by wj
I had been under the impression that the President’s pardon power was pretty much absolute. But once again IANAL raises its interesting head.
After his Presidential pardon, Joe Arpaio’s lawyers naturally filed a petition with the court to have his conviction vacated. But the Arizona Republic reports that, rather than just doing so, the judge has decided to hear oral arguments before acting on the petition.
It seems that there is a legal theory (see this) that the pardon power under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution may not be quite absolute after all:
While the Constitution’s pardon power is broad, it is not unlimited. Like all provisions of the original Constitution of 1787, it is limited by later-enacted amendments, starting with the Bill of Rights. For example, were a president to announce that he planned to pardon all white defendants convicted of a certain crime but not all black defendants, that would conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Similarly, issuance of a pardon that violates the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause is also suspect. Under the Due Process Clause, no one in the United States (citizen or otherwise) may “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” But for due process and judicial review to function, courts must be able to restrain government officials. Due process requires that, when a government official is found by a court to be violating individuals’ constitutional rights, the court can issue effective relief (such as an injunction) ordering the official to cease this unconstitutional conduct. And for an injunction to be effective, there must be a penalty for violation of the injunction—principally, contempt of court.
I have to say that, to this non-lawyer, the argument makes some sense. But that may just be because I would like it to be true. Certainly the implications for the Russia investigation are profound….
Hard to say, would make for some interesting arguments and lots of citations to Constitutional history on whether this power was to be unlimited and what “offenses against the United States” happens to be.
Violating court orders/injunctions tend to be in a separate category generally, but not sure that takes them outside the scope of the pardon power.
The Due Process argument is interesting.
Hard to say, would make for some interesting arguments and lots of citations to Constitutional history on whether this power was to be unlimited and what “offenses against the United States” happens to be.
Violating court orders/injunctions tend to be in a separate category generally, but not sure that takes them outside the scope of the pardon power.
The Due Process argument is interesting.
Criminal contempt probably-if not certainly-falls within the pardon power. Just as you might need injunctive or contempt relief to protect the public, the power to enjoin or hold in contempt can be arbitrarily wielded as well. We have several federal judges in TX who think God waits to hear from them before making His next move. They have been slapped down several times by the 5th Circuit for being mini-dictators.
Nigel asked in a different thread what I think about the pardon. I think it was shitty on a lot of levels, but I thought that about a lot of Obama and Clinton pardons too.
Criminal contempt probably-if not certainly-falls within the pardon power. Just as you might need injunctive or contempt relief to protect the public, the power to enjoin or hold in contempt can be arbitrarily wielded as well. We have several federal judges in TX who think God waits to hear from them before making His next move. They have been slapped down several times by the 5th Circuit for being mini-dictators.
Nigel asked in a different thread what I think about the pardon. I think it was shitty on a lot of levels, but I thought that about a lot of Obama and Clinton pardons too.
In the meantime, I mandate the raising of bronze statues of Kathy Griffin in every town square, courtroom, and military academy in the U.S. of A.
https://www.thecut.com/2017/08/kathy-griffin-donald-trump-interview.html
Pigeons everywhere would prefer by a 100% to 0% margin to crap baptize confederate rump statuary, but they’ll still have Rutherford B Hayes’ Ronald Reagan’s and Milton Friedman’s visages available for relief.
In the meantime, I mandate the raising of bronze statues of Kathy Griffin in every town square, courtroom, and military academy in the U.S. of A.
https://www.thecut.com/2017/08/kathy-griffin-donald-trump-interview.html
Pigeons everywhere would prefer by a 100% to 0% margin to crap baptize confederate rump statuary, but they’ll still have Rutherford B Hayes’ Ronald Reagan’s and Milton Friedman’s visages available for relief.
What about W’s pardons?
What about W’s pardons?
If a president can pardon treason it’s hard to see how s/he would somehow be constrained from pardoning a lesser offense. Threat of impeachment would seem to be the check against egregious abuse of the pardon power. Short of that, I suppose Congress could pass a law, with veto-proof (and therefore impeachment capable) majorities, abolishing the Secret Service and/or zero out the budget for the executive branch (excluding the president’s salary), as a not so gentle nudge to force a resignation, but impeachment would be less disruptive.
If a president can pardon treason it’s hard to see how s/he would somehow be constrained from pardoning a lesser offense. Threat of impeachment would seem to be the check against egregious abuse of the pardon power. Short of that, I suppose Congress could pass a law, with veto-proof (and therefore impeachment capable) majorities, abolishing the Secret Service and/or zero out the budget for the executive branch (excluding the president’s salary), as a not so gentle nudge to force a resignation, but impeachment would be less disruptive.
Sheriff Joe is no longer Sheriff and can no longer abuse the authority of his office to violate anyone’s rights. And if he were still Sheriff, the pardon would not prevent him from being held in either civil or criminal contempt if he did it again.
Sheriff Joe is no longer Sheriff and can no longer abuse the authority of his office to violate anyone’s rights. And if he were still Sheriff, the pardon would not prevent him from being held in either civil or criminal contempt if he did it again.
The problem clearly is not what this individual might do in the future to abuse his office. It is the message that this pardon sends to others: Go ahead and violate people’s civil rights, because there’s a get-out-of-jail-free card available to you.
The problem clearly is not what this individual might do in the future to abuse his office. It is the message that this pardon sends to others: Go ahead and violate people’s civil rights, because there’s a get-out-of-jail-free card available to you.
I think you could make a pretty solid case that Arapaio should be shipped to The Hague to answer for his crimes.
I think you could make a pretty solid case that Arapaio should be shipped to The Hague to answer for his crimes.
Alas, and as I am sure you know, the US is not a signatory to the Rome Statute. What foresight!
Alas, and as I am sure you know, the US is not a signatory to the Rome Statute. What foresight!
But if he ever sets foot outside the US, he’s still subject to the ICC. (The downside being, he is less likely to go away….)
But if he ever sets foot outside the US, he’s still subject to the ICC. (The downside being, he is less likely to go away….)
What happened to extraordinary rendition or mere simple kidnapping?
Soften him up on the plane ride with some preliminary interrogation. Make sure the flight attendants are former tortured incarcerates in his Arizona concentration camps.
The dress code for the overseas jaunt can be orange jumpsuits.
Take his age into account while gelding him.
Use luke-warm pokers.
Distribute little unopenable packages of barbed wire bits for the inflight snack and make him open them using only his right foot and his dentures.
Drinks are on the house. What’s in them will be announced at his funeral.
I’d provide more seat room for him to make room for the shackles and the electrified butt plugs.
What happened to extraordinary rendition or mere simple kidnapping?
Soften him up on the plane ride with some preliminary interrogation. Make sure the flight attendants are former tortured incarcerates in his Arizona concentration camps.
The dress code for the overseas jaunt can be orange jumpsuits.
Take his age into account while gelding him.
Use luke-warm pokers.
Distribute little unopenable packages of barbed wire bits for the inflight snack and make him open them using only his right foot and his dentures.
Drinks are on the house. What’s in them will be announced at his funeral.
I’d provide more seat room for him to make room for the shackles and the electrified butt plugs.
What is with the Aryan babes on FOX Fake News?
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/08/30/tomi-lahren-hire-shows-21st-century-fox-complicit-hannitys-cesspool/217807
Who did she twirl for over the in-floor air conditioning vent with the fan turned up high?
What is with the Aryan babes on FOX Fake News?
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2017/08/30/tomi-lahren-hire-shows-21st-century-fox-complicit-hannitys-cesspool/217807
Who did she twirl for over the in-floor air conditioning vent with the fan turned up high?
The law is an ass. When it brays, I send it to the glue factory:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/08/truly-shocking-donald-trump-elected-president-united-states
The law is an ass. When it brays, I send it to the glue factory:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/08/truly-shocking-donald-trump-elected-president-united-states
Threat of impeachment would seem to be the check against egregious abuse of the pardon power.
“I promise to pardon anyone charged with assaulting a member of Congress who voted for my impeachment or violently interrupting a session of Congress considering a motion to impeach.”
Problem solved.
Threat of impeachment would seem to be the check against egregious abuse of the pardon power.
“I promise to pardon anyone charged with assaulting a member of Congress who voted for my impeachment or violently interrupting a session of Congress considering a motion to impeach.”
Problem solved.
Wow!
That’s going to be a blanket pardon of 37% percent of the electorate.
Wow!
That’s going to be a blanket pardon of 37% percent of the electorate.
Time for Russia and republican Nazis to start stealing 2018 and 2020:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8/29/1694362/-Cybersecurity-advisors-resigned-en-masse-due-to-Trump-s-insufficient-attention-to-vulnerabilities
Time for Russia and republican Nazis to start stealing 2018 and 2020:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/8/29/1694362/-Cybersecurity-advisors-resigned-en-masse-due-to-Trump-s-insufficient-attention-to-vulnerabilities
Is it correct that the President’s pardon power arguably only extends to Federal law, and that it cannnot affect convictions for violation of state laws ?
I expect The Donald to ignore such niceties, or try to, but I’m interested in how our legal experts think the courts would rule on that question.
Is it correct that the President’s pardon power arguably only extends to Federal law, and that it cannnot affect convictions for violation of state laws ?
I expect The Donald to ignore such niceties, or try to, but I’m interested in how our legal experts think the courts would rule on that question.
I, for one, look forward to California passing a statute criminalizing the abrogation of Californian’s constitutional rights, regardless of where it happens.
I’m sure there were a few Californians caught up in Arpaio’s gulag, but the fight over extradition, ex-post-facto, pardons, and jurisdiction will probably last longer than Arpaio has on this Earth, so it’s all good.
I, for one, look forward to California passing a statute criminalizing the abrogation of Californian’s constitutional rights, regardless of where it happens.
I’m sure there were a few Californians caught up in Arpaio’s gulag, but the fight over extradition, ex-post-facto, pardons, and jurisdiction will probably last longer than Arpaio has on this Earth, so it’s all good.
McKinney:
What do you think of this lawyer’s argument about why the Arpaio pardon is particularly bad?
AFAIK neither Clinton nor Obama ever pardoned anyone who never did any time. Looking over Obama’s list, all the pardons seem to be for offenses at least a decade old. I’m not even sure how many of the pardoned people were still in jail when he pardoned them.
McKinney:
What do you think of this lawyer’s argument about why the Arpaio pardon is particularly bad?
AFAIK neither Clinton nor Obama ever pardoned anyone who never did any time. Looking over Obama’s list, all the pardons seem to be for offenses at least a decade old. I’m not even sure how many of the pardoned people were still in jail when he pardoned them.
Joel – it’s pretty much settled law that POTUS can’t pardon people for state offenses.
Joel – it’s pretty much settled law that POTUS can’t pardon people for state offenses.
Ugh –
That’s what I’d heard.
If that’s the case, it’s my long-term estimate that The Donald’s goose is cooked, because New York State does have some financial laws, and he has drawn attention to his habitual violations thereof. IIRC, NY AG Schneiderman has a grand jury impaneled and is quietly working to preserve Truth, Justice, and what I once thought of as The American Way.
Ugh –
That’s what I’d heard.
If that’s the case, it’s my long-term estimate that The Donald’s goose is cooked, because New York State does have some financial laws, and he has drawn attention to his habitual violations thereof. IIRC, NY AG Schneiderman has a grand jury impaneled and is quietly working to preserve Truth, Justice, and what I once thought of as The American Way.
New York State and what Army?
rump’s not leaving. And the republicans in Congress who stole their elections last November on his russian coattails ain’t leaving either.
New York State and what Army?
rump’s not leaving. And the republicans in Congress who stole their elections last November on his russian coattails ain’t leaving either.
i would happily support NYS impounding Trump™ Tower.
i would happily support NYS impounding Trump™ Tower.
Just came across this little poem by Langston Hughes. Thought I’d dedicate it to Marty:
“Looks like what drives me crazy
Don’t have no effect on you–
But I’m gonna keep on at it
Till it drives you crazy, too.”
Just came across this little poem by Langston Hughes. Thought I’d dedicate it to Marty:
“Looks like what drives me crazy
Don’t have no effect on you–
But I’m gonna keep on at it
Till it drives you crazy, too.”
Nigel asked in a different thread what I think about the pardon. I think it was shitty on a lot of levels, but I thought that about a lot of Obama and Clinton pardons too.
Glad to have you back, McKinney, and thanks for the response.
I have to say that seems a bit of a lawyerly cop out, though (and if I were being provocative might even be tempted to say it reminds me of a recent “on many sides..” comment.)
I’m happy to stipulate that some Clinton pardons were shitty – and accept that you might take that view on Obama too, though I’d disagree – but in neither case could they been seen as instrumental beyond themselves.
Apart from anything else, the most controversial pardons (Rich, Manning) took place right at the end of their respective administrations. Indeed in Obama’s case, for the majority of his time in office he issued fewer pardons than any modern president.
Here we have a president issuing a pardon in a completely unprecedented manner, before sentence had even been passed, let alone the established pardons process gone through. Six months into his first term. While engaged in what half the nation suspect to be obstruction of justice.
Is your opinion really that this is just ‘shitty’ along the lines of previous pardons you disapproved of, or do you think it something that might be of an entirely different kind ?
Nigel asked in a different thread what I think about the pardon. I think it was shitty on a lot of levels, but I thought that about a lot of Obama and Clinton pardons too.
Glad to have you back, McKinney, and thanks for the response.
I have to say that seems a bit of a lawyerly cop out, though (and if I were being provocative might even be tempted to say it reminds me of a recent “on many sides..” comment.)
I’m happy to stipulate that some Clinton pardons were shitty – and accept that you might take that view on Obama too, though I’d disagree – but in neither case could they been seen as instrumental beyond themselves.
Apart from anything else, the most controversial pardons (Rich, Manning) took place right at the end of their respective administrations. Indeed in Obama’s case, for the majority of his time in office he issued fewer pardons than any modern president.
Here we have a president issuing a pardon in a completely unprecedented manner, before sentence had even been passed, let alone the established pardons process gone through. Six months into his first term. While engaged in what half the nation suspect to be obstruction of justice.
Is your opinion really that this is just ‘shitty’ along the lines of previous pardons you disapproved of, or do you think it something that might be of an entirely different kind ?
Not sure how we can be having a conversation about bad pardons without mentioning Bush’s pardoning of his Iran-Contra co-conspirators. That’s worse than Arpaio in my book.
Not sure how we can be having a conversation about bad pardons without mentioning Bush’s pardoning of his Iran-Contra co-conspirators. That’s worse than Arpaio in my book.
RE: wj’s original question concerning the pardonabilty of those who have been accused of violating the civil rights of others, Reagan pardoned two former FBI agents who were convicted of conspiring to violate the constitutional rights of anti-war radicals in the early 1970s.
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/16/us/president-reagan-pardons-2-ex-fbi-officials-in-1970-s-break-ins.html?mcubz=0
Reagan’s official statement on the pardon:
It would not be difficult to play madlibs with this and draft one for Trump to justify Sheriff Joe’s pardon.
For what it’s worth, I don’t see that the Felt/Miller pardon was ever challenged and I don’t see any reported opinions citing it. Accordingly, I don’t think this is binding precedent as a legal matter, but then again, this isn’t something that I deal with in my practice so add NaCl to taste.
RE: wj’s original question concerning the pardonabilty of those who have been accused of violating the civil rights of others, Reagan pardoned two former FBI agents who were convicted of conspiring to violate the constitutional rights of anti-war radicals in the early 1970s.
http://www.nytimes.com/1981/04/16/us/president-reagan-pardons-2-ex-fbi-officials-in-1970-s-break-ins.html?mcubz=0
Reagan’s official statement on the pardon:
It would not be difficult to play madlibs with this and draft one for Trump to justify Sheriff Joe’s pardon.
For what it’s worth, I don’t see that the Felt/Miller pardon was ever challenged and I don’t see any reported opinions citing it. Accordingly, I don’t think this is binding precedent as a legal matter, but then again, this isn’t something that I deal with in my practice so add NaCl to taste.
In researching the Felt/Miller pardon, I came across this comparative analysis at 538:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-arpaio-pardon-has-plenty-of-precedents-that-got-other-presidents-in-trouble/
In researching the Felt/Miller pardon, I came across this comparative analysis at 538:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-arpaio-pardon-has-plenty-of-precedents-that-got-other-presidents-in-trouble/
I think this just has to do with the fact that pardons don’t inherently vacate convictions. A pardoned person was still convicted. They were just pardoned afterward. I am pretty sure that the judge had every right to just say no.
I think this just has to do with the fact that pardons don’t inherently vacate convictions. A pardoned person was still convicted. They were just pardoned afterward. I am pretty sure that the judge had every right to just say no.
There might also be an argument to be made that POTUS cannot use the pardon power to effectively override the separation of powers. That is, outside the constitutional rights/due process aspect noted in the post, pardoning people convicted of criminally violating court orders eviscerates the power of the judiciary to ensure compliance with its orders.
Note that, AFAICT, Arpaio was not convicted of criminally violating the civil/constitutional rights of people in the US, but for criminally not refraining from doing so when a court ordered him to stop. So, I’m not sure the Felt/Miller comparison is apt.
There might also be an argument to be made that POTUS cannot use the pardon power to effectively override the separation of powers. That is, outside the constitutional rights/due process aspect noted in the post, pardoning people convicted of criminally violating court orders eviscerates the power of the judiciary to ensure compliance with its orders.
Note that, AFAICT, Arpaio was not convicted of criminally violating the civil/constitutional rights of people in the US, but for criminally not refraining from doing so when a court ordered him to stop. So, I’m not sure the Felt/Miller comparison is apt.
I want two things to happen.
I want rump to pardon Menendez, in consideration of their vast similarities.
I want Antifa to go after Menendez in his front yard, considering the vengeance that is due him for this.
http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/08/31/bob-menendez-is-in-real-trouble/
He could always run as a republican in Texas, and win, considering his corrupt chops.
The reckoning in this country will take both parties down hard.
I want two things to happen.
I want rump to pardon Menendez, in consideration of their vast similarities.
I want Antifa to go after Menendez in his front yard, considering the vengeance that is due him for this.
http://washingtonmonthly.com/2017/08/31/bob-menendez-is-in-real-trouble/
He could always run as a republican in Texas, and win, considering his corrupt chops.
The reckoning in this country will take both parties down hard.
Among Antifa’s mistakes, which are legion, like all radical insurgencies, is that if you are going to use violence, if you are that foolish and desperate, at least choose targets who goddamned deserve violence against them.
The big ones.
Make it count. Don’t burn down the wrong neighborhoods, by which I mean your own.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/antifa-atrocities-in-berkeley/
Among Antifa’s mistakes, which are legion, like all radical insurgencies, is that if you are going to use violence, if you are that foolish and desperate, at least choose targets who goddamned deserve violence against them.
