General Politics Discussion (III) [ARCHIVED] • Page 1293

RIP Juicero, the $400 internet-connected juice maker

 

Smoke seen billowing from Russia consulate Trump ordered closed

Oh no I hope it isn't the pee pee tape

 

His name is dom

 

Jfc

Cobb approves retirement for cop who said “We only shoot black people”

 

well that's infuriating

 

I agree, I'm worried about the non-politically active/news follower that gets bad information from Facebook/YouTube and the propaganda/indoctrination that is unaddressed. I'm worried about the people I hardly ever see but every 6 months end up at a bar "catching up" with and hear the things they've seen/believe and about the way YouTube is becoming TV for a new generation of kids and the right practically dominates that platform and is "red-pilling" the generation behind us in a way that is going almost unopposed right now.

 

Lol

Finance capital has no idea what it's doing. Taking their money and redistributing it is the sole option at this point:

 

I mean I think we already know what the answer is if he is holding an event. If he was going to let it stay there would be no announcement.

 

Definite optimism as human capital | Dan Wang

I submit that an underrated Trump phenomenon is how many people have been drawn to care about political scandal. I haven’t much changed the people I follow on Twitter, but my feed has gone something like 25 percent politics to 60 percent politics; I don’t have a Facebook, and I suspect that something similar happens there as well. So many people have become addicted to retweeting the very latest Trump embarrassment, or making identical jokes about it.

But what could be more boring?

This is the social risk: That the minds of many talented young people today will be permanently disfigured by this obsession with Trump embarrassments. The effect will persist when Trump is no longer in office. By that time, people will still be hypersensitive to whatever political news is happening at the moment, as they’re glued to social media looking for breaking jokes. Some people expressed this fear when George Bush was in the White House. I submit that it’s much more severe today: It’s Donald Trump, plus social media, and more cable news, in the midst of a flowering meme culture.

I confess guilt to taking pleasure in some of these memes myself. But I realize the glee is an unhealthy one, and that I have to break it before it breaks me. I entreat more people to consider their news consumption in these terms—most of us do not need to pay attention to the day-to-day goings on in the political world. There are too many sites and personalities that have completely re-oriented themselves to telling people how they ought to feel about the latest piece of news. I don’t blame them, because I think they’re delivering what we want. But we can change our preferences.

 

there was a convo going on a few threads back about Antifa and the way it's being disseminated - I don't know which reply to quote but this ties into it: Melville House recently released an awesome book on Antifa by Mark Bray.

see: Antifa » Melville House Books

I work at an independent bookstore in Colorado and it's been selling well/getting a good response.

 

My gf bought me this book the other day I'm about to dive in

 

Kid Rock Accused of Violating Election Laws | Pitchfork

 

Romeo and Juliet

 

The most discouraging thing is how prepared the right always is. Charlottesville happens and the response is so scattered from the left - do we condone punching Nazis?, is there room to talk and see opposing viewpoints, is antifa bad, is antifa good?

Meanwhile the right has these well defined response - and you will see the exact same responses on Twitter, Facebook, Fox News, and in a conversation with your racist uncle.

I honestly don't see any hope for the Democrats in 2018 and 2020

 

This. I think disorganization is the lefts Achilles heel (heal). The right knows what their message is before they need to put it out, even through disagreements. I think the scattered response comes down to whether or not the left should include liberal views as a part of our message. The way I see it, the right has abandoned moderates the past 10-15 years to the point where moderates are the ones who have to decide whether or not to condone the more extreme right. We should force liberals to make the same decision about the far left, and I think that is happening with this discussion about antifa, only the left is totally losing the narrative battle. Idk what the solution is to that. I do want to throw this out there though -- NPR has been doing a great job covering antifa, as in, you know, actually doing the research and reporting it. I'm pretty sure their influence is primarily concentrated on a demographic that already has a better understanding of politics than the general public but it is a breath of fresh air to see a news organization that isn't decidedly leftist honestly reporting about antifa.

 

It does not bode well when you are losing the narrative war to Nazis.

The right has had a lot of practice though - their antifa strategy is basically the exact way they have gotten a good portion of this country to fear Muslims. Videos of scary looking people dressed in all black, causing disorder, violence, and blowing shit up. I mean even the way they say antifa makes it sound like some new domestic offshoot of ISIS

 

ZooZooChaCha a member of Chorus forum said "antifa ... some new domestic offshoot of ISIS".

thanks for writing the new foxnews bulletin

 

You can watch in polling how when something gets picked up on the "right" how it will very quickly disseminate and move down the party line until a large group of voters agree with it/sign on/vote for it. The left can do the same, but it moves slower, and remains (often) divided over a variety of issues. And that's before getting into something like six people hitting someone over and over again ... that's going to be really hard to put a response around without teeing up the easiest rebuttals. It takes a strong writer/speaker, that's why I asked have any of the prominent leftist writers/podcasters written the piece defending that video? Where's the Ryan Cooper, Corey Robin, etc., piece about the video? Attacking democrats is easy compared to something like writing about violence, let alone necessitative violence (it's hard, I've only read 6 or so pieces in my life that I think did it really well). Not many people want to go on the record condoning something like that ... which I get, but what ended up happening is that the people you'd expect say "violence is bad" — and then there's a lot of "fuck you for saying that" takes and never a coordinated effort to explain, not only to the people reading the news but the mainstream non-newswatcher, exactly why violence occurred, why it's different than Nazis, and what the end goal is. It's a repeat of quite a few of the news cycles over the past year:

"Why shouldn't college kids hear someone with different views talk on campus?"

Answer: Because they're a white supremacist and these "views" are abhorrent.

However, there's never a coordinated effort to explain the why, especially not on the level as you said of the right, that gives talking points that end up everywhere. I'm starting to think part of it is that things we think are self-evident and many people should believe, aren't as self-evident as we think ... when there's confusion on: Should Nazis march in the streets unopposed, I feel like there's a massive issue being unaddressed. And I think there's an overestimation on how many people will be on board to vote for those condoning violence, (I could be wrong on that, but that's my guess of many blue states) which is why politicians are politicians, and the large voices on the left should be the ones pushing their arguments out there on the platforms people are on.

 

The pee tape nooooooooooo

 

I wish Antifa had official speakers so they could tell everyone to stop covering their faces with clothes. Not only is it intimidating to bystanders who could possibly join them, but it gives them the appearance of high schoolers who have only watched Occupy Wall street YouTube videos and V for Vendetta. Looking legitimate is more important than looking menacing. The Women's March worked and gained positive traction while you could see faces which gave the idea that they are normal people with normal jobs that just wanted change.