MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2023
We'd say the answer is yes: We humans are good at building things.
Well, we're better at building things than everyone else. Beavers and bees build things too—but the things we humans build are bigger and much more complex.
We build rocket ships that can go to the moon. We build air conditioning units, and we also build cars.
Long ago, we even built the pyramids! But in other fields of endeavor, our skill levels tend to drop off. And so it may go as we the liberals react to the latest polls.
Let's start by acknowledging this. By definition, the latest poll from the Washington Post/ABC News actually is an "outlier," as the Post quickly noted in yesterday's news report.
It differs from many similar polls. In that sense, it's an outlier. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's "wrong"—and according to ABC News, what it said, in part, is this:
LANGER (9/24/23): Head-to-head in a hypothetical November 2024 matchup, Trump has 51% support while Biden has 42%—numerically up 3 points for Trump and down 2 points for Biden from an ABC/Post poll in February, shifts that are not statistically significant.
There's even less change from the most recent ABC/Post poll in May, which had the race at 49-42% (again with a different, but comparable, question wording). Still, with Trump inching over 50%—and other polls showing a closer contest—a close look is warranted.
There's much more in Gary Langer's report about what the survey said. All in all, survey said that many voters are highly unhappy with President Biden, for whom we'll be voting next year.
That doesn't mean that this latest poll is actually "right," even as a snapshot in time. Also, it doesn't mean that Trump will be elected again.
It does remind us of the fact that Donald J. Trump could win the White House next year. On this campus, it again reminds us of what the Kim Novak character gloomily told Jimmy Stewart in the critically praised Vertigo, and about the way the world's civilizations, such as they were, have all come and gone.
(Carlotta Valdes has been all around! For the gloomy remarks by the Novak character, you can just click here.)
Anthropologically, do we blue tribe members have what it takes to escape defeat next year? More broadly, do we have what it takes to understand our current circumstance?
It seems to us that we may not! Peculiar as it may seem, it seems to us that Donald J. Trump may actually win next year!
There are major limits to our own tribe's comprehension skills. We tend to have a very hard time understanding this fact about ourselves. Also, we tend to have a very hard time understanding what Others think.
As one part of this anthropological package, we tend to disregard the possibility that such lesser beings as the Others may even have the tiny germ of an occasional strong, valid point.
Before we were struck by a cold last week, we were writing about the way one good and decent person was conducting her high school Advanced Placement English Language and Composition class at Chapin High in Chapin, South Carolina.
She had planned to spend three to four weeks on Ta-Nehisi Coates' best-selling book, Between the World and Me. The book appeared in 2015 to extensive critical praise.
How was this high school teacher planning to work from the book? Based upon this Washington Post report, we have no real idea. But we'll we guess that she wasn't going to start with the actual start of the actual book, where Coates offers a phantasmagoric account of an appearance he made on Face the Nation in November 2014.
By any normal standards, Coates' account of that appearance is very, very hard to square with what actually happened. That said, his account of the way he was allegedly treated advanced certain narratives sacred to our blue tribe, and his phantasmagoric account was never challenged or questioned.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but we blues are just as limited, and just as tribal, as pretty much everyone else. Our brains are built from the tribal mold too, and we're strongly disincline to recognize this fact.
Could our tribe go down next year? Limitations of polling to the side, we'd say the answer is yes.
For extra credit only: Coates appeared as a guest on Face the Nation on November 30, 2014. For the tape and the transcript of that program, you can just click here.
Coates's account of what happened that day is very, very hard to square with what you'll see on that videotape. At one point, his account is flatly wrong. Our tribe tends to run on Storyline too, sometimes with bad results.
(The Atlantic published the start of the book. You can read that excerpt here.)
What did the survey say about the 2036 election?
ReplyDeleteMid.
DeleteIn a misogynist nation, the self-proclaimed sexual predator leads the polls.
ReplyDeleteYou need look no further than that, to understand why David in Cal is so proud of the USA.
Bob builds the pyramids in the shape of a straw man. Have you heard anyone on Team Biden suggest the inane fools of the right could not put Trump over the top next year?
