The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

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whatwouldcooleydo?
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by whatwouldcooleydo? »



No one in the room asked about the Israeli-sourced intel that Trump shared with his Russian overlords, but once again, he just couldn't keep his mouth shut :roll:
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Cole Younger
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Cole Younger »

Zip City wrote:Am I missing out on something? I watch/read news constantly and have no recollection of wild, violent "resistance" protestors causing widespread panic?
This is the part that drives me crazy. The way it gets dismissed. Say what you want about the Tea Party, love them or hate them they never came close to being the violent mob they were portrayed as and never got within shouting distance of anything approaching Berkeley. And yet to this day they are spoken about like something dangerous that was worthy of being feared.

And the resistance did what they did at Berley and the reaction is..." Well it only happened once. There have been lots of other protests and nothing happened. No big deal."

If a bunch of conservative protestors even so much as turned over a trash can or farted loudly we would never hear the end of it.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Iowan »

Cole Younger wrote:
Zip City wrote:Am I missing out on something? I watch/read news constantly and have no recollection of wild, violent "resistance" protestors causing widespread panic?
This is the part that drives me crazy. The way it gets dismissed. Say what you want about the Tea Party, love them or hate them they never came close to being the violent mob they were portrayed as and never got within shouting distance of anything approaching Berkeley. And yet to this day they are spoken about like something dangerous that was worthy of being feared.

And the resistance did what they did at Berley and the reaction is..." Well it only happened once. There have been lots of other protests and nothing happened. No big deal."

If a bunch of conservative protestors even so much as turned over a trash can or farted loudly we would never hear the end of it.
The Berkeley protestors weren't part of any main stream liberal organization. They were anarchist nut jobs who've been roundly rejected by any typical left wing individual.

Did Cliven Bundy not stage a violent right wing protest? What about the people who got beat up at Trump rallies?

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Cole Younger »

Iowan wrote:
Cole Younger wrote:
Zip City wrote:Am I missing out on something? I watch/read news constantly and have no recollection of wild, violent "resistance" protestors causing widespread panic?
This is the part that drives me crazy. The way it gets dismissed. Say what you want about the Tea Party, love them or hate them they never came close to being the violent mob they were portrayed as and never got within shouting distance of anything approaching Berkeley. And yet to this day they are spoken about like something dangerous that was worthy of being feared.

And the resistance did what they did at Berley and the reaction is..." Well it only happened once. There have been lots of other protests and nothing happened. No big deal."

If a bunch of conservative protestors even so much as turned over a trash can or farted loudly we would never hear the end of it.
The Berkeley protestors weren't part of any main stream liberal organization. They were anarchist nut jobs who've been roundly rejected by any typical left wing individual.

Did Cliven Bundy not stage a violent right wing protest? What about the people who got beat up at Trump rallies?
Yep. You would need a jet pack to make the leap from me to Cliven Bundy and I sure am not in support of beating anyone up over politics. Not sure what your point is, Iowan other than playing tit for tat.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Iowan »

Cole Younger wrote:
Iowan wrote:
The Berkeley protestors weren't part of any main stream liberal organization. They were anarchist nut jobs who've been roundly rejected by any typical left wing individual.

Did Cliven Bundy not stage a violent right wing protest? What about the people who got beat up at Trump rallies?
Yep. You would need a jet pack to make the leap from me to Cliven Bundy and I sure am not in support of beating anyone up over politics. Not sure what your point is, Iowan other than playing tit for tat.
You've made a pretty big deal about how violent The Resistance (whatever the fuck that actually is) is and how the right would be beaten up in the court of public opinion. My point is a similar level of violence has existed on the right and hasn't really drawn more ire than what happened on the left.

I'm not comparing you to Bundy, he's just an example of violent right wing protest. There does seem to be something that bugs you a lot about the use of the term "resistance" that surprises me a bit, as based on your posting history I get the impression that while you wouldn't necessarily embrace such a thing, you wouldn't white wash it all as violent mob activity either.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Cole Younger »

Iowan wrote:
Cole Younger wrote:
Iowan wrote:
The Berkeley protestors weren't part of any main stream liberal organization. They were anarchist nut jobs who've been roundly rejected by any typical left wing individual.

Did Cliven Bundy not stage a violent right wing protest? What about the people who got beat up at Trump rallies?
Talking about that crowd of nutbag's and what they did is making a big deal out of it? I think maybe you're making a little deal out of it.

