LawTalkers - Objectively intelligent.

LawTalkers (http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/index.php)

- Politics (http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=16)

- - Objectively intelligent. (http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=884)

Re: Objectively intelligent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 529032)

Was going to share that. I mean, I guess I already knew that Brocialists have a penchant for denial of non-class oppressions, but I was still surprised how racist he was willing to be.

I haven't read White Fragility, so I can only assume he is being unfair about what it says, but it feels like a long exercise is intentionally missing the point. I'm not sure that calling him racist helps much -- it creates more heat than light.

Quote:

Meanwhile, there's other criticism of White Fragility going around for centering whiteness, but I think that's actually part of the value of it, in that it's a book for white people.

I don't know what "centering whiteness" means, but I do suspect that Taibbi is on to something when he points to the use of such jargon in the book. Also, I'm not sure why a book would be "for white people."

Quote:

Meanwhile, not to pretend it's any kind of unusual recommendation, but I also found How To Be Antiracist worthwhile.

You lost me at the title, but I don't do self-help. I just finished an excellent history of the Lakota, a book by a Finnish historian about the tribe's history from the 1600s until Little Big Horn (and thereafter in a much more summary way). Really, really good. The NYT agreed.

Re: Objectively intelligent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 529033)

i have to assume you know Custer was from Michigan, and that this whole glorification of the Little Big Horn massacre seems an attack on Michigan people generally. Next time, maybe try a Gerald Ford trips joke instead? It would be less hostile.

Re: Objectively intelligent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 529034)

Didn't know that Custer was from Michigan, but if it makes you feel any better, a strong theme in the book is that the Lakota were shrewd and strategic and played their hand well for the centuries, and that the Americans who dealt with them -- including but hardly limited to Customer -- did not understand them or what they were doing.

eta: Here's an excerpt from an early chapter courtesy of Tyler Cowen, who thought it was one of the best books of last year:

Quote:

Two centuries earlier, in the middle years of the seventeenth century, the Lakotas had been an obscure tribe of hunters and gatherers at the edge of a bustling new world of Native Americans and European colonists that had emerged in the Eastern Woodlands of North America. They had no guns and no metal weapons, and they carried little political clout, all of which spelled danger: the odds of survival were slim for people who lacked access to Europeans and their new technologies of killing. That crisis set off what may be the most improbable expansion in American history. Lakotas left their ancient homelands and reinvented themselves as horse people in the continental grasslands that stretched seemingly forever into the horizon. This was the genesis of what I call Lakota America, an expansive, constantly transmuting Indigenous regime that pulled numerous groups into its orbit, marginal and dispossessed its rivals — both Native and colonial — and commanded the political, social, and economic life in the North American interior for generations. Just as there was Spanish, French, British, and the United States of America, there was Lakota America, the sovereign domain of the Lakota people and their kin and allies, a domain they would protect and, if necessary, expand. A century later, the Lakotas had shifted the center of their world three hundred miles west into the Missouri Valley, where they began to transform into a dominant power. Another century later they were the most powerful Indigenous nation in the Americas, controlling a massive domain stretching across the northern Great Plains into the Rocky Mountains and Canada.

…Yet they never numbered more than fifteen thousand people.

Hi RT!

You may not be able to comment on this, but huh? https://www.houstonchronicle.com/new...y-15372256.php

Quote:

Originally Posted by LessinSF (Post 529036)

Hi RT!

You may not be able to comment on this, but huh? https://www.houstonchronicle.com/new...y-15372256.php

Yeah, it's been a shit show.

Part of it is that most people don't get that ICUs (and hospitals in general) try to operate as close to the margins as possible. That they've been empty for such a long time now is really unusual. So seeing that a hospital is 97 percent full SHOULD be the normal state of things, but it hasn't been portrayed like that in the med center's messaging.

Part of it is also that the virus is hitting us differently than in other parts of the country so far. In the last few weeks, the majority of people hit with it are under 50, including those going to the hospital. Most are going to med-surg units rather than ICU. We've also gotten better at treating it, so the length of stay is longer and vent use is a lot lower. Our mortality rate is also lower than in other places, probably because of the age distribution. Still, the rate of infection is pretty high, and a good hunk of people are coming up positive. I know at least half a dozen in the last few days, and most either work in hospitality or have been socializing more.

