Taking Your Ball And Going Home: Not Effective Strategy
I responded to this comment of Freddie’s with a one-liner, but I wanted to say more because I think the argument he’s making allows us to clarify the nature of the underlying disagreement. First:
When you treat anyone who criticizes Democrats and pushes them towards a more liberal direction as a traitor who’s no better than Rand Paul, you’re preempting any chance that Democrats will feel pressure to change.
This notion of “criticize them, but criticize them at the right time”– that right time never comes. Ever. It’s just a lie to say that these people accept and support criticism of Democrats when the time is right. Look at 2012. I was told all year that absolutely any mention of Obama’s foreign policy, no matter how bad I thought it was, represented being a traitor to the cause and no better than a conservative Republican.
This, of course, is a completely false characterization of the nature of the disagreement. Needless to say, criticism of Democratic public officials is not merely permissible but frequently necessary, in an election year or any other time. With the possible exception of some commenter at a blog somewhere, nobody is saying otherwise. What people did argue against deBoer is that his argument that progressives should withdraw their support from the Democratic Party was foolish and immoral. Trying to conflate “criticism” with “advocating throwing elections to Republicans in exchange for nothing” is a neat but dishonest trick. It would be foolish to say that because one harshly criticizes Obama’s foreign policy that one is therefore indifferent about other issues of social justice. It is simply accurate to say that when you want the left to try to install Mitt Romney in office or take Ron Paul seriously, you’re practically indifferent to many major issues of social justice. (Admittedly, there is a weaselly, passive-aggressive version of this argument, the “of course Obama is far better than Romney and it would be terrible if Romney won, but I cannot personally sully myself with a vote for Obama” routine. To which I would say that onanism is better confined to the privacy of one’s home.)
It should also be noted that while criticism of Democrats from the left is never problematic in and of itself, it doesn’t follow from this that all criticism of Obama allegedly from the left is therefore right. If our comments section is any indication, “hippie-punching” has gone from a useful term describing people who wish that people who were right about the Iraq War should shut up to an assertion that once any criticism preemeptively declares itself as being “from the left” it is therefore beyond criticism. This is both silly on its face and particularly dumb when applied to disputes that are tactical and not ideological. When Matt Stoller can’t see the difference between Sam Alito and Sonia Sotomayor, or thinks it’s plausible that Romney could govern to Obama’s left, he’s not criticizing Obama “from the left”; he’s criticizing him from the “I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about.”
So far, so familiar. But this I found particularly striking:
I took part in a primary campaign, and the usual suspects among Connecticut’s wealthy Democrats– who dominate that party– worked tirelessly to attack Lamont and his supporters. You have no idea how aggressive, ugly, and condescending they were. Hell, there was a brief, hypothetical discussion about a possible Elizabeth Warren primary of Hilary, and the “progressive” internet lost its shit, called people asking for it dreamers, “emoprogs,” or (one more time!) no better than conservative Republicans.
The uncited and almost certainly imaginary people criticizing a possible Elizabeth Warren primary campaign in 2016 are just a classic deBoer generalization based on nothing, so I have nothing to say about it other than that Warren running would be great. But the first part is what’s remarkable to me. Progressives should give up on primaries of crappy blue-state politicians because a successful primary of particularly odious Democratic incumbent was met with…condescension from Lieberman supporters? I mean, my God, yes, when you attack the Establishment the Establishment is going to fight back. That’s a reason to quit? It’s the ironic mirror image of Lieberman in 2004, permanently embittered because liberals wouldn’t support the nomination to which he believed himself entitled. It’s true that because of the quirks of Connecticut election law Lieberman was able to run and win despite losing the primary, but that’s atypical. It’s also a good illustration of avoiding pundit’s fallacies is important — given his rather Coakleyesque general election campaign, I’m not sure Lamont understood what a strong base of support Lieberman still had in the state in 2006. It’s incomprehensible that Lieberman was once an immensely popular figure in Connecticut, but he was. It was still a risk worth taking, and there’s no reaon not to try again in more favorable circumstances.
Politics is about conflict. If you’re a progressive, it means losing a lot. Suck it up rather than retreating to foolish, counterproductive, self-aggrandizing tactics and strategies.
Bottom line: I agree with you about 90% of policy, but probably only 50% of process, and so we fight about the process, and we should. And in the long run, either the world gets better or it don’t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk
please to be replacing “that word” with “words”. thanks
What on God’s green earth have you ever done to help actually improve the Democratic Party – anything like organized sponsorship of better candidates in primaries, encouraging involvement at state and local levels, getting involved in get-out-the-votes efforts, anything like that? Your vision of process is apparently entirely “you guys do things while I sneer; when I stop sneering, you may begin to feel you’ve done something worthwhile”. Your notion of progress in practical terms throwing more and more millions of Americans (and everyone else) into the meat grinder, until the battered survivors hail you as a genius and follow your lead.
You have “process” like Col. Kurtz had “methods” in Apocalypse Now.
To be fair, it sounds like Mr. DeBoer did participate in the Lamont primary campaign against Lieberman, which arguably did help improve the Democratic Party(the median D in the Senate shifted a bit to the left after 2006, and the primary campaign helped push Holy Joe to call it quits in 2012).
OK, if that’s true, I’m very much prepared to give credit for it. That’s good stuff.
I don’t think it offsets the harm that quietism later can do, but it makes me happy to be able to speak well of good work.
I wasn’t there for the 2006 primary, but I was there managing a competitive Congressional campaign in 2008. The Lamont campaign, especially in the general, did almost nothing right. Lamont “beat” Lieberman because liberals in CT were so, so done with Lieberman, not because of anything about Lamont.
