THE RATIONAL ANIMAL WALK: We've been insulting The Others for a very long time!

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2018

We seem to be blind to this fact:
What did we see on our autumn vacation? To the tune of The Baby Elephant Walk, let's start with an irony which was scattered through Saturday's New York Times.

On the op-ed page, Bret Stephens gloomily said that American liberalism had "pierced its own tongue" (had shot itself in the foot) as November's elections approach.

Stephens, a conservative NeverTrumper, has been rooting for a blue tidal wave as a reproach to Trump. In his column, he listed various ways in which, or so he said, American liberalism has recently made that outcome less likely.

He didn't skip the Kavanaugh hearings. Stephens included these remarks (about "American liberalism"):
STEPHENS (10/13/18): It [shot itself in the foot] when The New Yorker violated normal journalistic standards by reporting Deborah Ramirez’s uncorroborated allegation against Kavanaugh, and much of the rest of the media gave credence to Julie Swetnick’s lurid one. The pile-on wound up doing more to stiffen Republican spines against an apparent witch hunt than it did to weaken their resolve in the face of Blasey’s powerful accusation.

It [shot itself in the foot] when Susan Collins and other female Republicans who supported Kavanaugh’s confirmation were denounced as “gender traitors” in an eye-opening op-ed in this newspaper. Approximately 30 million women voted for Trump in 2016, and many of them (along with at least a few Clinton supporters) surely felt just as Collins did. Are they all “traitors,” too?
Stephens had a decent point about the treatment of the Ramirez and Swetnick claims. That said, the denunciation of all those "gender traitors" takes us to the front page of that same day's Times, where Matt Flegenheimer offered a somewhat peculiar analysis piece.

According to Flegenheimer, many liberals are wondering if we've been "going high" too often and too long. ("When they go low, we go high," Michelle Obama famously said and prescribed.)

Have we liberals been "going high" too long? It amazed us to think that anyone really believes that we've actually "gone high" at all.

Consider a piece from the next day's Sunday Review. After that, we'll return to Saturday's Times.

On the front page of the Sunday Review, the Times' editor on gender issues, Susan Chira, examined a major mystery. How in the world could any woman ever have voted for Donald J. Trump? How could women have sided with the Kavanaugh nomination?

How could any woman have taken these stances? As she started, Chira seemed to strike a sensible pose. She too cited the recent claim about "gender traitors:":
CHIRA (10/14/18): What are those women thinking?

The ones who cheered President Trump’s mockery of Christine Blasey Ford at a rally in Mississippi, tweeted #HimToo in support of their sons who might one day be, in their eyes, unfairly accused of assault?

On the left, they’re being reviled as gender traitors, depicted as betraying the sisterhood and acting against their own best interests. The Democrats’ hope for a blue wave rests on female voters coming out to register their displeasure with the president’s party. Women will be acting as a political force.

But women don’t automatically ally with other women, as Senator Susan Collins’s vote to confirm Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court demonstrated. Sisterhood doesn’t override partisanship or deeply held moral views. Victims of sexual harassment didn’t all believe Christine Blasey Ford. Women don’t act as one.

The question is why so many people are still surprised that they don’t, even after the election of 2016.
"Women don’t act as one," Chira sensibly noted. She then struck another sensible pose. In effect, she wondered why so many of us clueless liberals are still surprised by this blindingly obvious fact.

What makes us liberals so clueless? Whatever the answer may be, we thought of Flegenheimer's front page report as Chira turned to the associate professors to explain the evil and the craziness of The Others—of the women who refuse to react and vote in the ways we liberals are nice enough to prescribe.

Have we liberals been going too high all these years? When Chira turned to Associate Professor Cassese, a flood of name-calling ensued, with Cassese and Associate Professor Barnes giving us several new bombs to drop on the heads of our neighbors.

Apparently, it's no longer enough to denounce The Others, including Other women, as mere "sexists." Thanks to the high-minded work of the associate professors, we now understand that some of these women are "benevolent sexists" while most are "hostile sexists."

That said, everyone has to be some kind of sexist! It's one of the ways we go high!

(Amusingly, Chira writes this at one point: "No one is saying that being a Republican woman means being a sexist." She doesn't seem to realize that that is precisely the impression that she, and her associate professors, are conveying in her piece.)

