৩ ডিসেম্বর, ২০২০

At the Waning Gibbous Café...

IMG_1549 

... you can talk about whatever you want, including the same old topics you've been clinging to. You don't have to snap out of it. I'm not doing toxic positivity. I am giving you a place under the moon where you can be as boring as you like.

২১০টি মন্তব্য:

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Bruce Hayden বলেছেন...

“walter said...
“Chuck!
“Tell us the Biden policies you are looking forward to...especially if the Dems take the Senate.”

“No more crazy, malevolent, lying, shit-stupid Tweets.”

“I think that covers it.”

That isn’t policy. That’s presentation.

Maybe need to get a bit more specific:
Are you in favor of another 100 days of mandatory masking? National shutdown? Continued school shutdowns? K-12 public school teachers being paid to work from home?
Are you in favor of sending more money to Iran and removal of sanctions? Are you in favor of not supporting the Abraham accords?
Are you in support of removing sanctions on the PRC? Of reneging on sales of F-35s to their enemies?
Are you in favor of rejoining the Paris Accords (that exempted China and India)?
Are you in favor of banning Modern Sporting Rifles (e.g. AR-15s)? Taxing ammunition?
Are you in favor of reinstating the presumption that in he says/she says campus sexual harassment claims, the woman is always assumed to be right (unless they are a powerful Dem, or Biden’s son Hunter)?

No doubt others have their own questions for you. That is what, I believe he meant by Biden policies.

BUMBLE BEE বলেছেন...

And here is the tune... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCjMZMxNr-0

Phil 314 বলেছেন...

Well I’m refreshed by the responses to my upstream comment, a real conversation (as much as one can have on a blog comment section.). I have to admit that I agree with the one thing Chuck looks forward to: no more stupid presidential tweets.

BUT, I did vote for the guy.

BUT I’m heartened by the Republican wins down ticker.

AND I’m hoping this next four year will be the next phase of the slow shift that rejiggers the parties.

(PS, Michael K, I’ve actually found myself more conservative in the past 4 years.)

J. Farmer বলেছেন...

... you can talk about whatever you want, including the same old topics you've been clinging to. You don't have to snap out of it. I'm not doing toxic positivity. I am giving you a place under the moon where you can be as boring as you like.

Damn, Ann, that was savage. And completely accurate.

Republican and Democrat aren't just political parties. Like clans, thy are a form of group identity and thus subject to in-group/out-group duality. The conflict between these Democrats and Republicans is not an argument but a feud. An argument is an attempt to determine conclusions from premises. A feud begins with a conclusion, that one is a member of a group that has been aggrieved by members of another group, whose members have reached the same conclusion about your group. Each side believes the other is the instigator, and resentments on both sides fuel a series of provocations and retaliations.

The current feud was forged in the crucible of the Reagan revolution and begins getting hammered in the '82 election. By this point, each side has developed a narrative about the feud that is some mixture of legitimate grievances, false charges, hyperboles, misunderstandings, and gossip. Members of the group are aware to varying degrees of the narrative, and all subsequent events by the other side are filtered through this narrative. Efforts by members to question their own side's narrative are often met with derision or ostracism. Thus, there is little opportunity or incentive for reconciliation, and mutual reprisals keep the resentments bubbling.

That's why we saw Republicans go insane during the Clinton presidency, the Democrats go insane during the Bush presidency, Republicans go insane during the Obama presidency, Democrats go insane during the Trump presidency, and now Republicans are gearing up to go insane during the Biden presidency. Each side sees the other as malignant and treacherous and believes the only way to settle the feud is to win it.

Meanwhile, while the feud has been raging, members from each side were quietly cooperating on shared interests and now have much more power than their feuding peers. To maintain that power, the feud must go on.

And the feud goes on.

Qwinn বলেছেন...

Yes, Farmer, tell us how Republicans went "insane" during Clinton and Obama. Remind us of all the arson, rioting and looting of those years. List all the impeachments they suffered for investigating Republican crimes. Oh, and right, that time Republicans shut down the entire economy for 9 months just to get Clinton and Obama.

Republican "crazy" gets us McCain and Romney as candidates, the most leftist Republicans available.

Your moral equivalency in your obsessive pursuit to place yourself as morally superior to both sides really is repugnant.

But you're right about one thing. If Biden steals this election, you're finally going to see what crazy Republicans look like.

Narr বলেছেন...

BTW, there was no "East German Communist Party" in Marx's day.

I forgot to mention that last night, in response to a post by Qwinn(?).

Narr
Carry on

Qwinn বলেছেন...

I didn't say "East German Communist Party".

I said "East German Socialist Party". That's what I seem to remember.

Qwinn বলেছেন...

I found it.

In the first place, the majority of the "toiling people" in Germany consists of peasants, not proletarians.

Second, "democratic" means in German "Volksherrschaftlich" [by the rule of the people]. But what does "control by the rule of the people of the toiling people" mean? And particularly in the case of a toiling people which, through these demands that it puts to the state, expresses its full consciousness that it neither rules nor is ripe for ruling!


https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/ch03.htm

Which is exactly what I said it said.

"Critique of the Gotha Programme is a critique of the draft programme of the United Workers' Party of Germany."

Close enough.

Narr বলেছেন...

Close enough--but there was no "East German" anything in Marx's day. The concepts of East and West Germany, and Eastern and Western Europe, are artifacts of the Cold War, not natural or cultural divisions of ancient history.

As to Marx's opinion, sure, he was scathing about "the idiocy of rural life" IIRC. He didn't much care for Russians or Russia either, which is one reason Lenin had to improve on the original ideas and invent a Workers and Peasants movement.

At any rate, I'm glad the issue has been clarified.

Narr
Marx and Engels referred to the real workers' tribune--LaSalle--as "the Niggerjew."
(Sorry, Joe)


J. Farmer বলেছেন...

@Qwinn:

Yes, Farmer, tell us how Republicans went "insane" during Clinton...

Clinton Body Count

and Obama

Birthers, Obama is a radical Marxist-Islamist-Gay-Atheist-Kenyan-Anti-colonialist retreating from the world and borrowing into ruin.

List all the impeachments they suffered for investigating Republican crimes.

Might not want to bring up lame, desperate, doomed impeachments in regards to the Republicans. An independent counsel spent a few years looking into various charges. It turned out that a woman named Paula Jones was suing Clinton civilly for sex harassment, and during a deposition for that lawsuit, Clinton lied about screwing Monica Lewinski. You can read about it in a book called the Starr Report.

Your moral equivalency in your obsessive pursuit to place yourself as morally superior to both sides really is repugnant.

I haven't said one damn thing about morality. Even if my argument was completely accurate, it wouldn't make me morally superior. And if I was evil, it wouldn't make me wrong. t isn't about good guys or bad guys. The problems are systemic and related to broad social forces. It isn't a matter of individual moral agency.

But you're right about one thing. If Biden steals this election, you're finally going to see what crazy Republicans look like.

Oh, no, I knew plenty of George W. Bush supporters. Or as I called them, threat Level Red.

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