realizing A they have no friends there
I assume you mean except for the tax cut thing and the Supreme Court thing and the voting rights thing and the environment thing...

But of course you do raise the important question of what does it mean to be "conservative" in the USA in 2021? I don't know, the Republican Party doesn't know, self-proclaimed conservatives don't know, so it makes it difficult to tell the players and the teams even w/ a scorecard.
Conservatives don’t know why they’re conservative? Nah, gotta disagree. Now you might get different variations in answers but there would be a lot of overlap.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

Cole Younger wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:40 pm
Conservatives don’t know why they’re conservative?
I'm assuming that your "why" is the same as my "what." IOW, I'm talking about the ideas, ideals, beliefs, principles, etc that make up American conservatism. Now I wonder...

Is it conservative to insist on a balanced budget?
Is it conservative to believe in ever lower taxes, subject to tax revenues matching government expenses?
Is it conservative to be pro big business/anti regulation in virtually all circumstances?
Is it conservative to believe in free trade?
Is it conservative to be anti-communist and anti-left wing authoritarianism?
Is it conservative to believe that immigration is generally positive and to encourage immigrants to become citizens?
Is it conservative to want US foreign policy, including military intervention to actively advance perceived US interests?*
Is it conservative to prevent the government from "picking winners and losers" by supporting favored companies and industries?
Is it conservative to believe in the meritocracy?
Is it conservative to believe in a limited judiciary, w/ or w/out a belief in "originalism"?
Is it conservative to believe in "family values" (undefined)?

All of these used to be fundamental to conservative ideology. Now?

*I acknowledge that there has always been a strong isolationist element in conservative circles but at least since WWII it has been smaller and less influential
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beantownbubba
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

beantownbubba wrote:
Sat Sep 11, 2021 12:43 pm
I really shouldn't ignore #4; it's just hard when his "achievement" is my disaster, but it has to be acknowledged that he re made the federal courts including the Supreme Court in just the way his supporters wanted. OTOH, it is my oft-stated belief that in 20 or 50 years this period will be looked back upon as the time when the decline of the judiciary accelerated and became irreversible. Hey, you say potato, I say potahto.
As always, timing is everything. Just a couple of days after I posted the above, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America Amy Coney Barrett gave a speech in which she declared that it was her goal to convince her audience that the Supreme Court is not made up of a bunch of partisan hacks.

Here's a tip, Justice Barrett, which I give you for free because that's just the kind of guy I am: If you feel the need to tell the world that you're not a partisan hack, the overwhelming likelihood is that you're a partisan hack. As others in the linked article observe, you also might not want to give that speech at an event celebrating a partisan hack who happens to be responsible for your elevation to the Supreme Court through mechanisms that can only be described as partisan hacking. I feel like I've been using the term "chutzpah" way too much lately, but how else can one describe the effrontery and cluelessness of this speech?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... ecb9d75c61
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beantownbubba
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

beantownbubba wrote:
Mon Sep 13, 2021 10:37 am
Cole Younger wrote:
Sun Sep 12, 2021 2:40 pm
Conservatives don’t know why they’re conservative?
I'm assuming that your "why" is the same as my "what." IOW, I'm talking about the ideas, ideals, beliefs, principles, etc that make up American conservatism. Now I wonder...

Is it conservative to insist on a balanced budget?
Is it conservative to believe in ever lower taxes, subject to tax revenues matching government expenses?
Is it conservative to be pro big business/anti regulation in virtually all circumstances?
Is it conservative to believe in free trade?
Is it conservative to be anti-communist and anti-left wing authoritarianism?
Is it conservative to believe that immigration is generally positive and to encourage immigrants to become citizens?
Is it conservative to want US foreign policy, including military intervention to actively advance perceived US interests?*
Is it conservative to prevent the government from "picking winners and losers" by supporting favored companies and industries?
Is it conservative to believe in the meritocracy?
Is it conservative to believe in a limited judiciary, w/ or w/out a belief in "originalism"?
Is it conservative to believe in "family values" (undefined)?

All of these used to be fundamental to conservative ideology. Now?

*I acknowledge that there has always been a strong isolationist element in conservative circles but at least since WWII it has been smaller and less influential
Here's another version of the point I'm trying to make. Perhaps I should have said something like "traditionally conservative" rather than "conservative" but the point was and is that the old "truths" and understandings of conservatism are either evolving or crumbling.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... p_opinions
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beantownbubba
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

Dueling news headlines received almost simultaneously in my news feed:

From the WaPo: Poverty in the US fell overall in 2020 due to massive stimulus payments supporting Americans and the economy during the pandemic.

From CNN: Covid-19 pushed more into poverty in 2020, up to 11.4% from 10.5% in 2019 due to the impact of the pandemic.