The big ones.
Make it count. Don’t burn down the wrong neighborhoods, by which I mean your own.
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/antifa-atrocities-in-berkeley/
But the “antifa” rioters in Berkeley were basically anarchists.** Rather than, for examples, liberals. So the concept of “your own neighborhood” (or even just “neighbor”, let alone “neighborhood”) is somewhat outside their understanding. And, to the extent that they get it, Berkeley is no more theirs than the deepest red city you can imagine.
Maybe they could relate to a seriously libertarian place. But that’s as close as they get to empathy with others.
** With which Berkeley has been afflicted for at least half a century to my personal knowledge.
But the “antifa” rioters in Berkeley were basically anarchists.** Rather than, for examples, liberals. So the concept of “your own neighborhood” (or even just “neighbor”, let alone “neighborhood”) is somewhat outside their understanding. And, to the extent that they get it, Berkeley is no more theirs than the deepest red city you can imagine.
Maybe they could relate to a seriously libertarian place. But that’s as close as they get to empathy with others.
** With which Berkeley has been afflicted for at least half a century to my personal knowledge.
This guy, for example:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/indiana-senate-candidates-own-staff-couldnt-stand-him
He needs to be physically assaulted. Why is Antifa wasting their time in San Francisco?
His staff cries when he treats them like shit?
That doesn’t sound very conservative/republican for people who conceal carry.
Punch him out.
Are we raising these legions of assholes in gigantic petri dishes somewhere? Where did they get the idea, besides from their parents and our fucking adversary fuck-you culture, that you treat people like this.
I’d like to see this lout take that act into a bar, or for that matter, any place of business, and see what happens to him.
The customer is not always right. I’ve seen customers tossed on their asses at the curb.
He must have an MBA. He must attend church.
Maybe we ought to take the approach some took with Michael Brown, also a lout, but he’s dead now, and blame the culture this republican lout was raised in.
Why do we indulge this?
wj: “Rather than, for examples, liberals.”
Well, as usual, I’m reacting to the right’s propaganda characterizing Antifa as “liberal” provocateurs. That’s what most of the American people believe too, because they are stupid.
Truth, for now, is what the rump conservative base sez it is. Ask them. They’ll tell ya.
The decent left needs put a sock in the decency and beat up both rump conservatives and Antifa. But until they do, I guess Antifa is all we (me, I have no “we” to call my own) got when trouble starts from the right.
Ted Cruz is merely Antifa in a suit and with the cojones to show his face in public.
Or, in other words, meaning the same thing, pontificate their quiffs. Don’t tut-tut the maceration of the Uber tuber.
This guy, for example:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/indiana-senate-candidates-own-staff-couldnt-stand-him
He needs to be physically assaulted. Why is Antifa wasting their time in San Francisco?
His staff cries when he treats them like shit?
That doesn’t sound very conservative/republican for people who conceal carry.
Punch him out.
Are we raising these legions of assholes in gigantic petri dishes somewhere? Where did they get the idea, besides from their parents and our fucking adversary fuck-you culture, that you treat people like this.
I’d like to see this lout take that act into a bar, or for that matter, any place of business, and see what happens to him.
The customer is not always right. I’ve seen customers tossed on their asses at the curb.
He must have an MBA. He must attend church.
Maybe we ought to take the approach some took with Michael Brown, also a lout, but he’s dead now, and blame the culture this republican lout was raised in.
Why do we indulge this?
wj: “Rather than, for examples, liberals.”
Well, as usual, I’m reacting to the right’s propaganda characterizing Antifa as “liberal” provocateurs. That’s what most of the American people believe too, because they are stupid.
Truth, for now, is what the rump conservative base sez it is. Ask them. They’ll tell ya.
The decent left needs put a sock in the decency and beat up both rump conservatives and Antifa. But until they do, I guess Antifa is all we (me, I have no “we” to call my own) got when trouble starts from the right.
Ted Cruz is merely Antifa in a suit and with the cojones to show his face in public.
Or, in other words, meaning the same thing, pontificate their quiffs. Don’t tut-tut the maceration of the Uber tuber.
Will rump and his Budget Director, with republican congressional help, defund and abolish the IRS now that Mueller has enlisted the agency to prosecute and, one hopes, recommend the summary executions of these thugs, besides firing the entire Mueller team?
If rump role-models Al Capone or Vlad Putin were President, and anything is possible now in bullshit America, that’s what they would do.
Will rump and his Budget Director, with republican congressional help, defund and abolish the IRS now that Mueller has enlisted the agency to prosecute and, one hopes, recommend the summary executions of these thugs, besides firing the entire Mueller team?
If rump role-models Al Capone or Vlad Putin were President, and anything is possible now in bullshit America, that’s what they would do.
As far as I can tell from a distance, all antifa folks aren’t anarchists. Probably even most aren’t. So we wouldn’t want to overgeneralize. (Isn’t that what you object to in so-called conservatives?) But the ones in Berkeley were.
As far as I can tell from a distance, all antifa folks aren’t anarchists. Probably even most aren’t. So we wouldn’t want to overgeneralize. (Isn’t that what you object to in so-called conservatives?) But the ones in Berkeley were.
I think the Black Bloc nuts are mostly stupid kids who were raise watching to many ninja warrior movies. From what I hear Antifa has no hierarchy of control and anybody who wants to put on a mask and do their thing to cause havoc can call themselves Antifa. Mostly they appear to be dupes who bring a stick to a knife fight. They confronted a WP event in my town and the tally was one WP protester hospitalized with a blunt force injury and 6 Antifa hospitalized with knife wounds.
I think the Black Bloc nuts are mostly stupid kids who were raise watching to many ninja warrior movies. From what I hear Antifa has no hierarchy of control and anybody who wants to put on a mask and do their thing to cause havoc can call themselves Antifa. Mostly they appear to be dupes who bring a stick to a knife fight. They confronted a WP event in my town and the tally was one WP protester hospitalized with a blunt force injury and 6 Antifa hospitalized with knife wounds.
“Isn’t that what you object to in so-called conservatives.”
Sure do. But I admire it’s remarkably reliable success as a strategy, not that they don’t mean every hateful word they utter, to demonize all opposition and the unfortunate and achieve monopoly power over all levels of government and hold on to that power by lying, cheating, stealing, and destroying institutions from within.
I’m a decent, nice person at heart, with the usual quotidian faults for leavening.
Also powerless. I pay my taxes. I’m such a sucker.
But I view becoming more like them as a self-improvement program, under the house rules of success in bullshit America.
Probably ought to move to Iceland or Canada instead, but I don’t care for winter.
Just like many down-market republicans, assholes in their own right, running for office now are starting to emulate rump’s behavior, as he redefines ordinary assholishness, damn the polls.
It’s what works, and in America now, stooping as low as a human can limbo, leads to untold power and riches.
We have a guy now in Congress who physically assaulted a reporter and won and is part of the thug club now.
If I run for office, I will take that as an object lesson of success and the first Brietbart, FOX, or National Review “reporter” who gets in my face, will report that news though a breathing tube inserted in his body cast.
Liberals, of course, will then not vote for me and stay home or vote for the Republican opponent, because winning does not mean to liberals what it means to red-blooded ruthless all-American conservatives. Everything.
Sounds a little iffy on paper. I don’t think I’ll proofread it.
“Isn’t that what you object to in so-called conservatives.”
Sure do. But I admire it’s remarkably reliable success as a strategy, not that they don’t mean every hateful word they utter, to demonize all opposition and the unfortunate and achieve monopoly power over all levels of government and hold on to that power by lying, cheating, stealing, and destroying institutions from within.
I’m a decent, nice person at heart, with the usual quotidian faults for leavening.
Also powerless. I pay my taxes. I’m such a sucker.
But I view becoming more like them as a self-improvement program, under the house rules of success in bullshit America.
Probably ought to move to Iceland or Canada instead, but I don’t care for winter.
Just like many down-market republicans, assholes in their own right, running for office now are starting to emulate rump’s behavior, as he redefines ordinary assholishness, damn the polls.
It’s what works, and in America now, stooping as low as a human can limbo, leads to untold power and riches.
We have a guy now in Congress who physically assaulted a reporter and won and is part of the thug club now.
If I run for office, I will take that as an object lesson of success and the first Brietbart, FOX, or National Review “reporter” who gets in my face, will report that news though a breathing tube inserted in his body cast.
Liberals, of course, will then not vote for me and stay home or vote for the Republican opponent, because winning does not mean to liberals what it means to red-blooded ruthless all-American conservatives. Everything.
Sounds a little iffy on paper. I don’t think I’ll proofread it.
But only think how delighted you will be if Trump-like Moore wins the primary runoff in Alabama. And then loses to the Democrat. Unlikely, sure. But judging from the polls, not as unthinkable as it would have been a year ago.
But only think how delighted you will be if Trump-like Moore wins the primary runoff in Alabama. And then loses to the Democrat. Unlikely, sure. But judging from the polls, not as unthinkable as it would have been a year ago.
Do you mean the primary win or the subsequent loss in the general will be the object of my delight?
Do you mean the primary win or the subsequent loss in the general will be the object of my delight?
Duh! The general, of course.
Duh! The general, of course.
here’s the self-appointed spokesman of ‘antifa’
https://www.vox.com/2017/9/1/16202908/antifa-charlottesville-alt-right-white-nationalist-protest
evs.
whatever their intentions, they’ve given the right a way to turn this into a partisan issue.
condemning Nazis should be something nearly any American could do without a second thought. but now, because ‘antifa’ has made themselves part of the story and is targeting people who have nothing to do with Nazis, the right can make it a ‘both sides’ issue.
good job, kids.
here’s the self-appointed spokesman of ‘antifa’
https://www.vox.com/2017/9/1/16202908/antifa-charlottesville-alt-right-white-nationalist-protest
evs.
whatever their intentions, they’ve given the right a way to turn this into a partisan issue.
condemning Nazis should be something nearly any American could do without a second thought. but now, because ‘antifa’ has made themselves part of the story and is targeting people who have nothing to do with Nazis, the right can make it a ‘both sides’ issue.
good job, kids.
Well, I prefer Moore lose in the first and yes I would be delighted if he lost in the general, BUT, my gut tells me that his win in the general would get us that much closer to the total sabotage, derailing, looting and wrecking of the train by the republican party.
And I think we have to go all the way there nationally, even though California so far has had the collective wisdom not to, so as to lance the boil, as they say.
I prefer the terminology “removing the head” by way of 1000 assassins.
Some may prefer an alternate terminology.
Somnambulate the ghost gibbons.
Well, I prefer Moore lose in the first and yes I would be delighted if he lost in the general, BUT, my gut tells me that his win in the general would get us that much closer to the total sabotage, derailing, looting and wrecking of the train by the republican party.
And I think we have to go all the way there nationally, even though California so far has had the collective wisdom not to, so as to lance the boil, as they say.
I prefer the terminology “removing the head” by way of 1000 assassins.
Some may prefer an alternate terminology.
Somnambulate the ghost gibbons.
I’d agree that Moore in the Senate would be my last choice. But to have a Trump clone lose, in Alabama? That would say something.
I’d agree that Moore in the Senate would be my last choice. But to have a Trump clone lose, in Alabama? That would say something.
The radical street left in this country has always been an amateurish, self-defeating, rabble with stupid targeting and dumb cant.
I would prefer, of course, something along the lines of Martin Luther King or Gandhi, a peaceful but highly disciplined and unsmilingly militantly steadfast movement, a huge national force, just shutting the entire country down day after day, week after week, month after month.
Completely. No government function permitted, airport runways blocked by tens of thousands, train tracks, even in the hinterlands, impassable for the reclining bodies. Every bridge coned off, every street blocked. Every military installation and government facility surrounded by silent crowds a mile deep.
No Lululemon yoga pants available for the indifferent. Take the day off. The year, too.
Turn off the computers, turn off the cellphones. Every left of center blog goes dark and silent.
Dress nice, no masks (let our faces be our masks so they read us), watch the language. Please and thank you to authority. Don’t carry weapons, but make it known they are available in abundance.
No manifestos, no fucking chanting slogans, no fucking banners or signs. Utter, total ominous silence.
No dialogue, no compromise, no discussion, no mediation, no negotiation, no promises, no back channels. No presentation of grievances.
One message. Fuck Off.
One demand. Go Now.
Merrick Garland EVERYTHING.
The Year The Country Stood Still, starring Michael Rennie.
The Right, the entire republican party, the entire conservative movement stands down, goes away, tends their gardens, fingers their mistresses, whatever, like the Poliburo, like the Marcos family, like every other malign imposition in this world, slinks off and shuts their fucking mouths.
They wanna start their own separate country, go, face the ocean, and start swimming. Take Google with you. We won’t even do the Right the honor of taxing them any longer, let alone raising their taxes. Keep your fucking money.
Fill the streets like the Women’s March or the crowds on the original Armistice Days.
If the Right, instead, wants to take things to a martial ending, fine.
There’s always a Plan B, motherf%ckers.
But that last is too much information until such time as it is needed.
The radical street left in this country has always been an amateurish, self-defeating, rabble with stupid targeting and dumb cant.
I would prefer, of course, something along the lines of Martin Luther King or Gandhi, a peaceful but highly disciplined and unsmilingly militantly steadfast movement, a huge national force, just shutting the entire country down day after day, week after week, month after month.
Completely. No government function permitted, airport runways blocked by tens of thousands, train tracks, even in the hinterlands, impassable for the reclining bodies. Every bridge coned off, every street blocked. Every military installation and government facility surrounded by silent crowds a mile deep.
No Lululemon yoga pants available for the indifferent. Take the day off. The year, too.
Turn off the computers, turn off the cellphones. Every left of center blog goes dark and silent.
Dress nice, no masks (let our faces be our masks so they read us), watch the language. Please and thank you to authority. Don’t carry weapons, but make it known they are available in abundance.
No manifestos, no fucking chanting slogans, no fucking banners or signs. Utter, total ominous silence.
No dialogue, no compromise, no discussion, no mediation, no negotiation, no promises, no back channels. No presentation of grievances.
One message. Fuck Off.
One demand. Go Now.
Merrick Garland EVERYTHING.
The Year The Country Stood Still, starring Michael Rennie.
The Right, the entire republican party, the entire conservative movement stands down, goes away, tends their gardens, fingers their mistresses, whatever, like the Poliburo, like the Marcos family, like every other malign imposition in this world, slinks off and shuts their fucking mouths.
They wanna start their own separate country, go, face the ocean, and start swimming. Take Google with you. We won’t even do the Right the honor of taxing them any longer, let alone raising their taxes. Keep your fucking money.
Fill the streets like the Women’s March or the crowds on the original Armistice Days.
If the Right, instead, wants to take things to a martial ending, fine.
There’s always a Plan B, motherf%ckers.
But that last is too much information until such time as it is needed.
In the area of specific policy, which will not be unveiled until after the above-mentioned general strike, I would replace the estate tax for conservatives with the following:
When you die, and I expect the Kochs and conservative company will embrace the grave immediately once they learn of the incentives I’m providing for their self-demises ..
When you die, instead of taxing a percentage of your wealth above a certain dollar amount, we will take an accounting of your entire treasure, which your family may keep, and the government will pay, as a bonus, for the happy news, your survivors twice, no, THREE times, that amount to their bank accounts in Barbados once we see proof in the form of your death certificates.
Even the shits born in Kenya will qualify, because I’m a nice guy.
We’ll also pick up the tabs for your funerals.
For example, when rump croaks, though he is an outlier when it comes to the normal incentives human beings respond to, his family will be remitted, what fake number does he supply for his his net worth … $16 billion? ….. let’s see three three times .. carry the six … $48 billion dollars!
I realize the risk of inducing moral hazard with these conservative ilk. There will be a rash of fake deaths, why not, everything else is fake with these people, as droves of wealthy conservatives are reported to have kicked the bucket just in the first week after the policy goes into effect.
So, we’ll need to secure the corpses, no fair substituting homeless people’s corpses or your black sheep brother’s corpse, for the genuine dead item, and do some routine DNA analysis to verify the deaths.
No forms to fill out, not even a postcard.
In the area of specific policy, which will not be unveiled until after the above-mentioned general strike, I would replace the estate tax for conservatives with the following:
When you die, and I expect the Kochs and conservative company will embrace the grave immediately once they learn of the incentives I’m providing for their self-demises ..
When you die, instead of taxing a percentage of your wealth above a certain dollar amount, we will take an accounting of your entire treasure, which your family may keep, and the government will pay, as a bonus, for the happy news, your survivors twice, no, THREE times, that amount to their bank accounts in Barbados once we see proof in the form of your death certificates.
Even the shits born in Kenya will qualify, because I’m a nice guy.
We’ll also pick up the tabs for your funerals.
For example, when rump croaks, though he is an outlier when it comes to the normal incentives human beings respond to, his family will be remitted, what fake number does he supply for his his net worth … $16 billion? ….. let’s see three three times .. carry the six … $48 billion dollars!
I realize the risk of inducing moral hazard with these conservative ilk. There will be a rash of fake deaths, why not, everything else is fake with these people, as droves of wealthy conservatives are reported to have kicked the bucket just in the first week after the policy goes into effect.
So, we’ll need to secure the corpses, no fair substituting homeless people’s corpses or your black sheep brother’s corpse, for the genuine dead item, and do some routine DNA analysis to verify the deaths.
No forms to fill out, not even a postcard.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/smoke-russian-consulate-san-francisco
Mueller needs to capture all of the air above San Francisco and reconstitute the ashes and vapors into the memos and transcripts I’m sure were being burned in the consulate’s fireplaces and that incriminate rump, all rump officialdom, and republican candidates across the country in the most massive and successful election-stealing conspiracy on the history of Democracies.
Bigly. I know you know this, maybe you haven’t heard of this. Very, very Bigly. I’m told I can’t say it. They stole and cheated everything. You didn’t hear that here.
Just saying.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/smoke-russian-consulate-san-francisco
Mueller needs to capture all of the air above San Francisco and reconstitute the ashes and vapors into the memos and transcripts I’m sure were being burned in the consulate’s fireplaces and that incriminate rump, all rump officialdom, and republican candidates across the country in the most massive and successful election-stealing conspiracy on the history of Democracies.
Bigly. I know you know this, maybe you haven’t heard of this. Very, very Bigly. I’m told I can’t say it. They stole and cheated everything. You didn’t hear that here.
Just saying.
i think that means they’re electing a new pope
i think that means they’re electing a new pope
They wanna start their own separate country, go
I have the impression that the Horn of Africa has a great climate — like Arizona, or Florida without the humidity. Great place to retire to. And no %$#&! government to muck things up.** What more could one ask?
** I’d exclude Somaliland, for the obvious reason that they seem to have set themselves up a functional government, etc. Makes you wonder why we refuse to extend diplomatic recognition. (Getting off high horse on that topic now. Temporarily.)
