In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
The problem Trump will run into with that strategy is that Fox is no longer the reliable mouthpiece network it was during the campaign. Further, Breitbart is a sinking ship as well, so in terms of getting his message out, I think Trump's in trouble.
It will buy him time. Trump can hide behind "but anonymous" and "you can't prove it" for a few weeks after the "it is all fake" defense falls apart. He has two months before people start going on record. Mueller will eventually get Comey to talk and the Comey memos will come out.
Trump surrounds himself with crooked people and he himself is not without his fair claim to crookedness. While claims of ties to Russia specifically feel a wee bit exaggerated and based on shitty intelligence (there were a few key moments when Comey testified that I could see that he was reporting poorly on Russia specifically), I'm pretty certain that there is at least some degree of impropriety there.
The problem is simply that we have no idea of how much. The media and Congressional Democrats strike with the precision of a sledgehammer, smashing everything in their path as they hope to hit the orangutan in front of them. The result is that we can't properly communicate what is and isn't particularly bad because everything is a mess.
It's clear that Trump is feeling the pressure. I have to say that it seems he started to feel the pressure most consistently in everything that followed the release of the Steele dossier. But I don't know that that's a sign of guilt. It looks a little more like Trump's ego is getting hammered as the crooked people in his inner circle start to fall out of favor and have to be forced out and now he feels isolated and in need of more friendly faces in his cabinet.
What the world wouldn't give to have good ol' Hillary in charge right now. Ah well, chaos is fun.
On May 29 2017 03:59 LegalLord wrote: Trump surrounds himself with crooked people and he himself is not without his fair claim to crookedness. While claims of ties to Russia specifically feel a wee bit exaggerated and based on shitty intelligence (there were a few key moments when Comey testified that I could see that he was reporting poorly on Russia specifically), I'm pretty certain that there is at least some degree of impropriety there.
The problem is simply that we have no idea of how much. The media and Congressional Democrats strike with the precision of a sledgehammer, smashing everything in their path as they hope to hit the orangutan in front of them. The result is that we can't properly communicate what is and isn't particularly bad because everything is a mess.
It's clear that Trump is feeling the pressure. I have to say that it seems he started to feel the pressure most consistently in everything that followed the release of the Steele dossier. But I don't know that that's a sign of guilt. It looks a little more like Trump's ego is getting hammered as the crooked people in his inner circle start to fall out of favor and have to be forced out and now he feels isolated and in need of more friendly faces in his cabinet.
What the world wouldn't give to have good ol' Hillary in charge right now. Ah well, chaos is fun.
Sometimes you give me a real "just want to watch the world burn" vibe.
As I said, that is a terrible defense that only buys him time. The source went to WSJ back in December. An unmasked NSA transcript of Kushner asking to use the Russian pipes for comms is out there. Flynn was at the meeting where Kushner asked to use Ruskie pipes. Flynn will blab.
That's a precarious position for Graham to take because he's almost implying that if the story is true, it's a real problem. He appears to not know whether the story is true. If it turns out to be true, Graham just made himself look stupid.
On May 29 2017 03:59 LegalLord wrote: Trump surrounds himself with crooked people and he himself is not without his fair claim to crookedness. While claims of ties to Russia specifically feel a wee bit exaggerated and based on shitty intelligence (there were a few key moments when Comey testified that I could see that he was reporting poorly on Russia specifically), I'm pretty certain that there is at least some degree of impropriety there.
The problem is simply that we have no idea of how much. The media and Congressional Democrats strike with the precision of a sledgehammer, smashing everything in their path as they hope to hit the orangutan in front of them. The result is that we can't properly communicate what is and isn't particularly bad because everything is a mess.
It's clear that Trump is feeling the pressure. I have to say that it seems he started to feel the pressure most consistently in everything that followed the release of the Steele dossier. But I don't know that that's a sign of guilt. It looks a little more like Trump's ego is getting hammered as the crooked people in his inner circle start to fall out of favor and have to be forced out and now he feels isolated and in need of more friendly faces in his cabinet.
What the world wouldn't give to have good ol' Hillary in charge right now. Ah well, chaos is fun.
Sometimes you give me a real "just want to watch the world burn" vibe.