ReplyDeleteBob’s solution seems to be to empower these noxious folks, explain to them how we understand what poor victims they are. It was his solution long before Trump came into town. The idea that the Trump voter is in anyway responsible for what he has wrought often fills him with rage.
It’s is sole crusade, as far as he can get in terms of intellectual honesty. It’s not very far.
A Trump victory is likely to kill off our politics for good; and it’s a sad and scary proposition. Yet the real dread lies notion of whether there is anything worth fighting for, when our most prestigious University produces a thinker like Bob Somerby.
In the past two days, Trump has called for a general who was part of his administration to be executed and he is talking about attacking MSNBC, NBC and Comcast, to kick them off the air.
DeletePolls aside, who in their right mind could vote for such a candidate? Never mind his multiple criminal and civil indictments (and his conviction for sexual abuse and defamation). Who could conceive of voting for this guy?
Somerby is trying to whip up hysteria concerning an election that was won handily in 2020, and Trump has only gotten worse since then, while Biden has shown substantial accomplishments in his term. On what planet does that not matter?
Somerby wants us to be very afraid. Why? It only helps the right.
When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose.
DeleteThe ABC/Washington Post Poll is an outlier, but the election is close. It is close becasue I heard a working man say that Trump is for the working man. What planet is he on?
ReplyDeleteBiden's destructive and illegal immigration policy is a good reason to vote for anyone against him.
ReplyDeleteThe Biden administration is reportedly allowing hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants to request flights over the southern border and directly into the United States....It is key to note that these illegal aliens are “inadmissible.” That ought to mean they aren’t allowed into the country.
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/catherinesalgado/2023/09/24/border-bypass-biden-admin-lets-221k-migrants-fly-directly-into-u-s-n1729490
This came up before the midterms too, except now they are leaving out the part about these illegal migrants being unaccompanied children (teens):
Delete"By talking about supposedly secret nighttime flights, critics are creating an aura of mystery around a relatively straightforward issue: transporting the large number of unaccompanied migrant children who have been crossing the border for the past several years, whose arrivals have escalated since Mr. Biden took office.
After being processed at the border, many of these children and teenagers are flown to federally licensed shelters around the country before being released to family members. Thousands of such flights have been a routine part of immigration operations in the United States for decades, including under former President Donald J. Trump.
While the planes, operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sometimes land at late hours of the night, they also operate during daylight hours, and they do not constitute covert or clandestine operations."
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/ghost-flights-migrant-children.html
Ahh. The unintended consequences of replying to BLM with "All Lives Matter" to "own the libs".
DeleteServes the bigots right.
Let the young Latin Americans in. Send David to Russia.
DeleteTrump is explicitly urging republican controlled congress to shut down the government in order to save his sorry ass from federal prosecutions (91 total felony charges). And fucking David in Cal thinks trump would be a better choice than President Biden in the next election. He comes here once again to post some bullshit he read in some propaganda rag and accuses the president of a "destructive and illegal immigration policy". Tell us, David, what is fucking illegal?
Delete"That said, his account of the way he was allegedly treated advanced certain narratives sacred to our blue tribe, and his phantasmagoric account was never challenged or questioned."
ReplyDeletePhantasmagoric definition: "having the appearance of an optical illusion, especially one produced by a magic lantern. changing or shifting, as a scene made up of many elements."
How was Coates treated? He says that he was asked a question that revealed the mind-set of white Americans concerning black people, one that concerned his body (which is the metaphor Coates uses throughout his book) and revealed the attitudes about race and black people throughout American history.
What is there to challenge about Coates perception of the way white people see race in America? How was the interviewer not questioning him about it?
Use of the word phatasmagorical is entirely inappropriate in this context. First, it implies that what Coates said about race in America is an illusion, the result of imagination, and not backed up by historians and theorists who study race in America. Second, it implies that what he said was a jumble, when it is coherently explained and is the thesis of his book, expressed in the conceit of a letter to his son.
Somerby refers to how Coates was "allegedly treated" as if some horrible insult or mistreatment had occurred, but really it is just that Coates reframes the questions asked by an interviewer in terms of his own views about race in America. The interviewer did nothing improper, nor did Coates claim that had happened.
