I was reading through the comments on the opinion piece in the NYTimes today about removing the Jefferson memorial. Quite a few of the commenters said that we should stick with tearing statues of confederates until after the election, then we can talk about Jefferson, Washington and any other problematic founding fathers. If we go for them now, we risk alienating centrist independents who might otherwise vote Democrat this time around. To which I say: "Amen!"
However, someone else said that they actually think it would be a good thing if we tore down the Jefferson Memorial, pissed off the centrists and got Trump re-elected. The reasoning? Only if we re-elect Trump will we see how rotten this country really is. And if we don't see how rotten it is, how we will ever have the revolution we need? They implied that if we elect Biden, it will keeping the US from hitting bottom which we supposedly need to do for the supposed revolution.
Good God!
Is there anyone here who agrees with this? I hope not, but I am curious.
Marx might have.
I don't.
M.
Quote from: Treehugger on July 06, 2020, 03:59:20 PM
I was reading through the comments on the opinion piece in the NYTimes today about removing the Jefferson memorial. Quite a few of the commenters said that we should stick with tearing statues of confederates until after the election, then we can talk about Jefferson, Washington and any other problematic founding fathers. If we go for them now, we risk alienating centrist independents who might otherwise vote Democrat this time around. To which I say: "Amen!"
However, someone else said that they actually think it would be a good thing if we tore down the Jefferson Memorial, pissed off the centrists and got Trump re-elected. The reasoning? Only if we re-elect Trump will we see how rotten this country really is. And if we don't see how rotten it is, how we will ever have the revolution we need? They implied that if we elect Biden, it will keeping the US from hitting bottom which we supposedly need to do for the supposed revolution.
Good God!
Is there anyone here who agrees with this? I hope not, but I am curious.
This was the explicit policy of the German Communist Party until early 1933: The worse things get, the better!
Problem for contemporary lefties, and for this these are fools, is that things ain't bad! Well, except for us academics. :-)
I do see a few left-leaning people in my Facebook feed who absolutely refuse to vote for Biden, but they aren't large in number and I don't think their perspective is widely shared. Judging by Biden's polls in swing states, they aren't hurting his elctoral chances very much.
As a conservative with little love for the president, I've been cheering for Biden since the primaries began. A price will have to be paid for Trump, and Biden is the lowest possible price.
Indeed, if you think about elections in those terms, conservatives are getting the better deal by far. Progressives had to pay a price for eight years of The Smug Fool Who Sometimes Gave Good(-Sounding) Speeches, and that price was Donald Trump: the worst possible Republican candidate. Biden, meanwhile, is more palatable for me than anyone else who was seeking the nomination.
I don't think you should take the comments section--especially on the editorial page of a paper--as indicative of some chunk or other of the political spectrum. (I also wonder how far left counts as 'radical' in your eyes, but that's another matter entirely.)
As for the point: there's a perfectly reasonable and legitimate point to be made about how the cracks in the system get papered over once your person is in charge, but activism and the will to change things surge when the other party is in charge. Just look at how docile everyone was about torture, climate change, etc. under Obama, especially compared to just before and after him. But, again, you shouldn't look to the comments section for nuanced political treatises.
The marxist "philosopher" Slavov Zizek supported Trump over Clinton in 2016.
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/upfront/2016/11/zizek-electing-trump-shake-system-161116062713933.html
Zizek wanted chaos from Trump in order to achieve later radical political transformation.
It was a moronic view then, and it continues to be.
Quote from: mamselle on July 06, 2020, 04:06:26 PM
Marx might have.
I don't.
M.
Yeah, I was definitely hearing echoes of Marx there. That's what made me worry that it wasn't just one strange commenter's opinion. I do wonder about those wanting to tear down statues of the founding fathers. Maybe they secretly do want Trump re-elected, but won't admit it out loud or in print.
Quote from: downer on July 06, 2020, 05:28:21 PM
The marxist "philosopher" Slavov Zizek supported Trump over Clinton in 2016.
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/upfront/2016/11/zizek-electing-trump-shake-system-161116062713933.html
Zizek wanted chaos from Trump in order to achieve later radical political transformation.
It was a moronic view then, and it continues to be.
Yep, that's exactly it. "Moronic" is too kind ...
Quote from: writingprof on July 06, 2020, 05:02:26 PM
As a conservative with little love for the president, I've been cheering for Biden since the primaries began. A price will have to be paid for Trump, and Biden is the lowest possible price.