And framing Lamont vs Liberman as the wealthy against Lamont is hilarious. I mean, he’s a guy from Grenewhich who went to Phillips Exeter, whose great-grandfather was the heed of JP Morgan, and who married up, to a woman who eventually became “one of the most successful women ever in the lofty realm of venture capital,”and amassed most of their $200 million.
And the wealthy dominate the party? WTF, the guy who for years controlled the party is the head of the state AFL-CIO, and in recent years the dominant elected officials were Chris Dodd–you know, of Dodd-Frank–and Rosa DeLauro, who’s an unabashed liberal populist. And who trounced Lamont in the 2010 Dem gubernatorial primary? The current governor of Connecticut, Dan Malloy, who ran to Lamont’s left and has done a terrific job.
The people who attacked Lamont’s crew weren’t the effete, rich boutique liberals. That crew was mostly with Lamont. No, it was mostly the more blue-collar crowd, and people of color, who rejected Lamont. Liberman won most of the cities and heavily minority areas, like Bridgeport and Waterbury. Lamont crushed Liberman in Greenwich (more than 2-1), Derien, New Canaan, Wilton, etc.
As usual, just about every single thing this dude says is wrong.
BTW, after I’d been there for about a month, I realized that almost every person deeply involved with the Lamont campaign was horrible at politics…except the really young people. i had several incredibly smart and savvy 21-23 year old staffers who’d either worked on Lamont’s campaign or been very active volunteers. And boy, did they have stories about all the ways Lamont’s campaign was a mess.
One other aside: don’t forget this brilliant work by Jane Hamsher. I was 100% with Lamont (because he was the anti-Lieberman) and think it was the right thing to do to primary him, even if Lamont (who went on vacation after the primary) was a horrible candidate who squandered the opportunity to win in November). But that post by Hamsher was moronic.
also, lamont was asleep for the general. that sucked.
Chris Dodd loses tons of points for heading up the MPAA, but yeah.
Agreed. I was there in 06 too, and what you saw towards the general was a lot of Lamont trying to broaden his message with the same old Republican spin of “We need to make government more like a business!” while Lieberman was talking about protecting social security. Lamont was a rich dilettante who found the right message (I’m anti-war and anti-Bush!) at the right time but was about as deep as the pond in your back yard.
The original Col. Kurtz in Heart of Darkness had very effective methods. “Exterminate the brutes” is the logical conclusion of the colonial enterprise. Any other proposed solution was either a dishonest answer or bound to completely fail. History has pretty much borne this out.
No, he had superficially effective methods. He extracted a lot of wealth quite rapidly, but he did so in a manner that not only was a brutal moral outrage but also had terrible long term costs when weighed amorally: the local population was left ravaged and inflamed against their colonial overlords. A more gentle approach could have given much greater returns over time, at lower costs to the colonizers and immeasurably lower costs to the colonized. Remember, Conrad didn’t want Europe out of Africa, just Leopold out.
Furthermore, when you say that history has proven extermination is the only viable form of colonization you may have a point if you define colonization as permanent settlement as a ruling class (the failed Rhodesia model, for example), but if you define colonization as imposing a structure and extracting wealth from afar there are countless successful examples, mostly less obviously or immediately bloody than Leopold’s Congo.
Belgium today is rich and Congo is poor. The method was effective over the long run. It is difficult to conceive how Belgium could have gotten any richer at the expense of Congo than it is today. But, I suppose things can always be worse.
I was defining colonialism as permanent direct rule and specifically thinking of the contrast of the US and Australia with places like Algeria and Rhodesia.
But the real Col. Kurtzes of the Belgian Congo didn’t have the option of planning long-term (or, at least, that was what they thought). Industrial demand for rubber was huge, and by the 1890s rubber plantations had been set up in Brazil and the Dutch East Indies. Those plantations took some years to mature, but once they did the price of raw rubber was going to drop. Thus, the Belgian officials had every incentive to extract as much rubber as possible, using brutal methods.
Did he? Or did he just created that superficial impression – King leopold bad, british imperialism good – because his readers in Blackwood’s Magazine were briszish imperialists themselves?
Remember: Kurtz was made of all of europe.
Rootless Cosmopolitans by yet another name?
Now the actual readers of the magazine Conrad published most of his stories in.
Conrad removed from the first drafts of Heart of Darkness man references to the Belgian Congo to make the setting more generic.
I suppose I should count myself fortunate that you at least talked about a different version of the character in a different medium, rather than Ollie North or Aurelio Buendia or something.
The original Mistah Kurtz in Heart of Darkness was, of course, not a colonel.
If you were aware of all internet traditions, you, Freddie deBoer would be aware of the “you win the internet” meme.
That meme does not apply to you. You, however, do lose the internet.
“we fight about the process”
That’s a long way from-
“the way you operate is to intentionally chum the waters for other people to do your dirty work and say the terrible, redbaiting, anti-leftist things that you actually enjoy (far more than you enjoy fighting with conservatives, clearly)”
This. Bottom line is that FdB keeps chumming the waters himself:
– calling Tbogg misogynist, from someone who lectures Sady Doyle about her own blog and who in a phrase denies the voice of every flippin’ feminist critic of M. McArdle who’s commented on Balloon Juice,
– ignoring JC’s heated defenses of Glenn Greenwald on BJ to fit in more ad-hominem attacks, &
– saying this rather brilliant and rather leftier-than-thou blog here is engaging in redbaiting.