Yep. You would need a jet pack to make the leap from me to Cliven Bundy and I sure am not in support of beating anyone up over politics. Not sure what your point is, Iowan other than playing tit for tat.
You've made a pretty big deal about how violent The Resistance (whatever the fuck that actually is) is and how the right would be beaten up in the court of public opinion. My point is a similar level of violence has existed on the right and hasn't really drawn more ire than what happened on the left.

I'm not comparing you to Bundy, he's just an example of violent right wing protest. There does seem to be something that bugs you a lot about the use of the term "resistance" that surprises me a bit, as based on your posting history I get the impression that while you wouldn't necessarily embrace such a thing, you wouldn't white wash it all as violent mob activity either.
You're right. It does bug me. Because honestly I think a sizeable chunk of the people who identify as part of it don't even know what they are resisting. What does it even mean anyway? If it just means trying mobilize for the mid terms and producing momentum for '20 with success in '18 that's totally legit and a worthy cause.

If means acting like a mob of screaming, petulant babies who lose their minds over everything down to how much ice cream the president gets and swinging g from hysteria to hysteria that's another thing entirely. None of that is going to produce anything in the way of positive results and is likely to be counterproductive. You see what eight years of telling people who didnt agree that they were stupid did. It got us Donald Trump. Doubling down and ratcheting up that sort of behavior seems like an odd choice.

I see this spiralling into something really ugly, man. And the legitimization of that sort of thing seems like something that is going to be bad for all of us. That's why it bugs me. And I know for a fact if Hillary had won and there was a resistance talking about how she wasn't legitimate etc it would be called sexist and if it had happened when Obama was president it would have been racism. I'm just tired of all that.

I don't see this leading anywhere but bad places. I think we are going to see more instances like Berkeley. I hope I'm wrong.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Wolf »

there is no "resistance".

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Cole Younger »

Wolf wrote:there is no "resistance".
Explain.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Wolf »

Cole Younger wrote:
Wolf wrote:there is no "resistance".
Explain.
just a word. liberals are doing nothing to resist, which i don't know what they're resisting. trump is POTUS. what are they "resisting"? buncha upper middle class whiteys acting like they know strife 8-)

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Iowan »

Cole Younger wrote:
Iowan wrote:
Cole Younger wrote:
Talking about that crowd of nutbag's and what they did is making a big deal out of it? I think maybe you're making a little deal out of it.

Yep. You would need a jet pack to make the leap from me to Cliven Bundy and I sure am not in support of beating anyone up over politics. Not sure what your point is, Iowan other than playing tit for tat.
You've made a pretty big deal about how violent The Resistance (whatever the fuck that actually is) is and how the right would be beaten up in the court of public opinion. My point is a similar level of violence has existed on the right and hasn't really drawn more ire than what happened on the left.

I'm not comparing you to Bundy, he's just an example of violent right wing protest. There does seem to be something that bugs you a lot about the use of the term "resistance" that surprises me a bit, as based on your posting history I get the impression that while you wouldn't necessarily embrace such a thing, you wouldn't white wash it all as violent mob activity either.
You're right. It does bug me. Because honestly I think a sizeable chunk of the people who identify as part of it don't even know what they are resisting. What does it even mean anyway? If it just means trying mobilize for the mid terms and producing momentum for '20 with success in '18 that's totally legit and a worthy cause.

If means acting like a mob of screaming, petulant babies who lose their minds over everything down to how much ice cream the president gets and swinging g from hysteria to hysteria that's another thing entirely. None of that is going to produce anything in the way of positive results and is likely to be counterproductive. You see what eight years of telling people who didnt agree that they were stupid did. It got us Donald Trump. Doubling down and ratcheting up that sort of behavior seems like an odd choice.

I see this spiralling into something really ugly, man. And the legitimization of that sort of thing seems like something that is going to be bad for all of us. That's why it bugs me. And I know for a fact if Hillary had won and there was a resistance talking about how she wasn't legitimate etc it would be called sexist and if it had happened when Obama was president it would have been racism. I'm just tired of all that.

I don't see this leading anywhere but bad places. I think we are going to see more instances like Berkeley. I hope I'm wrong.
There was a resistance to Obama. Congress was very open in their intent to produce his failure. People on the right acted like petulant children and lost their minds over everything he did. It wasn't the word used, but this behavior is increasingly common human behavior.