We liberals! Even as we imagine ourselves going high, we love to drop our many bombs on the heads of our various neighbors. We've been doing it for a very long time. Consider the Loudon Wainwright piece which appeared in Saturday's New York Times.

At one time, Wainwright was married to the late Kate McGarrigle. In our view, she and her sister, Anna McGarrigle, performed as the most wickedly funny feminist writers of all time.

They also performed as lovers of life and of living things. As we read Saturday's Times, we were struck by one selection in Wainwright's list of his "top ten protest songs:"
WAINWRIGHT (10/13/18): “Little Boxes:" In 1963, Pete Seeger had a folk hit with this Malvina Reynolds composition. It’s nursery-rhyme-like melody offers a tinkly condemnation of what used to be called middle-class conformity. Tom Lehrer considered it “the most sanctimonious song ever written,” but I like it. Kate and Anna McGarrigle recorded a fine French version, “Petites BoĆ®tes,” in 2001.
Say it isn't so! Our favorite duo recorded Little Boxes?

Little Boxes wasn't a classic "protest song." That said, it was, and is, a classic "liberal superiority" song.

It satirized an every-house-the-same housing development in Daly City, California, just south of San Francisco. Rather quickly, the lyrics offer this uplifting assessment of our friends and neighbors:
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same
And there's doctors and lawyers
And business executives
And they're all made out of ticky-tacky
And they all look just the same.
Those Others! They were all made out of ticky-tacky and they all looked just the same!

This song was written in 1962. Already, we liberals were "going high" through popular lyrics like these.

True story! Two years earlier, at the age of 12, we had stayed in one of those little, fog-smothered houses in Daly City with our aunt and uncle as our family looked for a house after moving to California.

Were our aunt and our uncle, and our younger cousin, all made out of ticky-tacky too? In fairness, they hadn't gone to the university, so maybe they weren't included in this very typical high liberal "insult song."

(Just a guess. There weren't a lot of doctors, lawyers and business executives living in that modest, fog-smothered development. Those little boxes were very small. Did we mention that they were fog-smothered?)

We liberals! We've been insulting our lessers, The Others, for a very long time (and in an assortment of ways). But to the tune of The Baby Elephant Walk, we rational animals Over Here seem to be completely oblivious to the fact that we routinely do this.

We can see the dumb things The Others do. We can't seem to see the things we frequently do Over Here.

That said, The Others are able to hear the various things we say! To the tune of The Rational Animal Walk, this is one of the obvious ways we've managed to create our current debased situation.

What did we do on our autumn vacation? We also listened to NPR's Krista Tippett, whose sensibility we've admired for years.

Tippett's new episode was called Relationship Across Rupture. To the tune of The Potentially Educable Liberal Walk, let's start there tomorrow.

Also this: Wainwright wrote The Swimming Song. The McGarrigles perform it here.

78 comments:

  1. "What makes us liberals so clueless?"

    It's that you're a zombie cult, Bob.

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  2. Pete Seeger wasn't criticizing the people who lived in the little boxes. He was criticizing the system which tends to dehumanize those people. He was a consistent critic of the system. Call it the "oligarchy" if you will. And far from criticizing the people in the little boxes, whom Somerby inexplicably calls "The Others", Seeger is expressing sympathy for them. He himself had been accused of being a communist by "the system". He was labeled an "Other" himself.

    So now Somerby condemns Pete Seeger as condescending towards "The Others", whoever they are supposed to be in Somerby's mind.

    What's next? Will Somerby tell us that "The Others" supported the Vietnam War, and the hippie protesters were disrespectful of The Others' feelings? I cannot find any evidence of progressive beliefs in Somerby.

    Was his favorite song from the 60's "The Ballad of the Green Berets?"

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Hmm. I always assumed that all those doctors, lawyers and business executives made out of ticky-tacky are lib-zombies. And the contempt is well-placed and justified.

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    2. The book The Organization Man came out around the time that song was written. It decried the conformity imposed on workers by large corporations. The counter-culture similarly opposed that conformity, referring to it as being "plastic". That's what made the guy urging Dustin Hoffman to go into plastics extra funny. Zappa asked "Who are the plastic people?" But those plastic people in ticky-tacky weren't being criticized, the corporations were, society was. The people themselves were seen as victims, not Others.

