Aristotle: On Trolling

It isn’t paywalled; it’s open-access under a Creative Commons license.

You can read the whole thing online here: http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayFulltext?type=6&fid=10293504&jid=APA&volumeId=-1&issueId=-1&aid=10293503&bodyId=&membershipNumber=&societyETOCSession=&fulltextType=RA&fileId=S2053447716000099

Heard on progressive talk radio:

“I’m a Bernie supporter and I will never, ever vote for Hillary because she enabled Bill’s misdeeds and went after his women.”

Now that’s a Republican troll in my book.

That’s beautiful.

For Socrates was speaking frankly when he told the Athenians to care for their souls, rather than money and honors, and showed that they lacked knowledge. And this is not trolling but the contrary, exhortation and truth-telling—even if the citizens get very annoyed

(I think I saw this mentioned on Feminist Philosophers or somewhere, but I didn’t read the whole thing then – it’s delightful.)

Without articulating a method or criteria slfor distinguishing trolling from Socrates-ing, I really see little value here.

@Val

>I would definitely put myself in the Socrates camp rather than the troll camp when I try to introduce a feminist analysis to discussions on CT – even though the citizens sometimes get very annoyed

Of course you think that, but that’s exactly what a troll tells themself.

Without articulating a method or criteria slfor distinguishing trolling from Socrates-ing, I really see little value here.

She states very clearly, that among other things, whether or not the person considers herself part of and for the community and its internally valued common goods is the critical distinction. This doesn’t strike me as so difficult.

This is utterly brilliant. And yes, that final sentence, so good!

Other example Stanley Fish discusses relevant to discussion of trolling–how paid industry lobbyists “market doubt” about the science on dangers of smoking, acid rain, DDT and global warming as analyzed by Oreskes and Conway. The troll here mentions the revisability of scientific belief to argue that radical action should be delayed because all the evidence is not in, though the troll has already granted that the evidence is never all in, having accepted this feature of science in his first move as a troll. I don’t find Fish’s criticism of Oreskes and C0nway convincing, but that is another story.

The troll here mentions the revisability of scientific belief to argue that radical action should be delayed because all the evidence is not in

I blame the CIA

Your formatting obscures an important point in the translation of the last line, made clear in the journal.

Instead of “Hence the saying, ‘Trolls are not to be fed’.”
the original reads,
Hence the saying, ‘Trolls not to be fed’.

The angle-brackets on either side indicate that Barney has supplied the word “are” in her translation.

The conjecture is probably sound, but of course since the actual corresponding word does not appear in the Greek there is room for doubt.

In order to respect Barney’s scholarly caution, you ought to restore the angle-brackets.

Trying: “Trolls <are> not to be fed.”

bob mcmanus 14: She states very clearly, that among other things, whether or not the person considers herself part of and for the community and its internally valued common goods is the critical distinction. This doesn’t strike me as so difficult.

Indeed, since trolling (in “Aristotle’s” discussion) consists mainly of malign motives and bad faith arguments, it existence depends on the interior mental state of the troll. Since the good people (that is, our group) can easily discern the mental states of others as needed, there’s no difficulty at all in policing for trolls, keeping our group in line, and keeping the bad thoughts out.

I think I am with Kiwanda@26. Maybe I am just coming at this as a teacher who doesn’t try to mind-read her students (I have my theories and surmises about them, but I take each on as an honestly confused and searching person — like me), but I fear that the clever troll-reading here would discourage listening to honestly confused and seeking people. (suddenly the Greek etymos overtakes me, and gates of horn and ivory, and Penelope’s dilemma)

Krugman was pretty good at trolling Bernie supporters during the primary.

Either that or he was a secret Sanders fund-raiser.

@9

“It’s east to spot a community of closed minds: anyone who disagrees with the consensus is immediately branded a troll.”

or they do what DeLong does and ban commenters for the mildest criticisms.

Anyway, I responded by tweeting that Delong is fat.

Bob @ 17
Can Black America speak in and to White America?
Can Feminists speak to and in the Patriarchy?

Some Marxist theory explicitly states that Marxism does not speak to Capitalism and the bourgeoise, but to workers (of course does not speak for workers) and trolling the superstructure profits no one.

Feminists have to speak to and in the Patriarchy because it is performed by our brothers, fathers, lovers, friends – and, as bell hooks has said, by our mothers and even our sisters at times.

Another way to think about its brilliance is to see it as an exercise in code-switching.

It’s an organism’s immune system that’s worth examining, not millions of various microbes

This is apparent to those who also participate on non-English-language comment threads and are able to compare. Each language group has its culture, assumptions, and acceptable ways of dealing with differences, ignorance, and disruptions. I haven’t seen the levels of trolling and anger that are displayed in English-languages threads as I have witnessed in the Spanish-language ones.

False accusations of trolling are probably at least as common as actual trolling. I was accused of trolling some months back at another blog, but as the world’s leading expert on my own motives I know I was perfectly sincere. It’s one of those blogs where you can up or down vote comments. I get a lot of up votes if I ( sincerely) praise a post in some moderately clever way and am accused of trolling if I think a post is stupid and say so.

Usually I’m not accused of trolling, but it’s still my impression that false accusations of others are pretty common. Of course, actual trolling is also ( IMO) pretty common.

42: the behavior you describe in your last graf seems itself a species of trolling, since none of those “moral integrity” posts is without implicit criticism of others.

CT as a community seems to be dedicated to sincere discussion of whatever issues are at hand; the troll is one who advances an insincere or irrelevant position for purposes of derailing such discussion.

No this is just describing disingenuous argument, true trolling is about mischief and fun, it is about making people believe and react to the ridiculous. It is a form of sarcasm, it is what parents (with a sense of humour) do to their kids, it is what locals do to tourists when telling tall tales, trolling is glorious if done well.

This is a troll:

https://www.reddit.com/r/KenM/

Enjoy.

I liked the op, but tend to agree with weareastrsngemonkey. Id see the troll as a mischief maker, or mischievous sort. I think the article assumes too much rational thought and intent on the trolls part. A good troll is not necessarily trying yo sow division, but is part of the community not because they act as gadfly, but because they bring a class of merriment and sense of the absurd to the proceedings.
Having said that, I might have misunderstood who or what a troll is.

Not threaded comments! Anything but threaded comments. Trolls for the most part don’t stop me from commenting on CT threads, threaded comments would.

Also, from the OP:

And of these the amusement-troll is in a way the worst, for he aims only at his own gratification. But this one is also the least harmful; for he is careless and easy to discern, coming close to being a lover of controversy.

Satan as serpent trolls Eve; climate change-denial “scientists” troll those who put epistemological value on science. John Holbo once interestingly (but not persuasively IMO) described Nietzsche as trolling the racists of Europe, pretending to play along only to undermine racist discourse from within. I think these examples fit the description of trolling in the OP.

I think there are many great trolls, three of my favourites:

Andy Kauffman, mixed wrestling champion of the world.

Chris Morris, see Brass Eye, a high light is getting the government to discuss in parliament the problem of the drug “Cake” – “Don’t do it! It’s a made up drug!”

Sascha Baron Cohen, most of his personas trolled celebrities and politicians, I think his best character was Muhammad Ali.

This is a lovely, beautiful piece of writing. It is, for the most part, also correct. The recognition that trolling can only really be judged relative to the prevailing values of the community is vitally important, as it explains why an uncontroversial sequence of comments on CT would be regarded as trolling on, say, Samizdata (does that still exist?), and vice versa. “[D]isputing what is known to be true, or abusing what is recognised as admirable” are activities that would require very different speech depending on the values being disputed.