I think at the end of the day, to most people it just means being a public opponent of Trump and mobilizing a better effort to oust him in 2020. I'd wager this is what it means to Patterson and Cooley. To a very small percentage that have grabbed your attention, it means violent behavior.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by whatwouldcooleydo? »

Wolf wrote: buncha upper middle class whiteys
their economic anxiety doesn't matter?
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

Wolf wrote:
Cole Younger wrote:
Wolf wrote:there is no "resistance".
Explain.
just a word. liberals are doing nothing to resist, which i don't know what they're resisting. trump is POTUS. what are they "resisting"? buncha upper middle class whiteys acting like they know strife 8-)
You almost hit a home run here but in your determination to troll and bait rather than actually discuss you pulled it foul.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

Cole Younger wrote:
Zip City wrote:Am I missing out on something? I watch/read news constantly and have no recollection of wild, violent "resistance" protestors causing widespread panic?
This is the part that drives me crazy. The way it gets dismissed. Say what you want about the Tea Party, love them or hate them they never came close to being the violent mob they were portrayed as and never got within shouting distance of anything approaching Berkeley. And yet to this day they are spoken about like something dangerous that was worthy of being feared.

And the resistance did what they did at Berley and the reaction is..." Well it only happened once. There have been lots of other protests and nothing happened. No big deal."

If a bunch of conservative protestors even so much as turned over a trash can or farted loudly we would never hear the end of it.
I don't think Berkeley makes your point, CY. To the extent that Berkeley is your only example, the real message is that what you're describing is not happening widely. The Berkeley riot(s) were the work of a group of avowed anarchists whose goal was to disrupt for the sake of disruption and perhaps (I'm not clear on this) to be violent for the sake of violence. As you and others have implied the "resistance" is such an amorphous term that maybe this anarchist group is part of the resistance, maybe it isn't. But it sure isn't representative, see, e.g., the women's march, the science march and other large, widespread and completely non-violent protests that clearly represent the mainstream of people who identify w/ the resistance.

The Middlebury College incident might be more indicative of what you're getting at but it, too, is an outlier and was more threatening than violent. It has not been widely repeated and was denounced as much or more as it was supported. But it was organized and effected by people who would probably self-identify as part of the resistance and who largely fit Wolf's description.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

Cole Younger wrote:
Zip City wrote:Am I missing out on something? I watch/read news constantly and have no recollection of wild, violent "resistance" protestors causing widespread panic?
This is the part that drives me crazy. The way it gets dismissed. Say what you want about the Tea Party, love them or hate them they never came close to being the violent mob they were portrayed as and never got within shouting distance of anything approaching Berkeley. And yet to this day they are spoken about like something dangerous that was worthy of being feared.
I think that was an accurate perception. People hadn't gone out armed to demonstrations since the Greensboro massacre. Doing so was an escalation. It certainly got my attention. A sufficiently cynical left (America doesn't have a left, cynical or idealistic or anything in-between, just a squishy moderate-liberal bunch of people, though there are signs of this changing among the young) would have gone out to provoke them into shooting someone, but that didn't happen. Someone sufficiently cynical might look out today and say that was a missed opportunity, and I suppose it was, but it also would have been an escalation. Today I'm just as happy to have missed that opportunity. I hope I don't look back in ten years and think I was wrong.

As it was, the Tea Party going armed to demonstrations had the desired result. They took over the Republican Party and now they have a President who is On Their Side. The going armed part was, I think, part of what gave them heft and seriousness. My liberal friends who fear gun cooties were constitutionally unequipped to understand that.
Cole Younger wrote:And the resistance did what they did at Berley and the reaction is..." Well it only happened once. There have been lots of other protests and nothing happened. No big deal."

If a bunch of conservative protestors even so much as turned over a trash can or farted loudly we would never hear the end of it.
You can't really say "the resistance" as though it were an organization. It's a movement.

Again, there was a premeditated shooting of a protester by rightists in Seattle in January. How much did you hear about that? It was a tumultuous situation, not unlike those we've had throughout American history. That people on one side shot people on the other went essentially unnoticed. Media downplay.
beantownbubba wrote:I don't think Berkeley makes your point, CY. To the extent that Berkeley is your only example, the real message is that what you're describing is not happening widely. The Berkeley riot(s) were the work of a group of avowed anarchists whose goal was to disrupt for the sake of disruption and perhaps (I'm not clear on this) to be violent for the sake of violence. As you and others have implied the "resistance" is such an amorphous term that maybe this anarchist group is part of the resistance, maybe it isn't. But it sure isn't representative, see, e.g., the women's march, the science march and other large, widespread and completely non-violent protests that clearly represent the mainstream of people who identify w/ the resistance.
That's the difference between an organization and a movement. You can control who's part of an organization. You can't control who's part of a movement. I'm sure there are a lot of conservatives who are appalled at the antics of the neo-nazis and white nationalists who are part of their movement. I'm sure they'd put them out if they could. But they can't. And since we have a very weak party system which has virtually no control over the officials they put into office, they can't keep them from traveling with Their President and having his ear. And I'm sure there are also some conservatives who are appalled at those same thugs and believe they are useful and can be controlled. They're wrong about the latter, which they may find out to their great chagrin. I hope the lesson isn't too dear, for all our sakes.

