tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post5548802278417005333..comments2024-03-28T15:46:48.946-04:00Comments on the daily howler: KEVIN'S LIST: TCU beat Tarleton State!<b>bob somerby</b>http://www.blogger.com/profile/02963464534685954436noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-53327323438820373492022-11-16T10:12:59.778-05:002022-11-16T10:12:59.778-05:00The Democrats can't get the US Military's ...The Democrats can't get the US Military's thing out of their mouth, can they?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-48120767626249879552022-11-16T08:15:35.395-05:002022-11-16T08:15:35.395-05:00"They are anti-individualistic, pro-collectiv..."They are anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist."<br />Add "top-down decision-makers", and you've described the U.S. military.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-83568640106586943782022-11-16T08:04:14.322-05:002022-11-16T08:04:14.322-05:00It was Media Matters.It was Media Matters.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-22157560355504824092022-11-16T00:11:12.699-05:002022-11-16T00:11:12.699-05:00Democrats have have changed. They are a kind of cy...Democrats have have changed. They are a kind of cybernetic coral reef of organic components and inorganic political policies empowering grassroots voters. They have become a force which takes unorganized raw ideas and excretes technical political coalitions that transcend the normal definitions of politics. Democrats and the left are like an enormous collective organism of data banks that forecast agencies and our computer networks and the many levels at which we are connected in the universe. The monkey is out of the bag. It is a kind of millenarian transformation of man where the will of the electorate is exteriorized as the apotheosis of democracy, and it is that eschatological event which is casting enormous shadows backward through time over the historical landscape. That is the siren calling Democrats across a new millenia toward pure imagination whose aspirations are entirely titanic in terms of winning elections. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-90245594440356205862022-11-15T20:48:13.285-05:002022-11-15T20:48:13.285-05:00Most democrats can't be gaslit by your nonsens...Most democrats can't be gaslit by your nonsense because most democrats have more than 2 brain cells. <br /><br />Republicans always talk about optimism and self reliance because male Republicans all suffer from having a small penis, such as yourself; therefore, Republicans have to be optimistic that their women will someday stop sleeping behind their backs with Democrats, but until that day they have to rely on themselves for sex.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-86080620118487818012022-11-15T20:38:34.685-05:002022-11-15T20:38:34.685-05:00Like Somerby, Drum is an unrepentant neoliberal wh...Like Somerby, Drum is an unrepentant neoliberal whose analysis is always in service of their neoliberal agenda, and is always wrong.<br /><br />When you get things as wrong and as badly as Drum, you should just bow out. Drum will not because they have a burning desire to dominate progressives. Drum is a sad lost soul.<br /><br />There is no such thing as a centrist in politics. The left wants equality, and the right wants hierarchy, particularly when it comes to who has the power to make policy decisions.<br /><br />You can support medicare for all etc all you want but if you prefer hierarchy over egalitarianism, then you are right wing.<br /><br />Drum and Somerby both suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect; supposedly they are unaware that they are some of the dullest knives in the drawer. <br /><br />They always get it wrong, brush off any flakes of self awareness and keep going, because they do not care about anything, they have no ideology, they only want to dominate, just like all right wingers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-16609647344373469522022-11-15T20:10:11.745-05:002022-11-15T20:10:11.745-05:00Nonliterate is descriptive not judgmental.