They wanna start their own separate country, go
I have the impression that the Horn of Africa has a great climate — like Arizona, or Florida without the humidity. Great place to retire to. And no %$#&! government to muck things up.** What more could one ask?
** I’d exclude Somaliland, for the obvious reason that they seem to have set themselves up a functional government, etc. Makes you wonder why we refuse to extend diplomatic recognition. (Getting off high horse on that topic now. Temporarily.)
i think that means they’re electing a new pope
Actually, we’ve got serious smoke and smog already (from fires up on the California Oregon border). So it could well be a covert chemical attack on Silicon Valley. I mean, if you love conspiracy theories, what’s not to like about that one?
i think that means they’re electing a new pope
Actually, we’ve got serious smoke and smog already (from fires up on the California Oregon border). So it could well be a covert chemical attack on Silicon Valley. I mean, if you love conspiracy theories, what’s not to like about that one?
For the Count:
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2017/09/baseball_is_broken_and_the_sport_s_pooh_bahs_have_no_power_to_fix_it.html
For the Count:
http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sports_nut/2017/09/baseball_is_broken_and_the_sport_s_pooh_bahs_have_no_power_to_fix_it.html
I have some impressions about that article, much of which I agree with, but give me a couple of days to get my ducks in a row.
He got some things wrong about the 1960s low-scoring phenomenon for one.
But here’s what I notice about baseball this year.
I have more fun playing it myself, but that’s always been the case.
But this year, I’m having more fun playing fantasy baseball than watching the real item.
Because I like the stats and when the likes of Jonathan Schoop, just to pick a name, already have 30 homeruns and 100 RBIs in August and every reliever strikes out two of every three batters, the numbers are mind-boggling … in a guy’s fantasies.
But that’s not really baseball. That’s baseball porn.
I suppose, just guessing, that baseball itself is like every other thing in America now, striving to be as big and outrageous as possible to get market share.
Like the absurd, tie-on-the-feedbag helpings in many moderate to mid-priced restaurants now, so large and doggie-bag encouraging it’s not really enjoying a meal any longer, it’s who can open their mouth the widest and stuff their gullet the fullest.
It’s not eating, it’s gorging .. stuffing your
piehole.
And why aren’t my (mine are fine) vacations like reality shows, with ripped babes whizzing by me on zip lines on the way to eating large bugs.
But you know what it’s really like, and, natch, I relate this secondhand, baseball itself is becoming like the porn industry. I mean, how can so much of the population be near-addicted to porn and possibly be any longer interested in normal, let alone enjoyable, intimate sex with their partners, given the size, frequency, number of partners, and outrageously dramatized fake orgasms observed in porn.
I simply don’t know how Rick Santorum’s wife can live up to her husband’s expectations in the sack, given the dog on cat stuff he apparently feasts on.
After that quick obligatory cuddle, could you hoist me aloft in that trapeze device that looks like something out of Abu Graib and then call the neighbors in and let’s see what they’re up for, because normal no longer satiates.
Sex, the video game.
Just so Giancarlo Stanton or 250 other guys swatting the ball out of the park with the frequency of batting practice against an underhanded tosser. It deadens the nerve-endings for the beautifully-executed sacrifice bunt to get the guy over to third, or the other million little things that can swing a game either direction.
More later. Now I’ve made myself excited.
I have some impressions about that article, much of which I agree with, but give me a couple of days to get my ducks in a row.
He got some things wrong about the 1960s low-scoring phenomenon for one.
But here’s what I notice about baseball this year.
I have more fun playing it myself, but that’s always been the case.
But this year, I’m having more fun playing fantasy baseball than watching the real item.
Because I like the stats and when the likes of Jonathan Schoop, just to pick a name, already have 30 homeruns and 100 RBIs in August and every reliever strikes out two of every three batters, the numbers are mind-boggling … in a guy’s fantasies.
But that’s not really baseball. That’s baseball porn.
I suppose, just guessing, that baseball itself is like every other thing in America now, striving to be as big and outrageous as possible to get market share.
Like the absurd, tie-on-the-feedbag helpings in many moderate to mid-priced restaurants now, so large and doggie-bag encouraging it’s not really enjoying a meal any longer, it’s who can open their mouth the widest and stuff their gullet the fullest.
It’s not eating, it’s gorging .. stuffing your
piehole.
And why aren’t my (mine are fine) vacations like reality shows, with ripped babes whizzing by me on zip lines on the way to eating large bugs.
But you know what it’s really like, and, natch, I relate this secondhand, baseball itself is becoming like the porn industry. I mean, how can so much of the population be near-addicted to porn and possibly be any longer interested in normal, let alone enjoyable, intimate sex with their partners, given the size, frequency, number of partners, and outrageously dramatized fake orgasms observed in porn.
I simply don’t know how Rick Santorum’s wife can live up to her husband’s expectations in the sack, given the dog on cat stuff he apparently feasts on.
After that quick obligatory cuddle, could you hoist me aloft in that trapeze device that looks like something out of Abu Graib and then call the neighbors in and let’s see what they’re up for, because normal no longer satiates.
Sex, the video game.
Just so Giancarlo Stanton or 250 other guys swatting the ball out of the park with the frequency of batting practice against an underhanded tosser. It deadens the nerve-endings for the beautifully-executed sacrifice bunt to get the guy over to third, or the other million little things that can swing a game either direction.
More later. Now I’ve made myself excited.
Wow.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/01/joe-arpaio-pardon-sheriffs-movement-215566?lo=ap_e1
Wow.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/09/01/joe-arpaio-pardon-sheriffs-movement-215566?lo=ap_e1
During the legal proceedings, Arpaio made the puzzling assertion that he had never violated his oath of office, despite having ignored direct orders from a federal judge. As far as he was concerned, the oath of office gave him the right, indeed even the responsibility, to ignore the federal court. He was merely doing the rightful job of a sheriff, enforcing the laws and Constitution as he saw them, unaccountable to anyone but himself. Now that Arpaio has been pardoned, his place in the pantheon of constitutional sheriffs is secure. And his view of American law and history—one shared by kindred spirits, and one that menaces not just federal law but the Constitution itself—just got a troubling endorsement from the president of the United States.
During the legal proceedings, Arpaio made the puzzling assertion that he had never violated his oath of office, despite having ignored direct orders from a federal judge. As far as he was concerned, the oath of office gave him the right, indeed even the responsibility, to ignore the federal court. He was merely doing the rightful job of a sheriff, enforcing the laws and Constitution as he saw them, unaccountable to anyone but himself. Now that Arpaio has been pardoned, his place in the pantheon of constitutional sheriffs is secure. And his view of American law and history—one shared by kindred spirits, and one that menaces not just federal law but the Constitution itself—just got a troubling endorsement from the president of the United States.
I’ll finish the entirety of that article, but gotta say the weasel word “troubling” as in “troubling endorsement from the president if the United States”, is a troubling trend by journalists who refuse to be subjective and radically opinionated about the objective truth regarding the filth who aren’t merely troubling, they are individuals in our threatened society who should be viscerally disappeared to preserve our American way of life, as the 450 Sheriffs who are members of this murderous so-called Sheriffs movement should be coagulated in place.
will antifa put down the eggs and the bullhorns and go for it, like their counterparts on the right do with fully automatic regalia?
Because someone has to.
The remaining Sheriffs in the country should declare their counties, cities, towns, and municipalities sanctuaries from this fascist Sheriff’s movement and should any of the 450 sheriffs and the other members of Mack’s bullshit movement who cross the borders into the rest of America, they should be apprehended and transported to concentration camps for conservatives modeled on Arpaio’s but with a different dress code of tar and feathers, imbedded buckshot, and land mines instead of barbed wire.
And, yes, I’m a hypocrite, because I believe sanctuary cities to protect innocent immigrants are a good thing. Any sanctuary from republican/rump messing about in local affairs, when it is conservative mettleling, is a good thing.
Liberal mettle is fine by me.
I’ll finish the entirety of that article, but gotta say the weasel word “troubling” as in “troubling endorsement from the president if the United States”, is a troubling trend by journalists who refuse to be subjective and radically opinionated about the objective truth regarding the filth who aren’t merely troubling, they are individuals in our threatened society who should be viscerally disappeared to preserve our American way of life, as the 450 Sheriffs who are members of this murderous so-called Sheriffs movement should be coagulated in place.
will antifa put down the eggs and the bullhorns and go for it, like their counterparts on the right do with fully automatic regalia?
Because someone has to.
The remaining Sheriffs in the country should declare their counties, cities, towns, and municipalities sanctuaries from this fascist Sheriff’s movement and should any of the 450 sheriffs and the other members of Mack’s bullshit movement who cross the borders into the rest of America, they should be apprehended and transported to concentration camps for conservatives modeled on Arpaio’s but with a different dress code of tar and feathers, imbedded buckshot, and land mines instead of barbed wire.
And, yes, I’m a hypocrite, because I believe sanctuary cities to protect innocent immigrants are a good thing. Any sanctuary from republican/rump messing about in local affairs, when it is conservative mettleling, is a good thing.
Liberal mettle is fine by me.
$5000 for meals? I guess he’s going back for seconds at the Golden Corral.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-jr-100000-north-texas
antifa must disrupt rump the younger’s First Amendment rights by throwing bags of elephant and cheetah blood all over his natty suit, and save the University of North Texas $100,000 that could better be spent firing conservative professors.
$5000 for meals? I guess he’s going back for seconds at the Golden Corral.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/donald-trump-jr-100000-north-texas
antifa must disrupt rump the younger’s First Amendment rights by throwing bags of elephant and cheetah blood all over his natty suit, and save the University of North Texas $100,000 that could better be spent firing conservative professors.
Some perspective from The Economist:
“Racist behaviour is declining in America”
https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2017/09/bending-toward-justice?fsrc=rss
I don’t think these blogs there are paywalled, but just in case I’ll push the boundaries of fair use …
I’ll admit to some confirmation bias in linking this article. After growing up in the Deep South, I was surprised at the racist attitudes that were evident to me in Boston, Philly and Chicago and out west (So Cal and New Mexico). I assume that like moths to a flame, my southern accent was drawing out racists who (wrongly) marked me as a fellow traveller. I ended up with the belief that rates of racism aren’t really all that different regionally, but the social stigma of being openly racist is much less in the South. I’m not saying that rates are equally distributed, but the perception of a huge disparity isn’t accurate either.
Pet theories aside, it’s nice in these days of Trump to be reminded that the arc of the moral universe is still bending towards justice.
Some perspective from The Economist:
“Racist behaviour is declining in America”
https://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2017/09/bending-toward-justice?fsrc=rss
I don’t think these blogs there are paywalled, but just in case I’ll push the boundaries of fair use …
I’ll admit to some confirmation bias in linking this article. After growing up in the Deep South, I was surprised at the racist attitudes that were evident to me in Boston, Philly and Chicago and out west (So Cal and New Mexico). I assume that like moths to a flame, my southern accent was drawing out racists who (wrongly) marked me as a fellow traveller. I ended up with the belief that rates of racism aren’t really all that different regionally, but the social stigma of being openly racist is much less in the South. I’m not saying that rates are equally distributed, but the perception of a huge disparity isn’t accurate either.
Pet theories aside, it’s nice in these days of Trump to be reminded that the arc of the moral universe is still bending towards justice.
“Pet theories aside, it’s nice in these days of Trump to be reminded that the arc of the moral universe is still bending towards justice.”
Indeed, the long term trend line is bullish, but too bad about the Alt-arcist corrections from time to time. Somehow, though, they get their politicians elected over the keeps of the long term flame.
And they say there are too may gummint impediments to qualifying to practice the professions.
I give you Phineas Alabastard Fascistfluffer, Attorney at Law. He passed the bar and then sat down at it.
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/01/i-have-now-seen-it-all-the-crying-nazi-and-his-cosplaying-attorney-go-to-court/
“Pet theories aside, it’s nice in these days of Trump to be reminded that the arc of the moral universe is still bending towards justice.”
Indeed, the long term trend line is bullish, but too bad about the Alt-arcist corrections from time to time. Somehow, though, they get their politicians elected over the keeps of the long term flame.
And they say there are too may gummint impediments to qualifying to practice the professions.
I give you Phineas Alabastard Fascistfluffer, Attorney at Law. He passed the bar and then sat down at it.
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/01/i-have-now-seen-it-all-the-crying-nazi-and-his-cosplaying-attorney-go-to-court/
From the balloon juice link:
“We can be thankful that they don’t make fascists like they used to.”
Amen.
From the balloon juice link:
“We can be thankful that they don’t make fascists like they used to.”
Amen.
And yes, I know the voice of the Ant and The Aardvark had his first amendment rights violated early in his career, so he’s open to permitting Nazi hate speech. But this material wasn’t that:
I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.
It’s no longer a question of staying healthy. It’s a question of finding a sickness you like.
Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe.
And yes, I know the voice of the Ant and The Aardvark had his first amendment rights violated early in his career, so he’s open to permitting Nazi hate speech. But this material wasn’t that:
I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.
It’s no longer a question of staying healthy. It’s a question of finding a sickness you like.
Eighty percent of married men cheat in America. The rest cheat in Europe.
Perhaps the way the Economist should have phrased it is “fear of a rising tide of overt and visible racism.” I doubt that the amount of racism has risen. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if recent events have contributed to reducing it a little. But certainly a lot of racists are more comfortable coming out from under their rocks.
Perhaps the way the Economist should have phrased it is “fear of a rising tide of overt and visible racism.” I doubt that the amount of racism has risen. Indeed, I wouldn’t be surprised if recent events have contributed to reducing it a little. But certainly a lot of racists are more comfortable coming out from under their rocks.
11:29 AM is about Jackie Mason, whom the attorney for the weeping Wazi invoked in client’s defense.
I must have deleted an intervening comment.
I probably should do that more often … delete me.
11:29 AM is about Jackie Mason, whom the attorney for the weeping Wazi invoked in client’s defense.
I must have deleted an intervening comment.
I probably should do that more often … delete me.
This cracks me up on 50 shade-levels of confused America:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/why-a-chinese-bid-to-buy-chicago-stock-exchange-stirs-security-fears/ar-AAr64IB
The city of Chicago should like the takeover because it improves their chances of survival once rump triggers nuclear holocaust to the US mainland.
This cracks me up on 50 shade-levels of confused America:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/why-a-chinese-bid-to-buy-chicago-stock-exchange-stirs-security-fears/ar-AAr64IB
The city of Chicago should like the takeover because it improves their chances of survival once rump triggers nuclear holocaust to the US mainland.
This is Homeland Security:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/1/1695345/-The-entire-staff-of-a-Minneapolis-bar-quit-after-they-found-out-the-owner-donated-to-David-Duke
This is not Homeland Security, considering Duke’s and White Nationalist’s role models are in the White House, being seeded throughout the government with their conservative principles, and flooding republican congressional staffs:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/2/1695501/-Homeland-Security-has-named-AntiFA-as-a-domestic-terrorist-organization
This is Homeland Security:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/1/1695345/-The-entire-staff-of-a-Minneapolis-bar-quit-after-they-found-out-the-owner-donated-to-David-Duke
This is not Homeland Security, considering Duke’s and White Nationalist’s role models are in the White House, being seeded throughout the government with their conservative principles, and flooding republican congressional staffs:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/9/2/1695501/-Homeland-Security-has-named-AntiFA-as-a-domestic-terrorist-organization
A former board member of Redstate, the erstwhile John Cole:
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/02/antifa-stole-my-bike/
with a link to former obwi contributor https://twitter.com/beyerstein, though I couldn’t locate her comments regarding antifa at the link (will scroll more later)
The first tweet includes a link to hilzoy.
A former board member of Redstate, the erstwhile John Cole:
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/02/antifa-stole-my-bike/
with a link to former obwi contributor https://twitter.com/beyerstein, though I couldn’t locate her comments regarding antifa at the link (will scroll more later)
The first tweet includes a link to hilzoy.
That second link doesn’t work. Maybe Cole’s still does.
That second link doesn’t work. Maybe Cole’s still does.
Here’s the Hilzoy subject matter:
http://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/08/31/utah-nurse-arrested-after-complying-with-hospital-policy-that-bars-taking-blood-from-unconscious-victim/
See, there are plenty of ways for antifa to make life Hell for the fucking right wing authoritarian guilty, like showing up en masse in that cop’s front yard and using a flame thrower on his shrubbery, without bothering the innocent.
wj wonders how I maintain the outrage.
It’s my Buddhist training.
Here’s the Hilzoy subject matter:
http://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/08/31/utah-nurse-arrested-after-complying-with-hospital-policy-that-bars-taking-blood-from-unconscious-victim/
See, there are plenty of ways for antifa to make life Hell for the fucking right wing authoritarian guilty, like showing up en masse in that cop’s front yard and using a flame thrower on his shrubbery, without bothering the innocent.
wj wonders how I maintain the outrage.
It’s my Buddhist training.
Maybe rump will unify the Koreas and both of them can nuke his fucking ass:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-weighs-exiting-trade-deal-with-south-korea-2017-09-02?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
Maybe rump will unify the Koreas and both of them can nuke his fucking ass:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-weighs-exiting-trade-deal-with-south-korea-2017-09-02?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
republican NRA murderers must be pleased:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/video-shows-woman-pulling-gun-during-fight-over-school-supplies-in-a-walmart-2017-09-02?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
Why didn’t another armed American shoot that rump c&nt in the face?
Probably because the rest of the folks were normal, not conservative.
Gimme that Scooby Doo lunchbox! It’s mine!
republican NRA murderers must be pleased:
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/video-shows-woman-pulling-gun-during-fight-over-school-supplies-in-a-walmart-2017-09-02?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts
Why didn’t another armed American shoot that rump c&nt in the face?
Probably because the rest of the folks were normal, not conservative.
Gimme that Scooby Doo lunchbox! It’s mine!
Somebody is wrong on the internet dept. I don’t think a link or attribution is needed, it’s from LGM.
“There’s nothing new about this. In Shogunate Japan, samurai could arbitrarily kill random people for any reason or none — they were untouchable unless they chose to kill the wrong person, which is why sumptuary laws were so important.”
Uh no. In theory more than practice. Sometimes.
Kiri-sute gomen
In practice, samurai had an economy to run, and a polity where a samurai would kill any peasant who failed to smile cowboy would open his own belly at one p. Cause peasants rioted or stopped working all the time, and the lord who didn’t make his rice quota to the shogun splayed his own intestines. Or usually his advisors.
Most times it was cop-stuff. See a rape or peasant stealing going down, you could stop it. Otherwise, you needed permission ahead of time to even draw your sword, or you damn well have a good rap going for your boss. And his bosses.