Thanks LGM for doing what you do! I don’t visit often, partly bc I’m some kinda evil objectivist, but I’m so glad you’re speaking yer truths!
But…
if you agree that you agree with Scott on 90% of policy, and the disagreement is on process, where does that leave the charge that Scott punches left?!
I do applaud this move toward terseness and responding to content as well as being sensible. I’d encourage that trend. You’ll need a sense of humor about your past, but I, for one, am happy when people do better.
I agree with this. Freddie, you write some good stuff sometimes but you need to be less verbose, and you need to talk about yourself a lot less. Or, at least, stop pretending to talk about politics while really making it all about you.
“if you agree that you agree with Scott on 90% of policy, and the disagreement is on process, where does that leave the charge that Scott punches left?!”
Scott is taking the Booker T. Washington approach to tactics: go along to get along and attempt to appear harmless and cooperative to the powers that be.
This approach is, to put it simply, wrong.
That sums it up for me.
I agree with Matt Bruenig: process arguments are completely useless crap.
This isn’t the same sense of process.
What Freddie is talking about is better termed tactics and strategy.
Matt’s talking about formalist arguments about procedures which aren’t crap exactly but often are disguised content arguments.
Hmm. OK, good point.
Do you agree about 90% of policy? It’s hard to imagine that your, shall we say, unique views on the “free speech rights” of Donald Sterling and Brandon Eich are just an exception. Your comment sounds to me more like tactical retreat in the face of devastating criticism. Maybe you should finish your Phd in rhetoric and try again, but I’m not hopeful.
the Moneyed Interests will literally fight to the death before they give up control these people would rather be dead than poor and powerless. the Media is run Plutocrats anyone who opposes the agenda of them will be smeared as either a lunatic or a bigot.
OK, I’m going to recycle an argument an old friend used to make on FidoNet.
Let’s grant here that there is a fierce struggle for survival among peoples, and that only one can be on top. Let’s further grant that the Jews are everything people like you say: this tiny minority which nonetheless dominates the world’s banking, entertainment, politics, and just about everything else of merit apart from some kinds of sport.
Here I am, a disabled and struggling white gentile, who gets little love from most of those of my own kind in power and none at all from the rest. Why wouldn’t I want to throw in with the Jews? They run the world! They generously reward their lackeys! It looks to me like I stand much better prospects if I gleefully turn my back on my WASPish roots and become the best gentile lickspittle I can. In history as people like you tell it, my kind has never managed to dominate the world thoroughly except in sporadic moments, and we never hang onto that. Fuck that. I’d like to win for a while.
So I’m off to sign up with the cabal.
I don’t see how your logic leads anywhere else, to anyone seriously interested in the conditions of their life, given the facts you present and/or assume.
Note to self: be on safe side, buy Mrs Mal flowers on way home.
Applicants who would like to join the Jewish Cabal should forward their resumes, transcripts, and a brief, two page statement on why they would like to participate in a millenia-long project of lecherous villainy and world-domination to:
tim@thejewishcabal.org
The Jewish Cabal is an Equal Opportunity Employer and generously awards its lackeys.
This can’t be right. How do you email a foreskin?
In a poster tube.
Well, obviously. But how do you email a poster tube?
You just have to be certain you have the right epostage on it.
Sheesh.
Should I send photographic evidence of my circumcision as well or will they verify that later? ;-)
Due to some apparent confusion, the Jewish Cabal would like to make clear that it is only accepting applications for positions in the Gentile Lackeys Department. As gentile lackeys are most useful when a cursory glance at their genitals will not betray their true loyalties, potential applicants are warned to not circumcise themselves, and to under no circumstances send their severed foreskins to the Jewish Cabal in the mail. If you have already circumcised yourself, please see a doctor at the earliest opportunity. Tell him that you are experiencing an “application problem.” He will know what that means.
Shit. You shoulda said something earlier. Who do I send it to now?
BRB, gotta get the mop.
Forewarned is foreskinned.
I’m a Jew and I don’t seem to have received my monthly stipend from our Hollywood/Government/Finance/Media monopolyconspiracything in quite some time. I wonder if it’s because I married a gentile? I would like to take this opportunity to reassert my commitment to taking everybody’s money all the time and controlling the media. So where’s my cut?
[circumcision joke goes here]
Mohels always take 10% off the top.
We’re also hiring black helicopter pilots.
Pilots for black helicopters or helicopter pilots who are black? These things matter.
“Moneyed Interests” is an anti-semitic dog whistle? I mean, maybe, but it’s better than “rootless cosmopolitan.” Serious question from someone who is not a troll-how do you make a structural criticism of how the financial system works without knee jerk anti-semitism accusations?
Not necessarily. It could mean the 1%. But coming from a known anti-semite…
If you’re serious, I assume you haven’t noticed all the other crap this person has been posting here every damn day. The fact that he did a search-and-replace of “Rootless Cosmopolitans” to “Moneyed Interests” does not suddenly make his arguments worth addressing.
Ah, it’s the poster. Sorry, it’s hard to keep up with the trolls sometimes.
gentile lickspittle
Hey! We’re supposed to call them “Shabbos goys” now.
Ignoring the subtext of who these Moneyed Interests might be, you’re still wrong. The mass media does not and cannot control society as a whole. By its sheer size it’s going to be a significant player in shaping culture, but there is in fact quite a lot of diverse thinking that goes on. Blogs like this website are quite effective at being an alternative form of media, for one. Beyond that, people do not form their political views simply as passive consumers as media, but in interacting with their peers on a day-to-day basis, and that is by definition a far more decentralized process. If a few people start making reasonable arguments to their peers, and those people spread the argument, that allows new ideas to slowly percolate through society.