In fact, the first paragraphs of the book are banal and straightforward, not anything weird or confusing or illusory or fantastic. It is just a book about race.
So why does Somerby pretend there was something weird about it? Because he disagrees with the way Coates has framed his ideas about race. That's all.
You can read the first paragraphs yourself here:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0812993543?tag=randohouseinc31703-20&asin=0812993543&revisionId=&format=4&depth=1
Somerby uses such conceits all the time, nearly every day. Today he ropes in Vertigo again, telling us nothing about why that film is relevant to anything today. He doesn't even quote Kim Novak's words, for those of us who are NOT going to rush out, find the film, and watch to see what she said (without a single clue about which words Somerby considers important). But Somerby cannot go along with a metaphor about Coates body, which he fully explains as he goes along? Phooey on that.
Vertigo is widely regarded as a great film. You might want to look at it, Somerby or no Somerby.
DeleteThe discussion and framing of the Michael Brown tragedy by Coates and Crump is quite unhelpful IMO. The striking aspect was the bizarre behavior of Brown. He was accepted at a junior college. He had a good life to look forward to. Yet, he pointlessly robbed a convenience store and then foolishly behaved with a policeman in a way that got him killed.
DeleteWhy did Brown behave so oddly? How do we help young people to avoid behaving as Brown did? Something mysterious is going on here, and it's not racism.
Of course, Crump and Coates have a vested interest in blaming racism. Their self-centered approach discourages an analysis that could actually help black youths.
I've seen it several times. I looked up Valdes the last time Somerby brought it up. I am not a big Hitchcock fan because of his attitudes toward women. It does not surprise me that Somerby would have a Hitchcock film on his list.
DeleteNotice that Somerby never seems to mention anything beyond the first few pages of a book. Here he deals only with Coates' first chapter, stating he does not know whether it was even used in class. Out of courtesy, Somerby should have mentioned what Novak said that he considered so memorable or relevant to Coates' book.
Crump, Coates and O'Donnell argue about whether Michael Brown was walking down the center of the street or jaywalking, and they ask why the police should have stopped him as they did, whether the nearby convenience store robbery was sufficient reason to stop a random black teen on the street.
DeleteDavid blames Brown, and so will Somerby, who oddly avoids mentioning what the interviewer asked Coates, despite calling it phantasmagorical, which is Somerby's way of claiming that Coates was making shit up.
David thinks that black youth don't know that walking down the middle of the street is not how streets are typically used. They need street lessons, he suggests. Brown was more likely asserting his own dominance in an environment that tends to minimize and belittle the importance of black youth. He pushed a clerk around in a harmless way and then wasn't following a traffic law -- the horror! For that he was killed. Coates is trying to explain how black people experience such an event.
Perhaps instead of killing black youth for trying to find some way to be manly or even be seen, our society might recognize and treat black youth as if they do matter? That would mean not killing them for shoplifting or jaywalking. Somerby accuses the left of not caring about black kids. I think Somerby is the one who doesn't care about, much less understand the motives of black kids (or people in general). David and Somerby are welcome to dismiss what Coates says, but Coates cares more and knows more about black youth than either David or Somerby, and when they dismiss the voices of black people (such as Coates), they have no basis for claiming that no one cares about black kids.
David is just saying that he doesn't like uppity blacks who need to be taught their place. Black youth should be taught that if they get out of line, as teens do from time to time, they can be shot at will.
DeleteWhen Coates complains about the historical use of violence to keep black people in their places, he is just being phantasmagorical. White people may have owned slaves, but when you talk about the whip, you are being hysterical, and so is Coates.
Delete@12:07 wrote Black youth should be taught that if they get out of line, as teens do from time to time, they can be shot at will.
DeleteI believe black youths ARE taught that lesson. It adds to the mystery of why Brown went out of his way to attack a policeman. Didn't he know the risk he was taking?
@12:03 accuses me of blaming Brown. IMO we do blacks no favor by overlooking or excusing criminal behavior. Young people should be disciplined when they do wrong. That's how they learn proper behavior.