Yeah, Edo-era Japan was repressive as hell and there are plenty of horror stories about state-sanctioned violence but in practice samurai killed very few without state permission, including other samurai. And they were in big trouble, as were their families/clans cause Edo ran that way.
In anarchic places or times, or before Edo, a lot of bets were off. Yojimbo/Seven Samurai/Rurouni Kenshin and most other fictions make that clear.
Domestic violence? Sure. But wives had families and dependency on social norms was absolute in ways we can’t imagine. Not Afghanistan. Not even India.
Did it happen? Yes. Was it common? God no. Peak shogunate was pretty damn peaceful. They weren’t crazy, and it wasn’t the Wild West. That is the difference between US cowboy myths and Edo samurai legends, the samurai operated in a totalitarian all-seeing state. That is what makes it interesting. That kirisute-gomen didn’t happen is what is interesting.
Whether more recent Japan is relatively non-violent because of the lack of guns or partly because of this history is an interesting question.
A link from someone who knows more than I do.
Myth
Karl Friday: “On the other hand, let’s not forget that it was really a symbolic right, not a practical one. As history teachers have been reminding everyone since the Shogun TV series first ran, there isn’t one, single instance of a kirisute gomen incident in any historical record for the entire Tokugawa period (unless someone’s discovered one very recently)”
Much more restrained than US cops.
Somebody is wrong on the internet dept. I don’t think a link or attribution is needed, it’s from LGM.
“There’s nothing new about this. In Shogunate Japan, samurai could arbitrarily kill random people for any reason or none — they were untouchable unless they chose to kill the wrong person, which is why sumptuary laws were so important.”
Uh no. In theory more than practice. Sometimes.
Kiri-sute gomen
In practice, samurai had an economy to run, and a polity where a samurai would kill any peasant who failed to smile cowboy would open his own belly at one p. Cause peasants rioted or stopped working all the time, and the lord who didn’t make his rice quota to the shogun splayed his own intestines. Or usually his advisors.
Most times it was cop-stuff. See a rape or peasant stealing going down, you could stop it. Otherwise, you needed permission ahead of time to even draw your sword, or you damn well have a good rap going for your boss. And his bosses.
Yeah, Edo-era Japan was repressive as hell and there are plenty of horror stories about state-sanctioned violence but in practice samurai killed very few without state permission, including other samurai. And they were in big trouble, as were their families/clans cause Edo ran that way.
In anarchic places or times, or before Edo, a lot of bets were off. Yojimbo/Seven Samurai/Rurouni Kenshin and most other fictions make that clear.
Domestic violence? Sure. But wives had families and dependency on social norms was absolute in ways we can’t imagine. Not Afghanistan. Not even India.
Did it happen? Yes. Was it common? God no. Peak shogunate was pretty damn peaceful. They weren’t crazy, and it wasn’t the Wild West. That is the difference between US cowboy myths and Edo samurai legends, the samurai operated in a totalitarian all-seeing state. That is what makes it interesting. That kirisute-gomen didn’t happen is what is interesting.
Whether more recent Japan is relatively non-violent because of the lack of guns or partly because of this history is an interesting question.
A link from someone who knows more than I do.
Myth
Karl Friday: “On the other hand, let’s not forget that it was really a symbolic right, not a practical one. As history teachers have been reminding everyone since the Shogun TV series first ran, there isn’t one, single instance of a kirisute gomen incident in any historical record for the entire Tokugawa period (unless someone’s discovered one very recently)”
Much more restrained than US cops.
Quoting myself. “That kirisute-gomen didn’t happen is what is interesting.”
Okay, so a patriarchal society where young men hanging constantly with other young drinking a lot with a ton of privileges (sort of) carrying deadly weapons at all times…and there was very little deadly violence…that’s interesting.
The command to wear swords at all times made the samurai constantly think of the state and never free of it. This worked.
Quoting myself. “That kirisute-gomen didn’t happen is what is interesting.”
Okay, so a patriarchal society where young men hanging constantly with other young drinking a lot with a ton of privileges (sort of) carrying deadly weapons at all times…and there was very little deadly violence…that’s interesting.
The command to wear swords at all times made the samurai constantly think of the state and never free of it. This worked.
in other news, border patrol is setting up checkpoints on the interstates in new hampshire to catch folks sneaking in from the north.
i guess they bagged about 25. not a bad haul.
will justin trudeau pay?
in other news, border patrol is setting up checkpoints on the interstates in new hampshire to catch folks sneaking in from the north.
i guess they bagged about 25. not a bad haul.
will justin trudeau pay?
Intermittent WiFi, and not just on the green sofa!
PdM, I hope that Economist data is right, didn’t a recent WaPo poll show that 9-10% of Americans held, or thought it was fine to hold, white supremacist views? On accursed phone, and catching the WiFi as I can, but I linked to it on the last week or so.
Intermittent WiFi, and not just on the green sofa!
PdM, I hope that Economist data is right, didn’t a recent WaPo poll show that 9-10% of Americans held, or thought it was fine to hold, white supremacist views? On accursed phone, and catching the WiFi as I can, but I linked to it on the last week or so.
GftNC-
I don’t know exactly where we stand *right now* (lies, damn lies, yadda yadda), but I do like the trend lines. That’s where I draw solace.
GftNC-
I don’t know exactly where we stand *right now* (lies, damn lies, yadda yadda), but I do like the trend lines. That’s where I draw solace.
in other news, border patrol is setting up checkpoints on the interstates in new hampshire to catch folks sneaking in from the north.
My daughter and I were in Quebec for a few days, left there last Saturday, she drove back to Boston, I drove south-east-ish toward central Maine. She ran into the checkpoint on I-93, but was not stopped. Cars that were stopped were being checked with dogs.
We New Englanders are pretty much all in the hundred mile zone.
in other news, border patrol is setting up checkpoints on the interstates in new hampshire to catch folks sneaking in from the north.
My daughter and I were in Quebec for a few days, left there last Saturday, she drove back to Boston, I drove south-east-ish toward central Maine. She ran into the checkpoint on I-93, but was not stopped. Cars that were stopped were being checked with dogs.
We New Englanders are pretty much all in the hundred mile zone.
I didn’t catch that miss on LGM about kirisute gomen, but the new set up has me skip over articles more. A google advanced search doesn’t turn it up, can you post the link Bob? Not that I disagree with your take.
imo, one reason why Japan is so peaceful is that the country experienced civil wars that made everyone really really sick of violence. Toyotomi Hideyoshi just had the good fortune of timing his lifetime at a point just after high tide of that and then sending all the PTSD vets off to Korea to vent on the population there, which is one of the reasons why the Korean relationship is so fraught.
Why everyone, including Japanese, are so taken with martial arts etc is because the rise of the middle class had everyone wanting to play like they were a martial arts master, so you develop this whole culture of martial arts based on imagined exploits. Any real martial art is simple moves, repeated over and over, honed to a point where you do them without thinking. Japanese martial arts adds this layer of artifice to them that is fused to what are basically military moves.
Yes, samurai were a lot more restrained then _current_ US police, but back in the day, I would think that questioning a cop’s authority, especially if you were black or Hispanic, was going to get you head cracked if not worse. The revelation of various incidents whose names should be remembered, but become a roll call by a bored teacher (Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Grey, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile…) suggests that this has always been the case, but as privilege is threatened, people who go into these professions to partake of the privilege they feel is due them (this is not to say that any of these people did anything that triggered what happened to them, that threat to privilege could have taken place earlier in the day or even just in the mind of the cop, a sort of ‘what are you looking at me’ scenario) Things would be better if people just knew their place, an attitude I see pop up often.
The interdependencies about women and social norms are also an interesting point. One thing, as family ties break down, women are in a lot worse position because they are pushed by fashion and trends to be independent, but when they do, they get shat upon. So, as a minor example, if you are naming your kids and you want to give a bilingual name, you better hope that you have a girl to name, cause bilingual boy’s names are rare as hen’s teeth. This Japanese TV ad for a beauty salon, where a Japanese daughter named Naomi goes and returns as… Well watch the video. The second video, where the wife thinks about following the daughter’s lead get an interesting reaction from the father.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkQKyZbI39E
I didn’t catch that miss on LGM about kirisute gomen, but the new set up has me skip over articles more. A google advanced search doesn’t turn it up, can you post the link Bob? Not that I disagree with your take.
imo, one reason why Japan is so peaceful is that the country experienced civil wars that made everyone really really sick of violence. Toyotomi Hideyoshi just had the good fortune of timing his lifetime at a point just after high tide of that and then sending all the PTSD vets off to Korea to vent on the population there, which is one of the reasons why the Korean relationship is so fraught.
Why everyone, including Japanese, are so taken with martial arts etc is because the rise of the middle class had everyone wanting to play like they were a martial arts master, so you develop this whole culture of martial arts based on imagined exploits. Any real martial art is simple moves, repeated over and over, honed to a point where you do them without thinking. Japanese martial arts adds this layer of artifice to them that is fused to what are basically military moves.
Yes, samurai were a lot more restrained then _current_ US police, but back in the day, I would think that questioning a cop’s authority, especially if you were black or Hispanic, was going to get you head cracked if not worse. The revelation of various incidents whose names should be remembered, but become a roll call by a bored teacher (Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Grey, Sandra Bland, Alton Sterling, Philando Castile…) suggests that this has always been the case, but as privilege is threatened, people who go into these professions to partake of the privilege they feel is due them (this is not to say that any of these people did anything that triggered what happened to them, that threat to privilege could have taken place earlier in the day or even just in the mind of the cop, a sort of ‘what are you looking at me’ scenario) Things would be better if people just knew their place, an attitude I see pop up often.
The interdependencies about women and social norms are also an interesting point. One thing, as family ties break down, women are in a lot worse position because they are pushed by fashion and trends to be independent, but when they do, they get shat upon. So, as a minor example, if you are naming your kids and you want to give a bilingual name, you better hope that you have a girl to name, cause bilingual boy’s names are rare as hen’s teeth. This Japanese TV ad for a beauty salon, where a Japanese daughter named Naomi goes and returns as… Well watch the video. The second video, where the wife thinks about following the daughter’s lead get an interesting reaction from the father.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkQKyZbI39E
“super explosive power”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/kim-jong-un-watches-nuclear-11103291
He talks exactly like rump.
In the photographs of the North Korean dope leaning over the thermonuclear warhead, he reaches to touch it and the other guys are saying “Jesus, don’t touch it there! That’s the trigger! You’ll kill all of us ….. great leader.
A beautiful, beautiful thing.
“Oh yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of water. I can hold all of it in both of my big hands. Reminds of the fountain in the lobby at Mar-a-Lago. Have you seen it?
“Have a good time.”
“super explosive power”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/kim-jong-un-watches-nuclear-11103291
He talks exactly like rump.
In the photographs of the North Korean dope leaning over the thermonuclear warhead, he reaches to touch it and the other guys are saying “Jesus, don’t touch it there! That’s the trigger! You’ll kill all of us ….. great leader.
A beautiful, beautiful thing.
“Oh yeah, yeah, there’s a lot of water. I can hold all of it in both of my big hands. Reminds of the fountain in the lobby at Mar-a-Lago. Have you seen it?
“Have a good time.”
Maybe he talks like Trump because he is Trump. Have you ever seen a photograph of the two of them together? Of course not. QED
(I’m practicing to open a conspiracy theory website. I think I’ve got the basic idea….)
Maybe he talks like Trump because he is Trump. Have you ever seen a photograph of the two of them together? Of course not. QED
(I’m practicing to open a conspiracy theory website. I think I’ve got the basic idea….)
This is new and amuses me. “Paine” at Economist’s View
“Jim Crow thrived for decades it only ended
When black arms and hands in the field at noon …by the tens of millions
were no longer necessary to Dixie”
Now that’s some admirable historical materialism, sure to infuriate the circulation of commodified affect crowd.
This is new and amuses me. “Paine” at Economist’s View
“Jim Crow thrived for decades it only ended
When black arms and hands in the field at noon …by the tens of millions
were no longer necessary to Dixie”
Now that’s some admirable historical materialism, sure to infuriate the circulation of commodified affect crowd.
Now that’s some admirable historical materialism, sure to infuriate the circulation of commodified affect crowd.
Well sure, bob. But you know that anything that smacks of ‘materialism’ (marxism) is, by definition, intellectually detestable and easily shrugged off as irrelevant.
Carry on, sir!
Now that’s some admirable historical materialism, sure to infuriate the circulation of commodified affect crowd.
Well sure, bob. But you know that anything that smacks of ‘materialism’ (marxism) is, by definition, intellectually detestable and easily shrugged off as irrelevant.
Carry on, sir!
So who will Trump nominate to head the Fed when Yellen’s term ends in February?
With Munchkin at Treasury, the mere thought gives me palpitations.
So who will Trump nominate to head the Fed when Yellen’s term ends in February?
With Munchkin at Treasury, the mere thought gives me palpitations.
Trump is going to need his loyal minion in place at the Fed for when he tries to cash in a Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin™.
Why do you think Munchkin went to Ft. Knox to “look at the gold”? HA, he was looking to see if they had any platinum stashed also, too.
Plus paperweights in the WH and Treasury. Myself, I prefer lead bricks, but I’m not addicted to SHINY!!1!
Trump is going to need his loyal minion in place at the Fed for when he tries to cash in a Trillion Dollar Platinum Coin™.
Why do you think Munchkin went to Ft. Knox to “look at the gold”? HA, he was looking to see if they had any platinum stashed also, too.
Plus paperweights in the WH and Treasury. Myself, I prefer lead bricks, but I’m not addicted to SHINY!!1!
So who will Trump nominate to head the Fed when Yellen’s term ends in February?
Eric!
So who will Trump nominate to head the Fed when Yellen’s term ends in February?
Eric!
You don’t really want lead bricks with this administration. Perhaps something in the plutonium family…? Transuranics: get something really unique, not something any dufoos could buy.
You don’t really want lead bricks with this administration. Perhaps something in the plutonium family…? Transuranics: get something really unique, not something any dufoos could buy.
Carry on, sir!
I was being mildly ironic. Although I would give it some thought, even I wouldn’t have the guts to publicly proclaim that several hundred years of institutional racism was entirely economically based. Or to discount as irrelevant all the activism and social movements that ended Jim Crow and say it ended when it was no longer profitable. Although I may phrase it badly above, or misinterpret, maybe both the racism and anti-racism are economically determined. That’s hardcore Marxism.
But Paine’s a rebel
who formats his comments
like this.
(How do you center the last two words? Been also thinking about how
text
white
space
disappears in computer storage)
Read on net today:GB’s Aaron Rodgers, Kodak janitors vs Apple janitors (outsourcing), the technosocial meaning of toilet paper, mysterious Iranians seeking to patent pot, French vs British geography of old Roman towns.
Life is too short to read about Republicans.
Carry on, sir!
I was being mildly ironic. Although I would give it some thought, even I wouldn’t have the guts to publicly proclaim that several hundred years of institutional racism was entirely economically based. Or to discount as irrelevant all the activism and social movements that ended Jim Crow and say it ended when it was no longer profitable. Although I may phrase it badly above, or misinterpret, maybe both the racism and anti-racism are economically determined. That’s hardcore Marxism.
But Paine’s a rebel
who formats his comments
like this.
(How do you center the last two words? Been also thinking about how
text
white
space
disappears in computer storage)
Read on net today:GB’s Aaron Rodgers, Kodak janitors vs Apple janitors (outsourcing), the technosocial meaning of toilet paper, mysterious Iranians seeking to patent pot, French vs British geography of old Roman towns.
Life is too short to read about Republicans.
I wouldn’t say that that “several hundred years of institutional racism was entirely economically based”, but I would say that the economics of slavery was a necessary and sufficient condition for the rise of slavery and a necessary condition for its continuation.
The really nasty racial attitudes came later as broader European/white society began to wake up to the evils of slavery and there arose a need to justify the continued existence of slavery on some moral grounds.
When these justifications were adopted by poor whites who were not slave-owning, the concept of treating blacks as sub-human took on a life of its own independent of any need to justify the economics of slavery and gave rise to the institutional racism that long survived emancipation.
I wouldn’t say that that “several hundred years of institutional racism was entirely economically based”, but I would say that the economics of slavery was a necessary and sufficient condition for the rise of slavery and a necessary condition for its continuation.
The really nasty racial attitudes came later as broader European/white society began to wake up to the evils of slavery and there arose a need to justify the continued existence of slavery on some moral grounds.
When these justifications were adopted by poor whites who were not slave-owning, the concept of treating blacks as sub-human took on a life of its own independent of any need to justify the economics of slavery and gave rise to the institutional racism that long survived emancipation.
maybe both the racism and anti-racism are economically determined
i dunno. kids can learn racism far earlier than they can learn economics. suggests dividing us v them is an innate talent.
maybe both the racism and anti-racism are economically determined
i dunno. kids can learn racism far earlier than they can learn economics. suggests dividing us v them is an innate talent.
“Life is too short to read about Republicans.”
I’m with you, but how else to keep track of the many ways republicans try to make the others’ lives shorter.
“Life is too short to read about Republicans.”
I’m with you, but how else to keep track of the many ways republicans try to make the others’ lives shorter.
Prejudice, race-based or otherwise, appears to be far easier to teach than economics. Or maybe just easier to teach to the very young (i.e. “before you are 6, or 7, or 8”).
Prejudice, race-based or otherwise, appears to be far easier to teach than economics. Or maybe just easier to teach to the very young (i.e. “before you are 6, or 7, or 8”).
I think tribalism is very much innate. Tribalism can take the form of racism easily enough.
I put tribalism in the same category as the other seven deadly sins. Like greed, lust and gluttony, tribalism is just something that our better selves mitigate, or should mitigate.
I think tribalism is very much innate. Tribalism can take the form of racism easily enough.
I put tribalism in the same category as the other seven deadly sins. Like greed, lust and gluttony, tribalism is just something that our better selves mitigate, or should mitigate.
North Korea could drop a nuke today on Houston, or incinerating LA, or firetrap Montana, and who would notice.
Have a good time.
The nuke might annoy the folks in makeshift shelters and shake them from their reveries throughout the country as they are having such a good time amid the spreading happiness of God’s prosperity apocalypse with a mosh pit.
“Recovery will be very tough and slow, but we’ll have you up and running, back to normal, and better than before in ten or fifteen minutes. Never you worry. Have you seen my rubber chicken? Mike, you brought the rubber chicken, didn’t you?
The DOW JONES loves it. When the asteroid hits, my retirement accounts are going to bust their seams.
I dread the taxes when I cash them in. Maybe a second asteroid will hit and we’ll get a tax holiday to boot.
America is blessed.
North Korea could drop a nuke today on Houston, or incinerating LA, or firetrap Montana, and who would notice.
Have a good time.
The nuke might annoy the folks in makeshift shelters and shake them from their reveries throughout the country as they are having such a good time amid the spreading happiness of God’s prosperity apocalypse with a mosh pit.