Speaking of media downplay, there were two sides to the Berkeley riots. Some rightist rioters sent out instructions on arming for the demonstration with clubs and shields, which some did. They prepped for violence. Again, media downplay on that. The media is trying, in a way that is more ham-fisted than even-handed, to cool people off, and it's working, but only on one side. They mean well. Bless their hearts.

I'm a big fan of Doug Muder's Weekly Sift. This week, he wrote an article I call to everyone's attention. (Especially mine! I stare into the abyss a lot and I dream things I can't keep inside. But sometimes a void is just a void, not an Elder God ready to eat us all.)

Step Around The Benghazi Trap
We need to stay on guard against the worst: If the tension keeps ratcheting up inside the White House, eventually somebody is bound to suggest a Reichstag Fire — a real or fake attack on America that is supposed to make us circle the wagons around our Leader.

Or our enemies could decide that now, while the country is divided and so many of us are inclined to disbelieve anything our president says, is exactly the right time to launch a real attack.

As Americans, we need to keep the pressure on our elected representatives to take all this seriously. We need to stay ready to protest in the streets if it all goes wrong, just as Tunisians and Egyptians did to chase their corrupt leaders into retirement.

But while we’re making sure we’ll be geared up for whatever happens, we also need to make sure we’re staying in touch with reality, and that we’re maintaining the separation between what we know, what we suspect, and what we’re getting ready for just in case.
I'm big on reality. It's not a very nice place to visit, but it's the only place I'd live. I sure wish I were certain I'm there now.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by dime in the gutter »

Image
statue of robert e. lee at lee circle in nola being taken down.

the last of 4 confederate era statues that have loomed over the city for 130+ years.



mayor mitch landrieu's speech.....
Thank you for coming.

The soul of our beloved city is deeply rooted in a history that has evolved over thousands of years; rooted in a diverse people who have been here together every step of the way—for both good and for ill. It is a history that holds in its heart the stories of Native Americans—the Choctaw, Houma Nation, the Chitimacha. Of Hernando de Soto, Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, the Acadians, the Islenos, the enslaved people from Senegambia, Free People of Colorix, the Haitians, the Germans, both the empires of France and Spain. The Italians, the Irish, the Cubans, the south and central Americans, the Vietnamese, and so many more.



You see, New Orleans is truly a city of many nations, a melting pot, a bubbling cauldron of many cultures. There is no other place quite like it in the world that so eloquently exemplifies the uniquely American motto: e pluribus unum: out of many we are one. But there are also other truths about our city that we must confront. New Orleans was America’s largest slave market, a port where hundreds of thousands of souls were bought, sold, and shipped up the Mississippi River to lives of forced labor, of misery, of rape, of torture. America was the place where nearly 4,000 of our fellow citizens were lynched, 540 alone in Louisiana; where the courts enshrined “separate but equal”; where Freedom riders coming to New Orleans were beaten to a bloody pulp. So when people say to me that the monuments in question are history, well, what I just described is real history as well, and it is the searing truth.



And it immediately begs the questions, why there are no slave ship monuments, no prominent markers on public land to remember the lynchings or the slave blocks; nothing to remember this long chapter of our lives; the pain, the sacrifice, the shame … all of it happening on the soil of New Orleans. So for those self-appointed defenders of history and the monuments, they are eerily silent on what amounts to this historical malfeasance, a lie by omission. There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it.



For America and New Orleans, it has been a long, winding road, marked by great tragedy and great triumph. But we cannot be afraid of our truth. As President George W. Bush said at the dedication ceremony for the National Museum of African American History & Culture, “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.” So today I want to speak about why we chose to remove these four monuments to the Lost Cause of the Confederacy, but also how and why this process can move us towards healing and understanding of each other. So, let’s start with the facts.



The historic record is clear: The Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, and P.G.T. Beauregard statues were not erected just to honor these men, but as part of the movement which became known as The Cult of the Lost Cause. This “cult” had one goal—through monuments and through other means—to rewrite history to hide the truth, which is that the Confederacy was on the wrong side of humanity. First erected over 166 years after the founding of our city and 19 years after the end of the Civil War, the monuments that we took down were meant to rebrand the history of our city and the ideals of a defeated Confederacy. It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America. They fought against it. They may have been warriors, but in this cause they were not patriots. These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history. These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy, ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement and the terror that it actually stood for.