There are certain ideas which are genuinely fringe, and people will reject on that basis. You might fall into that category, with all your ominous talk and Capital Letters. But there is a significant margin between the status quo and complete crankery, and that margin is not merely the Overton window of relative acceptability, but also of who’s making the argument and how it’s being made. A calm rational argument about how a strong welfare state would be better for everyone is harder to dismiss than a crank ranting about how Those People rule the world.
I think a citation to Chomsky and Hermann is in order here on how the media actually does function to represent elite interests and restrict debate in the US. ;-)
And Chomsky would know, right? *wink, nudge*
Well, they did write this book.
http://books.google.com.gh/books/about/Manufacturing_Consent.html?id=Kv_-bvCqgrEC&redir_esc=y
Not for the first time, you’ve missed the joke. Tom Servo is referring to Chomsky’s being a Member Of The Tribe, and to the obsession of the vile troll who started this subthread.
That’s the beauty of J. Otto: No matter the subject, he can end up being the butt of his intended joke.
I think that most people don’t really like thinking about politics unless they have to does more to shape the political debate than mass media.
fyi
http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/roundtable/the-myth-of-the-fourth-estate.php
This is why some evangelical churches forbid children from making friends who are outside the faith community. The thought is that ideas spread in this fashion could corrupt their faith; i.e. lead them to question their leaders.
A comment thread comprised of Freddie and the anti-semitic parody troll could be kind of fun.
Bottom line: I agree the Moneyed Interests will literally fight to the death with you about 90% of policy, but before they give up control probably only 50% of these people would rather be dead than poor and powerless of process. And so we fight about the Media, the process, Plutocrats and anyone who opposes the agenda of them, and we should. And in the long run, either the world will be smeared, as either a lunatic or a bigot gets better or it don’t.
Not bad (I’m actually snickering out loud, good work), but can I get that with boysenberry syrup?
I misread the headline at first.
Not to self: add “taking your ball-gag and going home” to the list of things I need to find an opportunity to say.
Opportunities will probably abound at the 2016 Republican National Convention. Just sayin’.
Oh, that’s right, Catholic upbringing. Gotcha.
I attack Democrats, and even liberals, from the left often.
For the record, I’m far enough left to embarrass Michael Moore.
But I’m also a realist about American politics, and one thing I do know is that the nation will not in my lifetime shift far enough left for me to approach the mainstream.
So my default position is to take the long view: nudge the dialogue leftward, and know that my daughter and her generation, and their children, may eventually come to the realization that the way I see things is the way they truly are.
It’s evolution in action.
So, genuine question: what about climate change?
If it wasn’t for the utter urgency of that issue, I’d be 100% behind the “realist pushing towards leftist goal, slow boring of hard boards” approach. But climate change is going to ruin us, unless we do something about it very, very, very soon.
If your next question is, So what do you propose?, I got nothin’. I wish I saw a course of action that seemed likely — hell, that had a 1/20 shot — of working within the required framework. But I don’t. So I have no bloody idea what to do. But it does seem a flaw in an otherwise reasonable political philosophy. At this rate our children won’t be seeing we were right: they’ll just be seeing the oceans rise.
That’s not really much of a left/right issue outside the US.
I think you need both people pushing gradually within the system and people doing something different outside the system. This is as true on climate change as on anything else. People who can lobby effectively or primary bad-on-climate candidates from the left are needed, and so are people who can push the envelope in the court system, and so are people who know how to and are willing to stage a weeks-long tree-sit to stop a pipeline being built, or lock themselves repeatedly to coal plant gates in order to disrupt work. We’ve been seeing some nice recent success in Massachusetts by using, well, a diversity of tactics (a phrase that some people forget means something other than breaking windows).
None of those things that I mentioned, however, are “getting Republicans elected”. I don’t care if people in safe states/districts cast protest votes for Jill Stein or whomever, but I don’t think leftists should wholesale stop practicing harm reduction voting. Escalated tactics are fine and necessary, but you need some connection between tactics, strategy, and goals.
actor212: Scott L. consistently writes posts opposing your tactics.
Because Scott L. doesn’t understand politics, I guess.
Completely off-topic, but I read the phrase “I mean, my God, yes, when you attack the Establishment the Establishment is going to fight back” in a Zizek voice. Couldn’t help it.
This entire ‘beef’ doesnt make sense. Freddie deboer (1 person) didnt want to vote obama. At the very most he might (and this is being VERY generous) have convinced 2 people likewise. Unlikely they would have been in the same voting district, but lets assume they were. Lets say Freddie brought one more person (who wasnt going to vote) to the polling boot to vote PAUL #1 with him on voting day. And his dog. That’s 4 people and a dog.
Would that have thrown the elections in 2008/12 ?
If not, then why does anybody care ? And why is FDB the most evil human being ever ?
yes ‘voting boot’.
thats when you put your vote in a boot, throw it in the river and then whoever dives in and fishes it out first wins.
Thats the wway it works, right ?
Sounds more reasonable than some watery bint lobbing scimitars around.
That is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Isn’t that how ‘booth’ sounds in the ancestral accent of someone names Ronan?
yep. precisely (although tbh it was a spelling mistake which i tried to correct through nonsense)
Gosh, yes, why would anyone ever want to debate things that may have little practical effect on the real world? Why are you even wasting time here on the internet when you could be out futilely primarying Diane Feinstein?
because i like typing and emoticons : )
I like emoticons too. 8-)
I learned everything I know by watching your emoticon work, oh master : ) ; ) : ) : 0 ; 0 : 0 : )
>(+_+)￢o(*O)
V
:(
Well the headline of the post would leave one to believe we are discussing effective strategies. So pointing out that when it comes to one’s own vote there’s not much effective strategizing to do seems apropos.
