If someone they know is sent to the Rehabilitation Project Force, they’re involved.
If they get send to the Rehabilitation Project Force, they’re committed.
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Because we already know what he’s going to say and it’s a pile of shit.
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Agreed.
Prompts me to post this. The whole thread has solid arguments. Bless that Hari Kunzru for Saying (or writing) The Words.
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Maybe he should speak, Liberals need to learn how to generate ridicule. The right does a great of portraying the left as clownish, immature and wistful. These are not threatening to their base, just childish. They want the left to grow up. Liberals often portray the Right as uncaring, exclusive, greedy. If you need to have a leader with one bad quality do you want one from column liberal or column right?
Liberals needs to learn how to quickly reveal a persons position as laughable or quaint. They need to be able to elicit a chuckle or a head shake from the center and center-right based off their opponents response. It is not easy, but confrontation is not how you win this. If they cannot do that then they should not have Bannon there.
Plus Bannon should pay his own way.
Edited: Left to Liberals, thank you.
What is this “The Left” of which you speak?
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I’m not sure if that is a joke I am missing. The Left as I understand it relates to those groups with a liberal leaning. In this context, I am referring mostly to the Economist, but also to the groups that have a liberal agenda.
???
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So your issue is with my nomenclature, what would you like me to use as I have provided a definition.
“Little boxes, on a website…”
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Liberalism is a centrist point of view that generally is free market oriented. Leftists tend to be more focused on either creating an alternative to capitalism or at the very least mitigating the worst effects of capitalism, often through legislation or direct actions (organized labor, for example). A liberal democracy tends to be capitalist in economic orientation, not leftist necessarily, though in a solid democracy, left parties can certainly be part of the mix.
The Economist is definitely center-right in political orientation, and very much pro-capitalist. At times it’s leaned heavily to the right. The modern Democratic party here in the US is very much a center-right party, even as some leftists are part of the coalition. It was the Clinton-led Democrats that had a hand in dismantling the social safety net to such a large degree, and opened up free trade through policies such as NAFTA, which many leftists opposed, as it freed up capital to move across borders, but not individuals.
TLDR - Liberal is associated with capitalism while leftists tend to be critical of it, to varying degrees.
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Thank you, I updated the post. Is there a better word than “the right” and did you have an opinion on the strategy?
Much like the left, the right is a broad term. Here, with regards to Bannon, we’re discussing someone who is pretty explicitly a white nationalist, so this would be considered the hard right. We know what these guys are about, and we know that the regularly lie and distort reality. Deborah Liptstadt documented this back in the 90s with regards to holocaust denial. I’m really with her on this. They have nothing of value to offer the conversation, except warmed over racism that has no basis in fact. She’s 100% right on that nose with that.
Bannon, much like holocaust deniers, conceal his bigotry with a veneer of truthiness and a whole rash of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that are really just justifications for racism or antisemitism. Many of the people that believe him are always going to believe him,unless something major happens to change their minds - laughing at Bannon in a public forum really only serves to reinforce their belief that they are some beleagured minority, suffering at the hands of feminists, leftists, internationalists (meaning the Jews), and African Ameicans. Meanwhile, he offers nothing worth while to the conversation. We can only hope that he’s eventually a forgotten footnote to this whole period…
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Well “The Right” is the most expansive label to include:
- Neoliberal prags of the uppermost wealthy
- Frothing at the mouths white supremacists
- Bible thumping theocrats
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Debating such malicious liars serves no purpose. Debate implies equivalence in factual support and merely an opposing view. Exposing their lies and refusing to take them seriously seems to be the best course of action.
When I deal with holocaust deniers online, I simply point to David Irving’s meltdown in the courts and a website which detailed the trial and a breakdown of the lies typically told by Holocaust deniers.
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Yeah, absolutely. Which was what I was getting at. Bannon very much fits into this category, even if his language is even more evasive than Irving’s.
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Yes, maybe what I am thinking to too subtle for that venue. More like a systemic approach. Thanks for the feedback.
In what way? How do you mean “systemic” approach?
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Translation: Nobody is taking my point seriously. Everyone sees it for what it is.
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Thread:
ETA: especially this:
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