Indeed, if you think about elections in those terms, conservatives are getting the better deal by far. Progressives had to pay a price for eight years of The Smug Fool Who Sometimes Gave Good(-Sounding) Speeches, and that price was Donald Trump: the worst possible Republican candidate. Biden, meanwhile, is more palatable for me than anyone else who was seeking the nomination.
I recall Thomas Sowell saying something like, the two parties basically take turns becoming unpopular, because everyone votes for government with a 'solution' and there are very few solutions available, but many tradeoffs to pick from.
I can believe the idea of 'have it hit bottom' based on people I know. However, if that's the plan, then there's a lot of work for those people to do because people like me are doing fine under Trump. The riots are far away and irrelevant to our whole state, our county has a single digit number of Covid cases, and most of us are working well enough from home. Our kids can be fully online for the next year and probably be fine.
I'm still confused about how Biden ended up the Democrat candidate if the goal was to have a Democrat win in November. The Democrats had several good candidates in the running in March who unexpectedly dropped out.
Quote from: mamselle on July 06, 2020, 04:06:26 PM
Marx might have.
I don't.
M.
This was the attitude of many anti-apartheid activists in the 1980's. They opposed charities which helped South African black people to gain skills and start businesses since that was keeping the status quo and delaying the revolution.
This is not surprising at all. Those on the left are predisposed to see decision making as a series of yes/no decisions rather than a series of trade offs. There ARE solutions and our side has them! Not "There are no solutions, only trade offs, some of which are better deals than others." If you really believe you just say "yes" to the good things and "no" to the bad things, there can be no tolerance for bad things. You should burn this bitch down to go after the last fraction of a percent of any negative.
These are what Thomas Sowell calls the "vision of the anointed" and the "tragic vision." Those on the left with the vision of the anointed point to Jefferson, see 5% they don't like and want to tear down the legacy wholesale. Those with the tragic vision when asked about Jefferson (or anything else) say, "compared to what?" Then after looking at the alternatives say, "Hmmm...this guy isn't so bad." In not unrelated news, some of the systems in part designed by Jefferson are specifically intended to institutionally restrict the more negative aspect of those pesky human beings, including Jefferson himself. Contrast this with the French whose revolution shortly followed with something leaning more toward a desire to get the "right people" in power rather than accept the flawed nature of humanity and plan for its presence.
...which led, not long afterwards, to Napoleon....
M.
While it's certainly true that some on the left want things to get worse so they can get better, they're in a very small minority. It's worth noting, for instance, that MoveOn.org members voted to endorse Biden (https://front.moveon.org/). I realize that MoveOn is not radical in the sense being discussed here, but it's still influential, and it's much farther to the left than Biden.
Quote from: writingprof on July 06, 2020, 05:02:26 PM
Progressives had to pay a price for eight years of The Smug Fool Who Sometimes Gave Good(-Sounding) Speeches, and that price was Donald Trump: the worst possible Republican candidate.
I'm intrigued by this formulation. When I saw Obama talk at the 2004 convention (https://www.c-span.org/video/?182718-3/senator-barack-obama-2004-democratic-national-convention-keynote-speech), I thought he sounded a lot like a college professor which made him very relatable to this college professor. You must find a professorial manner at least familiar, probably relatable even.
This same manner is widely interpreted as smugness outside academe, especially in circles that are not confident in their ways of knowing.
Since you are obviously not in that latter group, can you describe a little more how the smugness perception developed from a style that is otherwise normal in our circles?
I'm genuinely interested, because the perceptions vary so much for reasons I don't think I get.
Quote from: Hibush on July 07, 2020, 01:00:13 PM
Quote from: writingprof on July 06, 2020, 05:02:26 PM
Progressives had to pay a price for eight years of The Smug Fool Who Sometimes Gave Good(-Sounding) Speeches, and that price was Donald Trump: the worst possible Republican candidate.
I'm intrigued by this formulation. When I saw Obama talk at the 2004 convention (https://www.c-span.org/video/?182718-3/senator-barack-obama-2004-democratic-national-convention-keynote-speech), I thought he sounded a lot like a college professor which made him very relatable to this college professor. You must find a professorial manner at least familiar, probably relatable even.
This same manner is widely interpreted as smugness outside academe, especially in circles that are not confident in their ways of knowing.
Since you are obviously not in that latter group, can you describe a little more how the smugness perception developed from a style that is otherwise normal in our circles?
I'm genuinely interested, because the perceptions vary so much for reasons I don't think I get.
Zealous conservatives resent Obama because he was a) competent, b) an ethical person, c) a good public persona at home and abroad, and d) popular when what they were really, really hoping for was a Trump-level eff-up. Since Trump is such an eff-up, expect the resentment toward Obama to boomerang back around. That, and the zealots use 44 as a rallying point like the "Here we go" cheer at a football game.