Downright Freddie-esque.
freddy krueger ! (freddy cougar could be a decent film as well)
FdB isn’t evil; he’s just stupid and arrogant and completely incompetent.
Okay, maybe he is evil. But he’s certainly not the most evil human being ever, nor has anyone called him that.
fair enough, thats a reasonable qualification. i might have been hyperbolic initially.
i might have been hyperbolic initially.
[insert emoticon here]
I think he is currently ranked on LGM as only the third most evil human being ever after Ralph Nader and Glen Greenwald. But, somebody should really publish and official updated ranking of the most evil human beings here. ;-)
where do you see yourself on that list ; 0
I am not important enough to make it to the top 100. ;-)
It’s not importance, it’s annoyance value :)
What is the statistical relationship between that and replacement value?
Wanks Above Replacement
Maybe not, but you do have a unique, though perhaps not enviable, place in the LGMiverse.
I’m not sure “enviable” describes anyone who has a place in the LGMiverse.
I’m quite happy with my position, as long as
Joss WhedonScott Lemieux doesn’t decide to randomly kill mein the third seasonby throwing me under a CDTA bus.We should have an NFL-draft style “pick the most evil person on earth” draft.
Since bspencer is the newest member of LGM she would naturally go first.
It has nothing to do with Freddie’s (inconsequential) influence. Many, many people have independently made the same facile arguments as Freddie. Freddie is fun to attack, but also obliterating his poorly reasoned political arguments obliterates every other glib idiot’s poorly reasoned arguments about the Paul/drones crap in one fell swoop.
Anyway, I would like to point out that these types of comments are by far the most useless. At least Jennie provides some entertainment value.
which type ? the type youre responding to or freddies ?
No, but no one knew this until the election already happened. Unless Freddie lives in a safe state, in which case no one should care who he votes for in presidential elections.
were 4 people and a dog going to throw any state ? technically
Sure. The probabilty of swinging the 2008 election got as high as 1 in 10 million (cite: http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~gelman/research/published/probdecisive2.pdf) in some states. The 2012 election was even closer. In expected value terms that’s pretty massive, given the large ideological gap between the parties and the power of the presidency.
sure, but were any states *specifically* lost by 4 people and a dog
Of course not, but so what? It’s proper to be concerned about people advocating reckless behavior, even if they have been fortunate enough to avoid the bad consequences so far.
Come on, (me) being serious for a second and taking my comments at face value, it is very unlikely that FDB is either personally (or through force of personality) going to be a deciding factor in any election, in any state.Even your paper supports that.
I really dont mind beating up on FDB in the name of lols, disagreement, dislike, ideological differences etc, but this would be weak tea (and a strawman I made up, I admit)
It is an interesting paper though, so thanks for the link.
Ronan, no one thinks that convincing Freddie of anything per se is part of a significant political project (though it’s not impossible that he’ll go pundit and blow up). Convincing David Brooks to stop being a wanker might have some effect, but it’s unlikely that LGM posts would do it.
So?
The argument is the arguement. If it’s interesting and entertaining well then it’s fine. There’s no mystery here.
i know. im only have a little fun as well
Really? This is you having fun.
Seems like a retcon to me.but whatever oats your boat.
i googled it but dont understand its applicability to my comments ? (no joking )
is it that i’ve rewritten the history of my comments on this thread ?
to be clear.. i dont think ‘LGM’ thinks FDB is the ‘most evil person ever’. I think it’s (obviously) pointless arguing over this with him for anything but lols, but i dont care.. i do it all the time in my own life (kind of)
I dont think 1 vote is ever going to win an election, but also I know thats a strawman. I understand the deeper question about not voting third party in the US. And if I was America, I wouldnt.
But yes, Im having a little fun. Not much, but a little (less now, i guess) I really dont think anyone has taken the original comment literally.
I mean that I find it more plausible that you made the comment in all seriousness and then decided to claim it was “just having fun”.
That’s partly because I don’t see the fun. Unless it’s trolling that you are enjoying?
But whatever.
But why does it matter if you ‘see the fun’ ? not everything has to conform your definition of fun. Thats fine if you find some other explanation more ‘plausible’ for my initial comment. Who cares ?
typo – *dont* see the fun ….
Since I didn’t claim or imply that everything has to conform to my sense of fun, I don’t need to defend the proposition.
Otoh, I don’t have to accept that your sincere here or that if you are sincere that your fun is laudable.
You’re out and out trolling now. All this means is that I’m much more likely to ignore you here on out.
Glad to see you won’t let the tone of this thread go out of control, Doc.
??
I don’t think I’m tone controlling. If Ronan wants to make suck comments, it’s not skin off my nose if they do so.
They never read as “having fun” to me so I respond to them seriously. Given that that’s not what their after, I won’t engage unless this kind of fun is what I’m after.
Yeah, I don’t much care for that and was a bit annoyed and that clearly came through. But…so?
I’m not sure which of the commenters with a sad about me you are…this is a fresh nym, yes?
Im not saying theyre all ‘fun’, but the majority of my comments from here on out are just going to be a bit of fun (as i percieve it) nothing too serious, a few giggles, and a couple of larfs.
Ive given up making anyway serious ones because whats the point? it resolves nothing and just ends up in wilful misreading or offense taking or one of your mammoth paen’s of pedantry.