I think this leaves out something important though: we can judge a community, or even individuals, by what behaviour they would consider to be trolling. In some communities, statements in support of gun control or anthropogenic climate change theory or reproductive rights would be considered trolling, because the community has already decided that these things are wrong. Any attempt to out-wit the community’s leading advocates by forcing them into self-contradiction, or confrontation with indisputable evidence, would be seen as trolling.

A good 15 years ago, I was a moderator of a forum. The community had no particular ideological bias, and there was no presumption that political views were grounds for exclusion (out-and-out racism would probably receive a ban, but pretty much anything else was allowed). Because there was no community position on politics, one could not really troll the community as such. But there was a lightly-held assumption that getting really upset about other people’s political views on an internet forum was about as bad as having obnoxious political views in the first place, so it was really hard to troll the community as a whole.

What was possible was trolling specific individuals. This mostly entailed finding someone with a disagreeable view and a weak grasp of logic, and gently nudging them into self-contradiction, at which point their cognitive dissonance would cause them to make increasingly ludicrous statements. This would ratchet up until either a) the person would realise that they had become incoherent and admit defeat or b) it would become so apparent to everyone else that they had done so, and the moderators would call a halt. Generally speaking, this kind of trolling always felt benign to me; it is true that “[t]he end of the troll is not in his own speech, then, but in that of the others, when they take up his comments in as many ways as bring regret”, but causing a person to reveal the regrettable underpinnings of their arguments isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It happened to me on occasion, and made me more humble in the face of disagreement than I otherwise would have been.

It may be the case, therefore, that trolling is not a phenomenon of bad actors but of bad communities, or rather badly-governed communities. To be clear, I am not suggesting that if you have trolls in your comments that it’s your fault, but that many online discussion communities these days have both weaker moderation (Twitter) and stronger ideological biases (most blogs) than used to be the case, which makes them extremely vulnerable to low-effort trolling. The idea of a space in which communists and libertarians can argue amongst themselves, moderated by people who don’t have any particular stake in the outcome of the argument, in the context of a community that is tolerant of disagreement but not of overreaction to it, seems a long way away from reality even in the best internet communities.

This is where I feel mild disagreement with the conclusion:

But blogs and boards and forums and comments sections are where the troll dwells primarily and for the most part. For these are weak communities, and anyone may be part of them: and so their good is easily destroyed.

I’m not entirely sure what is meant by “weak communities”. I presume it means that the community is not central to the lives of its participants, which is certainly true of most online communities, but certainly not all. Perhaps it refers to weak moderation, or weak barriers to entry (but then why “and anyone may be part of them”)? In light of the earlier passages explaining how trolls target the community’s shared beliefs, it would be more correct to say that weak communities are predictable communities, in that they are defined by allegiance to some idea or principle or ideology, and are thus easily riled en masse by anyone who dissents persistently enough. The more a community is noted for its beliefs, the easier it is to troll. It is possible to build a troll-resistant community, by defining the community in opposition to excessive reaction to disagreement, but to do so necessarily means abandoning the maintenance of any other core set of ideas that all community members are meant to respect as self-evidently true.

js @ 56, I await this infuriating comment with interest. :) But I came here to reply to your horror of threaded comments, which amazes me. Threading makes it so much easier to follow conversations, which doesn’t matter so much when there aren’t many comments, but really matters in the mega-comment posts.

To weareastrangemonkey’s list I’d like to add the great troll Richard Lyons, who had the misfortune (if one cares about such things) of passing the same day as Prince.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lyons_(musician)

I get a lot of up votes if I ( sincerely) praise a post in some moderately clever way and am accused of trolling if I think a post is stupid and say so.

That’s pretty much my experience of blog commenting. Personally, I dislike trolling, I dislike ubiquitous false accusations of trolling and treating people like trolls when they are just defending their own opinions, and I disllike the endless ‘great post!” / ‘by far the best thing by anyone ever on this topic, you’re a better prose writer than F. Scott Fitzgerald, I broke down in tears while reading your blog’ / over-the-top sycophancy swarms of comments blog posts sometimes seem to elicit. There ought to be a word for that – it seems kind of like trolling’s mirror image.

Shocked to find trolling going on in here.
~

p.s. I don’t have experience w the Discourse platform that ccc mentioned. That sounds as if it might be ok.

@60 +1

I would add that I also dislike the social-sciencization of discussions of Internet behavior norms, the persistent obsession with group-building and the inevitable narrowing of the supposedly official focus until only a cult member could love it. And I’ve long thought CT has a problem in being tech-interested and seemingly wanting to attract the technical norm that once was, while also wanting to maintain discussion norms alien to that group –not so much a problem these days though.

That said, I can’t help adding this: If this were actually a treatise of Aristotle, the essay would be the first chapter. The second and third would begin as if they were the first and would offer different formulations of what might or might not be the same theory. 95% of the rest would be empirical studies of trolls with various circumstances being modified, requiring extensive debate to be reconciled with the theory. The last couple of chapters would be basically independent essays on tenuously related topics. It would be up for grabs whether the theoretical or empirical portions would age most badly; but the final, eccentric chapter would be timeless.

Trolloping is pretty good.

I like “squee” (” A noise primarily made by an over-excited fangirl”),for many reasons; the sound itself is somewhat gendered, as “troll” is gendered; it is already common usage; in those places it is used it is considered acceptable, even admirable, although in a somewhat complicated way, in that it includes the expression of vulnerability as a virtue, i.e., “I trust you folks, my community, enough to express my most embarrassing feelings” which makes it an opposite of secretive rolling.

Connected I think to the Japanese concept of Amae – 甘え …extended quote, because I think this connects to what the OP wants in order to be a place unwelcoming to trolls

Amae (甘え) is a Japanese concept/word that is used to describe people’s behavior when you desire to be loved, you desire someone to take care of you, when you want unconsciously to be depending on another person (your parents, your wife/husband or even your boss) with a certain meaning of submission.

there is even a verb amaeru that means “depend on the benevolence of others”. It happens that in Japan the amae phenomenon is very exaggerated and you find 40 years old women who act like a 15 years old girl. Japanese men like girls with childish faces, they expect childish behavior from women, they like them submissive

a girl who is working with me explains me at lunch time how much she would like our boss to be her big brother, so he could take care of her, someone like our boss would be her ideal brother.

Amae plays a fundamental role in a collectivist society where individualism is not well seen and people likes the group to have the power. Amae helps in the process of creating harmonious interconnections inside the family, in the companies and between friends.

I think “squee” carries these connotations of “amae”, of displayed vulnerability and excessive trust as virtue. The desire to be publicly uninhibited like a child, a safe space, a community that protects from nasty Internet trolls and competitive dudebros.

RNB @42

‘What would that shared conception be–the only thing shared here seems to be that (excepting js and me) CT is as all-white site as a Trump rally.’

js. @67

‘To put this another way. CT—well CT kind of has a white bro problem, a very sophisticated version of the white bro problem, I hasten to add. It’s been noted more than once that CT threads don’t get a lot of women commenters, that women who do comment often don’t stick around, etc.’

Generally speaking, I can’t find sufficient evidence in people’s comments here to draw conclusions about their colour or their gender.

I was going to react to js.’s comment, but instead I’m going to write my own hide-behind-the-sofa comment.

To wit: “Aristotle on Trolling” makes the point that a troll aims to sow “confusion and strife among a community who really agree” (emph. added).

What does the CT community “really agree” on? The comment threads feature proponents of views including anarchism, Marxism (of somewhat different varieties), social democracy, some kind of conservative or other libertarianism (a small minority, but it’s there), liberalism or progressivism (in the contemp. U.S. sense), etc. There has been a Clinton/Sanders divide in some threads, plus at least one commenter consistently not-unfriendly to Trump.