Don't believe everything you read.
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beantownbubba
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

I feel like Emily Litella. What's this I hear about health care rationing? I tole youze that Obamacare thing was no good. What's that you say? It has nothing to do with Obamacare? It's all about the unvaccinated? Never mind.
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beantownbubba
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

Tom Friedman's column in today's NYT is about how tribalism is undermining/destroying democracy, especially pluralistic democracy in the US and around the world. It seems to me to be mostly pretty standard stuff in this day and age, but it includes this paragraph:

"Leadership matters: The American population has diversity similar to the U.S. military’s, but the ethic of pluralism and teamwork shown by many of our men and women in uniform reduces the tribal divisions within the armed forces. It’s not perfect but it is real. Ethical leadership based on principled pluralism matters. That is why our military is our last great carrier of pluralism at a time when more and more civilian politicians are opting for cheap tribalism."

I can't say I know a whole lot about the military but from my distance this seems to be right. And if you grew up when I grew up I assume you find this to be as astonishing as I find it. This represents a remarkable sea change and is something we all ought to be proud of and seek to emulate in our public lives. But mostly it's just astonishing. And for that reason, inspiring. But mostly astonishing.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

The question has been raised, what do working people actually want? Here's an attempt at an answer at least with respect to a portion of the smorgasbord of proposals currently being bandied about.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/14/opin ... sk-breadth
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beantownbubba
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

Don't mind me, I'm just talking to myself.

I think this column is incredibly dense and deep. Too much for me to unpack in one go but I think it's really important. In one sense, it explains Friedman's concerns about "tribalism" (see above). In other senses it explains why so many of us are so cynical about politics in general and "the other" in particular and most importantly, I think, it synthesizes things that need to be synthesized to be understood.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/opin ... tives.html
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beantownbubba
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

Don't mind me, I'm just talking to myself.

I think this column is incredibly dense and deep, chock full of ideas worth considering. Too much for me to unpack in one go but I think it's really important. In one sense, it explains Friedman's concerns about "tribalism" (see above). In other senses it explains why so many of us are so cynical about politics in general and "the other" in particular and most importantly, I think, it synthesizes things that need to be synthesized to be understood.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/opin ... tives.html
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

I've been thinking about this post, how much I both agree and disagree with it, for a while now.
Cole Younger wrote:
Sat Sep 11, 2021 9:57 pm
The Democratic Party is the party of white, financially well off, college educated, urbanites. They make fun of the people they claim to be for and it’s pretty plain they feel superior to those people. The Democratic Party stopped being the party of the working class and became the party of the HR Department years ago. Do you honestly think the average working class American cares about the things the Democratic Party is so preoccupied with? Gender pronouns and the obsession with race and climate change? Because if you think working class people spend any time at all thinking about that stuff it proves my point as to how far out of touch the Democratic Party is with working people and how badly they have fooled themselves.
That's true and it's not true. The top of the Democratic Party is largely controlled by the wealthy. There's no question about that, especially since the Clinton era. The party leadership mostly sucks.

It's also the party of ninety-some percent of black people, most of whom are working class. They live on a wage and are nobody's boss. Being working class is about economics and power, not whether you like wine and cheese or beer and pretzels. It has jack shit to do with blue tribe/red tribe signifiers.

So I can assure you there are a big chunk of working class people who do care about race right there.

As for pronouns, I think you're right that not many people care that much, either way. They care when it touches them. If they've got a kid like mine who wants new pronouns, then they'll care.* If they feel they're being pressed to change their language to match ideas they don't share, then they'll care.

I'm on one side of that, but I try not to be stupid about it. Having lived through the late seventies well into the eighties on the left, I've seen this before. New ideas come in. People jump into them feet-first. Some of it is great and some of it is not and it takes time to sort out which is which.

This dropped in today from The Atlantic: Pregnant People?

It's an interesting interview, as much for what the interviewee says as for what questions she avoids answering.
beantownbubba wrote:
Wed Sep 15, 2021 11:27 am
The question has been raised, what do working people actually want? Here's an attempt at an answer at least with respect to a portion of the smorgasbord of proposals currently being bandied about.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/14/opin ... -biden.htm
That's a biased sample of the working class, picked to get the answers its right-wing sponsors wanted. That it's in a form that also pleases the typical upclass liberal snob audience of the Times is just a bonus:
For the focus groups, we recruited participants mostly without college degrees, some married, some single or cohabiting, ranging in age from their 20s to their early 50s. We talked to parents putting in the hours without expecting much in the way of a career progression, in jobs like retail clerk, HVAC installer, stay-at-home mom and part-time entrepreneur, and social worker.
Seriously now, fuck every definition of "working class" that talks about anything but wages and power.

*I cared before; I took action on my caring after.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

On Doing Your Own Research
It’s easy to laugh at the conspiracy theorists. But our expert classes aren’t entitled to blind trust.


I liked this quite a bit.
All the same, I cringe when one of these memes appears on my social media feed, because I know how they’ll be received by the people they target. The experts are telling them: “Shut up, you dummy, and believe what you’re told.”

They’re going to take that message badly, and I actually don’t blame them. Because there is a real crisis of expertise in the world today, and it didn’t appear out of nowhere during the pandemic. It’s been building for a long time.