Well that's not completely untrue. Truth is that sometimes you have to burn things down before you can muster up the will to rebuild. Trump didn't get elected in a vacuum and if I don't mind the wildfire it's because I'm upwind and a lot of people I don't like (the Washington establishment) is caught in the inferno. I didn't really want the fire but I'm not desperate to see it put out either.
On May 28 2017 17:36 Schmobutzen wrote: Deconstruction can be a useful tool, but it has its limitations, besides the fact that its theoretical foundation is wonky, to say the least.
The biggest problem with it is that the whole world becomes the hammer that only looks for it to come down, because of its tight interweaving into power - and power only. If you make such a tool to a worldview, of course, the world will look spiked with nails, and nothing more than nails. The outcome is a shattering that sounds like cultural appropriation, identity politics, gender over the top and the group over the individual.
GH, you say something like the workers of the 17th century, as if there ever was a group like that, while there never was such a thing. Of course, there never was and never will be a "the whites" group, and if you look even further, how anyone can come out of postmodern thinking, that there is something derivable, especially if it ends in a construct like power-play, is beyond me.
I'm talking about working class people from all backgrounds found common cause in resisting the oppression of the elites. Elites found common cause dividing the working class. They tried religion, and a variety of other things but what stuck was the construction of race. It allowed them to perpetuate the oppression of the working class by creating artificial divisions that we still deal with today.
It's not to say that the working class of America and the working class of Europe were "one group" any more than elites are "one group". But there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of.
When you say " there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of" do you mean people were sitting down to plan this out? There were plotters and architects of racial theory explicitly intending to oppress poor whites? If so, who were they and when? Are you thinking of Nietzche and those that followed in his wake? Because it seems likely that the old racial hierarchy would have oppressed poor whites incidentally, not intentionally, but I am curious as to the evidence.
On May 28 2017 17:36 Schmobutzen wrote: Deconstruction can be a useful tool, but it has its limitations, besides the fact that its theoretical foundation is wonky, to say the least.
The biggest problem with it is that the whole world becomes the hammer that only looks for it to come down, because of its tight interweaving into power - and power only. If you make such a tool to a worldview, of course, the world will look spiked with nails, and nothing more than nails. The outcome is a shattering that sounds like cultural appropriation, identity politics, gender over the top and the group over the individual.
GH, you say something like the workers of the 17th century, as if there ever was a group like that, while there never was such a thing. Of course, there never was and never will be a "the whites" group, and if you look even further, how anyone can come out of postmodern thinking, that there is something derivable, especially if it ends in a construct like power-play, is beyond me.
I'm talking about working class people from all backgrounds found common cause in resisting the oppression of the elites. Elites found common cause dividing the working class. They tried religion, and a variety of other things but what stuck was the construction of race. It allowed them to perpetuate the oppression of the working class by creating artificial divisions that we still deal with today.
It's not to say that the working class of America and the working class of Europe were "one group" any more than elites are "one group". But there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of.
When you say " there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of" do you mean people were sitting down to plan this out? There were plotters and architects of racial theory explicitly intending to oppress poor whites? If so, who were they and when? Are you thinking of Nietzche and those that followed in his wake? Because it seems likely that the old racial hierarchy would have oppressed poor whites incidentally, not intentionally, but I am curious as to the evidence.
On May 29 2017 03:59 LegalLord wrote: Trump surrounds himself with crooked people and he himself is not without his fair claim to crookedness. While claims of ties to Russia specifically feel a wee bit exaggerated and based on shitty intelligence (there were a few key moments when Comey testified that I could see that he was reporting poorly on Russia specifically), I'm pretty certain that there is at least some degree of impropriety there.
The problem is simply that we have no idea of how much. The media and Congressional Democrats strike with the precision of a sledgehammer, smashing everything in their path as they hope to hit the orangutan in front of them. The result is that we can't properly communicate what is and isn't particularly bad because everything is a mess.
It's clear that Trump is feeling the pressure. I have to say that it seems he started to feel the pressure most consistently in everything that followed the release of the Steele dossier. But I don't know that that's a sign of guilt. It looks a little more like Trump's ego is getting hammered as the crooked people in his inner circle start to fall out of favor and have to be forced out and now he feels isolated and in need of more friendly faces in his cabinet.
What the world wouldn't give to have good ol' Hillary in charge right now. Ah well, chaos is fun.