Furthermore, the victims of black crime are mostly other blacks. The black crime rate is much higher than the white or Asian crime rate, and blacks are the primary victims of all this black crime.
All teen boys take unnecessary risks out of bravado. Some die in car accidents or stunts or dares. Black teens should be seen as teens not hardcore criminals when doing stupid teen things. White kids shoplift too but they don’t get shot and killed.
DeleteWe are close to 50k suicides per year (oddly, that’s about the same number of people cops send to the hospital every year from cop violence), most of those suicides are young White males, and the number dwarfs any crime statistics.
DeleteThe causal relationship between crime and poverty is well known, as well as between crime/poverty and racism. Our country has an entire law enforcement system that’s stacked against Blacks; furthermore, we know that Whites commit similar crimes at the same rate as Blacks (drug use for example) yet are criminalized at a dramatically lower rate. Other crimes are exclusively committed by Whites, such as white collar crime and wage theft - crimes which are way more pernicious and destructive to our society than “street” crime, and yet are largely ignored.
White suicide is an enormous problem, it seems something is very wrong with White people. While Black lives are suffering under not just our current society’s knife’s edge existence but crushing racism as well, Whites have the cognitive dissonance arising from the juxtaposition of that knife’s edge and the expectation of privilege. Clearly Blacks have an internal character of strength that Whites just do not have, which is understandable when considering historical context, and Whites are just crumbling.
Google Daniel Shaver
DeleteHere is the part that Somerby will not mention, the part he claims was distorted by Coates, who says O'Donnell asked him about his body (without mentioning it at all) and that he tried to explain by talking about America's brutal history:
ReplyDelete"O'DONNELL: Ta-Nehisi, I want to ask you about something you wrote this week. You said: "What clearly cannot be said is that violence and nonviolence are tools and that violence, like nonviolence, sometimes works. Taken together, property damage and looting have been the most effective tools of social progress for white people in America." What did you mean by that?
COATES: Well, I meant that that's just American history.
The fact of the matter is, you can take it from the broader perspective of America. I think people have this idea that the American Revolution was -- like the tea party was an actual tea party, it was somehow nonviolent.
The fact of the matter is, the roots of this country are information a very, very violent. Enslavement, which is at the roots of this country, the black population of this country was enslaved longer than it's been free, that is basis of who we are.
The theft of land from Native Americans, that is the basis of who we are. When we talk about all the things that we love about America, democracy, freedom, et cetera, I don't think that we should lose sight of how -- the foundation of which those things were built.
And they were not built that nonviolently. That is not to say that looting is right, that looting is correct. But I think that when the government, which often acts violently towards African-Americans, turns around and lectures black people about nonviolence, we have a right to be skeptical of that."
Somerby wants to omit Coates' ongoing metaphor about black bodies from his book, but that is the only way that the rest of his explanation about that interview makes sense -- with that metaphor. Even so, Coates talks about the white American view of race, that prevented his audience from understanding his remark about both white and black violence in our racial history, and led to his feelings of sadness in that first chapter of his book.
Somerby is being excessively literal to portray Coates as phantasmagorical when he is not. The kids in a high school class would do well to learn how to read that first few paragraphs, to avoid making Somerby's deliberate mistake.
Reading is an act of cooperation between writer and reader. If the reader doesn't want to cooperate, no one can force him to, but that isn't the author's fault. If Somerby were to take a sentence from a Biden speech and leave out every other word, he could portray Biden as a bumbling fool, but that would not be Biden's fault, nor would it be honest. It would be a stunt. That is what Somerby has done here today with Coates, when he leaves out the part where Coates says the interviewer never asked about his body literally, and thus was not being phantasmagorical but using a literary device, which is what good writers often do.
Somerby omits that the interview was about Michael Brown. Coates does not. He says:
"That was the week you learned that the killers of Michael Brown would go free. The men who had left his body in the street would never be punished. It was not my expectation that anyone would ever be punished. But you were young and still believed. You stayed up till 11 p.m. that night, waiting for the announcement of an indictment, and when instead it was announced that there was none you said, “I’ve got to go,” and you went into your room, and I heard you crying."