      How did Somerby miss the 60s when he went to high school in California? My theory is that he was new there and it is hard to fit in as a new kid in high school when friendships are formed at much younger ages (see Mean Girls). So I believe he felt pretty alienated there and was happier when he got to Harvard. But then he discovered he couldn't compete with the better educated elites at Harvard and formed a dislike of professors (who were the instrument of his failure) and Ivy League kids, running into the arms of Baltimore's needy, where he could finally feel competent again. The humor he used as a defense mechanism ultimately became his career.

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    3. If you are an outsider, it is easier to identify with The Others. Maybe those adolescent feelings of being excluded or even ridiculed, has led Somerby to defend people he sees being treated as he was in his California high school days. But the whole point of a political campaign is not to agree with your opponents but to highlight points of difference with them, to make the choice clearer for voters. You don't go around saying nice things about the person you are running against (with any sincerity).

      Hard to see where Somerby's defense of Trump and his sexual abusing cronies is coming from. Does he identify with their crimes or the fact of being accused of something? What was Somerby accused of in his past? Stealing pencils from other kids?

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  3. The Kavanaugh hearings proved that the Left was right about the Right all along.
    Bob, OTOH, thinks it proves we're all sexual predators.

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  4. The reason many women supported Kavanaugh and Trump is because many of them have the same views as their husbands and have bought into the idea that women are indeed conniving individuals. Sometimes the biggest obstacles to women's equality is other women. Why would anyone, man or woman, vote for Trump.

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    1. The other reason is that their religion teaches that women should be subservient to men, that they should be modest and quiet and obedient. When men do bad things sexually, those women accept that men will be men and they blame the victim, the woman who was not at home and not in her place (or nothing bad would have happened to her).

      There are analyses of women's voting patterns. The majority vote the same as their husbands and support their husband's (men's) interests above their own. It is only now, with the Kavanaugh hearing, that some of these traditional voters are switching from voting Republican, like their husbands, and becoming Democrats and supporting non-Trump candidates. That is scaring the Republican party, as it should.

      These articles that are appearing, while superficially examining gender issues, are actually trying to set women against each other in order to drive defecting women back to Republican candidates. Somerby should recognize that, but he is too busy castigating liberals for going too low and saying mean things about Republicans.

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    2. "Why would anyone, man or woman, vote for Trump."

      Because he's immensely better than the alternative?

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    3. Yes, in your uninformed mind he is.

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    4. The word is "unzombified", dear dembot.

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    5. " ... in your uninformed mind ...."

      You mean "uninformed algorithm"?

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  5. "It amazed us to think that anyone really believes that we've actually "gone high" at all."

    Later, Somerby gives an example of Democrats going low and it consists of nothing more than criticizing conservatives.

    How do conservatives go low? They run ugly attack ads. They tell lies. They gerrymander and restrict voting rights of people who vote liberal. They take money from Russians laundered through the NRA. They commit FEC fraud in their campaigns. They disqualify ballots of liberal voters. They use robocalls to spread misinformation about voting dates and hours. And there are hundreds of stories about ugly things done in local campaigns by conservatives against liberals.

    When Trump attempted to bait Hillary, she maintained dignity and didn't respond in kind. That is what Michelle meant about going high. But no one meant that Democrats shouldn't fight back. And no one believes Democrats should do the illegal, unethical, and even traitorous things Republicans have done recently (recruiting Russia and Israel to manipulate our election, for example). Democrats are urging each other to be more aggressive in their campaigning, but in legal and ethical ways. And I believe they are doing that.

    I fully expect that Somerby will run a column tomorrow mocking Elizabeth Warren for testing her DNA. Yet this was an effective way for Democrats to fight back against Trump's mockery while showing him up as the bet-welcher and deadbeat he is. If he pays up, it affects his troubled cash flow at a time when he needs that money right before the midterms. That is fighting back but doing it cleanly, not dirty.