After the Civil War, these statues were a part of that terrorism as much as a burning cross on someone’s lawn; they were erected purposefully to send a strong message to all who walked in their shadows about who was still in charge in this city. Should you have further doubt about the true goals of the Confederacy, in the very weeks before the war broke out, the Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy. He said in his now famous “corner-stone speech” that the Confederacy’s “cornerstone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery—subordination to the superior race—is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”



Now, with these shocking words still ringing in your ears, I want to try to gently peel from your hands the grip on a false narrative of our history that I think weakens us, and make straight a wrong turn we made many years ago. We can more closely connect with integrity to the founding principles of our nation and forge a clearer and straighter path toward a better city and a more perfect union.



Last year, President Barack Obama echoed these sentiments about the need to contextualize and remember all our history. He recalled a piece of stone, a slave auction block engraved with a marker commemorating a single moment in 1830 when Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay stood and spoke from it. President Obama said, “Consider what this artifact tells us about history. … On a stone where day after day for years, men and women … bound and bought and sold and bid like cattle on a stone worn down by the tragedy of over a thousand bare feet. For a long time the only thing we considered important, the singular thing we once chose to commemorate as history with a plaque, were the unmemorable speeches of two powerful men.”



A piece of stone—one stone. Both stories were history. One story told. One story forgotten or maybe even purposefully ignored. As clear as it is for me today … for a long time, even though I grew up in one of New Orleans’ most diverse neighborhoods, even with my family’s long proud history of fighting for civil rights … I must have passed by those monuments a million times without giving them a second thought. So I am not judging anybody, I am not judging people. We all take our own journey on race.



I just hope people listen like I did when my dear friend Wynton Marsalis helped me see the truth. He asked me to think about all the people who have left New Orleans because of our exclusionary attitudes. Another friend asked me to consider these four monuments from the perspective of an African American mother or father trying to explain to their fifth-grade daughter who Robert E. Lee is and why he stands atop of our beautiful city. Can you do it? Can you look into that young girl’s eyes and convince her that Robert E. Lee is there to encourage her? Do you think she will feel inspired and hopeful by that story? Do these monuments help her see a future with limitless potential? Have you ever thought that if her potential is limited, yours and mine are too? We all know the answer to these very simple questions. When you look into this child’s eyes is the moment when the searing truth comes into focus for us. This is the moment when we know what is right and what we must do. We can’t walk away from this truth.



And I knew that taking down the monuments was going to be tough, but you elected me to do the right thing, not the easy thing and this is what that looks like. So relocating these Confederate monuments is not about taking something away from someone else. This is not about politics. This is not about blame or retaliation. This is not a naive quest to solve all our problems at once.



This is, however, about showing the whole world that we as a city and as a people are able to acknowledge, understand, reconcile and most importantly, choose a better future for ourselves, making straight what has been crooked and making right what was wrong. Otherwise, we will continue to pay a price with discord, with division and, yes, with violence.



To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor is an inaccurate recitation of our full past. It is an affront to our present, and it is a bad prescription for our future. History cannot be changed. It cannot be moved like a statue. What is done is done. The Civil War is over, and the Confederacy lost and we are better for it. Surely we are far enough removed from this dark time to acknowledge that the cause of the Confederacy was wrong.



And in the second decade of the 21st century, asking African Americans—or anyone else—to drive by property that they own; occupied by reverential statues of men who fought to destroy the country and deny that person’s humanity seems perverse and absurd. Centuries-old wounds are still raw because they never healed right in the first place. Here is the essential truth: We are better together than we are apart.



Indivisibility is our essence. Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world? We radiate beauty and grace in our food, in our music, in our architecture, in our joy of life, in our celebration of death; in everything that we do. We gave the world this funky thing called jazz, the most uniquely American art form that is developed across the ages from different cultures. Think about second lines, think about Mardi Gras, think about muffaletta, think about the Saints, gumbo, red beans and rice. By God, just think.



All we hold dear is created by throwing everything in the pot; creating, producing something better; everything a product of our historic diversity. We are proof that out of many we are one — and better for it! Out of many we are one — and we really do love it! And yet, we still seem to find so many excuses for not doing the right thing. Again, remember President Bush’s words. “A great nation does not hide its history. It faces its flaws and corrects them.”