Crooked people is true. There's enough dirt on Flynn and Manafort for me to conclude that. And simultaneously, everything got turned up to 11 with "constitutional crisis" and "treason," which was obviously not the case. His opponents were and are resistant to admitting going overboard with assertions of scandal. They're vulnerable to Americans seeing this all as a persecution campaign because they can't separate partisanship from reality.
This will all speak to how Trump handles pressure. He's struggled with his own business before and it didn't break him. He's bringing Lewandowski on board and maybe he can see the issue clearly. He absolutely faces a House election focused around impeachment, almost irrespective of what Mueller concludes. His base has shrunk. So the parts of chaos he controls must change: his twitter behavior and unfocused policy outlook. Absolutely he must clamp down on leaks within his administration, both among his lieutenants' staffs and agencies. If he does this, success is in his grasp.
On May 28 2017 17:36 Schmobutzen wrote: Deconstruction can be a useful tool, but it has its limitations, besides the fact that its theoretical foundation is wonky, to say the least.
The biggest problem with it is that the whole world becomes the hammer that only looks for it to come down, because of its tight interweaving into power - and power only. If you make such a tool to a worldview, of course, the world will look spiked with nails, and nothing more than nails. The outcome is a shattering that sounds like cultural appropriation, identity politics, gender over the top and the group over the individual.
GH, you say something like the workers of the 17th century, as if there ever was a group like that, while there never was such a thing. Of course, there never was and never will be a "the whites" group, and if you look even further, how anyone can come out of postmodern thinking, that there is something derivable, especially if it ends in a construct like power-play, is beyond me.
I'm talking about working class people from all backgrounds found common cause in resisting the oppression of the elites. Elites found common cause dividing the working class. They tried religion, and a variety of other things but what stuck was the construction of race. It allowed them to perpetuate the oppression of the working class by creating artificial divisions that we still deal with today.
It's not to say that the working class of America and the working class of Europe were "one group" any more than elites are "one group". But there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of.
When you say " there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of" do you mean people were sitting down to plan this out? There were plotters and architects of racial theory explicitly intending to oppress poor whites? If so, who were they and when? Are you thinking of Nietzche and those that followed in his wake? Because it seems likely that the old racial hierarchy would have oppressed poor whites incidentally, not intentionally, but I am curious as to the evidence.
Why are you talking about Nietzsche?
I'm wondering if it is intentional is he going back to ideas of the ubermensch or something else. Just spit balling to get some suggestions flowing.
On another note- anyone followed the Evergreen College incident, with the progressive professor Bret Weinstein?
This is the better video. The other ones have more yelling (prior to when this video starts.)
This one starts earlier and goes for longer but it is harder to hear the prof as he is further away. + Show Spoiler +
On May 28 2017 17:36 Schmobutzen wrote: Deconstruction can be a useful tool, but it has its limitations, besides the fact that its theoretical foundation is wonky, to say the least.
The biggest problem with it is that the whole world becomes the hammer that only looks for it to come down, because of its tight interweaving into power - and power only. If you make such a tool to a worldview, of course, the world will look spiked with nails, and nothing more than nails. The outcome is a shattering that sounds like cultural appropriation, identity politics, gender over the top and the group over the individual.
GH, you say something like the workers of the 17th century, as if there ever was a group like that, while there never was such a thing. Of course, there never was and never will be a "the whites" group, and if you look even further, how anyone can come out of postmodern thinking, that there is something derivable, especially if it ends in a construct like power-play, is beyond me.
I'm talking about working class people from all backgrounds found common cause in resisting the oppression of the elites. Elites found common cause dividing the working class. They tried religion, and a variety of other things but what stuck was the construction of race. It allowed them to perpetuate the oppression of the working class by creating artificial divisions that we still deal with today.
It's not to say that the working class of America and the working class of Europe were "one group" any more than elites are "one group". But there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of.
When you say " there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of" do you mean people were sitting down to plan this out? There were plotters and architects of racial theory explicitly intending to oppress poor whites? If so, who were they and when? Are you thinking of Nietzche and those that followed in his wake? Because it seems likely that the old racial hierarchy would have oppressed poor whites incidentally, not intentionally, but I am curious as to the evidence.
Why are you talking about Nietzsche?