I will say that the Trump silver lining is that his presidency did expose the racist, homophobic, xenophobic underbelly of America. "Hitting rock bottom" is a concept for those recovering from addiction because it is generally only then, when things are so bad one can no longer ignore the lifestyle damage, that one confronts one's problems. We as a country may be there now, finally (and yes, there has been a great deal of progress, just maybe not as much as we thought).
Quote from: Hibush on July 07, 2020, 01:00:13 PM
Quote from: writingprof on July 06, 2020, 05:02:26 PM
Progressives had to pay a price for eight years of The Smug Fool Who Sometimes Gave Good(-Sounding) Speeches, and that price was Donald Trump: the worst possible Republican candidate.
I'm intrigued by this formulation. When I saw Obama talk at the 2004 convention (https://www.c-span.org/video/?182718-3/senator-barack-obama-2004-democratic-national-convention-keynote-speech), I thought he sounded a lot like a college professor which made him very relatable to this college professor. You must find a professorial manner at least familiar, probably relatable even.
Actually, most of the professors I work with are so diffident that they speak in uptalk? In which even declarative sentences are delivered as if they are questions? They've trained each other to believe that a confident assertion is somehow problematic?
So, no, I didn't find Obama's conversational manner to be reminiscent of my colleagues'. I found him to be supremely self-confident, patronizing, and vainglorious. Smug, in other words.
Good(-sounding) speeches, though.
Quote from: writingprof on July 07, 2020, 02:19:50 PM
I found him to be supremely self-confident, patronizing, and vainglorious. Smug, in other words.
Those are certainly good reasons to denounce a presidency.
As always, good thinking, WP.
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on July 07, 2020, 02:31:28 PM
Quote from: writingprof on July 07, 2020, 02:19:50 PM
I found him to be supremely self-confident, patronizing, and vainglorious. Smug, in other words.
Those are certainly good reasons to denounce a presidency.
As always, good thinking, WP.
Ah, but you're leaving out the other, crucial part of my original formulation. Smugness alone is to be expected in a president. Obama was a smug
fool.
Or do you care to defend the mishandling of the Arab Spring, the pointless escalation of the "war" in Afghanistan, the Russia "reset," the "red line" fiasco, et cetera, ad infinitum?
Quote from: writingprof on July 07, 2020, 02:38:04 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on July 07, 2020, 02:31:28 PM
Quote from: writingprof on July 07, 2020, 02:19:50 PM
I found him to be supremely self-confident, patronizing, and vainglorious. Smug, in other words.
Those are certainly good reasons to denounce a presidency.
As always, good thinking, WP.
Ah, but you're leaving out the other, crucial part of my original formulation. Smugness alone is to be expected in a president. Obama was a smug fool.
Or do you care to defend the mishandling of the Arab Spring, the pointless escalation of the "war" in Afghanistan, the Russia "reset," the "red line" fiasco, et cetera, ad infinitum?
Escalation of the war Dubya started? Escalation in support of American troops? Didn't know we should keep the war on the down-low. I am aware that Obama took out ISIS, the other war Dubya started. What would you have had Obama do about the "Arab Spring"? Perhaps Russia is not open to an American president unless Russia can manipulate the American president----and this was a problem which started with Dubya and, frankly, was hardly an international crisis.
And maybe argue with this guy about "Red Lining" (https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/07/obama-syria-foreign-policy-red-line-revisited-214059)
Quote
By October 2013, without a bomb being dropped, the Bashar Assad regime had admitted having a massive chemical weapons program it had never before acknowledged, agreed to give it up and submitted to a multinational coalition that removed and destroyed the deadly trove. From my perspective at the Pentagon, this seemed like an incontrovertible, if inelegant, example of what academics call "coercive diplomacy," using the threat of force to achieve an outcome military power itself could not even accomplish.
Yet the near unanimous verdict among observers is that this episode was a failure. Even the president's sympathizers call the handling of the red line statement and its crossing a "debacle," an "amateurish improvisation" or the administration's "worst blunder." They contend that Obama whiffed at a chance to show resolve, that for the sake of maintaining credibility, the U.S. would have been better off had the administration not pursued the diplomatic opening and used force instead. In this sense, a mythology has evolved around the red line episode—that if only the U.S. had used force, then it could have not only have addressed the chemical weapons threat, but solved the Syria conflict altogether.
