I think you’re right that any particular screed is unlikely to change any single individual’s mind, but the way minds get changed is through altering the ambient atmosphere. By filling it up with ideas that dovetail with each other. This is how the conservative noise machine brought us to this moment. In opposing that noise machine, we can make better, more persuasive arguments, but we also must be LOUD. One way of being loud today is being so eloquently offensive that you adversaries undertake your publicity for you, and I think this is a great example.
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I’m not sure I can agree with you on this. To a degree, traditional propaganda/rhetoric methods worked to get us to the tipping point that occurred in 2016. But, again, that was generally in-group communication, dog-whistling and such. And what happened with Trump was clearly a case of people digging-in to established positions. This sort of rhetoric and response is built right into the definitions of reactionary and conservative.
Efforts to create novel paradigms, new ways of thinking, must work toward shifting people into new conversations (see for example the stuff the Soviet Constructivists did). You don’t do that with hectoring and such. You can’t scream a person into agreement. There’s too much evidence that this only makes people defensive, makes them double-down, or makes them resentful, confirming their suspicious that you’re just an ass. I think people like Lakoff tend to have it right.
Again, though, I know it’s gratifying to read this sort of thing, and that I’m being a wet blanket, but too often I think we rationalize our pleasure by saying it has more utilitarian value or generosity than it actually has. In this case, the value seems to lean to strengthening and validating the in-group. That’s important too.
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I’ll just leave this here.
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I said good day, sir!
Gently trying to persuade the un-pursuade-able with logic, compassion and reason and all that is a fool’s game. Bigotry and hatred should be met head on: fascists are for punching. Period. End. Of. Story.
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I think the internet in general has brought about a bit more cross-pollination as well. My brother-in-law (originally from Manchester) was surprised to hear me use “spot-on,” which is something I almost certainly picked up from the net. In any case, it’s become fairly common usage in the US.
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No need for the credit (but thanks, anyway) but seeing as alcohol reduction - not addition - is the desired outcome, it seemed worth pointing out. 
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Obligs:
But seriously, good on her for calling that mindlessly hateful shit out.
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Ah, NextDoor. All the shitposting of Facebook combined with the likelihood you’ll have to interact with the shitposters more often.
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It’s sometimes preceded by “cheesy”. My favorite variation was in this Quietus editorial, which referred to former Blur bassist (and later cheese-maker) Alex James as a “cheesing bellend”.
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We get lots more British TV here now than we used to, what with BBC America and Brit Box and some Netflix shows… some of us have started to pick up British slang… I find myself saying “you lot” a good bit lately…
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“Chuffed as nuts” is a good one I try to work into conversations on occasion.
I recently learned the Australian slang for tight Speedos on men: “Budgie smugglers”
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Yes, please leave it there. Best place for it. Leave it WELL alone.
I got an invitation in the mail just yesterday to join a (newly formed, apparently) NextDoor group in my neighborhood. Never heard of them before, but this all just confirms my thoughts from when I chucked it into the recycling bin.
The Best of Nextdoor Twitter feed can be quite amusing.
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If you’d like an example to point to, Canada’s version of TIME, called “Macleans” just put out a quick-read article on how our 50,000 Syrian refugees have been doing since we announced that program in 2015. It took much of 2016 before they were all here, so this basically happy report is at the three year mark.
They are basically doing OK. Keep in mind that we take in 250,000 immigrants a year to start with - like the USA taking in 2.5 million. And the extra Syrian program was like the USA taking in 500,000 Syrian immigrants…and it’s working.
It’s baffling to me how people can look at hard data - how a given idea worked out over a large area and long period of time - and just ignore it. But over years of the Drug War, I gradually came to accept that it’s life in politics.
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Guaranteed if you’re a Canadian who watched TV in the 90’s, you’re now hearing “BUT IT’S NOT OATMEAL” in your head over and over again.
At least ‘you lot’ is already plural. I once asked a South Carolina friend who kept saying y’all to me (y’all must go visit x, etc) why a plural was used to address a single person and what the plural of y’all was if one wanted to be clear one was addressing a whole group and not just one person in it. The answer was “well I guess it must be all y’all”
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Well, don’t get to freaked out by the use of they/them for non-binary folks, I suppose…
And yes, y’all can be used as a singular or plural. All y’all can be clarifying.
I also often revert to you guys as well.
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