Is Soylent Green People? Find out after the break on CNN
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I’m surprised that he didn’t end it with “Hey, I’m just asking questions!”
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The “these people” part refers to the media, but the Golem part refers to a Jewish story about a creature made from clay to protect the Jewish people. That makes the quote anti-semetic, like pretty much the entire speech. That and the fact that for many in the far-right “media” and “jews” are pretty much the same thing.
My problem with CNN here is this: the news caster asks “Should Trump denounce this?” and the lady who answers goes on a lengthy discourse. Her answer should have been “Yes! Yes he does.” No more than that. The media is treating Trump like he’s a fragile little flower who needs to be handled delicately, but it is about time that they take his hate seriously. Stop discussing this like it’s somehow debatable. It’s not, these are Nazis, Trump should vehemently denounce this behaviour or be considered a Nazi himself.
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Am I wrong for wanting a media that does NOT bend over a take one up the rear end so that it can have “access” to the president? I don’t CARE if you have access, because all that means these days is that they have a better ability to spin their stories directly to their pet reporters. What I really care about is a press that is neutral, rooted in fact, investigates issues deeply and fairly, and believes its job is to provide the American public with the best information they can about our government and what they are doing. And yes, that might mean you lose some f’ing access, you twats, but I’m sick to death of you wanting to be there to get the breaking story and selling your souls to these white racist bastards for access.
CNN… stop hiring pundits whose only job is to spin a story favorably for their political bosses… And stop hiring people who will sit and chat calmly with a smile on their faces about the antisemitic remarks of some uber tool. Stop using “alt-right” and start using the older terms for them, do NOT let them normalize and redefine who they are. This is not normal, people like this should never have access to the highest points of our government.
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My wife and I agree with this sentiment. Liberals have for too long been deathly afraid of weapons. We are both ex-military as well as liberals, so we have a more… I guess nuanced is one way of describing it, or possibly love-hate relationship. We’ve fired rifles, automatic weapons like the M-16, and even heavy machine guns. And we have to admit, it’s kind of fun, we know the appeal of target shooting. But until recently we haven’t owned any weapons as private individuals.
Now? We just bought our first rifle, we’ll be updating our handgun certifications soon, we’re joining a local gun club with a range for practice, and we’ll buy some more weapons down the road. Safe, responsible gun ownership is something that seems to be lacking in our nation, and we want to be part of that. We’ve even talked about forming a liberal alternative to the NRA, one that promotes real and useful gun safety measures (like background checks for all sales) while still upholding our second amendment right to keep and bear arms. Because that’s not going to change anytime soon, not with the GOP in charge of everything and likely to bring the SCotUS right back to a 5-4 conservative majority.
We also want to be ready if and when the assholes, the Bundy’s of the world, who are already heavily armed and prepared to commit treason against the people of this country act. We’re not going to run around shooting up the place, we’re not going to cause confrontations like they have in the hopes of being martyrs or sparking a war, but we will be ready to defend our interests, even if that means against drones and helicopters. Sure, we’ll lose… but I damn well am not going to let my country go down this cesspool without putting up a fight. And I’ll fight to defend the right of all people regardless of race, creed, color, sexual orientation, disability… whatever… to exist and be treated with equality under the law.
I’ll also add that no one should feel they have to pick up a weapon. I’m all for peaceful protest and we will be at the big marches in DC in January exercising our 1st amendment rights as we take on the Trump regime for the next four years. But for those of you who, like us, feel less uncomfortable about guns, give it some consideration. It can only be good for the country if liberals step away from gun control, show how to be responsible gun owners, and remove one more policy that the right uses as a wedge to keep their voters in line.
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Love the idea but wouldn’t that just confuse & infuriate fellow liberals?