But this conventional wisdom is wrong. Of course, some of the criticism can be explained by politics, with partisans unwilling to give Obama credit for any success. But many others criticize the policy less for its outcome than for the way it came about. This line of judgement reveals a deep—and misguided—conviction in Washington foreign policy circles that a policy must be perfectly articulated in order to be successful—that, in a sense, the means matter more than the ends. Far from a failure, the "red line" episode accomplished everything it set out to do—in fact, it surpassed our expectations. But the fact that it appeared to occur haphazardly and in a scattered way was enough to brand it as a failure in Washington's eyes.
Zealous conservatives just don't want to see it.
et cetera, ad infinitum.
Or, in other words WP, you're denigrating Obama because his administration made mistakes and missteps? What president hasn't? Are you looking for molehills because you want mountains? Should we compare 44 to any other president, particularly 20th century Republican presidents?
Quote from: writingprof on July 07, 2020, 02:19:50 PM
Quote from: Hibush on July 07, 2020, 01:00:13 PM
Quote from: writingprof on July 06, 2020, 05:02:26 PM
Progressives had to pay a price for eight years of The Smug Fool Who Sometimes Gave Good(-Sounding) Speeches, and that price was Donald Trump: the worst possible Republican candidate.
I'm intrigued by this formulation. When I saw Obama talk at the 2004 convention (https://www.c-span.org/video/?182718-3/senator-barack-obama-2004-democratic-national-convention-keynote-speech), I thought he sounded a lot like a college professor which made him very relatable to this college professor. You must find a professorial manner at least familiar, probably relatable even.
Actually, most of the professors I work with are so diffident that they speak in uptalk? In which even declarative sentences are delivered as if they are questions? They've trained each other to believe that a confident assertion is somehow problematic?
So, no, I didn't find Obama's conversational manner to be reminiscent of my colleagues'. I found him to be supremely self-confident, patronizing, and vainglorious. Smug, in other words.
Good(-sounding) speeches, though.
I think the diffident-professor environment is a telling difference. I might also have a different reaction if I were in that challenging environment. (I hear uptalk so rarely on campus that I suspect the students drive off anyone who engages in it.)
Given that, can you describe the leadership style that--to you--conveys informed competence without trespassing into smugness?
[quote author=writingprof link=topic=1533.msg36652#msg36652
So, no, I didn't find Obama's conversational manner to be reminiscent of my colleagues'. I found him to be supremely self-confident, patronizing, and vainglorious. Smug, in other words.
[/quote]
Wow. If you thought Obama was smug, I really got ask what your opinion is of Ted Cruz.
Quote from: writingprof on July 07, 2020, 02:38:04 PM
Quote from: Wahoo Redux on July 07, 2020, 02:31:28 PM
Quote from: writingprof on July 07, 2020, 02:19:50 PM
I found him to be supremely self-confident, patronizing, and vainglorious. Smug, in other words.
Those are certainly good reasons to denounce a presidency.
As always, good thinking, WP.
Ah, but you're leaving out the other, crucial part of my original formulation. Smugness alone is to be expected in a president. Obama was a smug fool.
Or do you care to defend the mishandling of the Arab Spring, the pointless escalation of the "war" in Afghanistan, the Russia "reset," the "red line" fiasco, et cetera, ad infinitum?
There's nothing wrong with being self-confident. Also, if you think Obama was/is smug, then what do you think of the current stain in our country's history?
Obama was not a perfect president. I disagree with a number of his policies and decisions, some of them vociferously. But compared to what we have now, he was a shining radiance of wisdom and professionalism. Heck, I would prefer Mike Pence to what we have now. I would prefer a banana slug to what we have now.
Quote from: Hegemony on July 08, 2020, 03:14:43 AM
Obama was not a perfect president. I disagree with a number of his policies and decisions, some of them vociferously. But compared to what we have now, he was a shining radiance of wisdom and professionalism. Heck, I would prefer Mike Pence to what we have now. I would prefer a banana slug to what we have now.
.... given that few banana slugs are malignant narcissists.
Quote from: Hegemony on July 08, 2020, 03:14:43 AM
I would prefer a banana slug to what we have now.
LOL! Me too.
Trump . . . is a disgrace.
Cruz . . . is merely punchable.
Obama . . . was a smug fool.
I live in a deeply red state, and most of my friends supported either Warren or Sanders. Almost all of my Warren friends are supporting Biden, and almost all of my Sanders friends are pro-Trump. I think I posted about this on the 2020 Election board, and someone commented that ideologically Trump and Sanders shared some similarities in their populist bases.
That said, my Sanders friends are quite strident and even shrill in their condemnation of Biden. I don't think its about ideology -- I think its about meme consumption.
Ratguy, I haven't seen any really good Biden memes. Feel free to share them on this thread.