    But if Somerby thinks Democrats will win elections by saying nothing impolite to Republicans, he is wrong. And when Somerby makes statements like this, that would tie the hands of candidates and supporters, it makes me believe he is working for the other side, the people he fondly call The Other, as if this were not a two-party system.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. “But no one meant that Democrats shouldn't fight back.”

      Right! Democrats always fight back, and vociferously! But we never seem to hear it:

      LINK

      Ah what the fuck, I’m arguing with a bot. Mao, take heed. She’s better than you.

      Leroy

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    2. You aren't arguing with anyone when you call them a bot. There's no argument in that, just name calling.

      Delete
  6. I do not understand why Somerby is not keeping an open mind about the several women who have accused Kavanaugh of misconduct. They have plausible statements with corroborating witnesses and evidence and they are all open to investigation and want their claims to be scrutinized. It is the White House and Kavanaugh who prevented that.

    Instead of admitting the possibility that one or more of them might be making true claims, Somerby assumes they are all con artists or political operatives who are just smearing Kavanaugh and have no substance to their claims. On what basis? Just Kavanaugh's self-serving denial.

    Shouldn't a fair person be saying that they may or may not be correct and leave open the possibility that a sexual predator was put on the court without proper vetting? What happened to Somerby's famous fairness?

    Then he leaps to the conclusion that this is a Democratic dirty trick, accepting the Republican claims at face value. Again, there is no proof of that. Investigations are suggesting that it was the White House who leaked Blasey Ford's identity to The Intercept, not Feinstein (who was continuing to respect her anonymity). So why is Somerby taking the Republican story as accurate without examination?

    This is another reason why I believe Somerby is acting as a conservative wolf-in-sheep's-clothing. He is not any kind of liberal and has no basis for lecturing liberals about their conduct or making any other criticism from the "us liberals" perspective. He is not one of us.

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    Replies
    1. My theory is that Somerby sold his blog to the Russians years ago and they are writing his posts.

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  7. Here's how you can tell Somerby isn't an honest liberal: he links to music on Youtube.

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  8. Bob,
    Having read you posts for 18 years I have come to the realization that you are a jester.
    You believe right wing nuts are the truth tellers and liberals are evil.
    Well maybe not so evil, if they are dead.

    ReplyDelete
  9. WOw
    Bob I never thought I would say this but your Pete Segar shto is so full of shit.
    I have read you for over 15 years and I get the "we are dumb for dissing working class voters.
    But Seegar in that song was not going after the working class but going after Professionals, you know the Liberal snotty people you hate so much.
    Pete did more your your favorite class of people (working and lower middle class and under class then you have ever done with your blog.
    And by the way most of those working class "salt of the Earth" individuals were most likely part of the mob who accused him of being a commie traitor.
    So much for conservative understanding.
    I have wrote you many times to ask why you NEVER EVER call out the Right and the Fascist elements of reaction. I am waiting

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  10. I met Pete Seeger once. He was a co-leader of some kind of march I participated in as a teen-ager, around 1958 or 1959. At one point, he and other co-leader discussed whether we should commit some action that would lead to us getting arrested. Fortunately, they decided against.

    I later learned that at this point Seeger was truly a secret, card-carrying member of the Communist Party.

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    Replies
    1. He wasn't secret about it.

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    2. My uncle knew Pete Seeger. He loved black hookers.

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    3. Who didn't love Kareem Abdul Jabbar?

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    4. No - prostitutes. He was known to prefer hookers that resembled Lucille Bogan which is ironic since she was such a big dyke but I still get it. It doesn't really matter. I've had tons of black hookers.

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    5. Why does this matter?

      Delete
  11. This list describes how Democrats go low.

    Rap Sheet: ***594** Acts of Media-Approved Violence and Harassment Against Trump Supporters
    https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2018/07/05/rap-sheet-acts-of-media-approved-violence-and-harassment-against-trump-supporters/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Don't bring Breitbart propaganda here.

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    2. Haven't read Breitbart in years. Are they still a bunch of snowflakes who whine when they're criticized?

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    3. Breitbart is a right wing news site. They publish some stories that the mainstream media ignore. You don't have to trust their of 494 acts of violence and harassment, You don't have to take it on faith. You can check each one yourself, because there's a link from each such act to a source.