Coates does explain what he means when he refers to his body in the context of civil rights. Somerby pretends he is saying something incomprehensible, not poetic. Somerby is being an asshole.
Because Coates has a poetic way of speaking and writing, it's hard to pin down precisely what he means and it's hard to decide whether Coates's comments are true or false.
ReplyDelete, property damage and looting have been the most effective tools of social progress for white people in America. What is his metric for "effectiveness"? Didn't the honest day in day out effort of millions of Americans over the decades create the society we have today?
the roots of this country are information a very, very violent. What are the "roots"? The people who risked their lives to come to the New World? The people who built the country and its civilization?
the black population of this country was enslaved longer than it's been free, that is basis of who we are. Why does slavery have to be the basis? My grandparents were Polish peasants living in a Jewish ghetto. That history didn't prevent me from being a successful actuary. And, the history of slavery didn't prevent David Blackwell from being a successful mathematician.
A better basis is that blacks CAN succeed in today's USA. It would focus on how they can do so.
He elaborates on each of those statements. There’s also no law against reading more of the book.
DeletePlacing responsibility for success on blacks when white people are obstructing them is wrong.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteDavid in CalSeptember 25, 2023 at 12:34 PM
DeleteI disagree with @12:28
1. Today, white people are helping black people via affirmative action more than they are obstructing them.
2. The responsibility for any group's success will always be with that person or group. That's reality. As the joke goes, you have a helping hand at the end of your are.
Why does slavery have to be the basis, David asks. Because it is.
DeleteThese are blatant falsehoods David.
Delete@12:42 says slavery is the basis. In order to decide whether or not slavery is the basis, we need to know what's meant by the word "basis". What is a "basis"? Can you define it? .
DeleteIMO it's cruel to tell children that they can't succeed because of past slavery. Giving children an excuse to fail may be comforting, but it disserves them.
Read the book David.
Delete@4:58 I read Coates's book, if that's the one you're referring to.
DeleteYes, then you know that it fills in the blanks for you and does address the things you say are missing -- Somerby doesn't quote enough to do that, but the book itself explains fully why Coates says what he does.
DeleteCoates’ book is my cousin and according to my cousin, David has never read the book, it’s just another weird Zelig-style lie, like the Lizzie lie.
DeleteThis must be Post Your Ideas For Primary And Secondary School Curricula Day.
ReplyDeleteAka- Don’t Call It CRT.
We should be able to walk across our harbors via all the protest heists of Nikes and electronic gear.
Cecelia,
DeleteI left my Gibberish to English translation tools at home today. Can you please help?
Anonymouse 3:03pm, you could start with throwing away your Concrete Over Abstract Handbook.
DeleteNo need to ask me to throw a concrete book at you.
DeleteYou throw it at us daily.
DeleteIf only.
DeleteCecelia, you've had time to think it over. Can you clarify your 2:22 comment?
DeleteWhy are you talking to yourself? Oh you thought we didn’t know?
DeleteWe don’t know.
Delete“IMO it's cruel to tell children that they can't succeed because of past slavery. Giving children an excuse to fail may be comforting, but it disserves them.”
ReplyDeleteThey want to tell children and adults of every race and ethnicity that they can’t succeed without embracing all their quasi-religious political tenets.
One way or another, you will not be allowed to succeed.
Cecelia,
DeleteMake rape victims birth their rapists child. That'll teach 'em not to follow their quasi-religious political tenets.
Anonymouse 3:00pm, it’s not strictly a religious tenet to believe that human beings are human at any stage of gestation, and therefore should not be accorded the same fate as a cancerous mole.
DeleteThat’s up to the voting population of each state. Ironically. It’s not ruled “from on high” now.
It doesn't rake religion to be anti-science, nor anti-women.
DeleteIt certainly takes a form of religion to be an anonymouse.
DeleteI'd be happy to put Cecelia's civil rights up for state-wide vote. What's taking so long?
DeleteDefinition mistradition.
DeleteAnyone who isn't a bigot, or isn't perfectly fine with bigotry, left the Republican Party more than two decades ago.