Although I think, to adapt a line of former Sup Ct Justice Potter Stewart, that I roughly know trolling when I see it, I’m not sure I cd precisely define it, nor am I sure how much a big deal it is to sow (artificial) strife in a community already characterized by considerable actual strife, or at least disagreement.

Anderson 69: “54: oh please. “never mind X, what about Palestine/abortion/superdelegates” ….”

Yes, that is one kind of usage of “derail”. I described a different, more common one.

What about feminism in your list of “views” on CT, LFC? I know it’s not there very often, but I do try sometimes.

Which in some people’s views makes me a troll! Because, I guess, in terms of the OP, they are united in seeing feminism as irrelevant to the discussion and therefore, I am a troll because I keep introducing irrelevant subjects.

It’s similar to something Bob said earlier – if a feminist tries to challenge the patriarchy (or the White Dude-Bros as js might suggest), is she a troll?

What would that shared conception be–the only thing shared here seems to be that (excepting js and me) CT is as all-white site as a Trump rally.

True (afaict) but it’s also just as much all-male, all-Anglophone, all middle-class, all over 40s (at a minimum, I’m guessing), and very heavily biased towards Americans, people with graduate degrees, and people with grievances and obsessions of one form or another and a lot of spare time. Not really representative of the world as a whole, or even white men. To the extent that there is a ‘white bro’ problem it’s seems as likely to have been caused by the self-selection of the OPs (see side-bar) as the commenters.

I do think there’s a kind of ‘wise old men’ vibe to some of the long threads with endless speech-length posts though

nor am I sure how much a big deal it is to sow (artificial) strife in a community already characterized by considerable actual strife, or at least disagreement.

That’s easy. Communities which are characterised by considerable disagreement have norms which circumscribe the space for such disagreement and the manner in which it can be carried on and violating these norms will create strife (to test this, you could try delivering a paper in defence of ISIS at the APSA, or punching a panellist…)

I enjoyed the definition in this post because I really wasn’t sure what a troll was, before, and from this I instantly recognized some behaviour I’ve seen here. Granted that there are other definitions, but running with this one, it seems to me that John Holbo is one of the biggest trolls here (can one troll one’s own blog?) He regularly sows discord, resulting in long, acrimonious comment threads, by appearing to write seriously about something serious, but really taking the opposite point of view, to everyone’s consternation (or at least, to mine.)

“What about feminism in your list of “views” on CT, LFC?”

I think most people here would consider themselves pro-feminist the same way they consider themselves pro-gay-rights, for instance, but mostly they don’t want to talk about it explicitly. (To generalize madly, but that’s my impression).

@84 was already thinking of the compliment before you wrote @73.

This piece just convinced me further that accusations of ‘trolling’ are just another attempt by the majority to get the minority to shut up. ‘Trolling’ in this piece akin to the old accusations of being a ‘splitter’ in Marxist circles. Except instead of the ‘splitter’ being exiled from the party for fracturing the unity of the proletariat, the troll is ‘splitting’ the hypothesized ideological unity of the discourse community. What is supposed to distinguish the troll from someone who just disagrees with you is that the troll is ‘pretending’ to be a member of your group while ‘actually’, no matter how politely or even correctly, disagreeing with what you posit to be the core principles of your community. But of course the claim to define these core principles and to get everyone who disagrees with them to shut up is itself a power play of the highest order.

Also, I didn’t find the pseudo-Aristotelean gobbledygook this was written in to improve the clarity or quality of the piece that much.

I don’t think that engels’ “Marxism” is actually Marxism either, given that he doesn’t hold to any core Marxist beliefs. He’s just a poseur.

As for the rest, I see that it’s the usual: “a work ethic of excessive posting that serves the psychological need for signs of being predestined to be a member of the moral elect”, “mental masturbation”, “white bro problem”, “‘wise old men’ vibe”: all about people who are more interesting than you are and have more to say. It’s good thing that the anti-dudebros here are so concerned about civility.

I plan on ignoring the comments of the people who are being jerks in this way, so you can discuss whatever without me infringing on your safe space. Although if you do persist in lying about my views as engels does I’ll reply in kind.

Also, I didn’t find the pseudo-Aristotelean gobbledygook this was written in to improve the clarity or quality of the piece that much.

BLANK STARE.

I don’t think that engels’ “Marxism” is actually Marxism either… He’s just a poseur.

So you won’t be informing me that my discredited beliefs caused several million deaths anymore then – that’s nice

I’m glad to see the confirmation that js’ holier-than-thou condemnation of bromanship is just his resentment at his own behavior being called out on a previous thread. I do expect to get back some of what I dish out: I don’t pretend that I’m speaking for community values when I do so. As usual, the people who do pretend to speak for a community that they don’t actually speak for are just putting a smarmy face on old grudges and trying to pretend that anyone who disagrees with them has just insulted a whole group of people that they somehow speak for.

Ze K @92

An ‘art’ (techne) in Aristotle’s sense is a craft or skill (e.g. medicine, housebuilding), which is more than just a knack because it involves principles and can be taught. It’s generally thought that an art has the function (ergon) of producing a good (health, shelter). Trolling has outcomes, but probably doesn’t count as having a function in that sense. Also, truly high-level trolling is arguably a knack or instinct that eludes codification. In which case it’s not an art.

js. @ 68

Thanks for the vote of confidence!

I’m with js (in fact I seem to agree with js about a lot!) – I think non threaded is better than threaded, particularly at CT where people are commenting at different time zones (right now it’s four in the morning here and I’m on the overnight bus to Adelaide and can’t sleep). So you can have several different conversations going, and people can pick them up as they come in and out of the overall conversation.

@ 83
I think most people here would consider themselves pro-feminist the same way they consider themselves pro-gay-rights, for instance, but mostly they don’t want to talk about it explicitly. (To generalize madly, but that’s my impression).

I have been reading some gender analysis in my area (public health) and it tends to confirm the old trope ‘gender = women’. In general, seems as if much discourse proceeds as if there are ‘normal people’ (adult, able bodied white men + plus people, including women, who can play by the rules for adult able bodied white males) and ‘others’ (people who can’t or won’t play by the rules for adult able bodied white males). That’s a crude summary but obviously I cant reproduce here all the 14000 words I’ve just written on this stuff! (Perhaps when I finally finish my thesis I will be able to summarise these ideas simply and clearly – maybe :) )

Val @104

It’s a nonce-word constructed from three Greek roots (each of which can probably be found using Google) to mean ‘the rule [or ‘domination’] of white brothers [or ‘the white brotherhood’]’.

Val @106

Since you ask me, I can find no value, as a contribution to this discussion, in the sentence you quote.

But as someone said above, there’s nothing wrong with one blog among many being a place for white men to talk about politics and academics. It’s a private blog, we’re guests. It rankles when the topic is something germane to women, like abortion or sexual assault, though.

Engels: No.

There isn’t even an implicit policy of attracting “whites males only” to comment here, so the argument is moot. It’s just US identity politics lunacy (basically rnb wants more of a specific demographic (manufactured for purposes of personal grievance )commenting, ie more of himself, which is all of the above with a different skin pigmentation)

Val, keep an eye out for this when it’s not behind a paywall .