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    4. wild goose chase

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    5. Breitbart is even more right-wing than the MSM (if you can believe that's possible). Their schtick is to cry about "liberal intolerance" when called on their bullshit.

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    6. "Their schtick is to cry about "liberal intolerance" when called on their bullshit."

      When they're not pimping "men's rights", ultra-nationalism, and white power.

      Delete
  12. Why is it so hard to see that criticizing Somerby for being wrong (or even trying to make a claim) about which side is right/good and which is wrong/bad misses the whole point of the blog?

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    1. What, pray tell, is his point? And how does criticism of Pete Seeger fit into that "point?" Seeger was a true anti-establishment crusader his whole life. No true progressive, which Somerby claims to be, would mangle and misinterpret Seeger (and Reynolds) the way Somerby does. Besides, Somerby's point, whatever it is, is not always adequately illustrated by his posts. He is not above criticism.

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    2. I certainly agree he is not above criticism and some of his posts go awry (how could it be otherwise?). But his point - as I understand it - is generally to look critically at our (liberal-progressive) side's speech from the perspective of our own values and interests, to make it more honest, edifying and effective. He could be wrong about Seeger's song, but surely he is pointing to it for how it was used and what meaning it held for those who used it as part of a political movement (not necessarily for Seeger's own state of mind in writing it). Again, he could be wrong in his reading of this (and much else). But his point in this posting (and many others) is to question the integrity of our own speech because only we can do something about it (again, to help us achieve our own professed ends).

      Delete
    3. @10:58 Here is my understanding of equal treatment:

      A gay baker can refuse to bake a wedding cake for a couple of bigots. Equal treatment would allow the bigoted baker to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple

      Delete
    4. Color me shocked that David believes bigots should be a protected class.

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    5. You can criticize gay people, David. As you can see from my criticism of Mitch McConnell. But you can't discriminate against them for their sexual preferences.

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    6. Gay people are born that way. Bigotry, OTOH, is a learned trait. It's usually, but not always, because the bigots parents are awful, awful people.

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    7. 11:47,
      That the Conservative Dictionary has no definition for the word "consensual', is not lost on me.

      Delete
    8. "Gay people are born that way."

      They are not, actually; that's just a lie your lib-zombie cult leaders tell you.

      http://www.adinnerguest.com/tricks-of-the-mind/is-homosexuality-triggered-by-environment-after-birth/

      "Scientists studied 37 sets of identical male twins, who were born with the same genetic blueprint, to tease out which genes were associated with homosexuality. In each pair, one of the twins was gay.

      Only 20 percent of identical twins are both gay leading researchers to believe that there must be causes which are not inherited.
      "

      Delete
    9. Better trolling please

      Delete
    10. Mao,
      You've got the inside line on Conservative ideology. Can you put their constituencies in order of importance?

      1)
      2)
      3)

      A. Establishment Elites
      B. Bigots
      C. Sexual Predators

      Thanks in advance.

      Delete
    11. Genetics is not the only way someone can be "born that way". For example, people who have cerebral palsey are born with it, but it is an accident during the birth process. Further, expression of genes occurs due to a combination of genetics and environment. Identical twins can have the same genes for height but wind up vary different heights due to nutrition. Some scientists believe that hormones in various products found in the environment are influencing people's phenotype.

      But maybe they don't teach this stuff in Russia's troll schools?

      Delete
    12. "Identical twins can have the same genes for height but wind up vary different heights due to nutrition. "

      Yes, dembot, my point exactly. IOW: homosexuals are not born that way.

      Delete
    13. @12:16 PM
      It's making dembots' butthurt, 1, 2, and 3.

      Plus a healthy dose of sexual predation, obviously. Boys will be boys, y'know.

      Delete
    14. Mao, you don't get it at all. My point is that someone can be "born that way" without it being caused by genetics. Hormones in utero are not genetics but they do influence sexual orientation and identity. This was found when pregnant women were given DES to prevent miscarriage and the drug had an influence on daughters, who tended to have more masculine qualities. That wasn't genetic but it was being "born that way". Hormones fluctuate in people for a variety of reasons. It doesn't mean that homosexuality is learned or chosen or caused by parents or whatever you are proposing about it. It also doesn't mean it can be changed.