Sure, they used Bernie’s more nuanced views about guns against him during the primaries. But I saw from the large support he received that that issue wasn’t a wedge for Democrats and liberals, most didn’t see his views as a problem within the context of the issues that matter to their own lives. Gun control isn’t driving people to the Democrats, and there are places within that discussion where most agree (background checks, safety around children, etc). The problem is that many bills that get passed seem to do little or nothing to stem gun violence, although in the face of a lack of funding for research its hard to tell what the results are. And it’s not like we are going through a massive increase in violence like the 70’s, but I’m still not sure if we can chalk that up to better gun laws and background checks or the massive increase in police forces during the Clinton years. Probably a bit of both.
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We are all just frogs, waiting for the water we are swimming in to boil.
It’s already lava.
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Trump will take a page out of Nixon’s playbook. He will appear to be the “reasonable” one while his staff spouts all kinds of off the wall shit just like this. He will ask for calm and rationality while his staff attacks the press and various groups. This Bannon shit is like when Agnew went up against the press. I can’t wait until the enemies list is published in the New York Times.
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I think that there quite a few problems here. Why exactly should they expect that their message will scare those who disagree with it? I can empathize if you personally feel that way, but I wouldn’t make the leap of assuming that others do or should feel the same way. Do people have an obligation to avoid discussing things which could inspire fear? And how would we make that workable when the daily news becomes scary?
Also, I think it’s a bit disingenuous to say that because you are scared, that @anon62122146 was not communicating in good faith. In practice, people protecting their home, family, or person (or even talking about it) are not done to strike fear into others. If you literally equate self defense with terrorism, that’s a difficult position to work with.
I don’t think that’s a logical conclusion to draw. But it I agree that it does illustrate that there is a societal conflict. Obviously it would feel more safe and assuring if this were not the case.
I can appreciate that. The US does I think have a culture of mythologizing violence. Of pushing for simplistic solutions and having a cavalier attitude towards suffering. But acknowledging this does not automatically yield pacifist values. I too have experienced threats, sexual assault, and numerous sincere attempts at murder of my person. And I have responded to them in quite a few different ways. My pragmatism is of a “hope for the best, plan for the worst” variety. Violence for some self-righteous cause can make life worse for everybody - but so can rolling over and dying, or conceding to senseless victimization. The middle-ground is something of a tightrope walk.
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Certainly not but I do think an alt.nra would drive Democrats away.
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Why do you suppose? I am guessing that (despite stereotypes) there are many Republicans who are not gun nuts, yet the existence of the NRA and fervor of “gun nuts” has presumably not driven them away for the party.
It’s probably better we don’t derail the thread with this issue.
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Frankly, if “the lying media” summarize his position from “awful dogwhistle about how the media is a Jewish conspiracy” to “Jews are not people”, it would be doing …
… exactly what they did to give Trump the fucking presidency.
Yeah, these are pretty much my reservations. Faced with an avalanche of fact-free, hysterical arguments for the far right, it’s too easy to feel like there’s no time to be rigorous in arguing back. But:
- Arguments for kindness and decency just are more nuanced than arguments for dumb hate; in any shouting contest, evil wins.
- When an angry cretin sees an alarming clickbait headline, they take it at face value and don’t read the article. When a thinking person sees an alarming clickbait headline, they click through, see it was a trick, and are more skeptical of that story in future — hyperbole “for a good cause” can discredit the actual cause.
Here we are having a discussion based on a blog post supported by a lengthy quotation from the New York Post. Are we sure this is the moral high road?
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Like what happens on Boing Boing? 
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Fucking this. It’s not rocket science.
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Sort of. Appeals for kindness and decency are only one approach to arguing against ethnocentrism. However, it happens to be the most popular type of argument. In this age of identity politics the consensus of the left seems to be that arguing for empathy is the only real criticism or discussion worth having. But this I think fails to recognize that the rhetoric from right-wing reactionaries is often extremely weak, that it is trivial to demolish the assumptions of ANY group’s identity possessing any sort of “superiority”. These tend to be self-serving biases on a cultural level.
Keeping the debate at a strictly emotional level is hardly assured of success when the senseless hatred runs so strong. But also maintaining rational arguments against bigotry offers something more which they are hard-pressed to refute.
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