Blogger offers important post!

SATURDAY, JANUARY 22, 2022

Drum, aligning with Lincoln: This is a very important post by Kevin Drum. The headline atop it says this:

Fox News viewers don’t deserve contempt. Save it for the folks fleecing them.

Inevitably, Drum's early commenters don't agree with that view. As we've noted on several occasions, our species is built to loathe Others.

At any rate, Lincoln said it first, at the end of his first Inaugural Address:

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. 

In our view, that's extremely good politics in the end. But experts say it simply can't happen. They say we aren't wired for that.

The kind of statement our tribe prefers: Who knows if Stevenson actually said it? But the famous apocryphal statement does capture the drift of our crowd.


13 comments:



  1. "Fox News viewers don’t deserve contempt. Save it for the folks fleecing them."

    Oh dear. Why don't you, dear liberals, save it for the folks fleecing you? And let Them figure out who might be fleecing them, themselves....

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  2. They hate the others because they hate themselves.

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  3. “Fox News viewers don’t deserve contempt. Save it for the folks fleecing them.”

    That would be, among others, the Republican Party.

    But uh oh! When we express contempt for them, Somerby tells us we’re mean and we hate the others.

    Oh, and that Tucker Carlson frequently imparts good information.

    There’s no pleasing Somerby.

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  4. Sure, Lincoln’s words are the desirable approach.

    How did that work out for him?

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  5. We still need to figure out how to make voters angry at Republicans

    https://jabberwocking.com/we-still-need-to-figure-out-how-to-make-voters-angry-at-republicans/

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  6. "But experts say it simply can't happen. They say we aren't wired for that."

    This is the opposite of what "experts" say. Anyone who knows anything at all about human behavior know that humans are wired for social interaction, cohesiveness, cooperation and affiliation. People need people for survival and they have evolved to interact with, connect with, and live among other people.

    When there is a group of people who deliberately act against another group, for whatever reason, peoiple will protect themselves and they will close ranks to do so. That is what is happening now. Republicans have defined themselves as in opposition to Democrats. No amount of good will on the part of Democrats is going to change that. We have tried.

    So, when Somerby preaches to us here, as if we are the obstacle to cooperation, as if we needed to hear Lincoln's words about friendship, he insults us. He also demonstrates a huge lack of understanding of politics since the 1990s (at least). If I thought that Somerby were writing here in good faith, I would have to conclude that he is the world's biggest moron. But, I believe this garbage that he keeps writing is part of right wing propaganda, that Somerby is paid to write this tripe, and that it is intended to undermine Democrats by using our own values against us, weaponizing our desire to resolve conflict and act in cooperation -- something conservatives do not hold as a value at all (for those defined as political opponents).

    Somerby is not taking the high road as long as he maligns the human race by lying about human behavior in order to portray Democrats as fatally flawed. An essayist should not have to tell lies in order to support a point about bipartisan cooperation. He needs to present serious ideas about how to achieve it when Republicans have no interest in removing their roadblocks to progress in Congress.

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  7. Drum’s conclusion may or may not have merit, but since he never watches Fox, how would Bob be in any position to judge?
    I do think the old saw about the Carnival sucker must be considered: only those who want to fall for scams actually do.

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  8. "At the National Conservatism conference in Orlando, Florida, held from Oct. 31 – Nov. 2, a Boise State professor in the political department, Scott Yenor, stated that independent women are “medicated, meddlesome and quarrelsome.” He also stated, “Our culture is steeped with feminism; it teaches young boys and girls that they are motivated by much the same things and want much the same things.” Most disturbingly he states “Every effort must be made not to recruit women into engineering, but rather to recruit and demand more of men who become engineers. Ditto for med school, and the law, and every trade.”

    Meanwhile, Somerby thinks that letting women surf the same ocean as men represents progress for women. All the while, Somerby pretends it is Yvette Mimieux's focus on surfing that he admired as an 8-year old boy, not her beauty.

    Preoccupied by their efforts to restore a mythical, nostalgic past, men like Somerby and this idiot professor in Boise are understandably confused about what progress might look like.

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  9. David,
    How does Republican voter suppression policies positively impact black people?

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  10. Isn't David so magnanimous? He refuses to call liberals racists. Commies, socialists, bleeding heart tree hugging virtue signaling latte sipping elitists, yes, but definitely not racists.

    David has opinions about every topic under the sun but will go hide under his rock with the question you asked him.

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  11. Here is the essence of what the label Karen means. An entitled white woman who tries to enforce rules against black people just going about their daily lives. Here she invokes authority she doesn't have. Other karens call the cops on black people who are doing nothing wrong, as this man was doing nothing wrong.

    Racism means that a black person cannot just relax and go about their business without some white person bothering them, inconveniencing them or even endangering their lives. Racism isn't only about voting laws. It is about this everyday garbage.

    "User @blackmagicsmg asks a so-called “Karen” who is watching him in a grocery story why she is mad at him. “You don’t see me paying for my stuff?” he says while eating gummy worms and using the self-checkout machine.

    “Who made you security? Out here, confronting us?” the TikToker, who is Black, asks the woman, who is white.

    The woman pulls out her wallet and says “that’s who made me security” and shows him an ID card with her photo. It’s unclear what the card is for. The TikToker then offers her a gummy worm (she declines) and shows her his receipt."

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    Replies
    1. "Racism means that a black person cannot just relax and go about their business without some white person bothering them, inconveniencing them or even endangering their lives."

      But in DR Congo you can, dear dembot!

      The Congo is a great place. It's warm, and not a single Karen endangering your life in sight! Go and enjoy. Seriously, go. What are you waiting for?

      Delete
  12. No doubt conservatives are more concerned about the policies' impacts. Precisely why blacks don't vote Republican.

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