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/04/catholic-church-ireland-magdalene-laundries-mother-baby-homes/

Might be interesting to you

the argument is moot

there’s nothing wrong with one blog among many being a place for white men to talk about politics and academics. It’s a private blog, we’re guests

which implies, I’m fairly sure, that CT is such a place. I disagreed with the italicised statement (I think that barring special circumstances there probably is something wrong with a blog that is ‘a place for white men to talk about politics’ even if it is ‘a private blog’), you evidently disagree with the implication (but clearly others disagree with you). I’m baffled as to how that makes either point ‘moot’…

@113 I was thinking more along the lines of how more diversity in the OP could have led to broader discussions, e.g. in the Piketty seminar no OP even mentioned his analysis of inequality in the Middle East or the dynamics of nationalization in post-colonial Africa or the nature of racial wealth inequality in the US; but we did have discussion of Australia. Most of the US election stuff has been focused on Sanders vs. Clinton. I don’t think there has been an OP on how Trump may be changing the norms of racial discourse in the US. Stuart Hall passed; there was no mention. University politics have been recently been violent in India and South Africa (from what I understand)–no mention. Obama is about to visit Hiroshima–no discussion. What is happening in Brazil is quite interesting, to put it mildly.
I understand that you think I am promoting a narrow identity politics of grievance. If so, just ignore what I write. I try to contribute to discussions substantively. The way I see it, the list would benefit from more diverse OP’s.

I vote for Stuart Hall and Brazil – I’m over there for a few weeks shortly and will hopefully talk to people a bit about the situation – in the mean time, Perry Anderson’s well-worth reading

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n08/perry-anderson/crisis-in-brazil

Engels, yes, their interests are quite obvious. Here you won’t find arguments over doctrinal disputes in Lebanese Shiism . So what ? They are white-anglosphere-political economy people. The fact that they don’t overly branch out, IMO, is a positive, as it means the content is higher. And this is not a homogenised demographic. There is a lot of diversity within the Atlantic/aus political world , even if the monoperspective of US identity politics might ignore it

Typo- emigration , not immigration.

Well, we can agree to disagree. I found you were unresponsive to any argument put to you. Regardless, in this thread you tried too write off any opposition you might face (past , present it future) as

“CT is as all-white site as a Trump rally.

I would say that the site is more marred by those who want to leave evidence of their exceptional moral integrity and incorruptibility though posts that are too long and/or too numerous than engage in a careful debate on difficult issues. Trolling is less a problem that a work ethic of excessive posting that serves the psychological need for signs of being predestined to be a member of the moral elect.”

There’s no significant difference between your quote and mine

Now, from enda delaneys “diaspora”

“It was also presumed at least initially that migration had a positive impact on the economy of the southern European sending countries in that unemployment levels would be reduced, much needed foreign currency acquired and the migrants would eventually return with useful skills. However, the available evidence indicates that the ‘benefits’ of migration for sending countries were in fact illusory. It would be difficult to summarize the various strands of this overarching debate on the effects of migration on the sending country here, but increasingly the consensus – insofar as one exists – appears to support the view that few benefits were accrued by southern European countries by large-scale migration to western Europe.”

I would genuinely love if the adherents of mono causality in US political science would read the historical record

Ze K @ 129

But if everyone is rational, it’s just like if you didn’t have diversity, eh? “We need more Diversity” is just the complaint of those who can’t cut it (in Val’s words, “can’t or won’t play by the rules for adult able bodied white males”)?

In that case, we can rely on Bruce Wilder to formulate the sense of the comments thread, and the rest of us can take a nap.

Val @ 106

>Is it just snark, coming from a place of privilege*?

Snark indeed it is, as snark is all that your complaints about being oppressed or marginalised by CT ‘whitebro culture’ deserve. As for you, I won’t even bother – been there, done that. As for js. @69, he ludicrously implies that thread derailment is somehow a white male thing; and then comes the dark hint that when Maria and Belle Waring’s posts are sometimes criticised, this is somehow mistreatment of them qua women (and not, say, a reaction to the content of their posts). Of course, the hint has to be portentous, yet vague and nonspecific, because otherwise it might be difficult to defend. As for RNB, at 42 he makes a similarly portentous comment about CT’s being as white as a Trump rally except for him and js.; this was clearly about race, not nationality (since they are both American). That CT is too limited to Anglosphere perspectives (@ 117), which I agree with, is a completely separate issue from race.

As for my ‘privilege’, considering the shitty country I am from, you Western academics and professionals, black or white, female or male, are all automatically very palpably above me, financially and in terms of living standards. In addition, you are privileged by the fact that it is the governments elected by you that invade, subvert democracy and instigate and support coups in countries like mine, not vice versa. As a matter of fact, both of you, RNB and Val, have defended this privilege by supporting the US presidential candidate that has engaged in such actions (besides her general pro-business, anti-egalitarian policies). Flaunting an oppressed identity, while actually defending and serving oppression is an excellent way to advance within the System, Condoleezza Rice-style.

Lynne @109
>But as someone said above, there’s nothing wrong with one blog among many being a place for white men to talk about politics and academics. … It rankles when the topic is something germane to women, like abortion or sexual assault, though.

Absolutely nothing prevents any non-white or non-male person from talking about politics and academics on CT. If *you* don’t join any discussions but those specifically germane to women, that’s *your* choice, not the fault of other commenters or blog policy.

Probably won’t be responding, because handling the shitstorm likely to ensue would take too much time.

It occurs to me I may have misread Ze K. Maybe what they want isn’t for the Trump rally guy to be actually here, but for us over-cosmopolitanized comfortable professional US liberals who all are comfortable discussing academic stuff as would be acceptable in whatever Cambridge, to listen to those regular Trump rally people? (I admit it, I’ve been on the Internet too long and can’t keep track of the crackpot theories anymore.) Maybe “Trump rally people” is a total, ridiculous myth, one that we rich people whose daddies paid cash for college (because how the hell could we feel free to post comments on such a high-class place as Crooked Timber otherwise) have projected onto the real people. And obviously the fact that we defer to over-cosmopolitanized academics is something we would never do if we listened to the real people.

why do I get the impression that people like F Foundling aren’t interested in what I’m saying so much as they are interested in what their imaginary Straw Woman Feminist is saying?

Because they’ve long ago lost interest in replying to people and are working on moving the discourse one paragraph at a time. You are only interesting as a provider of material for them to work with. They may not even realize anymore that individual people exist, just floating indications of mentalities. (Maybe that doesn’t apply to FF and if so I apologize. It’s a generalization and doesn’t need to be applied to any one person to be informative.)

Also I can’t get over the number of people who attack RNB and js for saying that CT appears to be largely white. No-one is saying they’re wrong, AFAIC, just dredging up reasons why it doesn’t matter, or they’re bad people, or something. Can’t we look at the actual issues? Is CT largely white and male and does that matter? I dont really agree with Lynn’s suggestion before that it doesn’t really matter – I think it does matter because I think women and POC are maybe feeling that their views won’t be respected here. Also even though the CT bloggers are predominantly white and male, I don’t think they want women and people of colour to feel excluded.

Also there seems to be a suggestion that if RNB really cared about diversity, he would always agree with Lupita, that’s obviously not right. If he were being disrespectful to Lupita or calling her “nutty” or saying that he wouldn’t bother to engage with her in future, maybe, but I don’t recall RNB doing those kinds of things.

If a group of people set up a group blog because they want to use it to explore and discuss a particular domain, then the diversity (or lack of it) of those people will affect how close they come to exploring the full extent of that domain (or, conversely, how close they come to restricting the blog to a narrow subdivision of that domain).

The same analysis does not apply if a group of people set up a group blog mostly because they feel comfortable together each blogging about personal interests.

Just to take one specific example, if some people set up a group blog to explore and discuss the impact of globalisation, but those people all came from the same country and had the same ancestry and religious affiliation and same gender identity and sexuality, then the discussion on the blog would skew towards an exploration and discussion of the impact of globalisation as it is experienced by people of that country, ancestry, religious affiliation, and gender identity and sexuality. (The demographic profile of the commenters would also be likely to skew towards the demographic profile of the bloggers.) People who want to establish a group blog that explores and discusses the impact of globalisation more broadly than that need to recruit bloggers with some consideration of diversity of backgrounds.