I don’t haz a sadz about you Doc, I don’t take you that seriously. You remind me of that philosophical amphibian, warty bliggens.
What has the universe done to deserve you, Doc?
As I said, I don’t see the fun. You used to ask serious questions seriously but now ask serious questions non seriously because you don’t like the answers you got but that’s ok because you enjoy it even though you get the same sorts of answer?
That seems canonically to be trolling. Which is, indeed, some peoples idea of fun. It didn’t match my mental model if you, but fair enough. I appreciate you making it clear.
Ok Mary, thanks for the clarification
I’m afraid it still bins you in the had a sad category.
Its not trolling because I dont engage in the serious part *at all* anymore (with the odd lapse) Instead it’s just goofing, which I assume most people realise as its not particularly subtle or witty.
And if there’s a serious conversation going on somewhjere I dont butt in in bad faith. Perhaps the odd time, if Im lucky, I can start a little subthread where the other goofballs join in in a bit of goffing around.
No harm
Ronan, you didn’t live up to Doc’s mental model of you. What do you have to say for yourself?
I have a sadz for anyone who takes you seriously and doesn’t have an excuse like a bad acid trip or some sort of head injury involving the frontal lobes of the brain.
at the end of the day, mary, we can only answer to ourselves. am i right?
Ronan, absolutely!
That I don’t get or like it doesn’t give you the least reason to change. As I said whatever floats your boat. Take on criticism or reactions as you see fit.
Mary, I’m sorry I loom so large in your life. I’d suggest just skipping my comments.
Can’t stand the heat, Doc? Don’t worry, I enjoy demonstrating why pedantic, pompous people like you shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Where’s the heat?
You haven’t critiqued anything, just expressed contempt and rather clumsily. I don’t see any “why” shown here.
You might do better to parody my comments.
@Bijan Parsia:
The oh-so-delightful commenter with a sad is “the dark god of time aka DA”, fwiw.
When you talk about someone not conforming with your ‘mental model’ of what they are, then you open yourself up for ridicule. If you can’t understand that, then you really are a humorless, priggish, know-it-all.
Thanks Jordan. That’s what I suspected.
Hey DA,
You object to the use of the phrase “mental model” to describe that I wasn’t reaction to what Ronan was doing per se but to the fact that it wasn’t how I understood their intentions?
Ok! Any other tips for how to regulate my commenting behavior so as to conform to your standards? I’d hate to continue to expose myself to your withering ridicule. If you have advice on becoming more humor full, less priggish, and more epistemically humble, it would be a very great favor if you would share them, preferably in the elliptical style for which you are known.
Thanks!
Don’t like a taste of your own medicine, Doc?
Thanks for the laughs.
It didn’t match my mental model if you,
You object to the use of the phrase “mental model” to describe that I wasn’t reaction to what Ronan was doing per se but to the fact that it wasn’t how I understood their intentions?
When you use imprecise language, you risk being misunderstood.
I’d love a taste of my own medicine! But clearly you are unwilling to provide it!
I don’t see any imprecision in my language so if you would be so kind to explain what’s imprecise about it (eg what misunderstandings it produces) and why the imprecision itself is mock worthy, I’d be so very grateful.
I depend on the kindness of down to earth truth tellers like yourself, to help navigate the world outside the cold confines of the ivory tower.
If you could pass in the “I declare victory in absence if any victory conditions” trick, I’d love that too! You make it seem so effortless, yet witty, where in the hands of a Jennie it just looks cheap. Sensei, I implore you to take pity on me AND the universe.
Fun paper! Thanks for the link.
Sooo, what was that bizarre exchange with ‘Mary’ about?
It starts here, I think.
I think the actual argument being put forward is that he’s a wanker.
Very, very nice post, Scott.
I understood ‘hippie punching’ to be something different — praising or creating policy based on what liberals don’t like (or supporting useless policy that accomplishes nothing but annoy the left), with a prime example being Lieberman’s panicked, headlong flight from his proposed health care compromise when he realized that the hippies were on board with it.
Is it used by the left now to cut off debate?
Lieberman’s dumping of his own offered health care solutions is not an example of hippie punching. Hippie Punching (IMO) is the white, upper class version of the sistah soljah move–a public excoriation of, and humiliation of, a white, upper class, liberal perspective. Its not anti-working class white (these are not conceived of as hippies) and its not anti black (those people get attacked for being black, or for being violent, or oversexed, or something else). Hippie Punching happens within a very small social circle in which the hippie is the alter ego of the upper class white wanker who wants to rule the world by suppressing liberalism.
well put
Most disagreements over policy are intra elite arguments. (whether thats within or between parties) Who the ‘elite’ are depends on the distributional make up of the society in question, but its usually (at least) the top 20% (whether in wealth or educational attainment)
Harrumph.
There was a time when hippie-punchine involved actual hippies and actual punches, but we do not live in the age of the real, but in the age of the surreal.
And as such, hippie-punching constitutes:
* Aggressively distinguishing ones’ self from real or (largely) imagined hippie positions. Hippies want peace? Well hippies suck and so does peace. Bombs away, bitches!
* Characterizing those who one desires (for other reasons perhaps) as mindless, drugged-out hippies. Dennis Kucinich wants universal healthcare? WELL HE ALSO BELIEVES IN ALIENS AND A DEPARTMENT OF PEACE, so what does he know?
Should say “characterizing those who one desires to smear” as mindless, drugged-out hippies.
“Some on the LEFT say… but I reject those false choices.”