“Recovery will be very tough and slow, but we’ll have you up and running, back to normal, and better than before in ten or fifteen minutes. Never you worry. Have you seen my rubber chicken? Mike, you brought the rubber chicken, didn’t you?
The DOW JONES loves it. When the asteroid hits, my retirement accounts are going to bust their seams.
I dread the taxes when I cash them in. Maybe a second asteroid will hit and we’ll get a tax holiday to boot.
America is blessed.
Filched this joke from a commenter at Juanita Jean:
“As they sat there, each being worked on by a different barber, not a word was spoken. The barbers were both afraid to start a conversation, for fear that it would turn nasty. As the barbers finished their shaves in silence, the one who had Trump in his chair reached for the aftershave. But Donald was quick to stop him, jokingly saying, “No thanks. My wife, Melania, will smell that and think I’ve been in a brothel.” The second barber turned to Barack and said, “How about you, Mr. Obama ?” Barack replied, “Go right ahead, my wife Michelle wouldn’t know what the inside of a brothel smells like.”
Filched this joke from a commenter at Juanita Jean:
“As they sat there, each being worked on by a different barber, not a word was spoken. The barbers were both afraid to start a conversation, for fear that it would turn nasty. As the barbers finished their shaves in silence, the one who had Trump in his chair reached for the aftershave. But Donald was quick to stop him, jokingly saying, “No thanks. My wife, Melania, will smell that and think I’ve been in a brothel.” The second barber turned to Barack and said, “How about you, Mr. Obama ?” Barack replied, “Go right ahead, my wife Michelle wouldn’t know what the inside of a brothel smells like.”
I think tribalism is very much innate.
Even if tribalism is innate, and I’m not convinced that it is, the way a “tribe” is defined definitely is not. Just look at how malleable the definition of a “real American” has been over the course of our history. Who’s inside the tribe and who’s out shifts constantly.
I think tribalism is very much innate.
Even if tribalism is innate, and I’m not convinced that it is, the way a “tribe” is defined definitely is not. Just look at how malleable the definition of a “real American” has been over the course of our history. Who’s inside the tribe and who’s out shifts constantly.
Even if tribalism is innate, and I’m not convinced that it is. . .
I wouldn’t be too sure.
But the link also suggests that you’re right about the malleability.
Even if tribalism is innate, and I’m not convinced that it is. . .
I wouldn’t be too sure.
But the link also suggests that you’re right about the malleability.
Tribalism is all well and good for keeping your DNA chugging along, if you’re in a small band on the veldt
competing for scarce resources for survival.
It’s an existential threat to humanity in 21st
century civilization.
Tribalism is all well and good for keeping your DNA chugging along, if you’re in a small band on the veldt
competing for scarce resources for survival.
It’s an existential threat to humanity in 21st
century civilization.
Not trying to bust anyone’s chops here, but the fact that racism is a fact of life always seems to be stated (and I’m including myself here) by white folks.
But (and this is not to deny that anyone can be racist) racism always is expressed in a framework of white-centricity. African Americans and Hispanics (and before them Irish and Italians) were uncivilized and course. Asians were lacking in creativity and independence. It was the melanin-deficient that occupied the special middle ground.
I suppose that in an alternate reality where guns, germs and steel favored, say African Americans, we might have a bunch of white protestors (along with their liberal black supporters) demanding that we tear down the statue of General Nat Turner. But there is really only one framework for racism that we are aware of, and that is valuing white traits (or suggesting that other traits, like rhythm and athletic ability come with the territory) is it.
And I grant that Asians can get up to some pretty rarified tribalism, but (and maybe dr. ngo can help out here) the Japanese were early adopters of Western racial theories. There are some other observations I could make, but I’ve probably gotten someone’s dander enough with that.
Not trying to bust anyone’s chops here, but the fact that racism is a fact of life always seems to be stated (and I’m including myself here) by white folks.
But (and this is not to deny that anyone can be racist) racism always is expressed in a framework of white-centricity. African Americans and Hispanics (and before them Irish and Italians) were uncivilized and course. Asians were lacking in creativity and independence. It was the melanin-deficient that occupied the special middle ground.
I suppose that in an alternate reality where guns, germs and steel favored, say African Americans, we might have a bunch of white protestors (along with their liberal black supporters) demanding that we tear down the statue of General Nat Turner. But there is really only one framework for racism that we are aware of, and that is valuing white traits (or suggesting that other traits, like rhythm and athletic ability come with the territory) is it.
And I grant that Asians can get up to some pretty rarified tribalism, but (and maybe dr. ngo can help out here) the Japanese were early adopters of Western racial theories. There are some other observations I could make, but I’ve probably gotten someone’s dander enough with that.
course=coarse Sheesh….
course=coarse Sheesh….
I don’t know if you are concerned about my dander or not, but I think we’re saying the same things for the most part.
I started down this road by setting out my thoughts re: racism in the US being an outgrowth of the need justify slavery in the face of opposition to the practice. Institutional racism being an outgrowth of that justification.
I then followed that up with the proposition that tribalism is a generic human trait hanging out in the poor company of lust, greed and gluttony, and racism is one of tribalism’s many forms.
Whether it is a function of a special defect in white folks (which I doubt), or a function of opportunity/circumstance (which I lean towards), whites have exploited other races much more often than any other group giving rise to a need to justify that exploitation. That the justification often initially took the form of racism and then stuck (institutionally and/or culturally) doesn’t really surprise me.
I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say “there is really only one framework for racism that we are aware of”, but white racism is certainly the framework that we are most familiar with because whites have had the most ‘justifying’ to do.
I’ll end with admitting that I’ve seen lots of writers (from random bloggers to accredited social scientists) who have argued various versions of “only whites are/can be racist”. I don’t buy that at all. Apologies if I was projecting in my response to you post.
I don’t know if you are concerned about my dander or not, but I think we’re saying the same things for the most part.
I started down this road by setting out my thoughts re: racism in the US being an outgrowth of the need justify slavery in the face of opposition to the practice. Institutional racism being an outgrowth of that justification.
I then followed that up with the proposition that tribalism is a generic human trait hanging out in the poor company of lust, greed and gluttony, and racism is one of tribalism’s many forms.
Whether it is a function of a special defect in white folks (which I doubt), or a function of opportunity/circumstance (which I lean towards), whites have exploited other races much more often than any other group giving rise to a need to justify that exploitation. That the justification often initially took the form of racism and then stuck (institutionally and/or culturally) doesn’t really surprise me.
I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say “there is really only one framework for racism that we are aware of”, but white racism is certainly the framework that we are most familiar with because whites have had the most ‘justifying’ to do.
I’ll end with admitting that I’ve seen lots of writers (from random bloggers to accredited social scientists) who have argued various versions of “only whites are/can be racist”. I don’t buy that at all. Apologies if I was projecting in my response to you post.
lj, I’m one of those people who think tribalism is more or less innate. I don’t feel my chops being busted , but your doubts based on who you think says this don’t convince me even a little bit.
Several quick points on a topic that can’t be circumscribed in a blog comment:
You narrowed the idea to racism, but tribalism is a long way from being confined to “race.” See the link I posted above, which describes research on how people placed in completely invented groups like “overestimators and understimators” favored their own. Think about Northern Ireland, or the religious conflicts that shredded Europe for centuries. For that matter, I suppose being gay also makes me skeptical of the notion that only white people looking for an excuse think the tendency to tribalism is innate.
But I also think that even if the tendency is innate, how it plays out can be affected by context, teaching, learning, and especially triggering of various kinds, sometimes deliberate. Probably personality too, for that matter.
For deliberate triggering, see Jefferson’s Pillow, by Roger Wilkins, which includes a brief mention of racism being deliberately fomented by the ownership class in early Virginia as a way of defusing a simmering, more class-based conflict (this was before the entrenchment of slavery). I have read that the same thing happened in northern Ireland three or four hundred years ago – only on that occasion it was religion that was used to keep the poorer folks at each other’s throats so they wouldn’t go after the system that entrenched the powerful/wealthy. (I read this a very long time ago and don’t have a reference.)
[Breaking this up into two comments, because links. Or length, take your pick.]
lj, I’m one of those people who think tribalism is more or less innate. I don’t feel my chops being busted , but your doubts based on who you think says this don’t convince me even a little bit.
Several quick points on a topic that can’t be circumscribed in a blog comment:
You narrowed the idea to racism, but tribalism is a long way from being confined to “race.” See the link I posted above, which describes research on how people placed in completely invented groups like “overestimators and understimators” favored their own. Think about Northern Ireland, or the religious conflicts that shredded Europe for centuries. For that matter, I suppose being gay also makes me skeptical of the notion that only white people looking for an excuse think the tendency to tribalism is innate.
But I also think that even if the tendency is innate, how it plays out can be affected by context, teaching, learning, and especially triggering of various kinds, sometimes deliberate. Probably personality too, for that matter.
For deliberate triggering, see Jefferson’s Pillow, by Roger Wilkins, which includes a brief mention of racism being deliberately fomented by the ownership class in early Virginia as a way of defusing a simmering, more class-based conflict (this was before the entrenchment of slavery). I have read that the same thing happened in northern Ireland three or four hundred years ago – only on that occasion it was religion that was used to keep the poorer folks at each other’s throats so they wouldn’t go after the system that entrenched the powerful/wealthy. (I read this a very long time ago and don’t have a reference.)
[Breaking this up into two comments, because links. Or length, take your pick.]
I took a diversity class at UMaine years ago, mostly teachers and a few oddities like me in the class, an intense three-credit week in the summer. Students all white, mostly female, some African American and Native American presenters, I don’t remember any Asian Americans — rural Maine is like that, it’s a wonder there was anyone who wasn’t white. One woman (who worked at the university) was an Apache from the American southwest who had married a man from one of the Maine tribes, and she told stories both of tribalism within the Native American community and of how her kids navigated life in the local high school. (Not too badly, IIRC.)
It was late in the week when one of the teachers, I think from one of the far downeast communities, or maybe even one of the islands, said that it was bothering her that we were totally leaving diversity of social class out of the discussion. Her classes were all white (Maine seesaws with Vermont as the whitest state in the country), but the class prejudice was deep and pervasive. And you don’t have to go to the poorer, more remote communities to see this, of course.
That class was where I read about the over/underestimators research, in a book called We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know, by Gary Howard. I would also recommend An Ethic for Enemies, by Donald W. Shriver, Jr. It’s a wonderful book, but I’m almost afraid to think about its relevance to our current politics.
I took a diversity class at UMaine years ago, mostly teachers and a few oddities like me in the class, an intense three-credit week in the summer. Students all white, mostly female, some African American and Native American presenters, I don’t remember any Asian Americans — rural Maine is like that, it’s a wonder there was anyone who wasn’t white. One woman (who worked at the university) was an Apache from the American southwest who had married a man from one of the Maine tribes, and she told stories both of tribalism within the Native American community and of how her kids navigated life in the local high school. (Not too badly, IIRC.)
It was late in the week when one of the teachers, I think from one of the far downeast communities, or maybe even one of the islands, said that it was bothering her that we were totally leaving diversity of social class out of the discussion. Her classes were all white (Maine seesaws with Vermont as the whitest state in the country), but the class prejudice was deep and pervasive. And you don’t have to go to the poorer, more remote communities to see this, of course.
That class was where I read about the over/underestimators research, in a book called We Can’t Teach What We Don’t Know, by Gary Howard. I would also recommend An Ethic for Enemies, by Donald W. Shriver, Jr. It’s a wonderful book, but I’m almost afraid to think about its relevance to our current politics.
Okay, one more.
Since you (lj) care about who says what about tribalism/race, here’s my rundown. And indeed, I would never assert that one’s position across any of these boundaries, or along any of these spectra (?) doesn’t deeply shape one’s vantage point.
Gary Howard is white, but works (worked?) for decades as a diversity educator with a diverse group of colleagues.
I assume Donald W. Shriver is white but I don’t actually know.
Another book we used in the class at UMaine was Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, by Beverly Daniel Tatum, who is a black psychologist and educator.
Roger Wilkins is black, the nephew of longtime NAACP head Roy Wilkins.
Okay, one more.
Since you (lj) care about who says what about tribalism/race, here’s my rundown. And indeed, I would never assert that one’s position across any of these boundaries, or along any of these spectra (?) doesn’t deeply shape one’s vantage point.
Gary Howard is white, but works (worked?) for decades as a diversity educator with a diverse group of colleagues.
I assume Donald W. Shriver is white but I don’t actually know.
Another book we used in the class at UMaine was Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, by Beverly Daniel Tatum, who is a black psychologist and educator.
Roger Wilkins is black, the nephew of longtime NAACP head Roy Wilkins.
P.S. I took that class twenty years ago. Even Maine has changed a lot in the interim, esp. but not entirely because of the large numbers of Somali “new Mainers” who’ve arrived since then. I don’t have any evidence, but I would bet the influence of the new Mainers lessens from south to north, so that northern and far downeastern Maine are probably still (almost?) as white as they were two decades ago.
P.S. I took that class twenty years ago. Even Maine has changed a lot in the interim, esp. but not entirely because of the large numbers of Somali “new Mainers” who’ve arrived since then. I don’t have any evidence, but I would bet the influence of the new Mainers lessens from south to north, so that northern and far downeastern Maine are probably still (almost?) as white as they were two decades ago.
JanieM-
While there are tribal aspects in both racism and homophobia (others are others), I’ve always felt that gay prejudice stands apart due to deep rooted mores re: procreation and sex. Or perhaps its a sense of tribal “betrayal” or specific religious condemnation.
I can’t really put my finger on it, but it seems different … not saying one is worse than the other but they seem to have different root causes.
JanieM-
While there are tribal aspects in both racism and homophobia (others are others), I’ve always felt that gay prejudice stands apart due to deep rooted mores re: procreation and sex. Or perhaps its a sense of tribal “betrayal” or specific religious condemnation.
I can’t really put my finger on it, but it seems different … not saying one is worse than the other but they seem to have different root causes.
On phone so can’t easily scroll back and forth to check, but a few points:
One of my best friends in boarding school was a Chinese girl from Hong-Kong (we bonded for obvious reasons), and she revealed to me that generally, culturally, Chinese people as a whole thought of black people as close to animals. It is true that the Chinese seemed to fall squarely into the “pale skin is best” category, and used skin-lightening creams, but conversely she said that white people smelt, and were perceived as having an inferior culture generally. So, endless examples of othering.
On phone so can’t easily scroll back and forth to check, but a few points:
One of my best friends in boarding school was a Chinese girl from Hong-Kong (we bonded for obvious reasons), and she revealed to me that generally, culturally, Chinese people as a whole thought of black people as close to animals. It is true that the Chinese seemed to fall squarely into the “pale skin is best” category, and used skin-lightening creams, but conversely she said that white people smelt, and were perceived as having an inferior culture generally. So, endless examples of othering.
GftNC-
My wife works with wealthy Chinese clients. Your anecdote is not atypical in her experience; especially with older Chinese. The younger generation is much more likely to have been educated internationally and have different attitudes.
But that highlights a further complication with the Chinese reverence for their elders in that the younger generation who may be more inclined to take a broader outlook are very reluctant to correct their parents and grandparents.
GftNC-
My wife works with wealthy Chinese clients. Your anecdote is not atypical in her experience; especially with older Chinese. The younger generation is much more likely to have been educated internationally and have different attitudes.
But that highlights a further complication with the Chinese reverence for their elders in that the younger generation who may be more inclined to take a broader outlook are very reluctant to correct their parents and grandparents.
…she said that white people smelt,…
East Asian populations tend to have a gene variation that results in a lot fewer odor producing sweat glands in their armpits.
…she said that white people smelt,…
East Asian populations tend to have a gene variation that results in a lot fewer odor producing sweat glands in their armpits.
A Japanese friend told me that the large amount dairy in general, and butter in particular, in the western diet was the culprit but I have not see that mentioned anywhere else.
A Japanese friend told me that the large amount dairy in general, and butter in particular, in the western diet was the culprit but I have not see that mentioned anywhere else.
I’ve encountered dietary explanation also. Diet could certainly intensify a predisposition to having a strong body odor.
I’ve encountered dietary explanation also. Diet could certainly intensify a predisposition to having a strong body odor.
Not trying to bust anyone’s chops here, but the fact that racism is a fact of life always seems to be stated (and I’m including myself here) by white folks.
lj, I wonder how much of that is simply non-whites feeling that them talking about racism will mostly (outside diversity classes and such) get taken as complaining. Again. Even if they are talking about racism among their own group, they feel that the perception will come thru anyway.
Not trying to bust anyone’s chops here, but the fact that racism is a fact of life always seems to be stated (and I’m including myself here) by white folks.
lj, I wonder how much of that is simply non-whites feeling that them talking about racism will mostly (outside diversity classes and such) get taken as complaining. Again. Even if they are talking about racism among their own group, they feel that the perception will come thru anyway.
One other tribalism insight. When I was in college, I heard this from several Asian students I knew. When they were leaving home for college, their parents told them essentially, “We know you are going to meet lots of different people** in school. Maybe even go out with them. And that’s OK. But no Japanese (or, from the Japanese American parents, no Chinese); they’re inferior!”
No doubt if there had been a significant number of Koreans here at the time, they would have gotten the same treatment.
Tribalism, rampant! Although, as PdM notes with regard to blacks, the level of tribalism between different groups of East Asians seems to have dropped over the decades.
** My sense was that blacks weren’t even in the discussion. Whether because there were so few of them likely to be at university in the 1960s, or because their low status was so obvious as to not need mention, I don’t know.
One other tribalism insight. When I was in college, I heard this from several Asian students I knew. When they were leaving home for college, their parents told them essentially, “We know you are going to meet lots of different people** in school. Maybe even go out with them. And that’s OK. But no Japanese (or, from the Japanese American parents, no Chinese); they’re inferior!”
No doubt if there had been a significant number of Koreans here at the time, they would have gotten the same treatment.
Tribalism, rampant! Although, as PdM notes with regard to blacks, the level of tribalism between different groups of East Asians seems to have dropped over the decades.
** My sense was that blacks weren’t even in the discussion. Whether because there were so few of them likely to be at university in the 1960s, or because their low status was so obvious as to not need mention, I don’t know.
Just another OT note.
We gots Frisco closing down for heat. Montana is burning up and suffocating for forestfires. Bangladesh. Persian Gulf states.
After 250 billion for Houston, Irma is heading our way, and a total of half a trillion+ or more in recovery costs or 5% of GDP is easy to imagine, not even counting the other areas. The effects of Sandy are still being paid for.
The economic costs and consequences of climate change will be astronomical, but spread out so hard to aggregate. We will just see lower growth, social unrest and war.
5-15 years it all goes pear-shaped.
Just another OT note.