The real clusterfuck was last week when the Med Center sent out a panicked "take this shit seriously" message on Wednesday, and then backtracked a day or so later saying that they can handle it. It was pretty clear that they either weren't on the same page (it was the four big hospitals, not the med center as a whole that sent out the latter message) or got some outside pressure from the state.

The county judge is pissed as hell about the numbers switch. Changing the metrics midstream has not been helpful at all, because it's unclear what was wrong with the previous set of numbers and why these are better. The Med Center data is the data almost everyone in the region was relying on, especially since testing around here has been abysmal so a case count didn't really tell us much.

The county judge, btw, has been outstanding. She is in her late 20s and it's probably the third or so most powerful position in the state. She slid in on the blue wave in 2018, ousting a very popular Republican incumbent (I voted for him). She had very little practical experience, and totally upended how the county was run (especially the court's sessions). The commissioner's court has historically been a good ol' boys network, and she doesn't stand for that shit. She also lengthened the meetings and gets citizen input. My brother works with her office a lot (he does community development) and has been really impressed. She does almost all of her press conferences in English and Spanish. And she's taken a lot of flack because she's a non-white, very young woman. We had a very good response for the first month and a half of the pandemic, in part because she shut the county down early. Then the governor's office intervened, taking away pretty much all the tools in her arsenal.

Re: Freely misreporting reality.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower (Post 529004)

The problem with the caricature you have created in your mind about my political views is that everyone else here also reads my posts and, as Ty pointed out, I actually don't talk about the specifics of my political views very often. So everybody knows that the image of me as knee-jerk liberal who spreads leftists memes and petitions on Facebook and worships Mother Jones and believes that our country had no race or equity issues until Trump came along and created them is something that you pulled out of your ass. If I'm wrong, find the posts I have written to prove it.

I don't think I accused you of spreading anything. You're not a political advocate. I said yours are naive progressive politics. Tell me where I'm wrong. Where do you deviate from the progressive platform?

Re: Objectively intelligent.

Quote:

Not sure who you were reading, but it wasn't me. My reaction to the Cotton story was that the issue that everyone was up in arms about was boring, and not worth the ink.

Right. I know how incensed you get about boring things.

So you cited the reaction of black reporters to Cotton's story why then? They were bored too?

Quote:

Note the effort there to change the question to the one that I think is more interesting, which is, what is the editor of the NYT supposed to do these days?

You answered that question yourself (your words):

"We all agree that there are some ideas that are beyond the pale, that there's a line to be drawn. There's nothing objective about those lines.

But I don't think he's saying Cotton's ideas shouldn't be debated. I think he's saying that we need more honesty about what Cotton's ideas are."

Cotton was pretty clear about what his ideas were.

Quote:

So if you're keeping score at home, my "reaction" to Cotton was zero posts where I said that Cotton is "too offensive to our shared values as a nation," words that you put in quotation marks but which I do not believe I have ever said.

That was an obvious paraphrase. I may have even offered that quote with a caveat that noted as much. In either case, it was clearly an approximation of your argument that certain things are beyond the pale.

Quote:

If the NYT does its job, its readers will understand all about Cotton's views.

It did, and they do.

Quote:

IMO, it should do this by reporting on his views as news, treating the substance what Cotton thinks and does as a real story that people should understand, rather than with horserace journalism, faux objectivity or simply turning over part of the op-ed page to Cotton without editorial supervision. When the NYT does that, it's an abdication of what journalism should do.

This has it backwards. The OpEd page is not journalism. It is exactly the place where people should consider Cotton's opinion and decide whether it's wise or not.