By contrast, if I, as a lone individual, decided to set up my own blog about the impact of globalisation, the fact that I, as a lone individual, am not a representative sample of humanity would be irrelevant. Such a blog could be expected to skew towards my personal perspective (which is naturally affected by my personal background), but that’s what every individual blog does; that is, as they say, a feature, not a bug.

If it’s an object of Crooked Timber to explore and discuss the experience of humanity, then a lack of diversity among the bloggers would guarantee failure. My impression, though, is that the objects of Crooked Timber are more idiosyncratic than that.

No sooner had I finished that comment than I realised there’s something else I should have added.

Given the apparently idiosyncratic nature of Crooked Timber, the demographic skew of bloggers and commenters and its effect on the nature of discussion is a legitimate subject for discussion — that is, at least some of the time: certainly in comments on a post like this one.

Hey Val,

“Is CT largely white and male and does that matter? I dont really agree with Lynn’s suggestion before that it doesn’t really matter– I think it does matter because I think women and POC are maybe feeling that their views won’t be respected here. ”

Yes, it matters. Where I was coming from may sound odd in the context of this discussion, but just because people here are mostly white men, I wouldn’t want them to feel they should keep quiet. Someone dear to me once said he didn’t want to contribute to a discussion because it was already dominated by white men (and he is that) and I’ve never forgotten it. I wanted his voice to be heard. And this is a private blog. If I have a bunch of people into my house to talk and the group isn’t representative, well, so it goes.

But of course discussions are necessarily lacking at times, and sometimes it is provoking when the majority don’t seem to notice the lack.

there’s nothing wrong with one blog among many being a place for white men to talk about politics and academics. It’s a private blog, we’re guests.

This is true. But I would think that the owners of this blog wouldn’t want this to be a space where white men get together to talk. So if that is what this blog is or has become—and to be clear I don’t think it’s nearly quite that bad—then that would be problematic I think. In any case, it’s what you say later that I think is exactly right: “But of course discussions are necessarily lacking at times, and sometimes it is provoking when the majority don’t seem to notice the lack.” That’s very much what I’d want to say too.

——

@ccc — So I spent some time over at boingboing.net. And there a lot more than just threading going on there obviously, or pseudo-threading or whatever. There’s a pretty sophisticated system of community review, different statuses for commenters, etc. I guess I can see something like that working, tho it does seem a little time-intensive on commenters’ part. And while I can see that working well in some contexts, I can also imagine it going horribly wrong in others. (I’m imagining factions developing e.g.)

This blog has been strongly pro-globalization on every possible (IIRC) question for as long as I’ve been reading it.

But, okay, that goes back to the definition of the troll as outside the community. Pro-globalization people can chat if they like. People who disagree shouldn’t disrupt the discussion just because they disagree. If certain kinds of disagreement are going to be ruled out of bounds, that’s their choice.

There are no shortage of non-white and non-western people who take the same position and the same economistic approach. I’m sure there are lots of women who do also. They’re just not in comments, maybe for good reason. Instead, here, we have two extremes.

Lupita has talked about the unintended beneficial consequences of Trump’s policies would have on “the Third World” on whose behalf she speaks.

@RNB

I also do not know where Lupita is from as Lupita seems not to want to locate herself so she can speak on behalf of all of Latin America and the Third World in general.

I find it intriguing that you accuse me of posing as the voice of all of Latin America, and indeed of the whole 3rd world, by means of not locating myself, but not of all women or all non-whites. I guess I would have to locate myself in the West in order to be able to fill the last two positions, just like the presidencies of the World Bank and the IMF are.

@143 So are you President of the World Bank or the IMF?

W now I understand why you have so many annoying hangers-on here.

there’s nothing wrong with one blog among many being a place for white men to talk about politics and academics. It’s a private blog, we’re guests.

This is true.

And there was me thinking this a might be a complex issue that required more than a millisecond’s thought. How foolish of me!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/8320250/Lady-golfers-unhappy-about-law-to-end-sex-discrimination.html
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB124588111858449559
http://www.zuzeeko.com/2010/01/racial-discrimination-in-night-clubs.html

Ze K @ 159

Oh, sure. Can the ones talk who disagree with you that those are the only two important groups, too?

Val @ 152

So Bianca are you suggesting that if the majority here supported globalisation, then someone coming here and criticising globalisation could legitimately be seen as a troll? I don’t think I quite got what you meant.

Legitimately? No. According to a certain definition of “community” you occasionally run across, and a certain theory about the best kind of community and how much of their beliefs they have to share–which I disagree with and dislike–possibly. In that case, this would be a blog to–say–discuss globalization using complicated economics arguments, that didn’t necessarily rule out left-leaning interests, but which most people couldn’t be expected to understand (which seems, in fact, to be the only kind of discussion that’s still vibrant at CT these days–and the rest of us would be, to use a word that’s already been used, “guests.”

But I just meant that if pretty much everyone here prefers RNB’s kind of post to Lupita’s, it isn’t surprising that Lupita is criticized or that RNB thinks it’s natural that she is.

In practice I would think most people might have mixed feelings about it – good and bad aspects. But sometimes I think things get ascribed to globalisation that are more related to neoliberalism or capitalism.

Surely we can call globalization a subset of “neoliberal” policies, whatever neoliberalism is? In any case, what difference does it make?

I’m not a guest, I’m a squatter.

js: “This is true. But I would think that the owners of this blog wouldn’t want this to be a space where white men get together to talk. So if that is what this blog is or has become—and to be clear I don’t think it’s nearly quite that bad—then that would be problematic I think.”

It is problematic, if they don’t want this space to be male-dominated. This is not a good place to talk about feminism or issues that are particularly important to women. I don’t like that, I wish it were different. But it isn’t my blog.

As for this caution Bob McM alludes to above, that men exercise in wading into territory not their own…except, as he further says, when the topic is feminism: well, I’ve noticed the lack of caution when feminism is under discussion. Maybe some men are keeping quiet, though, and I’m not noticing their absence.

Here’s a scenario, which I have seen: A group of people is discussing something, maybe they’re using casual language, and so on, and an outsider joins the group and presses for less cussing, less gossip, more seriousness, less sex, less chitchat and so on. Is this trolling, or is that person Socrates? If they succeed in changing the character of the group, is that illegitimate? After all, later-comers won’t know who was first, and they were trying to get the sense of the discussion before they chimed in, and made a good faith effort to do so. At least, do the others at least have a valid complaint, even after they lost “fair and square”?

Is there a natural course of events for Internet communities?

I think people are being categorized in two different ways when talking about diversity. First, there is the RNB categorization where only Westeners are divided by race and sex: Western demographic diversity. Then there is the second one, where diversity is viewed as a product of experience, culture, ideology, language, and nationality: diversity of thought. I find it curious that when talking about demographic diversity, I am not mentioned as an example of a female and non-white poster but am placed in a foreign category where these dimensions are of secondary concern.

As to CT becoming more demographically diverse among its Western posters, I see no way of measuring this except for all posters constantly filling out forms such as the ones needed to cross the US border. As to international diversity, please remember that posting in an academic blog in a foreign language is not what many would consider relaxing or entertaining. It is difficult to express thoughts while taking into consideration cultural differences, meanings of political terms, and background knowledge. Non-Westeners have to translate their thoughts for a Western audience. I have spent a great deal of time composing posts, trying to explain foreign notions, explaining how we see things and feel them, what is important to us, and giving examples, only to realize that I have totally missed the mark. My point is, I don’t think CT will ever get many non-Western posters. It is just too difficult and underappreciated a task.