We forget, we deny how much we really depend on each other, how much we need each other. We justify our silence and inaction by manufacturing noble causes that marinate in historical denial. We still find a way to say, “Wait, not so fast.” But like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Wait has almost always meant never.” We can’t wait any longer. We need to change. And we need to change now.



No more waiting. This is not just about statues, this is about our attitudes and behavior as well. If we take these statues down and don’t change to become a more open and inclusive society this would have all been in vain. While some have driven by these monuments every day and either revered their beauty or failed to see them at all, many of our neighbors and fellow Americans see them very clearly. Many are painfully aware of the long shadows their presence casts; not only literally but figuratively. And they clearly receive the message that the Confederacy and the cult of the lost cause intended to deliver.



Earlier this week, as the cult of the lost cause statue of P.G.T Beauregard came down, world renowned musician Terence Blanchard stood watch, his wife Robin and their two beautiful daughters at their side. Terence went to a high school on the edge of City Park named after one of America’s greatest heroes and patriots, John F. Kennedy. But to get there he had to pass by this monument to a man who fought to deny him his humanity.



He said, “I’ve never looked at them as a source of pride … it’s always made me feel as if they were put there by people who don’t respect us. This is something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime. It’s a sign that the world is changing.” Yes, Terence, it is. And it is long overdue. Now is the time to send a new message to the next generation of New Orleanians who can follow in Terence and Robin’s remarkable footsteps.



A message about the future, about the next 300 years and beyond: Let us not miss this opportunity, New Orleans, and let us help the rest of the country do the same. Because now is the time for choosing. Now is the time to actually make this the City we always should have been, had we gotten it right in the first place.



We should stop for a moment and ask ourselves: At this point in our history — after Katrina, after Rita, after Ike, after Gustav, after the national recession, after the BP oil catastrophe and after the tornado — if presented with the opportunity to build monuments that told our story or to curate these particular spaces, would these monuments be what we want the world to see? Is this really our story?



We have not erased history; we are becoming part of the city’s history by righting the wrong image these monuments represent and crafting a better, more complete future for all our children and for future generations. And unlike when these Confederate monuments were first erected as symbols of white supremacy, we now have a chance to create not only new symbols, but to do it together, as one people. In our blessed land we all come to the table of democracy as equals. We have to reaffirm our commitment to a future where each citizen is guaranteed the uniquely American gifts of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.



That is what really makes America great and today it is more important than ever to hold fast to these values and together say a self-evident truth that out of many we are one. That is why today we reclaim these spaces for the United States of America. Because we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all, not some. We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. And New Orleanians are in … all of the way. It is in this union and in this truth that real patriotism is rooted and flourishes. Instead of revering a four-year brief historical aberration that was called the Confederacy, we can celebrate all 300 years of our rich, diverse history as a place named New Orleans, and set the tone for the next 300 years.



After decades of public debate, of anger, of anxiety, of anticipation, of humiliation and of frustration. After public hearings and approvals from three separate community led commissions. After two robust public hearings and a 6–1 vote by the duly elected New Orleans City Council. After review by 13 different federal and state judges. The full weight of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government has been brought to bear and the monuments, in accordance with the law, have been removed. So now is the time to come together and heal and focus on our larger task. Not only building new symbols, but making this city a beautiful manifestation of what is possible and what we as a people can become.



Let us remember what the once exiled, imprisoned, and now universally loved Nelson Mandela and what he said after the fall of apartheid. “If the pain has often been unbearable and the revelations shocking to all of us, it is because they indeed bring us the beginnings of a common understanding of what happened and a steady restoration of the nation’s humanity.” So before we part let us again state the truth clearly.



The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity. It sought to tear apart our nation and subjugate our fellow Americans to slavery. This is the history we should never forget and one that we should never again put on a pedestal to be revered. As a community, we must recognize the significance of removing New Orleans’ Confederate monuments. It is our acknowledgment that now is the time to take stock of, and then move past, a painful part of our history.



Anything less would render generations of courageous struggle and soul-searching a truly lost cause. Anything less would fall short of the immortal words of our greatest president, Abraham Lincoln, who with an open heart and clarity of purpose calls on us today to unite as one people when he said, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds … to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Thank you.

good on you, mitch.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by whatwouldcooleydo? »

I am pretty sure Trey Gowdy

Image

is the son of

Image
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by whatwouldcooleydo? »

dime in the gutter wrote:Image
statue of robert e. lee at lee circle in nola being taken down.

the last of 4 confederate era statues that have loomed over the city for 130+ years.
one less second-place trophy ;)
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

dime in the gutter wrote:good on you, mitch.
"By God, just think."