Quote:

I haven't "admitted" I would use borders to define any topics out of bounds -- I pointed out that, contra your notion that the NYT is just presenting a debate, it has *always* defined what is acceptable debate and what is not by deciding what and to whom it will give space. I personally prefer to have a wider range of opinions on the NYT op-ed than it has had (and so does Jeet Heer), but if its editors are going to cast a wider net then they have to be *more selective* about which of those views they choose to share -- among other things, it's just math. If they can find a good piece on man-boy love, I'm game to read it. If they run a shit piece on man-boy love because the author went to prep school with the editor, and the author wants to troll readers for the attention, I'm not in favor of that. Are you?

No. But I don't think this was a situation similar to your prep school friend hypothetical. Cotton's was a view that is in fact supported by a lot of people. Could it have been better drafted? Yes. But I think the most significant thing to come out of it was the debate about how much of the country actually supports using troops to control protests. There was a lot of argument about whether 58% was accurate. Whatever the number is, it is significant. That's a window into the "silent majority" in the country.

Quote:

I doubt it, except for the relativist part.

You know my beliefs:

1. Fiscally, moderate;
2. Socially liberal

Free speech? Absolutist
Pro-choice
Favoring negative rights as opposed to positive ones? Yup.
Health care? In favor of a single payer system
UBI? In favor of it out of necessity
Pro-immigration
Regulation? In favor of smart, minimal forms, and elimination of most of the useless forms we have.
Gay marriage? Pro
Size of govt? Obscenely oversized
Defense? Cut the budget in half
Foreign policy? Moderate
Justice reform? Vehemently pro
Taxes? Spent well, I'm fine with an increase; spent inefficiently as they are, no.

Quote:

Again -- you are missing the point. I'm not saying that what the NYT has always done is right and good -- I'm saying that it has *always* limited the views on the op-ed page in a way you say you have a principled objection to. If that really bothered you, you would be more interested in talking about what you would do if *you* ran the NYT, the question I tried to pivot to. Like many Trump voters, you would rather be on the outside, complaining about shit, instead of picturing yourself on the inside, trying to make things better.

If I were inside the Times, I would run pieces focusing on how the masses are being divided and conquered. I'd offend my advertisers and allow more voices advising the poor of all races and backgrounds to unite. To not buy into the marketing that divides them, and instead get together and topple the people with the money by using their combined votes. I'd focus on class. I'd focus on nepotism in the system. I'd allow voices that explained the propaganda. I'd allow voices who'd tell them we are a kleptocracy of a sort, but not because of Trump. Because we've allowed corporations to take over the government. I'd allow voices who'd explain that there is little difference between the parties, which all serve the same special interests.

People would believe in almost no institutions if I had that page.

Re: Objectively intelligent.

Quote:

He is being unfair to her. He's focusing entirely on a few of the points on which she sounds loony and ignoring the main points. I love the guy, but this was more hit job than serious assessment of her book. (Still, where he takes her [or anyone] to task, his bon mots are fucking hysterical. Cat can wield a hell of a pen.)

Calling Taibbi, whose other books (including one called I Can't Breathe about the Eric Garner killing) and articles total probably 1000 pages on police brutality a racist isn't unhelpful. It demonstrates how cheap that accusation has become. People throw it out there without even thinking about it anymore.

Quote:

I think the book is for white people because black people already know everything in it. They live it.

"Centering" just seems dumb corporate-speak.

Re: Objectively intelligent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 529032)

Was going to share that. I mean, I guess I already knew that Brocialists have a penchant for denial of non-class oppressions, but I was still surprised how racist he was willing to be.

You can call Taibbi a lot of things, but calling the guy who wrote I Can't Breathe and has been doing interviews on police brutality of minorities for years is not the wisest charge.

I know it's your thing to scream "misogynist" or "racist" immediately at almost everything you see, like a dog chasing and barking at a spinning tire. But try a little harder, and consider the damage you're doing.

These terms are so frequently overused by people like you that they're beginning to lose all force. People are assuming the woke are so vehement, so orthodox, and so impossible to satisfy, that there's no way - even if you agree with them - for them not to call you a bigot of one sort or another. I used to recoil when it was suggested here that I was a bigot or sexist. Now? Everything's racist. Everything's sexist. Everything's anti-trans. Okay. Well, keep yelling on Twitter and calling people whatever you like. This supporter of trans rights, gay marriage, justice reform, and believer in the concept of systemic racism, and millions like me, is tuning out the loudest and screwiest voices. And I honestly don't feel bad about tuning them out, because most of them are crazy middle class white people.