Just as RNB sees me as a raceless, sexless blur of otherness, I must admit that I see Westeners the same. I do not see how stating your race and sex would add depth to your posts. Actually, viewing demographic diversity as an indicator of ideological diversity seems a very Western notion to me and the latest intent of legitimizing neoliberal globalization, which I doubt will catch on since it is so alienating and incomprehensible to non-Westeners. I have never self-identified as a POC.

salty, little yellow ball of light — you are wrong on the internets!

I’m a being of pure enervation.

As to international diversity, please remember that posting in an academic blog in a foreign language is not what many would consider relaxing or entertaining. It is difficult to express thoughts while taking into consideration cultural differences, meanings of political terms, and background knowledge. Non-Westeners have to translate their thoughts for a Western audience. I have spent a great deal of time composing posts, trying to explain foreign notions, explaining how we see things and feel them, what is important to us, and giving examples, only to realize that I have totally missed the mark.

This. A thousand times this.

Z and others,
You are missing the nature of this discussion–it is much more political than it is academic. Claiming to speak on behalf of a lot of people (Latin Americans, Third Worlders, Lat American women, the world’s poor), Lupita has told us that immigration policy should not be at the center of debates about international inequality just as you doubtless know harraga are dying at sea and welcomed the closing down of trade between wealthy and poor countries.

These are political positions, not properly academic ones. And authenticating these reactionary positions as how “we see things and feel them, what is important to us”, as if Lupita speaks for the world, is absurd judged as the political argument that it is .

Others would argue differently. And so it goes.

js. @154
I take the point. Occasionally it’s hard to tell whether someone is arguing in good faith, but at other times it isn’t. I’m not in favor of bad-faith arguing. (I’m also, tbh, not that into these kinds of meta-discussions, but that’s prob. just me.)

Ze K @179
The opening sentence/paragraph of that piece you link is incorrect. Hastert was *not* charged with (and therefore not sentenced for) sexual abuse of minors, because the statute of limitations had run and therefore he couldn’t be charged w/ those acts.

From an ABC news piece (emphasis added):

After the sentencing hearing, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois made a statement, saying “With this case, the Office sought to hold Mr. Hastert accountable for the crimes he committed that could still be prosecuted: illegally structuring cash withdrawals and lying to the government about his motive for engaging in that activity. All of us have been inspired by the strength and bravery of the victims and witnesses who came forward in the most challenging of circumstances.

Follow the links in Ze K’s Hastert thingie and see what happens to your bullshit detector.

You are missing the nature of this discussion–it is much more political than it is academic.

RNB, I haven’t followed the discussion between you and Lupita at all. I did find her comment about what it means to participate in a discussion shaped by different cultural norms very eloquent.

I come from a culture which is reasonably close to the dominant one on CT and yet I find myself very often taken off guard by positions which are apparently treated here as the norm. To tie this up with another theme of the thread, I tend not to post in discussions about feminism and/or race, or at least try to refrain myself from doing so, because the normal understanding of these terms in the society I operate is significantly different from the normal one here-both “normal” to be understood in purely statistical terms, no judgment implied-and bridging the gap has proven beyond my rhetorical capabilities. You know, in other words, “I have spent a great deal of time composing posts, trying to explain foreign notions, explaining how we see things and feel them, what is important to us, and giving examples, only to realize that I have totally missed the mark.”

But that I repeatedly felt the same feeling of alienation (in the very strict sense) as the one Lupita describes does not mean I endorse (or reject) her positions.

I didn’t follow the discussion on the immigration-related thread betw RNB and Lupita so I’m not addressing that exchange. I don’t think, however, that to characterize RNB as caring only about arguments from/about economics (however defined exactly) is quite accurate. But he can speak for himself.

Btw, I shd have acknowledged engels’ comment way upthread to the effect that the politics of the posters and perhaps majority of commenters here are ‘left-liberal’. One cd make that case. But as engels himself noted, they do draw responses from other parts of the political spectrum.

RNB @178

The correct answer to the question ‘What should be at the centre of debates about international inequality?’ is not ‘Immigration policy’.

Val: “Can you point me to the place where I tried to have you banned?”

I vaguely recall that there was more than one, but can’t be bothered to Google. I’m pretty sure the first was in this thread in comment #218, although I’ve linked instead to a great work of comic genius that languishes forgotten in that thread. Since I can’t be bothered to find more, I’ll amend my comment to “threatened to try to have me banned.” For non-response to comments and/or argumentative misrepresentation.

@185 I see how you have read the quote, Z. It’s not what I read in it.

@189. We should think about this more carefully, J-D. Let’s say we tripled the number of migrants from 3% to 9% of the global population and that migration primarily took the form of generally so-called unskilled labor trapped in some kind of informal sector in poor countries moving to wealthy countries, what would be the effect on the global level of inequality? It could possibly reduce it more in a shorter span of time than increased development aid would. Or perhaps not. But again I think we would have to think it through.

Or even more radically assume that borders were abolished, what would happen to the global level of inequality? Again it’s a complex question, as Milanovic himself has underlined, in part due to the effects this would have on the cultural unity of peoples living in nation states and the unpredictable effects the weakening of those cultural forms would have on the social and political life of people.

@184 silly point. This thread was supposed to be about trolling. I did not give economic examples but quoted Milton on Satan trolling Eve, mentioned how climate skeptics troll those who put value on science, and recalled how Holbo interpreted Nietzsche as trolling the racists of his time. This makes me narrowly economic, that I read a prepublication copy of Stanley Fish’s new book on argument and used examples from it?

Those are not economic examples. In response to the OP, I noted that it was not clear to me that there is a shared conception of the good that a troll here could undermine, the only thing being shared here is the whiteness of the people who post the OP’s here and comment.

The point of that flippant comment was to underline that very little here is shared so the CT blog is not really vulnerable to being trolled in the sense that the OP specifies. LFC clearly understood what I said not as primarily an attack on the demographics of the list. The point I made was that I found the morally elect more disruptive of serious conversation than trolling per se.

Some then just went crazy with my talking about the whiteness of CT being and not respecting the diversity that Lupita brings, which people assume perhaps out of prejudice is that of non-academic person who is also from (for reasons incomprehensible to me) an *unspecified non-English speaking poor country* and has anointed herself spokesperson of all women living under the yoke of US imperialism.

At any rate, what do you (bianca steele) mean that I don’t sound like someone who has a non-white, non-Western name?

RNB @193/194

I have thought about it carefully. The correct answer to the question ‘What should be at the centre of debates about international inequality?’ is not ‘Immigration policy’.

engels@195

So optimistic!

We’re talking about something that happened when you called yourself something different from “RNB”, right?

Ooooh, a mystery.

I knew it was a mistake to reply to your question when you asked when you did this. I never said that you had any special power to have me banned: on the contrary, I thought that the idea of reporting me for arguing against you / not responding to you was ludicrous, control-freaky, and not likely to get any response as indeed it did not. The fact that you thought it was a good idea and *still* think it’s a good idea only proves that what I wrote about you was correct the whole time: you take personal disputes and insist on treating them as evidence of anti-feminism (your personal disputes, that is, I’ve never seen you care much about any of the other female commenters here such as Lupita who is currently being attacked for being a Third World woman who declines to provide information about herself in a way that would have you running to the moderators if it was you), and your idea about what to do about anti-feminism is based around enforcement of your ideas of what the norms should be.

I’ll try to go back to ignoring you. I realize that I’ve written that a lot, but sadly I don’t always follow through on my self-set goals.