We gots Frisco closing down for heat. Montana is burning up and suffocating for forestfires. Bangladesh. Persian Gulf states.
After 250 billion for Houston, Irma is heading our way, and a total of half a trillion+ or more in recovery costs or 5% of GDP is easy to imagine, not even counting the other areas. The effects of Sandy are still being paid for.
The economic costs and consequences of climate change will be astronomical, but spread out so hard to aggregate. We will just see lower growth, social unrest and war.
5-15 years it all goes pear-shaped.
I guess I could have mentioned Fukushima.
Oh, and after somehow paying mitigation and recovery costs, will we have the resources to pay for conversion to a green economy?
No. It’s too late to preserve any civilization that looks anything like this one. A social revolution to green has its own costs.
Head for the hills or party down. The world is ending in your lifetime.
I guess I could have mentioned Fukushima.
Oh, and after somehow paying mitigation and recovery costs, will we have the resources to pay for conversion to a green economy?
No. It’s too late to preserve any civilization that looks anything like this one. A social revolution to green has its own costs.
Head for the hills or party down. The world is ending in your lifetime.
As far as I can tell, tribalism is universal among humans. Lots of other species, too.
IMO it takes serious individual effort to overcome it. The law can put some bumpers around the more harmful expressions of it, but the underlying impulse seems to be bred in the bone.
In my experience (personal and observed) it takes significant effort to recognize, acknowledge, and address it in yourself. For some folks – many folks? – what it requires is something like a true personal transformation.
If you look at world history at a scale of hundreds of years, from a Euro-centric point of view, white folks are the biggest offenders. And that perception is one they have earned in spades.
But over our whole history on the planet, I think we’ve all taken turns being the biggest offender, at some point or other.
Maybe the Hopi have clean hands. Hard to say.
It’s a deep human trait. I’m sure there’s some adaptive advantage in it. I’m also sure we’re at a point where whatever adaptive advantage was there, has been outstripped by the need to get past it.
It’s a lot of work. I hope we’re up for it.
We shall overcome, someday. Or, be overcome.
We’ll see how it goes.
As far as I can tell, tribalism is universal among humans. Lots of other species, too.
IMO it takes serious individual effort to overcome it. The law can put some bumpers around the more harmful expressions of it, but the underlying impulse seems to be bred in the bone.
In my experience (personal and observed) it takes significant effort to recognize, acknowledge, and address it in yourself. For some folks – many folks? – what it requires is something like a true personal transformation.
If you look at world history at a scale of hundreds of years, from a Euro-centric point of view, white folks are the biggest offenders. And that perception is one they have earned in spades.
But over our whole history on the planet, I think we’ve all taken turns being the biggest offender, at some point or other.
Maybe the Hopi have clean hands. Hard to say.
It’s a deep human trait. I’m sure there’s some adaptive advantage in it. I’m also sure we’re at a point where whatever adaptive advantage was there, has been outstripped by the need to get past it.
It’s a lot of work. I hope we’re up for it.
We shall overcome, someday. Or, be overcome.
We’ll see how it goes.
The world is ending in your lifetime.
Not if you’re a jellyfish.
The real wake-up call is the fact that “the world” doesn’t give a crap if we kill ourselves off, or not.
More stuff for somebody else. I’m sure the roaches will be thrilled.
Adapt or die. 95% of all lifeforms that have ever existed on the planet failed to pass the audition.
The world is ending in your lifetime.
Not if you’re a jellyfish.
The real wake-up call is the fact that “the world” doesn’t give a crap if we kill ourselves off, or not.
More stuff for somebody else. I’m sure the roaches will be thrilled.
Adapt or die. 95% of all lifeforms that have ever existed on the planet failed to pass the audition.
War with Iran, probably nuclear, will deflect us for a moment from the longer-term existential threats.
War with North Korea, most certainly nuclear, will deflect for a moment, but with America’s Russia’s diplomatic breakdown in its early stages, and threats of the total cessation of trade with China, expect it to escalate very quickly into total nuclear annihilation for America and much of the first world, I expect by accident, perhaps a slip of the tongue or twit or someone’s very fucked-up short fingers.
The roaches will be thrilled …. The ones we have to defenestrate in turn in America, in their gulches, if anything is left.
An election was held November 9, 2016.
Did you remember to kiss your asses goodbye? And your childrens’.
Your stock portfolios will be fine for awhile after you are gone. Upward technical momentum will carry the market, the biggest cockroach of them all, for awhile based merely on the bullish trading programs that will be triggered post detonations by expectations of wage and human labor overhead reductions to zero and the halting of all social insurance programs in the western world as Washington D.C. and Brussels are vaporized at the behest of American rumpwingers, Russia, China, and North Korea, and a few hardheaded Brits, the united enemies of all that is good in the world.
Hey, I don’t know. No one who once knew does either any longer.
Saw this South Africa band live at Taste of Colorado yesterday. Tribal back beat, devastating, end-of-the-world low end. Even better live.
Kongos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIQjqXhKdN4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLN-a2w568M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aijr8HfxVVQ
And then they throw in Beatle covers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDBhNFUeMrk
War with Iran, probably nuclear, will deflect us for a moment from the longer-term existential threats.
War with North Korea, most certainly nuclear, will deflect for a moment, but with America’s Russia’s diplomatic breakdown in its early stages, and threats of the total cessation of trade with China, expect it to escalate very quickly into total nuclear annihilation for America and much of the first world, I expect by accident, perhaps a slip of the tongue or twit or someone’s very fucked-up short fingers.
The roaches will be thrilled …. The ones we have to defenestrate in turn in America, in their gulches, if anything is left.
An election was held November 9, 2016.
Did you remember to kiss your asses goodbye? And your childrens’.
Your stock portfolios will be fine for awhile after you are gone. Upward technical momentum will carry the market, the biggest cockroach of them all, for awhile based merely on the bullish trading programs that will be triggered post detonations by expectations of wage and human labor overhead reductions to zero and the halting of all social insurance programs in the western world as Washington D.C. and Brussels are vaporized at the behest of American rumpwingers, Russia, China, and North Korea, and a few hardheaded Brits, the united enemies of all that is good in the world.
Hey, I don’t know. No one who once knew does either any longer.
Saw this South Africa band live at Taste of Colorado yesterday. Tribal back beat, devastating, end-of-the-world low end. Even better live.
Kongos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIQjqXhKdN4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLN-a2w568M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aijr8HfxVVQ
And then they throw in Beatle covers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDBhNFUeMrk
Can we please leave Melania Trump out of it, and the same for any other family members not involved in politics.
Can we please leave Melania Trump out of it, and the same for any other family members not involved in politics.
Apologies for not being able to state this clearly, some personal issues are interfering a bit, and when I say I’m not directing this at anyone here, I really do mean it. I just wonder why I have rarely heard minorities say something like ‘well racism is tribalism, and it happens to everyone’. I know I have made statements of that sort, but I’m now wondering if I say that as a defense of not doing more. After all, if it is part of the human condition, who am I to try and stamp it out?
What GftNC pointed about about Chinese is true, and extends to Koreans and Japanese and a lot of it revolves around skin color. Of course, when you define the other, you can’t simply assign bad qualities to the other, cause one knows, subconsciously I suppose, that every bad trait is a good trait in extreme disguise. I wonder how much of this light skin good thinking is something that Asians have picked up from Western society.
I still cannot make heads or tails about the kuro gyaru subculture in Japan but I think it is somehow related to these discussions.
http://tokyofashion.com/gyaru-japan-black-diamond-gals-kuro-gyaru-subculture/
Following the arguments of Pollo, maybe the only way to explain racism to white folks is to assure them that it’s not them, it’s everyone. But then, it is not factual, it is rhetorical. Maybe it’s not purely rhetorical, but what %?
Apologies for not being able to state this clearly, some personal issues are interfering a bit, and when I say I’m not directing this at anyone here, I really do mean it. I just wonder why I have rarely heard minorities say something like ‘well racism is tribalism, and it happens to everyone’. I know I have made statements of that sort, but I’m now wondering if I say that as a defense of not doing more. After all, if it is part of the human condition, who am I to try and stamp it out?
What GftNC pointed about about Chinese is true, and extends to Koreans and Japanese and a lot of it revolves around skin color. Of course, when you define the other, you can’t simply assign bad qualities to the other, cause one knows, subconsciously I suppose, that every bad trait is a good trait in extreme disguise. I wonder how much of this light skin good thinking is something that Asians have picked up from Western society.
I still cannot make heads or tails about the kuro gyaru subculture in Japan but I think it is somehow related to these discussions.
http://tokyofashion.com/gyaru-japan-black-diamond-gals-kuro-gyaru-subculture/
Following the arguments of Pollo, maybe the only way to explain racism to white folks is to assure them that it’s not them, it’s everyone. But then, it is not factual, it is rhetorical. Maybe it’s not purely rhetorical, but what %?
lj, if I’m reading you correctly you seem to be troubled in part because if it’s everyone, not just white people, then white people are off the hook.
I don’t believe that at all. The fact that everyone has failings and flaws doesn’t excuse us from trying to minimize the effects of the dark side. Quite the contrary.
The fact (if it is one) that a tendency toward tribalism is baked into the cake of being human (just like greed and lust and all the other deadly sins) doesn’t excuse us from trying to feed our better angels
lj, if I’m reading you correctly you seem to be troubled in part because if it’s everyone, not just white people, then white people are off the hook.
I don’t believe that at all. The fact that everyone has failings and flaws doesn’t excuse us from trying to minimize the effects of the dark side. Quite the contrary.
The fact (if it is one) that a tendency toward tribalism is baked into the cake of being human (just like greed and lust and all the other deadly sins) doesn’t excuse us from trying to feed our better angels
Also, I like GftNC’s use of the word “othering,” which is perhaps even more generically useful than “tribalism.”
I am remembering the skin color banter, only half kidding, amongst the African American kids who hung out at our house when I lived in Milwaukee. I am remembering the Native American woman who presented at my diversity class, who talked about the hierarchy of “othering” based on who was a “breed” and who was full-blooded.
Etc.
It ain’t just white people.
But again, I don’t say that in any way to let white people off the hook, especially in my own country, founded on slavery and still not close to over it to this day.
Also, I like GftNC’s use of the word “othering,” which is perhaps even more generically useful than “tribalism.”
I am remembering the skin color banter, only half kidding, amongst the African American kids who hung out at our house when I lived in Milwaukee. I am remembering the Native American woman who presented at my diversity class, who talked about the hierarchy of “othering” based on who was a “breed” and who was full-blooded.
Etc.
It ain’t just white people.
But again, I don’t say that in any way to let white people off the hook, especially in my own country, founded on slavery and still not close to over it to this day.
“Can we please leave Melania Trump out of it, and the same for any other family members not involved in politics.”
No. All rules of human decency have been abandoned. Politics eats the innocent.
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/04/republicans-are-monsters-a-continuing-story/
“Can we please leave Melania Trump out of it, and the same for any other family members not involved in politics.”
No. All rules of human decency have been abandoned. Politics eats the innocent.
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/04/republicans-are-monsters-a-continuing-story/
“Can we please leave Melania Trump out of it, and the same for any other family members not involved in politics.”
No. All rules of human decency have been abandoned. Politics eats the innocent.
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/04/republicans-are-monsters-a-continuing-story/
“Can we please leave Melania Trump out of it, and the same for any other family members not involved in politics.”
No. All rules of human decency have been abandoned. Politics eats the innocent.
https://www.balloon-juice.com/2017/09/04/republicans-are-monsters-a-continuing-story/
Double posting, however, is beyond the pale
Double posting, however, is beyond the pale
lj, you obviously don’t have to answer this — but I’m wondering: is it not so much the possibility that the tendency toward tribalism is inherent that bothers you, but rather what you have, after all, said more than once in different ways, the fact that you only hear white people mention it?
For me, it took a long time to realize that “we” (humans, on earth) weren’t on some kind of “arc bending toward justice.” Or maybe we are, but no progress can ever be taken for granted, the work will always have to be done over and over, or shored up, or whatever.
It’s kind of like what I tell my kids about adulthood: it’s not something you ever reach, it’s more like an endless process.
Or maybe that’s just an excuse too. After all, I’m one of those baby boomers who supposedly never grew up.
lj, you obviously don’t have to answer this — but I’m wondering: is it not so much the possibility that the tendency toward tribalism is inherent that bothers you, but rather what you have, after all, said more than once in different ways, the fact that you only hear white people mention it?
For me, it took a long time to realize that “we” (humans, on earth) weren’t on some kind of “arc bending toward justice.” Or maybe we are, but no progress can ever be taken for granted, the work will always have to be done over and over, or shored up, or whatever.
It’s kind of like what I tell my kids about adulthood: it’s not something you ever reach, it’s more like an endless process.
Or maybe that’s just an excuse too. After all, I’m one of those baby boomers who supposedly never grew up.
For me, it took a long time to realize that “we” (humans, on earth) weren’t on some kind of “arc bending toward justice.” Or maybe we are, but no progress can ever be taken for granted, the work will always have to be done over and over, or shored up, or whatever.
Stephen Pinker makes a convincing argument that the arc does bend towards justice. Also, what I’ve linked to many times, and insist on doing again (and, no doubt, again, in future): http://www.fallen.io/ww2/
We can do this. If we lose hope, we won’t do this. We need to try.
For me, it took a long time to realize that “we” (humans, on earth) weren’t on some kind of “arc bending toward justice.” Or maybe we are, but no progress can ever be taken for granted, the work will always have to be done over and over, or shored up, or whatever.
Stephen Pinker makes a convincing argument that the arc does bend towards justice. Also, what I’ve linked to many times, and insist on doing again (and, no doubt, again, in future): http://www.fallen.io/ww2/
We can do this. If we lose hope, we won’t do this. We need to try.
I would say that the arc doesn’t bend inevitably towards justice. You have to put in some effort.
But, over time, people do seem to be putting in that effort. So the arc is bending, however slowly.
I would say that the arc doesn’t bend inevitably towards justice. You have to put in some effort.
But, over time, people do seem to be putting in that effort. So the arc is bending, however slowly.
I would say that the arc doesn’t bend inevitably towards justice. You have to put in some effort.
Yet again, we agree.
I would say that the arc doesn’t bend inevitably towards justice. You have to put in some effort.
Yet again, we agree.
That’s a good question, let me try a two part answer.
I don’t think that only white people use tribalism maliciously, but if it is only white people who are mentioning it, it does seem like an excuse rather than an explanation.
I don’t think that tribalism is inherently evil, if you didn’t have tribalism, you probably wouldn’t have sports or any other kinds of contests. But at some point, a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind and tribalism originally represents people you know to some degree or people who the people you know to some degree are willing to vouch for (‘This is your uncle Harry who moved away when he was 18, so he’s part of the family’)
On the other hand, racism puts tribalism on steroids, such that you’d have the southern White American immediately feel a bond with the apartheid era White South African, not because of any perceived linkage (other than white skin) but because the American assumes that the SA has the same attitudes.
As far as tribalism, Japanese take a back seat to none, and I always wonder, should I engage when they say ‘oh, you are more Japanese than the Japanese’ or crack open the catch phrase ‘ware ware nihonjin’ (We Japanese, usually stated before some incredibly broad generalization about some aspect of Japanese culture. It seems pernicious, but how far do I wade in to stop it?
That’s a good question, let me try a two part answer.
I don’t think that only white people use tribalism maliciously, but if it is only white people who are mentioning it, it does seem like an excuse rather than an explanation.
I don’t think that tribalism is inherently evil, if you didn’t have tribalism, you probably wouldn’t have sports or any other kinds of contests. But at some point, a difference in degree becomes a difference in kind and tribalism originally represents people you know to some degree or people who the people you know to some degree are willing to vouch for (‘This is your uncle Harry who moved away when he was 18, so he’s part of the family’)
On the other hand, racism puts tribalism on steroids, such that you’d have the southern White American immediately feel a bond with the apartheid era White South African, not because of any perceived linkage (other than white skin) but because the American assumes that the SA has the same attitudes.
As far as tribalism, Japanese take a back seat to none, and I always wonder, should I engage when they say ‘oh, you are more Japanese than the Japanese’ or crack open the catch phrase ‘ware ware nihonjin’ (We Japanese, usually stated before some incredibly broad generalization about some aspect of Japanese culture. It seems pernicious, but how far do I wade in to stop it?
I don’t think that only white people use tribalism maliciously, but if it is only white people who are mentioning it, it does seem like an excuse rather than an explanation.
Is it an excuse for a thief to say “I wanted it”? Is it an excuse for a rapist to say “I was horny”? Of course not.
You only see whites discussing this because whites have the most explaining to do.
I don’t think that tribalism is inherently evil, if you didn’t have tribalism, you probably wouldn’t have sports or any other kinds of contests.
Just like a sex drive and greed are not inherently evil unless you fail to recognize them and rein them in.
On the other hand, racism puts tribalism on steroids, such that you’d have the southern White American immediately feel a bond with the apartheid era White South African, not because of any perceived linkage (other than white skin) but because the American assumes that the SA has the same attitudes.
As someone who was born and raised in the Deep South, I don’t think that’s a great example. I’ve known lots of horribly racist folks and the notion of “kinship” with white SA’s was not a “thing” beyond using their twisted perception of SA to justify they own racism.
As far as tribalism, Japanese take a back seat to none, and I always wonder, should I engage when they say ‘oh, you are more Japanese than the Japanese’ or crack open the catch phrase ‘ware ware nihonjin’ (We Japanese, usually stated before some incredibly broad generalization about some aspect of Japanese culture. It seems pernicious, but how far do I wade in to stop it?
I’ve only been to Japan once, but I noticed when landing at NRT that the Japanese passengers applauded with a sense of palpable relief when they saw Mt. Fuji. This was consistent with my experience with Japanese academics in the US (I was studying Japanese political economics). As a people, they didn’t seem comfortable traveling abroad. This was during the early 90s when the damage of the bubble economy was still vastly underestimated and Japan was still seen as an unequivocal economic superpower. In other words, we were at peak arrogance regarding Japanese racial/cultural superiority. My point is that Japanese tribalism seems to be coupled with something approaching national agoraphobia. So unless you have the misfortune of being Chinese or Korean working in Japan, odds are that Japanese tribalism isn’t an immediate problem for you.
I said “immediate problem” because in the long term Japanese tribalism seems to be most harmful to the Japanese, but I’m starting to go off on a very specific off topic tangent w/r/t Japan that I should set aside. I’ll bring this around to the topic at hand. Earlier I typed “You only see whites discussing this because whites have the most explaining to do.” How long did it take Japan to apologize for comfort woman? For Nanking? I don’t think talking about tribalism is an excuse for racism and it’s certainly better than trying to sweep racism under the rug.
I don’t think that only white people use tribalism maliciously, but if it is only white people who are mentioning it, it does seem like an excuse rather than an explanation.