I'm less sure about "think about the Saints." I get the practical intent to connect w/ the audience and to keep things on something of a populist level, but do the Saints really hold that big a place in the city's heart and identity? That's an actual question, btw, not rhetorical.

While it shouldn't be true, that doesn't mean it's not: Parts of the speech took some courage to "officially" state as fact:

"The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity." "...the cause of the Confederacy was wrong." "To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor ... is an affront to our present and it is a bad prescription for our future." "The Cult of the Lost Cause." "It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America. They fought against it... in this cause they were not patriots." "...Alexander Stephens made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy."

What post of mine would be complete w/out some overthinking? I don't understand what the Mayor means by "There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it." It seems to say something different than what comes before it when it's clearly meant to be consistent w/ or sum up the prior sentences.

It seems that all American roads eventually lead to Abraham Lincoln. It is indicative of his towering and singular place in history that his words and ideals continue to soar, inspire and hit all the right notes:
dime in the gutter wrote:“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds … to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by tinnitus photography »

that was a great speech by the mayor.

bubba, i do think the Saints are very revered in NOLA.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

beantownbubba wrote:What post of mine would be complete w/out some overthinking? I don't understand what the Mayor means by "There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it." It seems to say something different than what comes before it when it's clearly meant to be consistent w/ or sum up the prior sentences.
Let's look at what Mister Google has to say about these two words.

The second, most applicable, meaning of remembrance: the words the action of remembering the dead, especially in a ceremony.

The meaning of reverence as a noun: deep respect for someone or something.

Also note that he said of history rather than for history. He's talking about having history rather than about history as an idea. Lincoln and Douglas had history; we learn that from history.

So what he's saying is that remembering the dead or a lost cause, especially in a ceremonial or formal way, is different from deeply respecting them or it. The former is politesse; the latter is love.

Does that help unpack what I agree is a sentence that may try a little too hard? An interesting bit of data is to click the big arrow underneath each definition and see how both words' usage has steadily declined since about 1850 and only recently upticked around 2010. He's using older language there, I assume deliberately or at least consciously. Perhaps he aspires to speak to the ages.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Tequila Cowboy »

beantownbubba wrote:
dime in the gutter wrote:good on you, mitch.
"By God, just think."

I'm less sure about "think about the Saints." I get the practical intent to connect w/ the audience and to keep things on something of a populist level, but do the Saints really hold that big a place in the city's heart and identity? That's an actual question, btw, not rhetorical.

While it shouldn't be true, that doesn't mean it's not: Parts of the speech took some courage to "officially" state as fact:

"The Confederacy was on the wrong side of history and humanity." "...the cause of the Confederacy was wrong." "To literally put the Confederacy on a pedestal in our most prominent places of honor ... is an affront to our present and it is a bad prescription for our future." "The Cult of the Lost Cause." "It is self-evident that these men did not fight for the United States of America. They fought against it... in this cause they were not patriots." "...Alexander Stephens made it clear that the Confederate cause was about maintaining slavery and white supremacy."

What post of mine would be complete w/out some overthinking? I don't understand what the Mayor means by "There is a difference between remembrance of history and reverence of it." It seems to say something different than what comes before it when it's clearly meant to be consistent w/ or sum up the prior sentences.

It seems that all American roads eventually lead to Abraham Lincoln. It is indicative of his towering and singular place in history that his words and ideals continue to soar, inspire and hit all the right notes:
dime in the gutter wrote:“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds … to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
First, yes the Saints are a huge part of life in NOLA. Lots of "whodat"s and fluer di lis. I think the Saints represent the city's rise after Katrina and whatever role the team played in the city before it will now be forever linked to that time.I'm not certain how the remembrance vs reverence line seems incongruous to you. The chief argument of those that did not want the monuments removed was that by doing so you erase history. Landrieu posits otherwise.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

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Picture in search of a caption:
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Now it's dark.

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by beantownbubba »

Although I haven't read it yet, I saw that Frank Bruni wrote a column in the NYT in praise of Landrieu's speech. I'm glad that it appears to be getting at least some of the attention it deserves.

Thanks, JohnA.

TC, I think it would probably be counterproductive and confusing to explain what I don't understand about the remembrance/reverence line, lol. JohnA has pretty much covered it.

I'm interested/surprised in the Saints' status. I've been to NOLA multiple times both before and after Katrina and did not pick up on their status being anything more than a popular home team. My bad.