RNB: “In response to the OP, I noted that it was not clear to me that there is a shared conception of the good that a troll here could undermine, the only thing being shared here is the whiteness of the people who post the OP’s here and comment.”

This sort of thing frankly baffles me. I, myself, have little ability to detect whiteness from prose, and I wonder if this is caused by the absence of some sensory organ or my failure to fully exploit one. If you, RNB, did not tell me your race, I would not only have no idea what it was, I would in fact spend not one second speculating about it, since, from my perspective, any such speculation would be as rewarding as reading tea leaves. If anything, I think such speculation is a distraction – one ought to be able to engage with another’s ideas an words as they are presented.

@206 Well yes layman we should try to engage with ideas of others. You don’t think I do that? My comment was really about the diversity of who posts the OP’s here and the effect it has on the kinds of issues that are put up for discussion in the first place, which reflects in my opinion a lack of diversity. For example, note that the parts of the Piketty book on inequality in the Middle East and the dynamics of nationalization in post-colonial Africa and the colonial ownership of assets and the nature of racial inequality in the US were not as far as I remember addressed by any of those invited to write a comment on the book. Now of course those topics could have been addressed by a white person, but no such person was invited. The result was a more narrow discussion of the book than we should have had.
I also see no harm in asking people here to out themselves as some kind of minority so we can figure out one of the factors possibly influencing discussion. It’s just one data point.

@211 Well sure that is my point. None of the ten people invited to comment on the book talked about some parts of the book that I found very interesting and Piketty found important enough to research and write about. Why were those parts of the book ignored? Do you too think they were not as interesting as those parts that were chosen for discussion? Who determines/how is it determined what is “interesting” enough for discussion?

Here is the cue, I think, for the sociology-centric commenter to explain to RNB about how there are rules and process and discourse and such. (Everyone gets to decide for themselves whether they mean to include race and other diversity issues in their ‘splainin.)

Also I don’t think anyone made the criticism of Piketty’s book that Tim Harford did, which is that the primary source of inequality is not determined by class position within a nation but by luck in the birthright lottery of national belonging and that Piketty’s “methodological nationalism” makes him blind to this. Yes, I think this would have been worth talking about, but it was not considered interesting enough to be a point of focus. Why is that? I say that it reflects a certain CT blindness to the world outside of Europe and its settler colonies.

@215 shorter Layman: no problem here; the internet is open and free.

Z, there was never any incident in which RNB posted under another nym (as far as I know): bianaca steele simply made that up as a hypothetical reason why someone might have picked on him because she couldn’t read or couldn’t understand the actual reason, which as I wrote about above was that he was defending bombing as humanitarian intervention in Syria. If you object to “rational” “academic” consideration of humanitarian bombing, that makes you one of the moral elect.

Yes, the old Rich posted a lot about how this comments section was like or unlike his church; the new Rich had gone Nietzschean, “anarchy means the strong overcome” kind of thing.

Also, he’s suddenly found the old Usenet subculture of telling people “you can’t read,” which doesn’t say much for his powers of observation.

I don’t know whether RNB wants to be outed or not. S/he can have it both ways for all I care.

@221 no one is saying that there isn’t much of great value in what Piketty is trying to explain and how he is framing the issue (I think I was one of Piketty’s biggest fan boys here despite notsneaky’s and JW Mason’s arguments against him), but if the question is human inequality, then he may have missed its most important determinant in the last two hundred years. This is worth talking about. Tim Harford had a nice column in the FT, citing Milanovic on this.

bianca steele: “Yes, the old Rich posted a lot about how this comments section was like or unlike his church; the new Rich had gone Nietzschean, “anarchy means the strong overcome” kind of thing.”

I have to say that bianca steele consistently does the worst misreadings of anyone I’ve ever encountered. “anarchy means the strong overcome”! I invite anyone here to decide for themselves whether I’ve “gone Nietzchean” or think that anarchy means the strong overcome. I avoid responding to bianca steele not only because she’s insulting, but because she literally can not understand what anyone writes.

I have no idea whether RNB really can be “outed” as anyone else — though if so, I’m sure that he or she is glad that bianca steele brought it up — and in any case that wasn’t the reason why I criticized RNB.

I, myself, have little ability to detect whiteness from prose

Well, when, people start getting Trump-curious or get all “Hillary’s the *true* imperialist hawk [guffaw, guffaw]”, you can make some well educated guesses.

js @ 228, and can you tell non-whiteness from certain comments, too? I’ve been pretty colour-blind here, maybe a fault of mine for not reading closely enough.

Any takers for the theory that all of the commenters here are actually one very bored person who’s been serially commenting for over a decade as an elaborate joke?

AL @232 — I’m going with John Holbo.

@ js, if I were to say that reading stupid comments on the internets led me to speculate about the race of the author, I imagine you’d say that was, well, racist. When instead I say it doesn’t lead me to speculate about the the race of the author, you say that’s racist.

That’s some catch, that Catch-22.

@Layman — Honestly, where did I say or imply that either such speculation or lack of speculation is or should be considered racist? Because I’m really pretty certain I did no such thing.

@js.

Well, when, people start getting Trump-curious or get all “Hillary’s the *true* imperialist hawk [guffaw, guffaw]”, you can make some well educated guesses.

From today’s Guardian:

‘He’s our hero’: Hindu nationalists rally for Donald Trump in India

Not all of Trump’s Indian supporters come from a rightwing Hindu background. Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, a foreign policy analyst and magazine columnist, says that he just didn’t want to see Hillary Clinton in power.

Projecting unto the rest of the world, where most non-whites live, the US’ peculiar brand of identity and racial politics, where one can make an educated guess about a person’s politics based on race, may prove problematic.

The likelihood of being a supporter of the anti-Muslim bigot Trump even if you are a reactionary supporter of Hindutva is remarkably low. Still I imagine President Trump’s first visit in India will be to the Babri Masjid.

@js.

My point was that one cannot use American racial assumptions on foreign populations. For example, I once commented on opinion pieces supporting Trump that have been popping up in the Latin American media. The reason given was his opposition to NAFTA which the Latin American left also strongly opposes. It would be mistaken to ascribe to Latin Americans any of the whiteness ascribed to American Trump supporters. Different cultures, different societies, different politics.

Oh the reason Trump has been popping up in the Latin American media is his opposition to NAFTA in which apparently, according to Lupita, the clueless Latin American left finds echoes of their own concerns? Um, Lupita can you think of another reason or two his name may have popped up here or there or his effigy burned?

“Yes, I think this would have been worth talking about, but it was not considered interesting enough to be a point of focus. Why is that? I say that it reflects a certain CT blindness to the world outside of Europe and its settler colonies.”

Oh come on. Your initial comment was quite obviously a mealy mouthed attack on a handful of commentators who you’d had a previous run in with. The idea that your only concern is to expand the parochial perspectives of people here, to a truly global one , is self serving bull. Most notably because (1) this particular issue (birthright lottery) has been dealt with multiple times, particularly by Chris bertram (who had a book event on it) and (2) I don’t really see any interest from you in other countries, politically or socially, beyond the superficiality of a Harford analysis, or how they tie into US politics (ie humanitarian interventions, immigration etc).
And your initial objection to lack of diversity *was purely parochial*. You objected to the lack of non white Americans, not the lack of foreign voices (of course in terms of foreign input, ct doesn’t do too bad, particularly compared to other US centric sites. There is what, nearly 10 nationalities represented here? Add in different ethnic groups within those countries and that number increases again. Your objection was primarily a parochial one, concerned with arguments you had had with other commenters on other threads over trump. Now it’s a more noble concern , that we don’t have equal representation for all the peoples of the world)

Rania Khalek is simply wrong that Clinton is to the right of Trump. Trump would not care at all if Assad killed off civilian opposition or if Qaddafi had been left alone to do the same. Trump has pledged to tear up the deal with Iran, not Clinton. Trump had Bobby Knight introduce him as the candidate ready to drop nuclear weapons again. Trump has spoken in defense of torture even without the supposition that it would yield useful information.