Is it an excuse for a thief to say “I wanted it”? Is it an excuse for a rapist to say “I was horny”? Of course not.
You only see whites discussing this because whites have the most explaining to do.
I don’t think that tribalism is inherently evil, if you didn’t have tribalism, you probably wouldn’t have sports or any other kinds of contests.
Just like a sex drive and greed are not inherently evil unless you fail to recognize them and rein them in.
On the other hand, racism puts tribalism on steroids, such that you’d have the southern White American immediately feel a bond with the apartheid era White South African, not because of any perceived linkage (other than white skin) but because the American assumes that the SA has the same attitudes.
As someone who was born and raised in the Deep South, I don’t think that’s a great example. I’ve known lots of horribly racist folks and the notion of “kinship” with white SA’s was not a “thing” beyond using their twisted perception of SA to justify they own racism.
As far as tribalism, Japanese take a back seat to none, and I always wonder, should I engage when they say ‘oh, you are more Japanese than the Japanese’ or crack open the catch phrase ‘ware ware nihonjin’ (We Japanese, usually stated before some incredibly broad generalization about some aspect of Japanese culture. It seems pernicious, but how far do I wade in to stop it?
I’ve only been to Japan once, but I noticed when landing at NRT that the Japanese passengers applauded with a sense of palpable relief when they saw Mt. Fuji. This was consistent with my experience with Japanese academics in the US (I was studying Japanese political economics). As a people, they didn’t seem comfortable traveling abroad. This was during the early 90s when the damage of the bubble economy was still vastly underestimated and Japan was still seen as an unequivocal economic superpower. In other words, we were at peak arrogance regarding Japanese racial/cultural superiority. My point is that Japanese tribalism seems to be coupled with something approaching national agoraphobia. So unless you have the misfortune of being Chinese or Korean working in Japan, odds are that Japanese tribalism isn’t an immediate problem for you.
I said “immediate problem” because in the long term Japanese tribalism seems to be most harmful to the Japanese, but I’m starting to go off on a very specific off topic tangent w/r/t Japan that I should set aside. I’ll bring this around to the topic at hand. Earlier I typed “You only see whites discussing this because whites have the most explaining to do.” How long did it take Japan to apologize for comfort woman? For Nanking? I don’t think talking about tribalism is an excuse for racism and it’s certainly better than trying to sweep racism under the rug.
I had heard that Koreans in Japan were even less accepted than Turks in Germany seem to be. In spite of having been there several more generations.
And with even less racial/genetic difference — in fact, beyond the family names, I have a bit of a struggle figuring out how they manage to identify those particular “others”.
I had heard that Koreans in Japan were even less accepted than Turks in Germany seem to be. In spite of having been there several more generations.
And with even less racial/genetic difference — in fact, beyond the family names, I have a bit of a struggle figuring out how they manage to identify those particular “others”.
It’s not like the obvious differences between slavs and aryans, amirite?
>_>
It’s not like the obvious differences between slavs and aryans, amirite?
>_>
Well, I was also raised in the Deep South, so I’m not sure why the example is bad. On the plains of Africa for our distant ancestors, tribalism is knowing who is kith and kin. The “tribalism” of racists is unconnected to notions of kith and kin and finding members of their ‘tribe’ is simply a matter of a google search.
I also think you are really misunderstanding the situation in Japan, but it would take a lot more explanation and history as well as a very long explanation of who I am and what I am doing. wj’s point about zainichi is on point and is only the tip of the iceberg. The ‘tribalism’ of Japan is built on a lot of smaller chunks that, when laid out, are laughable, but are baked into the cake of culture. In fact, I would be even more uncomfortable with a Japanese person using the explanation of tribalism. So the fact that tribalism is not an immediate problem is, in fact, the problem, in that discussions of tribalism let everyone kick the can down the road rather than dealing with the way racism shapes the culture and the world that we live in.
I’ve written about this example before, but in the university I was in, the marching band was famous and at the end of the game, the band, after performing a short concert where all the home fans would go onto the field and listen, would, as the finale, sing Dixie acappella and the audience would join in. It was dusk and you had maybe 1000 people singing this song. My last year in the band, there was one black clarinet player who refused to sing the song and sat down. Nothing happened to him, but the grumbling about him not respecting ‘tradition’ and the notion that he was the person at fault was pretty much all over.
The thing is, I can type tribalism all day and it doesn’t elicit any shock of recognition, which is why imo everyone wants to use it instead of racism. ‘Gee, that’s pretty tribalist of you’ has no impact that I can see. This is in keeping with the idea that we have to sugarcoat explanations of problems that have been put forward before. Perhaps that is necessary for developing a coalition of the left, but again, it makes it seem like the problem is not the racism, it’s explaining it in a way that makes people comforted that they aren’t really racist, they are just a little too tribalist.
Well, I was also raised in the Deep South, so I’m not sure why the example is bad. On the plains of Africa for our distant ancestors, tribalism is knowing who is kith and kin. The “tribalism” of racists is unconnected to notions of kith and kin and finding members of their ‘tribe’ is simply a matter of a google search.
I also think you are really misunderstanding the situation in Japan, but it would take a lot more explanation and history as well as a very long explanation of who I am and what I am doing. wj’s point about zainichi is on point and is only the tip of the iceberg. The ‘tribalism’ of Japan is built on a lot of smaller chunks that, when laid out, are laughable, but are baked into the cake of culture. In fact, I would be even more uncomfortable with a Japanese person using the explanation of tribalism. So the fact that tribalism is not an immediate problem is, in fact, the problem, in that discussions of tribalism let everyone kick the can down the road rather than dealing with the way racism shapes the culture and the world that we live in.
I’ve written about this example before, but in the university I was in, the marching band was famous and at the end of the game, the band, after performing a short concert where all the home fans would go onto the field and listen, would, as the finale, sing Dixie acappella and the audience would join in. It was dusk and you had maybe 1000 people singing this song. My last year in the band, there was one black clarinet player who refused to sing the song and sat down. Nothing happened to him, but the grumbling about him not respecting ‘tradition’ and the notion that he was the person at fault was pretty much all over.
The thing is, I can type tribalism all day and it doesn’t elicit any shock of recognition, which is why imo everyone wants to use it instead of racism. ‘Gee, that’s pretty tribalist of you’ has no impact that I can see. This is in keeping with the idea that we have to sugarcoat explanations of problems that have been put forward before. Perhaps that is necessary for developing a coalition of the left, but again, it makes it seem like the problem is not the racism, it’s explaining it in a way that makes people comforted that they aren’t really racist, they are just a little too tribalist.
LJ-
Sounds like you went to Ole Miss … interesting.
I don’t know if you caught this or not, but I found it interesting:
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/18/519017287/the-legacy-of-the-mississippi-delta-chinese
Not to be dismissive, but it sounds like your rejection of innate tribalism is based on the fact that you don’t like the result more than any thing else. I have not seen anything to rebut the social science that strongly suggests innate tribalism. Further, I don’t see recognizing innate tribalism as sugarcoating racism at all. I have not seen any credible arguments made that we should forgive racism because the racists can’t help themselves.
I’ll concede the point as soon as #racistshaming starts trending.
LJ-
Sounds like you went to Ole Miss … interesting.
I don’t know if you caught this or not, but I found it interesting:
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/18/519017287/the-legacy-of-the-mississippi-delta-chinese
Not to be dismissive, but it sounds like your rejection of innate tribalism is based on the fact that you don’t like the result more than any thing else. I have not seen anything to rebut the social science that strongly suggests innate tribalism. Further, I don’t see recognizing innate tribalism as sugarcoating racism at all. I have not seen any credible arguments made that we should forgive racism because the racists can’t help themselves.
I’ll concede the point as soon as #racistshaming starts trending.
It’s not like the obvious differences between slavs and aryans, amirite?
Few blue-eyed blonds among the slavs, IIRC. 😉
People can parse amazingly minor visual clues for these purposes. But they do need some visual clue — which just isn’t there between Japanese and Koreans.
It’s not like the obvious differences between slavs and aryans, amirite?
Few blue-eyed blonds among the slavs, IIRC. 😉
People can parse amazingly minor visual clues for these purposes. But they do need some visual clue — which just isn’t there between Japanese and Koreans.
lj, I don’t perceive the use of “tribalism” as an attempt to sugar-coat the discussion. Rather it seems to be an attempt to avoid using “racism” for cases where the actual difference is ethnic (e.g. Hispanics vs Anglos) or religious (Jews vs Arabs), or something else not based on race (narrowly defined).
Using “racism” in those contexts, as I have seen done numerous times, is
1) not, technically, accurate, and
2) results in those who are defensive about their bigotry diverting the discussion or how “racism” is properly construed using the narrowest possible dictionary definition.
Perhaps we need to introduce the general public to the concept of “ethnocentric”. Unfortunately, it’s a lot more characters to type….
lj, I don’t perceive the use of “tribalism” as an attempt to sugar-coat the discussion. Rather it seems to be an attempt to avoid using “racism” for cases where the actual difference is ethnic (e.g. Hispanics vs Anglos) or religious (Jews vs Arabs), or something else not based on race (narrowly defined).
Using “racism” in those contexts, as I have seen done numerous times, is
1) not, technically, accurate, and
2) results in those who are defensive about their bigotry diverting the discussion or how “racism” is properly construed using the narrowest possible dictionary definition.
Perhaps we need to introduce the general public to the concept of “ethnocentric”. Unfortunately, it’s a lot more characters to type….
wj-
Some Japanese folks would differ with you w/r/t facial features. Koreans might, but I’m not close enough to any Koreans to have sensitive discussions.
As for the slavs, I guess it’s all in how your define it … plenty of “aryan looking” Poles and Russians.
wj-
Some Japanese folks would differ with you w/r/t facial features. Koreans might, but I’m not close enough to any Koreans to have sensitive discussions.
As for the slavs, I guess it’s all in how your define it … plenty of “aryan looking” Poles and Russians.
Not to mention the Indian caste system…
I’m not convinced that racism is a human universal – not least as ‘race’ doesn’t really correspond to real genetic groupings.
Our ability to dehumanise ‘out’ groups, however seems to be just that.
Not to mention the Indian caste system…
I’m not convinced that racism is a human universal – not least as ‘race’ doesn’t really correspond to real genetic groupings.
Our ability to dehumanise ‘out’ groups, however seems to be just that.
Perhaps we need to introduce the general public to the concept of “ethnocentric”.
nope. can’t. pointing out -isms is not allowed. instead, we must embrace the deplorables and look past their -isms.
Perhaps we need to introduce the general public to the concept of “ethnocentric”.
nope. can’t. pointing out -isms is not allowed. instead, we must embrace the deplorables and look past their -isms.
You mean deplorableism isn’t a word? Who knew?
You mean deplorableism isn’t a word? Who knew?
plenty of “aryan looking” Poles and Russians.
I think those are descended from Vikings coming thru those areas. As opposed to “real” Slavs.**
** Apologies to whoever copyrighted the term “real Americans.” 😉
plenty of “aryan looking” Poles and Russians.
I think those are descended from Vikings coming thru those areas. As opposed to “real” Slavs.**
** Apologies to whoever copyrighted the term “real Americans.” 😉
Even tribalism is too harsh. I think we should discuss such problems in an even more general way as matters of categorical thinking. Slavery was the result of an error in reasoning – an unfortunate misunderstanding of sorts.
Even tribalism is too harsh. I think we should discuss such problems in an even more general way as matters of categorical thinking. Slavery was the result of an error in reasoning – an unfortunate misunderstanding of sorts.
wj-
Different racial groups focus on different cues. Many Africans look to hair lines. Europeans look to noses and hair/eye color. Asians look to face shape and eye shape.
As I recall, my Japanese friend said that Koreans have smaller eyes, higher cheekbones and more prominent jaw lines as compared to Japanese. Chinese faces are rounder/fuller.
These cues for facial recognition may or may not be innate.
wj-
Different racial groups focus on different cues. Many Africans look to hair lines. Europeans look to noses and hair/eye color. Asians look to face shape and eye shape.
As I recall, my Japanese friend said that Koreans have smaller eyes, higher cheekbones and more prominent jaw lines as compared to Japanese. Chinese faces are rounder/fuller.
These cues for facial recognition may or may not be innate.
It occurs to me to wonder, how common is it for someone to “pass” under those different systems of cues?
It occurs to me to wonder, how common is it for someone to “pass” under those different systems of cues?
Not to mention the Indian caste system…
There were untouchables in Europe too, cannot link, so look up “cagots” in Wikipedia. If you don’t know about them, it’s an astonishing eye-opener.
Not to mention the Indian caste system…
There were untouchables in Europe too, cannot link, so look up “cagots” in Wikipedia. If you don’t know about them, it’s an astonishing eye-opener.
Never heard of those. I knew that the French have/had some pretty weird ideas that led to the shunning of individuals that way but I was not aware that there was a whole quasi-ethnic group of that. The Spanish on the other hand had a lot of that kind since the reconquista and the Spanish Inquisition was mostly about ferreting out people suspected of belonging to numerous ill-defined groups. I wonder whether the Nazis took some inspirations from them for their complex system of ‘racial’ categorizing.
Never heard of those. I knew that the French have/had some pretty weird ideas that led to the shunning of individuals that way but I was not aware that there was a whole quasi-ethnic group of that. The Spanish on the other hand had a lot of that kind since the reconquista and the Spanish Inquisition was mostly about ferreting out people suspected of belonging to numerous ill-defined groups. I wonder whether the Nazis took some inspirations from them for their complex system of ‘racial’ categorizing.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/02/sweet-freedom-new-open-carry-law-allows-texans-to-brandish-swords-machetes-and-spears/
I don’t believe the English language, regardless of whatever I can make the words mean, is up to the job of describing bullshit America.
God, in his blessedness and regularity, takes a big steaming dump on America daily.
http://dailycaller.com/2017/09/02/sweet-freedom-new-open-carry-law-allows-texans-to-brandish-swords-machetes-and-spears/
I don’t believe the English language, regardless of whatever I can make the words mean, is up to the job of describing bullshit America.
God, in his blessedness and regularity, takes a big steaming dump on America daily.
From the Wikipedia entry for the Cagots:
The Cagots were not an ethnic group, nor a religious group. They spoke the same language as the people in an area and generally kept the same religion as well. Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families identified as Cagots. Few consistent reasons were given as to why they should be hated; accusations varied from Cagots being cretins, lepers, heretics, cannibals, to simply being intrinsically evil.
Even within the often-absurd context of “othering,” this is totally bizarre.
From the Wikipedia entry for the Cagots:
The Cagots were not an ethnic group, nor a religious group. They spoke the same language as the people in an area and generally kept the same religion as well. Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families identified as Cagots. Few consistent reasons were given as to why they should be hated; accusations varied from Cagots being cretins, lepers, heretics, cannibals, to simply being intrinsically evil.
Even within the often-absurd context of “othering,” this is totally bizarre.
It’s almost as if people need an “other,” and if there isn’t one handy, they’ll more or less appoint one.
IIRC that was the premise of my grad school friend’s advisor’s book Wayward Puritans. It was a study of early new world villages, where there always had to be a village outcast. If the village outcast died or left town, someone else was maneuvered into that role one way or another. [I am reconstructing memories from decades ago but I think this is roughly right.]
It’s almost as if people need an “other,” and if there isn’t one handy, they’ll more or less appoint one.
IIRC that was the premise of my grad school friend’s advisor’s book Wayward Puritans. It was a study of early new world villages, where there always had to be a village outcast. If the village outcast died or left town, someone else was maneuvered into that role one way or another. [I am reconstructing memories from decades ago but I think this is roughly right.]
Wayward Puritans
Bridget Bishop was the first woman killed in the Salem Witch hysteria.
She had been married three times, ran a tavern in her house where minors were served and folks played shuffleboard, and she wore a distinctly un-Puritan red cloak.
Sarah Good, also one of the first women killed, was basically homeless.
The hysteria continued until more “respectable” people were accused. When it reached the governor’s wife, he shut down the inquiry.
Wayward Puritans
Bridget Bishop was the first woman killed in the Salem Witch hysteria.
She had been married three times, ran a tavern in her house where minors were served and folks played shuffleboard, and she wore a distinctly un-Puritan red cloak.
Sarah Good, also one of the first women killed, was basically homeless.
The hysteria continued until more “respectable” people were accused. When it reached the governor’s wife, he shut down the inquiry.
They were obviously much better organised in France and Spain, they othered the Cagots for a thousand years, strongly reinforced it by laws etc (special low doors in churches! Special fonts and fountains and Cagot hands cut off if they used any others!) and no attempts by Cagots were successful in ending it. Of course no Governor would ever have married a Cagot woman, so Salem-style eventual intervention was also out of the question – more evidence of quite how efficient an othering operation it was.
They were obviously much better organised in France and Spain, they othered the Cagots for a thousand years, strongly reinforced it by laws etc (special low doors in churches! Special fonts and fountains and Cagot hands cut off if they used any others!) and no attempts by Cagots were successful in ending it. Of course no Governor would ever have married a Cagot woman, so Salem-style eventual intervention was also out of the question – more evidence of quite how efficient an othering operation it was.
racism puts tribalism on steroids
Yes. And so did the Salem witch trials…and the Cagots (new to me)…and the caste system in India…and the Holocaust…and the Hutus and Tutsis…and Northern Ireland….All different configurations, but all fatal or severely harmful to a lot of people, in some cases for millennia.
A big reason I think it’s important to recognize (or at least hypothesize) that the tendency to perpetrate this stuff is near-universal is that you can meet a challenge more effectively if you know what the challenge actually is.
If the potential for othering is universal, it’s misleading at best, fatal at worst, to say oh, racism in America, that’s America’s weirdness, it can’t happen here (wherever else “here” happens to be). Oh, the Holocaust, that’s just those Germans. Oh, the Hutus and the Tutsis this and the Japanese and Chinese that.
In other words, “It can’t happen here” is to me a bigger barrier to effectiveness against tribalism/othering than people maybe trying to let themselves off the hook by saying oh, tribalism, it’s universal, we’re off the hook and there’s nothing to be done about it.
Personally I think there’s something to be done about it either way, but I guess the question is: Which framing makes it easier to go about that?
racism puts tribalism on steroids
Yes. And so did the Salem witch trials…and the Cagots (new to me)…and the caste system in India…and the Holocaust…and the Hutus and Tutsis…and Northern Ireland….All different configurations, but all fatal or severely harmful to a lot of people, in some cases for millennia.
A big reason I think it’s important to recognize (or at least hypothesize) that the tendency to perpetrate this stuff is near-universal is that you can meet a challenge more effectively if you know what the challenge actually is.