That’s hippie punching. In the specific format used by one of the leading practitioners of the art form.
Cranky
OWS got punched plenty.
Yeah, hippie punching is more than just a political move.
Typically by law enforcement and the odd right-wing asshole or drunk dudebro rather than by wanking center-left pundits, though.
@Gwen, that was extremely well put.
Dennis Kucinich kind of is a drugged-up hippie, isn’t he?
He believes in UFOs, which is hippy enough for most people, and is a friend of Shirley McLaine.
I’ve noticed that when you call Mr. de Boer on his blithe assertion of risible nonsense without citation, he has not once provided a factual rebuttal, Scott. Wonder why that could be? Some of these assertions come within quotation marks, so sources could presumably be located, if they in fact existed.
I could provide you with quotations from the voices inside my head. Not aware of a blue book citation form for that though.
Surely its whatever format you wish?
“You Rebel Scum.” =)
[pers.comm.]
Good lord, Lemieux, you sure know how to praise with faint damn. This post was a nice exercise, I guess, but only if you make the highly questionable assumption that Freddie is sincere in his protestations that he’s actually progressive, in some substantive way. And it’s tempting to believe him, isn’t it? It’s tempting to believe that his schtick arises out of a noble core.
But it doesn’t. Because nobody who has a noble core would defend Megan McArdle like Freddie does. So to hell with him, Lemieux. To hell with him.
I object to a lot of the hippy-punching (yes) posts here but this one is entirely reasonable. I feel like there is a lot of common ground between the Scott/Joe crowd and the crowd that finds one or more Democratic policies unsupportable, and it gets lost in those other posts. “Why do you love George W. Bush?” is not going to convince anyone, but other arguments might.
“Why do you love George W. Bush?” is not going to convince anyone
Yes, I’m sure an analysis will find that our zero posts ever making an argument like that have not been effective.
well, there was your right opportunism critique of the Socialist Workers Party, but they are not hippies by any means.
The Real Left is watching! /snark
There’s a super-huge excluded middle in there.
It seems to me, as a longtime lurker, that LGM’s party line has edged ever closer to “any criticism of the Obama administration is only (and quickly) worthy of mockery”. The problem is: I can see that as the right line. I, like everyone, am so tired of liberals unwilling to take their own side in an argument. We will not win by conceding right off the bat.
But, as such a liberal, it pains me that we can’t anywhere let down our guard and bitch about people to the left of Senator Landrieu.
There’s room in the left, the center-left, and the center for a Humphrey-type “happy warrior”. It’s the “happy” that went missing somewhere in the Bush years.
This just isn’t remotely true. Scott regularly criticizes it on eg civil liberties and Erik on labor and environmental issues.
I think the key is 1) recognizing when there are real constraints (is getting it right) and 2) recognizing the wins.
I did some scanning of their posts, and I’m not seeing it. Not that I disagree with their posting choices – I particularly value Erik’s labor series.
I can’t claim certainty, but I’ve noticed a tonal change in various lefty blogs, starting somewhere in the W administration. “Crabbed” or “uncharitable” are ways to put it. I certainly can’t claim to demonstrate my impression convincingly. If authors recognize I offer this impression sincerely (if perhaps mistakenly), great. If not, not so great: because I don’t actually like pancakes.
You’re doing it wrong then. What’s your sampling strategy.
I’m on a phone in a car so I can’t do it and…I’m a little tired of doing it for people who don’t demonstrate even a cursory effort.
But if you search, you should find a couple worked surveys by me. (Eg refuting Mizner)
A week should be long enough but a month is better.
(You have to be especially careful to get out of a post cascade. Eg the recent set of Freddie posts is extremely anomalous and partly a function of a back and forth, plus fun. If you just look at that you get a highly distorted picture.)
Maybe you should learn how to read then.
The problem here is that we have lost on almost EVERYTHING. When you accept the reality that the Obama administration and the Democratic leadership actively are center right and are perfectly okay with a military, corporate state, then you can realize that you’ve been given a choice between a bad solution and an even worse solution offered by Republicans. Both of these I reject. It is up to you to decide if this is important to you as well and continue to fight for real Democratic values even if that means losing on the real issues instead of losing to the enemies in our own party.
“This just isn’t remotely true. Scott regularly criticizes it on eg civil liberties and Erik on labor and environmental issues. ”
Scott doesn’t really criticize the administration on civil liberties — especially when he says “vote for them anyway”. Scott is remarkably worshipful of the administration and makes excuses for all kinds of inexcusable crap.
Erik does actually criticize the administration.
I’ll note that Scott has figured out how to write long pieces criticizing something the administration is doing without ever once actually blaming Obama or any cabinet members. It’s a neat trick, but rather dishonest.
The point is that the Obama administration is actively center right. Just look at what is happening at any 3 letter federal agency starting with the FDA and SEC and FCC.
It seems to me, as a longtime lurker, that LGM’s party line has edged ever closer to “any criticism of the Obama administration is only (and quickly) worthy of mockery”.
[cites omitted, assumption that the Matt Stollers of the world are to the left of anyone on the masthead undefended.]
I don’t see that you addressed my point.
But I suddenly realize how hard it is to distinguish being concerned from being a concern troll. Maybe the distinction is that the concern troll won’t shut up. So I think I should shut up.
I addressed your point by saying that I think your claims about the blog are erroneous. Since you haven’t provided any actual evidence or examples, I’m not sure what else you want me to say.
“Obama is a big poopyhead.”
I don’t want to pile on here but when you make a claim, the onus is on you to prove it, not on the person you’re accusing to disprove it.