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    15. Dembot. Identical twins are born the identical ways. When one of them is homosexial, only in 20% of cases the second one is homosexial too.

      'nuff said. What is it you don't get?

      Delete
    16. "... his point - as I understand it - is generally to look critically at our (liberal-progressive) side's speech from the perspective of our own values and interests, to make it more honest, edifying and effective."

      Excellent triple-strawman. I give it a 9.

      Delete
    17. There is also a higher incidence of both identical twins who are raised separately being homosexual, suggesting genetic influences for some, although the research on those sets is scant.

      What I don't understand is why the born this way movement suddenly encourages males on the feminine side to chop off their penises and load up with female hormones to conform to a superficial "norm." Wait until history gets a load of that one.

      Delete
    18. I'm happy for you, butthurt dembot, but that's a bit more than I need to know about your private life. Keep your sexual exploits yo yourself.

      Delete
  13. I never thought that I would regret that Somerby had stopped writing gibberish about Godel but this column. . .
    Malvina Reynolds deserves better than to be misrepresented the way Somerby does. But then I'm trying to remember the last time that Somerby something right. Seems like a long time ago.

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  14. 'American liberalism had "pierced its own tongue", said Bret Stephens.

    This thing makes me laugh, tongue piercing was a pathetic trendy thing in 1992 from tryhards and fake punks, but Bret Stephens and Bob Somerby still think it's a significant thing to discredit liberalism and democracy in America forever, in the face of Trumpian embrace of authoritarianism abroad and neo fascism everywhere.

    Bret Stephens thinks "tongue piercing" is some jaunty thing to mock liberals in 2018, twenty-six years out of date and sounding as stale, tired, fusty and as irrelevant as Bob Somerby. Absolutely clueless about what the Young People are thinking and feeling and up to?

    I seriously only come to this site for the laughs. Just to gawk at crazy old man Somerby scream and see him cite Bret Stephens yelling about crazy liberals who want some social justice and people not suffering discredited because "tongue piercings". Not actually a big thing at all since uh, as I said 1992, and even then not such a big thing. Elderly weirdos defaming basic liberalism and social justice on spurious grounds and for really frivolous outdated reasons, Somerby's here for you! Old man yelling about the Youngs and their MTV Video Games. In late 2018. It's pathetic and hilarious.

    Tongue piercings from poseurs in 1992 means that we can never have social justice, peace, and decent living wages ever, in 2018 and going into the future, forever. Kids need to go hungry because, hey we hate hippies and liberals were rude that time. PATHETIC and Somerby, you really just suck.

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    1. Young people lack adequate wisdom and judgment to make important decisions and should be encouraged to stay far away from polls. A lack of wisdom and judgment leads them to embrace utopian schemes and seek to control others as a means of fulfilling them. Some carry these silly ideologies well into adulthood and they should not be taken seriously.

      Social justice, peace, and living wages are all fine and dandy and Republicans support them. What we don't accept are the crazed, rage-fueled identity politics of the left that get worse even as society has progressed toward eliminating the -isms these dopes can't let go of because their own identity is built on signaling their woke-ness to other NPC's.

      Young leftists should stick to producing comically pretentious ads with celebrities completing each other's sentences and leave politics to the psychologically better-equipped.

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    2. "Social justice, peace, and living wages are all fine and dandy and Republicans support them. "

      LOL. Thanks for today's laugh, Mao.

      Delete
    3. Great lesson for the young Right by 9:24.
      Remember kids, don't just dab on the bullshit, use a shovel.

      Delete
    4. Identitarians like 353 only say they care about all of these noble causes but what one really cares about is what one spends their time doing. In the case of 353, they spend their time on this obscure blog reading and commenting ad nauseam for hundreds and hundreds of hours each year therefore they really, really care about this blog but why? Why? Why would one spend so much precious time making personal attacks on an insignificant blog when all that precious time could be spent so much more productively, especially on these noble causes that they claim to care so much about? It's because this blog challenges their beliefs. What they care about most are their beliefs and they would almost rather die than to have them be found wrong. This blog accurately points out the structural and psychological problems and the hypocrisy of liberalism which led to the election of a ridiculous showman and is about to lead to another trouncing at the polls and overall challenges their bianary worldview and belief in themselves as being firmly a part of the brighter, shinier, more benevolent side of that equation which is a false belief. And that is the reason why they spend their time here and that is what they care most about and that is why you will see their responses are personal attacks, never on substance because they don't have an accurate response! Because this blog is showing them that their beliefs are wrong! Which, by the way doesn't mean conservatives are right. The accurate description of the very real flaws of contemporary liberalism is something they are not ready to face. That is something they care very, very much about. Hungry children? Not so much.