The re...Nonliterate is descriptive not judgmental.<br /><br />The rest of this is conservative bunk.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-2464002920249359502022-11-15T18:49:29.858-05:002022-11-15T18:49:29.858-05:00Democrats want to replace the world “primitive” by...Democrats want to replace the world “primitive” by “nonliterate.” They seem almost paranoid about anything that might suggest that any primitive culture is inferior to our own. <br /><br />Many Democrats have an intense identification with the problems of groups that have an image of being weak (women), defeated (American Indians), repellent (homosexuals) or otherwise inferior. They feel that these groups are inferior. They would never admit to themselves that they have such feelings, but it is precisely because they do see these groups as inferior that they identify with their problems. <br /><br />So it goes in the Democratic Party.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-61751817309527687182022-11-15T18:10:50.306-05:002022-11-15T18:10:50.306-05:00Maybe it was some other Digby.Maybe it was some other Digby.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-16516101507564553362022-11-15T17:35:21.353-05:002022-11-15T17:35:21.353-05:00"...their energy into taking care of others&q..."...their energy into taking care of others"<br /><br />Whoa. Interesting choice of words, dear dembot. <br />Is it "taking care" as in mob-speak or whore-talk?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-66593498320064006942022-11-15T17:17:56.267-05:002022-11-15T17:17:56.267-05:00Democrats nvest most of their energy into taking c...Democrats nvest most of their energy into taking care of others, not being taken care of themselves. That fact undermines your theory.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-48250520045580396462022-11-15T16:45:44.242-05:002022-11-15T16:45:44.242-05:004:18
Words like “self-confidence,” “self-reliance...4:18<br /><br />Words like “self-confidence,” “self-reliance,” “initiative,” “enterprise,” “optimism,” etc., play little role in a Democrat's vocabulary. They are anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. They want society to solve everyone’s problems for them, satisfy everyone’s needs for them, take care of them. They are not the sort of person who have an inner sense of confidence in their ability to solve their own problems and satisfy their own needs. Democrats are antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, they feel like a losers.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-65102366730820332112022-11-15T16:33:00.277-05:002022-11-15T16:33:00.277-05:00Not from digbyNot from digbyAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-13491927351445408792022-11-15T16:18:37.491-05:002022-11-15T16:18:37.491-05:004:00 PM,
Silly wabbit. MAGA is a cult. You aren...4:00 PM,<br />Silly wabbit. MAGA is a cult. You aren't supposed to have any sense of individuality -- in fact that is the whole point. To be subsumed by something larger than oneself, rich as Croesus and strong like daddy, who promises so much Winning! America has always emphasized individuality, which has minimized the appeal of authoritarian dictatorship previously, but perhaps the struggle with covid and the uncertainty of the future have caused the weaker on the right to seek comfort in unity under Trump. Wanting to be told what to do is nothing new.<br /><br />The majority vote in an election is always characterized as the Will of the American people. Yes, it is Democratic this time (mostly). But winning an election doesn't make Democrats autocratic rulers. Republicans have input and must exercise their agency in a collective process. This is about process, not party will. And yes, all those candidates have their own agendas. When you elect a Democrat, you hope they will not turn out like Manchin or Sinema (if you are not a Republican). <br /><br />So cheer up. Our democratic engine runs on individualism guided by our nation's shared ideals. To the extent that the right abdicates its ideals, it leaves itself in the hands of either a dictator-wannabee like Trump/Putin or the Democrats. It is not impossible for Republicans to wake up and become a principled party again, but it will take some work.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-75986265042723423942022-11-15T16:18:16.281-05:002022-11-15T16:18:16.281-05:00From Digby:
One of the most disempowering things ...From Digby:<br /><br />One of the most disempowering things Democrats have done is to essentially brush out their party's footprints into the past. We don’t have a clue as to how we got here. Most Democratic voters can’t think further back than the first Nixon administration—let alone, you know, the arrival of the Vikings, the melting of the glaciers, so forth and so on. <br /><br />Most (but not all) Democrats have been disempowered by a rational tendency to deny their irrational roots, which is kind of an embarrassment to politics because politics is the special province of the disincarnate intelligence. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-1381611440405279602022-11-15T16:09:35.703-05:002022-11-15T16:09:35.703-05:00Feminist Democrats are desperately anxious to prov...Feminist Democrats are desperately anxious to prove that women are as strong and as capable as men. Clearly they are nagged by a fear that women are not as strong and as capable as men.<br /><br />Democrats in general tend to hate anything that has an image of being strong, good and successful.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-52109330909348361492022-11-15T16:04:45.095-05:002022-11-15T16:04:45.095-05:00And @4:00 is admitting that he is depressed, there...And @4:00 is admitting that he is depressed, thereby showing that Republicans have all those "feelings of inferiority" too! Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-62267221816897086512022-11-15T16:03:17.869-05:002022-11-15T16:03:17.869-05:00If more Republicans could write doubletalk like th...If more Republicans could write doubletalk like this, they would be thought of as the smart ones.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-38208223723022808422022-11-15T16:00:52.041-05:002022-11-15T16:00:52.041-05:00One of the most depressing things to me about the ...One of the most depressing things to me about the Democratic Party is it now has a kind of directionless quality. A kind of eschatological malaise has settled over the whole party. All notion of any forward movement toward a transcendental ideal has been put aside for the exploration of idiosyncratic political visions. And I grant you: this is a tension between the individual platforms and the notion of an attractor or a collective political ideal that is asking to be expressed. <br /><br />But this is the same dichotomous tension that haunts the individual in his or her relationship to their cell phone. We don’t want to be lost in ego, but on the other hand, when we completely swallow the Democtatic Party platform whole, we have no sense of self. The ideal seems to be a kind of coincidencia oppositorum: a kind of literalizing of politics where what we have is somethng called the Democratic Party , but we perceive it as the American people proving anew that freedom is best secured by a government that is responsive and compassionate and committed to justice and the rule of law.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-73331728808640442882022-11-15T15:47:47.165-05:002022-11-15T15:47:47.165-05:001:41,
Republicans think of Democrats (especially m...1:41,<br />Republicans think of Democrats (especially minorities) as inferior -- therefore Democrats must think of themselves as inferior too.<br /><br />No, that isn't how it works. Republicans ARE inferior on every measure (jobs, health, income, divorces, drug abuse, education), so they need to bully others in order to feel better about themselves. Pushing women around and hating those who are different is the mechanism by which Republicans stave off their own recognition that they ARE inferior. Republicans went for Trump because he makes them feel better about themselves.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-77200673977360302582022-11-15T15:36:10.295-05:002022-11-15T15:36:10.295-05:00@1:41 -- these sound like the feelings Somerby is ...@1:41 -- these sound like the feelings Somerby is trying to instill in Democrats (or perhaps feels himself and is projecting onto them), but this is not how Democrats feel as a group. All people are occasionally down; these feelings belong to individuals not political parties. Psychologists do not lump all of those terms together under a heading such as "feelings of inferiority." They do sound like the way someone depressed might feel, but Democrats are not depressed in any sense and do not feel inferior. <br /><br />Most of the Democrats I know are committed to their values because they believe in them and think that's how a good person lives their life, not out of deficiency. This all sounds like pop psychology derived from some right wing book trying to demonize Democrats. The misuse of psychology to harm others is part of what I have been chastizing Somerby for doing, but he isn't the only one using such a technique. <br /><br />And he is still doing it today, as he claims that Kari Lake must have psychological problems. When you see someone doing this, you should be extra suspicious and careful, since (1) a professional psychologists wouldn't participate in something like that, (2) pop psychology is not professional psychology nor is it academic psychology, (3) even a claim of mental illness requires evidence to support it. Simply calling the people you dislike, disagree with or oppose politically some name such as mentally ill, doesn't make you right or them wrong. It is disinformation, propaganda and name-calling, especially when Somerby does it.<br /><br />In summary, you are throwing around terms and you don't know what you are talking about.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-24189542265283794832022-11-15T14:42:30.144-05:002022-11-15T14:42:30.144-05:00Without looking at the specifics of California’s p...Without looking at the specifics of California’s proposition (which is currently winning with 66% of the vote), I will amend my original formulation to state that the argument is between “abortion is illegal under all circumstances” and “abortion is a woman’s right.”<br /><br />There is no centrist position. <br /><br />Thanks for the clarification. mhnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-12667596143909972782022-11-15T14:21:17.288-05:002022-11-15T14:21:17.288-05:00"Very few advocate the latter."
Oh yeah...<br />"Very few advocate the latter."<br /><br />Oh yeah? And what about the recent CA state constitutional amendment? It doesn't seem to stipulate any conditions whatsoever. <br /><br />...and that's the whole state of CA. And CA is a big, big state. How does it fit into "very few"?.. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-21298138596127911352022-11-15T14:21:04.530-05:002022-11-15T14:21:04.530-05:00Forget paragraph breaks again?Forget paragraph breaks again?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8611810694571930415.post-3141491164616098852022-11-15T14:19:20.545-05:002022-11-15T14:19:20.545-05:00Since the runup to the invasion of Iraq.Since the runup to the invasion of Iraq.Bert Mustinnoreply@blogger.com