I have directly criticized Obama in dozens of posts, particularly around education and public lands issues.
Maybe they think you weren’t sincere enough? Or maybe there’s some quantum thingy going on in which your Obama critique must match their Obama critique exactly, occupy the same space and time exactly, or it is transformed into surreptitious support for Obama.
Its almost as if criticizing Obama’s tactics or strategies without condemning him as a crypto-Republican, or criticizing the Democratic party without throwing in the towel on the two party system, renders your criticism invisible or meaningless.
I think the critique of Obama has to be Paul/Paul ’16 — the only good drones are private drones!
which one heads the ticket? Ron, Rand, or Ru?
I would love having Ru make Rand and Ron lip synch of the Vice Presidency!
/would vote
I couldn’t help but notice that you were a half-second behind everyone else when we denounced the capitalist running dogs during this morning’s consciousness-raising meeting, comrade. Is there anything you’d like to talk about?
Or should we just proceed to the ‘Russian heart attack’ phase of the proceedings ?
In case you need a reason to vote Democratic, Comcast CEO accused of being part of cabal to impose Sharia in the United States by House Republicans:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/gohmert-comcast-the-blaze
The next two years are going to be fun.
You managed to extract a lot more meaning from Gohmert’s word salad than I was.
cabal to impose Sharia in the United States by House Republicans
I KNEW IT.
I know that Comcast has been trying to rehabilitate their abysmal customer service reputation over the past few years, but I didn’t realize they were pulling out all the stops.
This is exactly the kind of intolerance I expect from liberals
No, surely this is.
I’m going to break character for a second and say- that’s actually pretty awesome
The problem is the electorate. Most Americans do not hold liberal positions on foreign policy. If a majority of Americans opposed drone use in foreign countries, torture, NSA spying, etc… on a consistent basis, then finding a “true” liberal politician would be easy. However, the next (inevitable) terrorist attack on U.S. soil will likely make all these policies popular with the electorate again. The majority of Americans only care about torture, or drones when they feel safe. There is great risk and little reward for not using drones, or having the NSA collect the maximum amount of intelligence possible.
Spoiling an election for Democrats doesn’t change the fact that most Americans aren’t liberal. I’m not convinced that the lesson the Democratic Party will learn will be “We need to move to the left.” I didn’t see the Democratic Party move to the left in 2004, and have no reason to believe it will happen in the future. Pushing for a liberal President, without first developing popular support for liberal policies, is putting the cart before the horse.
Most Americans hold liberal positions on almost all domestic policies.
And most Americans are isolationist, last I checked. (Perhaps a side effect of godawful stupid foreign policy for decades on end.)
This makes for a coherent political agenda.
However, nobody actually running for office is pushing this agenda. This is a problem.
…and it’s largely a problem of the people running for office being
(1) too old,
and
(2) too rich.
Bah. We may have to wait to overcome #1. And #2 is a harder problem.
Given that Obama personally intervened to make the Bush tax cuts for the extremely rich permanent, it’s not at all clear who to vote for to deal with the problem of the 0.1% taking over.
The past 6 years are loaded with progressive victories. Gay marriage bans being lifted, DADT removed, EPA winning the Coal case, minimum wage increases happening across the country, pushback on the NSA, and Keystone XL getting delayed-if not outright canceled. From this progressive’s standpoint, it doesn’t seem like we’re losing. It seems more like we’re winning more battles than we’re losing.
Most of those fall more under the banner or losing less quickly than actually winning.
Well, hell, it’s all a doomed struggle against the impending heat death of the universe, so let us enjoy our little victories in these rear guard actions while we can, please.
Not for gays. Gays are closer to truly equal rights than any other time in the history of this country, probably any time in the history of Western civilization since the rise of Christianity. (IANA historian, but that’s my impression, at least.)
We won an awful lot of that at the state level.
Hey, I still support the Democratic Party in general. There are just some specific Democrats who need to be kicked to the curb as fast as possible. They happen to include Obama.
As the Democratic leadership becomes increasingly more conservative and more corporate and throws away everything that the Democratic Party has stood for, you expect us progressives to take our lumps and continue to vote for these fools? All one needs to do is look at my home state of Illinois where the state Democratic Party has moved far to the right and lost the support of vast numbers of Democrats and is likely to lead to a wave of Republicans being swept into office this year in a state that is vastly Democratic. When an extreme right winger like Bruce Rauner mainly is alignment with Rahm Emanuel you know something is badly wrong.
The Democratic party needs to be rebuilt from the ground up and that won’t happen until they learn a serious lesson in making their base happy.
And if I wanted a regressive tax structure, fracking with almost no restrictions, broken unions, privatized schools, incredible cuts to the safety net and pensions, corporate favors left and right, corruption creeping back into all aspects of public life, a hatred of all progressives, and more then I’ll vote for the Illinois Republicans not the Illinois Democrats.
One other point, Scott, is that you preach without a solution on what to do to fix this disastrous behavior by the DLC Democrats other than to tell us to suck it up. If you want to lead, then do so. Otherwise I’ll be ignoring your suggestions that I take it again on the chin by Democrats who despise me.
This. Scott has provided no advice other than “be happy with Republican policy” because Scott HAS no advice.
I can only conclude that this is because Scott does not understand politics.
Here in the world of bare-knuckle politics, taking your ball and going home is a highly effective strategy. Most effective one we’ve found in recent years.
“Trying to conflate “criticism” with “advocating throwing elections to Republicans in exchange for nothing” is a neat but dishonest trick.”
Then why do you do it so often, Scott?