Liberal skepticism. Because the Trump administration was so hostile to expertise, we now tend to think of viewing experts skeptically as a left/right issue. But it’s not. Go back, for example, and look at liberal Chris Hayes’ 2012 book The Twilight of the Elites. Each chapter of that book covers a different area in which some trusted corps of experts failed the public that put its faith them: Intelligence experts (and the journalists who covered them) assured us that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. Bankers drove the world economy into a ditch in 2008, largely because paper that turned out to be worthless was rated AAA. The Catholic priesthood, supposedly a guardian of morality for millions of Americans, was raping children and then covering it up.

Experts, it turns out, do have training and experience. But they also have class interests. Sometimes they’re looking out for themselves rather than for the rest of us.

More recently, we have discovered that military experts have been lying to us for years about the “progress” they’d made in promoting Afghan democracy and training an Afghan army to defend that democratic government.
And so on. He also says one thing a lot better than I do:
On this blog, I may not trust the New York Times and Washington Post to decide what stories are important and what they mean, but I do trust them on basic facts. If the NYT puts quotes around some words, I believe that the named person actually said those words (though I may check the context). If the WaPo publishes the text of a court decision, I believe that really is the text. And so on.

I also trust the career people in the government to report statistics accurately. The political appointees may spin those numbers in all sorts of ways, but the bureaucrats in the cubicles are doing their best.

In the 18 years I’ve been blogging, that level of trust has never burned me.
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

I am so sick of the periodic predictable dance about the debt ceiling. How the Democrats have not eviscerated the Republicans on this issue while the Republicans continue to torture the Democrats about it is a complete mystery to me. I guess I am terminally stupid but I have never been able to understand what the second side to this supposed "issue" is.

The Democrats are crazy if they make a single concession to the Republicans in order to get a couple of measly Republican votes in favor of lifting the ceiling. Biden apparently says the Dems won't, but we'll see. In the meantime, I am so, so, sooooo tempted to say fuck it, don't raise the ceiling, let's see what happens. But being a responsible person with the ability to link effects to causes and to understand the certain consequences of particular actions or inactions I don't get to have that temper tantrum. But damn it's tempting.
What used to be is gone and what ought to be ought not to be so hard

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

So what's the deal with the mayoral race in Boston?
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

John A Arkansawyer wrote:
Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:35 am
So what's the deal with the mayoral race in Boston?
I haven't really followed it that closely (I don't live in Boston proper so don't get to vote for city officials). But FWIW, I was somewhat surprised that the acting mayor, Kim Janey did not make the finals. Andrea Campbell also had heavyweight support, e.g. the Globe, so it's a bit surprising that she didn't make it, either. But Michelle Wu (the more progressive of the 2 remaining candidates) is certainly a well known and somewhat popular figure in Boston. I personally don't know much about the other finalist, Annissa Essabai George, but like Wu, she's a member of the City Council. She's considered a moderate but I'm not sure what that means in terms of local politics. FWIW, her policies hit most of the liberal/left agenda.

Both finalists are obviously women and both are said to be from racial minority backgrounds, though in George's case I'm not sure what that is.

In terms of "working class" and "progressive" issues, Wu has the liberal establishment e.g. Elizabeth Warren, but labor unions seem fairly split.

That's about all I got. Sorry.
What used to be is gone and what ought to be ought not to be so hard

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by jr29 »

A while back there was some discussion on her about the origins of the vitriol and division we see today between political factions. I made a case, or at least expressed my belief, that it started in the early 1990's with Rush Limbaugh, the rise of conservative talk radio, and Newt Gingrich. Well, lo and behold the CBC began a new podcast last week about that very subject. It's called "Flame Throwers" and I highly recommend it.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

John A Arkansawyer wrote:
Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:35 am
So what's the deal with the mayoral race in Boston?
This might be closer to what you were asking:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/09/15/ ... uthorQuery
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by tinnitus photography »

John A Arkansawyer wrote:
Mon Sep 20, 2021 8:09 am
Liberal skepticism. Because the Trump administration was so hostile to expertise, we now tend to think of viewing experts skeptically as a left/right issue. But it’s not. Go back, for example, and look at liberal Chris Hayes’ 2012 book The Twilight of the Elites. Each chapter of that book covers a different area in which some trusted corps of experts failed the public that put its faith them:

to be honest, i think these are lousy examples:
Intelligence experts (and the journalists who covered them) assured us that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.
Rumsy and Cheney were the spearheads here... did the journos and CIA/NSA types really believe it? who knows (and i think the answer is no), but they sure didn't sell it on TV.
Bankers drove the world economy into a ditch in 2008, largely because paper that turned out to be worthless was rated AAA.
bankers are greedy and figure out a way to trick the system... story at 11.
The Catholic priesthood, supposedly a guardian of morality for millions of Americans, was raping children and then covering it up.
what are the Catholics experts in again?

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by tinnitus photography »

beantownbubba wrote:
Tue Sep 21, 2021 6:50 pm
John A Arkansawyer wrote:
Tue Sep 21, 2021 8:35 am
So what's the deal with the mayoral race in Boston?
This might be closer to what you were asking:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/09/15/ ... uthorQuery
another take:

https://digboston.com/councilor-michell ... ral-final/

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