If the potential for othering is universal, it’s misleading at best, fatal at worst, to say oh, racism in America, that’s America’s weirdness, it can’t happen here (wherever else “here” happens to be). Oh, the Holocaust, that’s just those Germans. Oh, the Hutus and the Tutsis this and the Japanese and Chinese that.
In other words, “It can’t happen here” is to me a bigger barrier to effectiveness against tribalism/othering than people maybe trying to let themselves off the hook by saying oh, tribalism, it’s universal, we’re off the hook and there’s nothing to be done about it.
Personally I think there’s something to be done about it either way, but I guess the question is: Which framing makes it easier to go about that?
“Which framing makes it easier to go about that?”
Star-bellied Sneetches.
BTW, ‘way, ‘way upthread when mentioning ‘tribalism’, I didn’t clarify very well, but it was meant in an anthropological sense, in terms of the size of the group with which an individual identifies.
“Which framing makes it easier to go about that?”
Star-bellied Sneetches.
BTW, ‘way, ‘way upthread when mentioning ‘tribalism’, I didn’t clarify very well, but it was meant in an anthropological sense, in terms of the size of the group with which an individual identifies.
As far as I can see, the Hutu/Tutsi distinction was pretty much the result of racist doctrine originating with the Belgian colonial rulers, there being little genetic, or prior cultural difference between the two.
Reading about the genoicide a couple of decades ago was one of the first things which made me think the capacity for irrationally treating ‘out’ groups as something less than human is most likely innate.
As far as I can see, the Hutu/Tutsi distinction was pretty much the result of racist doctrine originating with the Belgian colonial rulers, there being little genetic, or prior cultural difference between the two.
Reading about the genoicide a couple of decades ago was one of the first things which made me think the capacity for irrationally treating ‘out’ groups as something less than human is most likely innate.
I wonder where this “tribalism” gene is in the human genome? Or is it the case that to be “innate” it doesn’t have to be genetic?
I’m no expert, but I suspect a lot of thinking veering toward the sloppy is going on here.
For example, is tribalism like speech? Just asking. We are not born with the ability to speak, but obviously we have genetically acquired that capability, and are taught to do so.
What if we are not taught to do so?
Any consensus here from the anthropologist community?
I wonder where this “tribalism” gene is in the human genome? Or is it the case that to be “innate” it doesn’t have to be genetic?
I’m no expert, but I suspect a lot of thinking veering toward the sloppy is going on here.
For example, is tribalism like speech? Just asking. We are not born with the ability to speak, but obviously we have genetically acquired that capability, and are taught to do so.
What if we are not taught to do so?
Any consensus here from the anthropologist community?
It’s just been reported that scientists no longer think that the ability to recognize faces is not innate. I would guess that “otherness” is learned too, both the tendency to do it, and the specific targets against whom it’s done. But who knows?
It’s just been reported that scientists no longer think that the ability to recognize faces is not innate. I would guess that “otherness” is learned too, both the tendency to do it, and the specific targets against whom it’s done. But who knows?
adam & eve. All it takes is two. Tribalism is born. Innately, yes?
Now there is a theory!!!!
adam & eve. All it takes is two. Tribalism is born. Innately, yes?
Now there is a theory!!!!
We are not born with the ability to speak, but obviously we have genetically acquired that capability, and are taught to do so.
What if we are not taught to do so?
There are a couple of cases of children who were “adopted” very young by monkeys. When found, after age 5, they did not know how to speak. And did not grasp the idea of speech.
On the other hand, we have observed gorillas who have been taught sign language.** And they teach it to their children. So the gene for the ability to learn language goes back a long way.
** If memory serves, gorillas have at least some rudimentary speech of their own. Which may account for their ability to learn sign, which other kinds of moneys apparently do not.
We are not born with the ability to speak, but obviously we have genetically acquired that capability, and are taught to do so.
What if we are not taught to do so?
There are a couple of cases of children who were “adopted” very young by monkeys. When found, after age 5, they did not know how to speak. And did not grasp the idea of speech.
On the other hand, we have observed gorillas who have been taught sign language.** And they teach it to their children. So the gene for the ability to learn language goes back a long way.
** If memory serves, gorillas have at least some rudimentary speech of their own. Which may account for their ability to learn sign, which other kinds of moneys apparently do not.
Coming from someone criticizing other people for sloppy thinking, this:
seems pretty incoherent to me.
I’ll let linguist lj be more articulate about it than I can be, but infants are not “taught” their native language. An ordinarily intelligent infant who is not deaf will end up speaking and understanding the local language even if no one “teaches” it a single thing. Take a beginning syntax or semantics class and you’ll find out that there are all kinds of things about your native language that you use every day that you don’t even consciously know are there.
And — I don’t know where tribalism resides in the genome, in part because I’m not a geneticist, in part because I suspect we’re probably 1% of the way, or less, toward really understanding the genome in all its complexity. Geneticists are, after all, the people who gave us the term “junk DNA” when they ran into something they didn’t understand.
Coming from someone criticizing other people for sloppy thinking, this:
seems pretty incoherent to me.
I’ll let linguist lj be more articulate about it than I can be, but infants are not “taught” their native language. An ordinarily intelligent infant who is not deaf will end up speaking and understanding the local language even if no one “teaches” it a single thing. Take a beginning syntax or semantics class and you’ll find out that there are all kinds of things about your native language that you use every day that you don’t even consciously know are there.
And — I don’t know where tribalism resides in the genome, in part because I’m not a geneticist, in part because I suspect we’re probably 1% of the way, or less, toward really understanding the genome in all its complexity. Geneticists are, after all, the people who gave us the term “junk DNA” when they ran into something they didn’t understand.
If I had to answer at gunpoint, I would guess that the genetic basis for “tribalism” is tangled up with the same (presumably) complex constellation of genes that underlie the fact that we’re social animals.
If I had to answer at gunpoint, I would guess that the genetic basis for “tribalism” is tangled up with the same (presumably) complex constellation of genes that underlie the fact that we’re social animals.
Interesting stuff. Some more background.
There was an interesting article about the TV series Big Bang Theory and mysogyny
https://www.themarysue.com/adorkable-misogyny-big-bang-theory/
Here in Japan, TV series tend to come a few years after they appear in the states, so when it showed up here, I hit Youtube to watch it and thought it was funny, but started watching it when my wife and daughters also found it hilarious. (one of the things in the lj household was to try and keep enough English going) This also led to a lot of questions about ‘who is the Flash’? ‘What’s the deal with Wil Wheaton’ which then gives me a chance to point them (especially my daughters) to other things that both explain and get them familiar with US culture.
So, was I promoting mysogny? I’m not really sure, the points made in the video essay were pretty powerful and any attempts to deflect them really seem to rely on understanding the total context, a society where a show needs to appeal to a wide enough audience in order to be successful.
So how does that plug into racism as tribalism. Glad you asked. We’ve had this discussion about tribalism/racism a number of times here in various forms and I’ve always nodded my head when folks (including me) suggest that racism is just tribalism. The Japanese phrases is shikata ga nai, which means it can’t be helped. In light of the way things are going, that now seems like pretty weak tea.
If we argue that tribalism is racism, that leaves three options
-Racism is bad, therefore tribalism is bad
-Racism is a bad form of tribalism, so we have to make absolutely sure that it is racism before we complain.
-Racism is tribalism, so it’s going to be with us forever, just get used it.
I’m pushing back against the last one for sure, but I’m not accusing anyone here of holding that, just pointing out that it could be a logical conclusion.
The middle one seems to be the one everyone likes, though I’m not crazy about that. As I have said, echoing Russell, I think everyone is a little bit racist, one can’t help being that if they’ve been brought up in the US. But with that formulation, everyone gets bent out of shape if you point out that something you said or did was racist.
If there are options that I am missing, chime in. I like JanieM’s point about us making the arc of the universe bend, but when Nigel points out Hutu/Tutsi, I’d just note that this, like other examples of racism, emerge out of a Western experience. Yet it is a Western experience that is not as old as we would like to think
http://www.historyextra.com/feature/missing-tudors-black-people-16th-century-england
As far as the language speculation, I’m almost positive that talking about that is not going to make tribalism discussions any easier to figure out.
Finally, not Ole miss, Southern Miss, a uni that has had its own history with racism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Kennard
My time there was in the 80’s, when everyone was patting themselves on the back that we were part of the New South, letting bygones be bygones. It would have been nice if it were true…
Interesting stuff. Some more background.
There was an interesting article about the TV series Big Bang Theory and mysogyny
https://www.themarysue.com/adorkable-misogyny-big-bang-theory/
Here in Japan, TV series tend to come a few years after they appear in the states, so when it showed up here, I hit Youtube to watch it and thought it was funny, but started watching it when my wife and daughters also found it hilarious. (one of the things in the lj household was to try and keep enough English going) This also led to a lot of questions about ‘who is the Flash’? ‘What’s the deal with Wil Wheaton’ which then gives me a chance to point them (especially my daughters) to other things that both explain and get them familiar with US culture.
So, was I promoting mysogny? I’m not really sure, the points made in the video essay were pretty powerful and any attempts to deflect them really seem to rely on understanding the total context, a society where a show needs to appeal to a wide enough audience in order to be successful.
So how does that plug into racism as tribalism. Glad you asked. We’ve had this discussion about tribalism/racism a number of times here in various forms and I’ve always nodded my head when folks (including me) suggest that racism is just tribalism. The Japanese phrases is shikata ga nai, which means it can’t be helped. In light of the way things are going, that now seems like pretty weak tea.
If we argue that tribalism is racism, that leaves three options
-Racism is bad, therefore tribalism is bad
-Racism is a bad form of tribalism, so we have to make absolutely sure that it is racism before we complain.
-Racism is tribalism, so it’s going to be with us forever, just get used it.
I’m pushing back against the last one for sure, but I’m not accusing anyone here of holding that, just pointing out that it could be a logical conclusion.
The middle one seems to be the one everyone likes, though I’m not crazy about that. As I have said, echoing Russell, I think everyone is a little bit racist, one can’t help being that if they’ve been brought up in the US. But with that formulation, everyone gets bent out of shape if you point out that something you said or did was racist.
If there are options that I am missing, chime in. I like JanieM’s point about us making the arc of the universe bend, but when Nigel points out Hutu/Tutsi, I’d just note that this, like other examples of racism, emerge out of a Western experience. Yet it is a Western experience that is not as old as we would like to think
http://www.historyextra.com/feature/missing-tudors-black-people-16th-century-england
As far as the language speculation, I’m almost positive that talking about that is not going to make tribalism discussions any easier to figure out.
Finally, not Ole miss, Southern Miss, a uni that has had its own history with racism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Kennard
My time there was in the 80’s, when everyone was patting themselves on the back that we were part of the New South, letting bygones be bygones. It would have been nice if it were true…
Tribes within tribes:
Among the Greek-Americans of my acquaintance, I know Cretans who look down upon Macedonians, and Macedonians who turn up their noses at Peloponnesians, and all of them look crosswise at Pontians.
There are saner tribes and insaner(?) ones. The saner tribes generally have some sort of mechanism for becoming a member of the tribe even if you had the misfortune to be born outside of it. The “white working class” which is alleged to be the “base” that He, Trump answers to is one of the world’s less sane tribes.
Immigrants through the maternity ward, they (and their Dear Leader) consider themselves more American than immigrants across the border. Because they are mean and stupid. And anybody who objects to that judgement can kiss my American ass. I passed a test, took an oath, and have a certificate to prove that I am “American”. How many of those who happened to plop onto American soil out of their mother’s womb can say as much?
–TP
Tribes within tribes:
Among the Greek-Americans of my acquaintance, I know Cretans who look down upon Macedonians, and Macedonians who turn up their noses at Peloponnesians, and all of them look crosswise at Pontians.
There are saner tribes and insaner(?) ones. The saner tribes generally have some sort of mechanism for becoming a member of the tribe even if you had the misfortune to be born outside of it. The “white working class” which is alleged to be the “base” that He, Trump answers to is one of the world’s less sane tribes.
Immigrants through the maternity ward, they (and their Dear Leader) consider themselves more American than immigrants across the border. Because they are mean and stupid. And anybody who objects to that judgement can kiss my American ass. I passed a test, took an oath, and have a certificate to prove that I am “American”. How many of those who happened to plop onto American soil out of their mother’s womb can say as much?
–TP
…but infants are not “taught” their native language.
Not to get all bent on this, but yes, they are taught in the common sense of the term “taught” (cf “repetition”). If they were raised in a social milieu that had no spoken language would they “learn” it? Imagine a deaf and dumb couple raising a “normal” child in an isolated social milieu (yes, extreme example, bear with me, please).
What language would that child speak?
Ah, you say, we are typically not so “isolated”. But if genetics explains the “majority” of this, well, then, how explain so many folks who reject the (whatever tribal) paradigm is prevalent?
How do you explain dissent? Genetics again? A “new” tribal group? Are we genetically predisposed to disagree with our fellow humans?
I push back in good sport, because, as I stated previously, I feel a lot of this discussion is taking place with a lot of unstated, or unacknowledged assumptions that are not clearly laid out (define “innate, for example) by those making the arguments (on both sides).
That’s all I’m sayin’. Thank you.
…but infants are not “taught” their native language.
Not to get all bent on this, but yes, they are taught in the common sense of the term “taught” (cf “repetition”). If they were raised in a social milieu that had no spoken language would they “learn” it? Imagine a deaf and dumb couple raising a “normal” child in an isolated social milieu (yes, extreme example, bear with me, please).
What language would that child speak?
Ah, you say, we are typically not so “isolated”. But if genetics explains the “majority” of this, well, then, how explain so many folks who reject the (whatever tribal) paradigm is prevalent?
How do you explain dissent? Genetics again? A “new” tribal group? Are we genetically predisposed to disagree with our fellow humans?
I push back in good sport, because, as I stated previously, I feel a lot of this discussion is taking place with a lot of unstated, or unacknowledged assumptions that are not clearly laid out (define “innate, for example) by those making the arguments (on both sides).
That’s all I’m sayin’. Thank you.
I’m no expert, but I suspect a lot of thinking veering toward the sloppy is going on here.
I’m not an expert either. I’m not even sure how much “thinking” in the sense of analysis is involved in my point of view.
I observe, I see a pattern. I’m not trying to explain or justify it, I’m just noticing it’s there. As far as I can tell.
Humans are prone to identufying themselves as being part of one, or some, particular groups. And, to attaching value judgements to that.
If you want to say that’s not so, I think you have some heavy going ahead of you.
I don’t know why that is, I just notice that it is.
infants are not “taught” their native language.
My wife recently had the somewhat rare and thrilling experience of listening to one our backyard birds teach its fledglings their common intra-special song.
At first junior stumbled through it, making various kinds of clumsy bleeps and squawks.
Parent patiently kept repeating, until junior caught on.
Innate vs learned strikes me as a false dichotomy. Capacity plus example seems closer to the mark.
I’m no expert, but I suspect a lot of thinking veering toward the sloppy is going on here.
I’m not an expert either. I’m not even sure how much “thinking” in the sense of analysis is involved in my point of view.
I observe, I see a pattern. I’m not trying to explain or justify it, I’m just noticing it’s there. As far as I can tell.
Humans are prone to identufying themselves as being part of one, or some, particular groups. And, to attaching value judgements to that.
If you want to say that’s not so, I think you have some heavy going ahead of you.
I don’t know why that is, I just notice that it is.
infants are not “taught” their native language.
My wife recently had the somewhat rare and thrilling experience of listening to one our backyard birds teach its fledglings their common intra-special song.
At first junior stumbled through it, making various kinds of clumsy bleeps and squawks.
Parent patiently kept repeating, until junior caught on.
Innate vs learned strikes me as a false dichotomy. Capacity plus example seems closer to the mark.
There’s hardly anything here but opinions, and counter-opinions, and speculations, and links to other people’s opinions and speculations, with the occasional factual fact or factoid thrown in like chocolate chips in a sparsely flavored cookie.
It’s a fncking blog, FFS.
There’s hardly anything here but opinions, and counter-opinions, and speculations, and links to other people’s opinions and speculations, with the occasional factual fact or factoid thrown in like chocolate chips in a sparsely flavored cookie.
It’s a fncking blog, FFS.
It’s a fncking blog, FFS.
Haha….on this we can agree. Thanks.
It’s a fncking blog, FFS.
Haha….on this we can agree. Thanks.
Anybody still thinking about racism?
Coates
Posted for me to read again. Stuff drives me crazy, spins me like a top.
But can I criticize Obama on the bank bailout and Libya?
Sure but always remember you are criticizing a black President, and the Tea Party criticizes the bailouts cause they’re racist.
Coates supported Sanders, does that make him a sexist Berniebro?
No, cause he is black and we like Coates.
How about blacks Glen Ford and Adolph Reed?
Oh, those guys are definitely bad bros.
Can I criticize Clinton? Sure.
She likes money too much.
Sexist pig.
Anybody still thinking about racism?
Coates
Posted for me to read again. Stuff drives me crazy, spins me like a top.
But can I criticize Obama on the bank bailout and Libya?
Sure but always remember you are criticizing a black President, and the Tea Party criticizes the bailouts cause they’re racist.
Coates supported Sanders, does that make him a sexist Berniebro?
No, cause he is black and we like Coates.
How about blacks Glen Ford and Adolph Reed?
Oh, those guys are definitely bad bros.
Can I criticize Clinton? Sure.
She likes money too much.
Sexist pig.
Forgot. For that essay, Coates could have given just a whisper toward J Sakai’s Myth of the White Working Class. I wonder why he didn’t. I wonder if he thinks it is a myth.
Forgot. For that essay, Coates could have given just a whisper toward J Sakai’s Myth of the White Working Class. I wonder why he didn’t. I wonder if he thinks it is a myth.
But can I criticize Obama on the bank bailout and Libya?
Sure but always remember you are criticizing a black President, and the Tea Party criticizes the bailouts cause they’re racist.
Coates supported Sanders, does that make him a sexist Berniebro?
No, cause he is black and we like Coates.
How about blacks Glen Ford and Adolph Reed?
Oh, those guys are definitely bad bros.
Can I criticize Clinton? Sure.
She likes money too much.
Sexist pig.
Is this the bob mcmanus through-the-looking-glass version of intersectionality?
But can I criticize Obama on the bank bailout and Libya?
Sure but always remember you are criticizing a black President, and the Tea Party criticizes the bailouts cause they’re racist.
Coates supported Sanders, does that make him a sexist Berniebro?
No, cause he is black and we like Coates.
How about blacks Glen Ford and Adolph Reed?
Oh, those guys are definitely bad bros.
Can I criticize Clinton? Sure.
She likes money too much.
Sexist pig.
Is this the bob mcmanus through-the-looking-glass version of intersectionality?
But can I……?
Bob, it’s OK. It’s a fncking blog, FFS. 🙂
But can I……?
Bob, it’s OK. It’s a fncking blog, FFS. 🙂