The dumbest voices in these debates are almost always white. Frequently affluent, clueless whites. They chide you on systemic racism, and then you remind them part of fixing it is changing the neoliberal economic system we use to keep minorities marginalized and allow most of the $$$ to flow to capital that's held disproportionately by old white people and they become disillusioned. They apparently hadn't thought very deeply. They just wanted to "say stuff" and feel virtuous.

I point everyone to Chappelle's 8:46. That usually shuts them up. ...Except for those freaks who'll complain that he's a bigot too. Which one can only respond to with an epic eye roll, snicker, and "Fuck it... I give up! You're nuts."

Re: Objectively intelligent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 529033)

You lost me at the title, but I don't do self-help.

I wouldn't really call it self help, or at least any more than White Fragility. It's a book about race that is part memoir.

Quote:

I just finished an excellent history of the Lakota, a book by a Finnish historian about the tribe's history from the 1600s until Little Big Horn (and thereafter in a much more summary way). Really, really good. The NYT agreed.

Turns out I already put in a hold for it at the library.

Re: Objectively intelligent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 529041)

Calling Taibbi, whose other books (including one called I Can't Breathe about the Eric Garner killing) and articles total probably 1000 pages on police brutality a racist isn't unhelpful. It demonstrates how cheap that accusation has become. People throw it out there without even thinking about it anymore.

Sorry, but a hit job on a book about racism is a racist act. Jesus, stop tying yourself in knots to deny reality.

Quote:

I think the book is for white people because black people already know everything in it. They live it.

Right.

Re: Objectively intelligent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 529042)

These terms are so frequently overused by people like you that they're beginning to lose all force. People are assuming the woke are so vehement, so orthodox, and so impossible to satisfy, that there's no way - even if you agree with them - for them not to call you a bigot of one sort or another. I used to recoil when it was suggested here that I was a bigot or sexist. Now? Everything's racist. Everything's sexist. Everything's anti-trans. Okay. Well, keep yelling on Twitter and calling people whatever you like. This supporter of trans rights, gay marriage, justice reform, and believer in the concept of systemic racism, and millions like me, is tuning out the loudest and screwiest voices. And I honestly don't feel bad about tuning them out, because most of them are crazy middle class white people.

Go read the book again. You did not understand it.

ETA: Also, How To Be Antiracist so maybe you can finally grasp the racism isn't an aspect of human character but a class of things - ideas, policies and acts - that literally everyone engages in or supports at times.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LessinSF (Post 529038)

Big bonus year hopefully? https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53...qZ6Gbs3OltxFUU

I don't even have to click on that to know what it is, but the answer is, no they will not use lube before they put the infected cock up my ass while coughing Covid down upon me. In fact they will remind me, that when I asked about referring a fucking round up case, or two, or nine, they told me they didn't take those.

My place works like Trump. If you want to do business, you got to pay a cut. Want to use a car service? You got to use the guy who kicks back. Want them to take a case, you got to give up a piece. Except Poor Old Honest Icky who handles the cases for the best recovery for the clients.

By the way there's no way Trump didn't know about bounties on servicemen. He probably negotiated his kickback from Putin before the election.

Re: Objectively intelligent.

Quote:

Sorry, but a hit job on a book about racism is a racist act. Jesus, stop tying yourself in knots to deny reality.

This is almost as dumb as your assertion Taibbi is compromised by Russians, which is tinfoil hat stuff.

If a critic writes a hit job on a book about Nazis, is he a Nazi sympathizer? If he writes a hit job on a book about the Irish, is he bigoted toward the Irish?

There are myriad reasons for performing a hit job on a book. Taibbi may in fact simply dislike her argument. He may be mad that her book on racism is selling better than his.

Stop being the dog barking at every spinning wheel.