With a night to sleep on it, that "By God, just think" line seems even bolder, in its general challenge, its stance against the current state of public discourse and in its implicit message that his POV is obvious.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

beantownbubba wrote:Thanks, JohnA.
You're welcome. It was enjoyable to think hard about something that was exactly the opposite of a festering pile of shit.
beantownbubba wrote:With a night to sleep on it, that "By God, just think" line seems even bolder, in its general challenge, its stance against the current state of public discourse and in its implicit message that his POV is obvious.
Yep. It's a mostly plain-spoken speech with the occasional rhetorical flourish. Look at the paragraph it ends:
Mitch Landrieu wrote:Indivisibility is our essence. Isn’t this the gift that the people of New Orleans have given to the world? We radiate beauty and grace in our food, in our music, in our architecture, in our joy of life, in our celebration of death; in everything that we do. We gave the world this funky thing called jazz, the most uniquely American art form that is developed across the ages from different cultures. Think about second lines, think about Mardi Gras, think about muffaletta, think about the Saints, gumbo, red beans and rice. By God, just think.
Five times he uses that word in that paragraph. Four times, it's in a cadence, as 'think about', about precious things held dear. The fifth time, it takes all that gathered power and just throws it out there bare. Just think.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Wolf »

Flea wrote:Picture in search of a caption:
Image
popeman ain't smilin' cuz he realizes he fucked up by absolving 2000 child molestin' priests
http://yournewswire.com/pope-francis-ab ... e-priests/

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

Wolf wrote:
Flea wrote:Picture in search of a caption:
Image
popeman ain't smilin' cuz he realizes he fucked up by absolving 2000 child molestin' priests
http://yournewswire.com/pope-francis-ab ... e-priests/
Skepticism is the worst form of gullibility, but cynicism runs a close second. Here's the story that Your Newswire distorted. Takes some doing to make Fox News look good, but they managed it.

ETA: And while we're on the subject of skepticism, which like so many drugs is real, real good for you unless you take too much of it: Helpful Hints for Skeptics
7) Never give yourself excuses. If you don’t have the time to think something through, to explore it, to look at all the perspectives possible, to ask the counter-intuitive questions, then fine: you don’t have the time. Don’t decide that you already know all the answers without having to do any of the work. Don’t start flapping your gums about the results of your skepticism if you never did the work of thinking skeptically about something.

8) Never be obsessive in your interest in a single domain or argument. If you have something that is so precious to you that you can’t afford to subject it to skepticism, if you have an idee fixe, if you’re on a crusade, you’re not a skeptic.
One of those is a good rule of thumb I spend a lot of time reminding myself to follow. Skeptically, of course.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by Flea »

Wolf wrote:
Flea wrote:Picture in search of a caption:
Image
popeman ain't smilin' cuz he realizes he fucked up by absolving 2000 child molestin' priests
http://yournewswire.com/pope-francis-ab ... e-priests/

Sorry, I was looking for something more along the lines of "Take the picture then get the fuck out of my office!" or "Wednesday Addams makes her first Communion". But thanks for trying, little fella! Your Participation Award is on the way.
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

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Flea wrote:Picture in search of a caption:
Image
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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

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Clams wrote:
Flea wrote:Picture in search of a caption:
Image
She visits my grave when the night winds wail

Original Screen Test for The Handmaidens Tale
Love each other, Motherfuckers!

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Re: The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

To misquote Mark Twain, "Suppose you were a thug, and suppose you were a Republican member of Congress--but I repeat myself."

(it's audio over a picture of Gianforte)

A crew from Fox News at the scene not only refutes Gianforte’s version of events, but gives greater detail on what appears to have been an even more violent exchange than reporter Ben Jacobs first described. Fox News reporter Alicia Acuna, who was preparing for an interview with Gianforte on Special Report with Bret Baier, writes that she and her crew were chatting with the GOP candidate before the interview was set to begin when Ben Jacobs approached.
Fox News reporter Alicia Acuna wrote:During that conversation, another man — who we now know is Ben Jacobs of The Guardian — walked into the room with a voice recorder, put it up to Gianforte's face and began asking if him if he had a response to the newly released Congressional Budget Office report on the American Health Care Act. Gianforte told him he would get to him later. Jacobs persisted with his question. Gianforte told him to talk to his press guy, Shane Scanlon. At that point, Gianforte grabbed Jacobs by the neck with both hands and slammed him into the ground behind him. Faith, Keith and I watched in disbelief as Gianforte then began punching the man, as he moved on top the reporter and began yelling something to the effect of "I'm sick and tired of this!"
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