I'm wondering if it is intentional is he going back to ideas of the ubermensch or something else. Just spit balling to get some suggestions flowing.
On another note- anyone followed the Evergreen College incident, with the progressive professor Bret Weinstein? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCZNCmMFwcI This is the better video. The other ones have more yelling (prior to when this video starts.)
On May 28 2017 17:36 Schmobutzen wrote: Deconstruction can be a useful tool, but it has its limitations, besides the fact that its theoretical foundation is wonky, to say the least.
The biggest problem with it is that the whole world becomes the hammer that only looks for it to come down, because of its tight interweaving into power - and power only. If you make such a tool to a worldview, of course, the world will look spiked with nails, and nothing more than nails. The outcome is a shattering that sounds like cultural appropriation, identity politics, gender over the top and the group over the individual.
GH, you say something like the workers of the 17th century, as if there ever was a group like that, while there never was such a thing. Of course, there never was and never will be a "the whites" group, and if you look even further, how anyone can come out of postmodern thinking, that there is something derivable, especially if it ends in a construct like power-play, is beyond me.
I'm talking about working class people from all backgrounds found common cause in resisting the oppression of the elites. Elites found common cause dividing the working class. They tried religion, and a variety of other things but what stuck was the construction of race. It allowed them to perpetuate the oppression of the working class by creating artificial divisions that we still deal with today.
It's not to say that the working class of America and the working class of Europe were "one group" any more than elites are "one group". But there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of.
When you say " there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of" do you mean people were sitting down to plan this out? There were plotters and architects of racial theory explicitly intending to oppress poor whites? If so, who were they and when? Are you thinking of Nietzche and those that followed in his wake? Because it seems likely that the old racial hierarchy would have oppressed poor whites incidentally, not intentionally, but I am curious as to the evidence.
Why are you talking about Nietzsche?
I'm wondering if it is intentional is he going back to ideas of the ubermensch or something else. Just spit balling to get some suggestions flowing.
On another note- anyone followed the Evergreen College incident, with the progressive professor Bret Weinstein? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCZNCmMFwcI This is the better video. The other ones have more yelling (prior to when this video starts.)
Facists, only obtaining what they want by the use of force. They're brainwashed to think that by "grouping, and chanting" they'll eventually get what they want. This isn't the fucking streets, that's a school, where the teacher clearly explained in the beginning that he was willing to talk about. Instead, they got mad and threatened him. It deosn't matter in my opinion if this is a left right issue, this in general is just a facist issue, you don't like our ideas or movement? Then here, have it by force...
On May 28 2017 17:36 Schmobutzen wrote: Deconstruction can be a useful tool, but it has its limitations, besides the fact that its theoretical foundation is wonky, to say the least.
The biggest problem with it is that the whole world becomes the hammer that only looks for it to come down, because of its tight interweaving into power - and power only. If you make such a tool to a worldview, of course, the world will look spiked with nails, and nothing more than nails. The outcome is a shattering that sounds like cultural appropriation, identity politics, gender over the top and the group over the individual.
GH, you say something like the workers of the 17th century, as if there ever was a group like that, while there never was such a thing. Of course, there never was and never will be a "the whites" group, and if you look even further, how anyone can come out of postmodern thinking, that there is something derivable, especially if it ends in a construct like power-play, is beyond me.
I'm talking about working class people from all backgrounds found common cause in resisting the oppression of the elites. Elites found common cause dividing the working class. They tried religion, and a variety of other things but what stuck was the construction of race. It allowed them to perpetuate the oppression of the working class by creating artificial divisions that we still deal with today.
It's not to say that the working class of America and the working class of Europe were "one group" any more than elites are "one group". But there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of.
When you say " there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of" do you mean people were sitting down to plan this out? There were plotters and architects of racial theory explicitly intending to oppress poor whites? If so, who were they and when? Are you thinking of Nietzche and those that followed in his wake? Because it seems likely that the old racial hierarchy would have oppressed poor whites incidentally, not intentionally, but I am curious as to the evidence.
Why are you talking about Nietzsche?
I'm wondering if it is intentional is he going back to ideas of the ubermensch or something else. Just spit balling to get some suggestions flowing.
On another note- anyone followed the Evergreen College incident, with the progressive professor Bret Weinstein? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCZNCmMFwcI This is the better video. The other ones have more yelling (prior to when this video starts.)