DeleteThe Bible does not mention abortion, but makes it clear that
Delete1) life starts at first breath, ie at birth
2) a fetus in the womb is considered mere property, not holding the value of a human being
Science demonstrates that a fetus’ viability does not start until at least 23-25 weeks, and sentience occurs later than that, therefore, there is no reasonable or credible way to claim that a developing fetus is a human being prior to that, indeed such a claim, considering the consequences, is deeply immoral, which is why right wingers, including Republicans, including evangelicals, all supported abortion (it was the Republican Supreme Court that decided Roe v Wade) until they found they could weaponize it as a tool to fight for their right to be racists.
Does Somerby have an actual point to make here, or is this just boilerplate hippie punching?
ReplyDeleteFor the illiterate and or lazy this is the point:
DeleteAnthropologically, do we blue tribe members have what it takes to escape defeat next year? More broadly, do we have what it takes to understand our current circumstance?
It seems to us that we may not!
These concerns are as phony as that poll result which Somerby wasted time discussing.
DeleteI was just posting the point of the piece for the unfortunately illiterate original commenter.
Delete8:32 the original commenter is correct, Somerby does not have a legitimate point. You’re so smug about not being illiterate, yet your use of the word “anthropologically” is incorrect and incoherent.
DeleteHi idiot, I didn't use that word. It was a quote from the piece. Which I guess you never read. Otherwise you would know that.
DeleteI see two opposing schools of thought regarding Trump's indictments and the coming election:
ReplyDelete1. Trump is a criminal, as is proved by the many indictments. He's the last person who should be President. We should vote against Trump, regardless of who the Democrats choose.
2. Trump's indictments are corrupt. They're based on phony applications of the law. They're a trick to keep him off the ballot. Trump's "crimes" are no more a bar to him being President than were Nelson Mandala's "crimes". We have to defeat the Democrats in order to show that the US is not a banana republic.
What about the people who think both parties only pretend to represent their interests?
DeleteItem 1 is incorrect. Trump is a criminal because we have all seen and heard the things he has said and done, because there was evidence presented at both impeachments and at the 1/6 hearings, because the evidence listed in the indictments has been made public for anyone to read, and because a continual parade of former Trump administration staff, accomplices, and colleagues has told us what he said and did. Very few people who dislike Trump do so because we think an indictment is proof of guilt.
DeleteAny of a large number of Trump statements that are NOT illegal are sufficient to cause dismay in most of us, to the point of NEVER voting for Trump under any circumstances. The indictments are icing on that cake.
David forgets (ignores) the FACT that Trump has already been convicted in the E.J. Carroll case of sexual abuse and defamation. Trump repeated the defamation and Carroll was awarded more damages. Why would any sane person vote for Trump after doing that?
The problem with #2 is that the people holding such beliefs have access to the same evidence and proof as the people believing #1. In order to believe this is a plot to keep Trump off the ballot, those people would have to explain away a whole lot of statements by Republicans and credible people who have testified to Trump's wrong-doing. In the face of that evidence, suggesting that this is JUST a plot to keep him off the ballot is warped thinking. In our society, people do not set aside or choose to disbelieve the results of trials, like the ones that have already convicted Trump, any more than we set aside the results of elections on Trump's say-so. The path David calls #2 is corrupt thinking. Obviously, setting aside due process and electoral procedures would make us a Banana Republic, not removing the crook who has tried to manipulate our system and those people for his own benefit.
It is obvious that our nation is polarized. The existence of a group of people believe crazy things does not justify their beliefs. There is no integrity to the thinking of The Others. Somerby's urging that we respect them does not give credibility to their beliefs. He is just trying to reduce conflict, but appeasement has never been a good way to do that.
Despite your capitalization, @6:34, it is not a FACT that Trump has already been convicted in the E.J. Carroll case. That was a civil case. Trump was not charged or convicted of any crime in that case.
DeleteThe judge himself said that Trump was a rapist. You can split legal hairs but Trump did what he was accused of, and that makes him unfit for office.
DeleteCarlotta Valdes was an actress reading a script composed by a murderer.
ReplyDelete