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    5. I do it because Somerby was once influential on the left and is still read, and keeps claiming to be a liberal while advancing conservative talking points and ideas. This is dangerous because he has greater ability to convince readers if the ideas come from someone professing to be liberal than if the same thoughts came from someone known to be conservative.

      Many comments here are substantive and there are occasionally interesting, informative discussions. Many others are noise. You might as well have asked why trolls bother to comment here.

      You have not made any substantive criticisms of liberalism. Just some name calling about false beliefs and being wrong. Kind of adolescent (see, I can call names too).

      Delete
    6. @12:46, nailed it.

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    7. Okay so first it is that you spend each week multiple hours of your precious time that could be dedicated to addressing hungry children or other myriad social justice issues that you pretend to care about on this obscure, never-remotely-influential site because you "seriously" only come for the laughs and to "just" gawk at crazy old man and now you say you do it to serve as some sort of protector against a "dangerous", influential propagandist that so dangerously may "convince readers" of right wing talking points but notice that you don't defend these helpless readers who are so in need of protection and who, in reality, only live in your imagination with any kind of substitutive argument and turn instead to personal attacks. I regret to inform you the reason for that is because he is right and you are wrong and your quixotic rationale is embarrassing and that all those hours that you have spent have been a total waste of time. You could be speaking fluent Italian by now with all that time you have poured down the drain! Dumbass.

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    8. 2;40,
      And still others watch "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills", and yet others the MLB Playoffs.
      It takes all kinds. Get over yourself.

      Delete
    9. Bob has said we have trouble seeing faults in ourselves that we see clearly in others. (Would you call that a right wing talking point?) I'm glad to see you now don't have "trouble seeing" that your yells and screams for social justice come not from the bottom of your heart but from a need to entertain yourself.

      Delete
    10. 4:50,
      So if you give us the social justice (win for those currently without equality and justice), we move onto music, movies, and TV for entertainment (win for time more enjoyably spent), and you get to stop your whining and crying about "social justice liberals".
      Win-win-win.
      Seems the bigots are why we can't have nice things.

      Delete
    11. OK - I see. Life is a cartoon. Social justice a transferrable commodity that can just be passed back and forth. Equality can be bartered and legislated while you eat snacks and watch TV with your hand in your pants. There is no need for you to get off the couch and exercise any moral dignity to "those currently without equality and justice" yourself! Not with American Ninja coming on! You already are "enjoying your time" as you have shown nitwit. This is what is meant by terms like "useless", "dumb" and "moral squalor". But I realize you are just a kid (despite your age.). Take a bong hit for me, enjoy the show!

      I AM one of you moron. I am a Clinton voter.

      Delete
    12. 6:13,
      Thanks. For a second i thought you were being serious.

      Delete
  15. Today the NYT and various other supposed Democrats are piling on Elizabeth Warren. Another case of damned if you do, and damned if you don't. This is why Democrats are seen as doing the wrong things, politically speaking, no matter what they do or don't do. Now that Hillary is not running, it is easier to see that dynamic at work.

    http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2018/10/its-democrats-fault-when-theyre-bullied.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, Pocahontas turned out far, far stupider than I thought.

      To produce, in all seriousness, a 'scientific' analysis professing that perhaps she might have an Indian ancestor 7-8 generations ago?

      Really, is it stupidity, or super-gigantic contempt for all the lib-zombie cult followers?

      Delete
    2. Another episode of "Words, what do they mean?" from 12:02.

      Delete
    3. "Pocahontas'?
      Still as funny as you are informed, I see.

      Delete
  16. Another great column from Charlie Pierce. Real media criticism from a real liberal:

    https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a23845480/elizabeth-warren-native-american-dna-test-media-coverage/

    ReplyDelete
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