The whole thing sounds freaking stupid.
It's incredibly stupid. I can easily write it off as small minority of naive college kids on a power trip, but some see things like this as a big rising problem for the future of America. These misguided college incidents are free propaganda for any right wing media.
On May 28 2017 17:36 Schmobutzen wrote: Deconstruction can be a useful tool, but it has its limitations, besides the fact that its theoretical foundation is wonky, to say the least.
The biggest problem with it is that the whole world becomes the hammer that only looks for it to come down, because of its tight interweaving into power - and power only. If you make such a tool to a worldview, of course, the world will look spiked with nails, and nothing more than nails. The outcome is a shattering that sounds like cultural appropriation, identity politics, gender over the top and the group over the individual.
GH, you say something like the workers of the 17th century, as if there ever was a group like that, while there never was such a thing. Of course, there never was and never will be a "the whites" group, and if you look even further, how anyone can come out of postmodern thinking, that there is something derivable, especially if it ends in a construct like power-play, is beyond me.
I'm talking about working class people from all backgrounds found common cause in resisting the oppression of the elites. Elites found common cause dividing the working class. They tried religion, and a variety of other things but what stuck was the construction of race. It allowed them to perpetuate the oppression of the working class by creating artificial divisions that we still deal with today.
It's not to say that the working class of America and the working class of Europe were "one group" any more than elites are "one group". But there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of.
When you say " there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of" do you mean people were sitting down to plan this out? There were plotters and architects of racial theory explicitly intending to oppress poor whites? If so, who were they and when? Are you thinking of Nietzche and those that followed in his wake? Because it seems likely that the old racial hierarchy would have oppressed poor whites incidentally, not intentionally, but I am curious as to the evidence.
Why are you talking about Nietzsche?
On another note- anyone followed the Evergreen College incident, with the progressive professor Bret Weinstein? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCZNCmMFwcI This is the better video. The other ones have more yelling (prior to when this video starts.)
They are pretty obnoxious and rude for people supposedly taking the moral highground
Poorly thought out protests and unreasonable demands are a college tradition in the US. Its just that social media made that tradition way more annoying.
On May 28 2017 17:36 Schmobutzen wrote: Deconstruction can be a useful tool, but it has its limitations, besides the fact that its theoretical foundation is wonky, to say the least.
The biggest problem with it is that the whole world becomes the hammer that only looks for it to come down, because of its tight interweaving into power - and power only. If you make such a tool to a worldview, of course, the world will look spiked with nails, and nothing more than nails. The outcome is a shattering that sounds like cultural appropriation, identity politics, gender over the top and the group over the individual.
GH, you say something like the workers of the 17th century, as if there ever was a group like that, while there never was such a thing. Of course, there never was and never will be a "the whites" group, and if you look even further, how anyone can come out of postmodern thinking, that there is something derivable, especially if it ends in a construct like power-play, is beyond me.
I'm talking about working class people from all backgrounds found common cause in resisting the oppression of the elites. Elites found common cause dividing the working class. They tried religion, and a variety of other things but what stuck was the construction of race. It allowed them to perpetuate the oppression of the working class by creating artificial divisions that we still deal with today.
It's not to say that the working class of America and the working class of Europe were "one group" any more than elites are "one group". But there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of.
When you say " there was an intentional effort to invent race, then use it to divide by placing poor "whites" at the top of the working poor so that while they were certainly oppressed, they got to be less oppressed than any other group they perpetuated the oppression of" do you mean people were sitting down to plan this out? There were plotters and architects of racial theory explicitly intending to oppress poor whites? If so, who were they and when? Are you thinking of Nietzche and those that followed in his wake? Because it seems likely that the old racial hierarchy would have oppressed poor whites incidentally, not intentionally, but I am curious as to the evidence.
Why are you talking about Nietzsche?
I'm wondering if it is intentional is he going back to ideas of the ubermensch or something else. Just spit balling to get some suggestions flowing.
On another note- anyone followed the Evergreen College incident, with the progressive professor Bret Weinstein? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCZNCmMFwcI This is the better video. The other ones have more yelling (prior to when this video starts.)
Just did some quick catchup on the situation, and if what I read is true, these kids have some serious issues with misplacing anger.
EPT
