I’d add this quote as a root cause…
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. - Ronald Wright
When you get that proletariat angry, you get leaders like Trump. Folks can insult him all you want, make fun of him, compare him to HItler or Stalin etc, but that won’t make him go away.
No? He was suggesting that their support of right wing causes against their own interest was rooted in a deeper anxiety about their futures.
He was attempting to do what hilly is suggesting. . . and he was called patronizing.
You can;t win for losing!
Listen to the whole thing - it’s not as well phrased as you’d expect from Obama, even speaking off the cuff while obviously very tired, but I think the empathy is there.
It’s unfortunate that it comes across as condescending, because I know that my Pennsylvanian friends, relatives and cow-orkers have no real disagreement with these statements.
Da Fuq? You think I don’t know what that word means? Your condescension is so…familiar.
Anyway, the straw man I was referring to is constructed more of the first two verbs in what I quoted from you. They reveal a profound and willful ignorance on your part about what antiracism activists say and do that renders your condescension all too ironic.
What I don’t understand is why anyone takes what he says seriously. He has supported both sides of almost every issue. Pro-choice and pro-life. 2nd Amendment and gun control. He says so many different things I fail to see any relationship between what he says and what he does. His actions point toward him being a Clinton-like pro-business Democrat. I guess we really have no idea what he might do as President. The very definition of a loose cannon.
Yeah, no, I don’t believe for a second your hobby horse is a major force here. Maybe the perception of that sort of attack, but since that can be made up whole cloth – to ridiculous levels like the war on Christmas – even that wouldn’t mean the activism itself is causative. Rather, I notice just about every movement standing up for the rights of an underprivileged group is painted as going to far, attacking everyone else, and bringing about the reaction against itself.
The suffragettes’ demands were trying to take the votes from men, facts notwithstanding. The gay right’s parades were making them unlikable to “ordinary” folk, the way they were regarded beforehand notwithstanding. Atheists are why fundamentalists try to change biology texts and shrill hippies are why we drive SUVs and eat tons of meat. And now you repeat that activists who want non-white people treated with equality are turning people against them, and that’s what is enabling Trump, all previous racism notwithstanding.
Sorry, but I would want real evidence of that before seriously entertaining it. Because it sounds like the same knee-jerk response to activism heard from time immemorial, and like the knee-jerk response about how “but these immigrants aren’t assimilating”, I think it is has long worn out its benefit of the doubt.
Having pointed out the issue, my task is done; you can mock or discount it, or even go into the rural southeast and examine it firsthand, as you will.
I hope that all your efforts lead to wonderful things.
Yeah, somehow people never do back these claims up, just act smug about “knowing” them. You’d just faulted milliefink for derision, but I think this line is the most condescending thing I’ve seen in weeks. God bless.
Why is that condescending? I was quite serious. I honestly feel that way. And you will know when I am being derisive, believe me! I’m only subtle when I’m not peeved, if then.
I don’t feel smug about anti-racist activists prioritizing their own emotions over the effectiveness of their techniques. But long ago I learned that all I can do is what is within the reach of my arm, and so that’s where I concentrate my efforts, and that’s why I don’t give in to despair.
Do you read the SPLC’s Intelligence Report or racist hate sites like The Daily Stormer? I recommend you investigate Andrew Anglin’s culture jamming club. These clowns are gleeful about the whole “tone argument” thing - even a bunch of inbred racist troglodytes understand the importance of strategy.
Why is me saying “that’s the sort of argument people make about all activism, wrong so often it doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt, so I would need to see some evidence” being met with “I’ve given you all I should, the rest is up to you and I hope you do it well” condescending?
While you’re still injecting more made-up blame for too-emotional activists as somehow responsible for all this, previous attitudes notwithstanding, and even suggesting they police their tone while you say all this?
Really you don’t know? If I specify the meaning of patronizing, can you see why your hope that it all works out for us kids doesn’t actually mean that it isn’t?
As for racist hate sites being gleeful about the whole tone argument, of course they are. But like I said, that doesn’t mean anything about whether there is actually a problem there. I gave some examples like the suffragettes, gay pride, and war on Christmas, and I could easily give more, like about how a casual mention “guys please don’t hit on women in elevators” was rendered by similar websites into an attack on the very existence of men. These people are not reliable narrators as to what’s setting them off, as it’s become pretty clear that for much activism no tone can ever be gentle enough.
Anyway, this is now badly off-topic. Like I argued, I think it started that way, but you saying that “your task is done” makes it definitely so.
This is why trust and faith aren’t terrifically synonymous, and about the advantage that obscuring the differences gives some few people over some many.
I don’t mean circus clowns, I mean Bart Simposon, Jackass, kid making fart noises in the back of the class sort of clown.
It may seem impossible for you, but please try NOT to impute any emotion to the following: Good goddess, you’re acting like a complete asshole.
“This is 1 reason (of many) why I never wanted to demonize GOP voters. They need a route back. Hard enough w/o encountering contempt.”
Noam “The Chomper” Chomsky has been summarizing this for quite some time:
I’m sorry that you feel that way. It has never been my intention to draw that response.
Good night, all.
It’s only 4pm???
Yes, it’s your intentions that count, as always. Never mind the effects of your actions, nor the obvious unconscious biases underlying them. If any women or people of color have to work with you, goodness how I pity them.
Just think of his poor wife!
Nice clip, he totally gets it. His non-contemptuous response doesn’t just preach to the choir; I liked it when he told the audience they shouldn’t have laughed.
5pm here, but I’m going to a music gig tonight in Murdertown so I gotta split very soon.
In truth, you really have no idea what color my skin is or my gender; perhaps you have merely assigned me a role that your worldview requires a white man to fill.
As for intentions, I don’t care much about them. Actions count; your tolerance of anti-white and anti-male rhetoric is an action that counts against you; my intolerance for the same quite clearly counts against me. For me, racism is racism, sexism is sexism, and I stand against all of it. Thus my point of view is unwelcome to many.
My daughter’s not white, either! Double whammy!
But my family seems to tolerate me well enough, thanks. As do my cow-orkers in my majority-minority workplace. They like the privileges I help them to gain, and don’t grudge me mine.
But really, I gotta go. Good night again, all!
I can’t decide if it is cognitive dissonance or really short attention spans (probably both), but it blows my mind that Trump can get away with the whole “I can’t be bought” rhetoric when he has literally spent his whole life selling himself.