Let me try a longer comment. Probably a mistake!

Lynne asked me upthread if I can “tell non-whiteness” from comments. Well, generally, no, tho there might be exceptions. But generally, I can’t tell whiteness from comments either! I brought up the Trump thing because (a) it’s more the exception than the rule, tho it’s a telling exception. (Maybe this was unclear.) But I also brought up the Trump thing because (b) I think—and I admit I could be wrong—if non-white commenters (caveat to follow) were better represented in the CT commentariat, there would have been a much more visible “Are you fucking out of your fucking mind?” reaction than there actually was when Trump-curious and related comments showed up in CT threads. (What we got was mostly silence.) In any case, it was that set of events that made me think—jesus christ, this site feels really white.

Now the caveat: Maybe I should say North American-based non-whites above. (Tho I do think that support for Trump in the Global South, esp. among the left, is being a little exaggerated here.) Because this isn’t really a point about identity politics. This is the much simpler point that if you are the member of a group that is being singled out by a regime/administration/set of policies, and there is a good chance that you or people close to you will be directly, materially affected by the regime etc., you can’t help but sit up and take notice. Whereas erstwhile comrades and allies can quietly slink away.

RNB @ 251

As the poet said, mush is as mush does. Or was it that mush is in the eyes of the beholder? Perhaps, it is all mush to those who mush mush.

Describing Khalek as ‘trump curious’ is a serious misrepresentation at best.

“It has become accepted orthodoxy in establishment circles to view Trump as an authoritarian race-baiter who would present a major threat to the world if elected in November. While this characterization is certainly well founded, it ignores the fact that Clinton is also dangerous to world stability. And unlike Trump, she has the blood on her hands to prove it. If lesser evilism is the goal, as establishment pundits insist, it remains unclear who the lesser evil is – if the choice is limited to Trump or Clinton. […]

“Trump is riling up fascist sentiments. But he’s doing so by tapping into legitimate anger at the negative consequences of trickle-down neoliberal economics driven by establishment politicians like Clinton. She played an active role in dismantling the welfare safety net and selling out American workers to disastrous corporate trade deals. Another four or even eight years of Clintonian economics and military adventurism could well lay fertile ground for the rise of a demagogue even more bellicose than Trump.A general election between Clinton and Trump would be a dreadful race to the bottom. It’s no wonder so many people would refuse to cast a ballot for either candidate.”

https://raniakhalek.com/2016/04/16/is-hillary-clinton-more-dangerous-than-donald-trump/

It’s not unclear who the lesser evil is, and it’s not unclear whether Clinton will have to be challenged every step of the way.

Engels, yes and that’s pretty much the analysis of trump by the “curious” around here

There is a huge difference between Khalek’s position ‘Trump is a borderline fascist but Clinton may be worse and unlike him already has blood on her hands’ and the kind of ‘Trump may be a bit right-wing for me but at least he’s sticking it to the beltway elite’ crap that you sometimes encounter. Js. is quite correct that particular kind of idiocy is a white dude klaxon.

Engels, maybe, but without actual example of this white dude klaxon, I can’t really judge. Though it sounds plausible

RNB @ 247, you’ve badly misread Lupita @ 245.

She writes: “For example, I once commented on opinion pieces supporting Trump that have been popping up in the Latin American media. ”

You see, here, she’s talking about supportive opinion pieces, not pieces in general.

So, when you write: “Oh the reason Trump has been popping up in the Latin American media is his opposition to NAFTA in which apparently, according to Lupita, the clueless Latin American left finds echoes of their own concerns? Um, Lupita can you think of another reason or two his name may have popped up here or there or his effigy burned?”

…it really comes across as, well, confused, if not deliberately obtuse. Do you mean to say that the same people who pen Trump-supporting op eds turn around and burn Trump in effigy, for the same reasons? Do you realize how stupid that sounds? Do you think no one will notice the sly elision, whereby ‘pieces supporting Trump’ becomes, in your rendering, ‘Trump’?

RNB: “How can one not understand Trump who wants to carpet bomb so-called ISIS holdouts and torture indiscriminately and ban whole groups of people is a much more dangerous racist than Clinton?”

Is there someone in particular who you think doesn’t understand this?

Well, yes, Khalek for one and those who find her persuasive here. We could also talk about Trump’s stance on the Central Park rape case. He called for the capital punishment of those later exonerated and has never had second thoughts about it. But some will say that Hillary Clinton is just as bad because she once referred to “superpredators” and has apologized for it.

I think if there were more non white American commenters here they’d plausibly be equally the result of that selection bias, and so we’d still be likely to have a number of trump curious non whites.

Holy shit, that is a really frightening thought.

@276 you did not follow the exchange between Wilder and js?

@RNB, do you mean to say that the all-white-male cadre at CT consists of, well, bruce wilder…?

As js noted, the equivalence thesis about Trump and Clinton did not receive the unsparing criticism that I think it deserves. In terms of % of content, bw is more than one person.

Since this thread evidently can’t get any worse I shall illustrate the point by paraphrasing a Zizek argument about the purported ‘equivalence’ between Stalinism and Nazism. If you look at consequences – millions of people murdered – then you’d have to conclude not only that they are equivalent but Stalinism was worse. That’s not true – consequences aren’t the only thing that matters.

I just recalled that soon after 9/11 a chain-email was circulated in the plant where I worked, with a video which showed the WTC buildings crumbling and then some men and women in robes and scarves dancing and yipping. I think the latter part was from a CNN report on reactions from other countries, but it could have been faked, for all I know. Maybe Trump saw that same thing and took it seriously and that is what he was referring to – which would mean he is a fool who falls for crude propaganda but what else is new?

In other OT but tangentially-related news, my favorite movie of the year so far is “Eye in the Sky” (starring Helen Mirren, Alan Rickman, Aaron Paul from “Breaking Bad” and others) which is about the trolley problem: do you bomb some highly-wanted terrorists in a terrorist enclave who are outfitting some suicide-bombers to go out and kill a lot of innocent people; and especially do you bomb them if a young girl is selling her mother’s bread within the blast radius? I wasn’t sure as I left the theatre, but one of the actresses (whose name and character’s name I don’t remember) looked and argued like my sister Pam, so I decided to side with her. (She was against it.)

I don’t know all the details of the decision to bomb in Syria, but it could have been a similar dilemma: damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. So I don’t judge HRC so harshly for it as to disqualify her.

As for the OP, I figured out that the style was based on Aristotle (the title was a big hint), but reading it reminded me of passages in Tolkien. (Not just because it mentioned trolls a lot.)

“Trump inflamed an exterminatory hatred against American Muslims (I am not one, by the way) on the basis of a lie that he was allowed to get away with.”

@RNB, I agree with you that this behavior by Trump is outrageous. Yet, still, I do not know what you mean when you say “that he was allowed to get away with it.” Who allowed him to get away with what? He told a lie, and people challenged him on that lie, and he stuck to the lie, and people called him a liar. What else was supposed to happen?

He told a lie, and people challenged him on that lie, and he stuck to the lie, and people called him a liar. What else was supposed to happen?

One case study

@RNB, I think there was in fact a lot of media scrutiny of that claim, with only right-wing pseudo-news outlets supportive of Trump. I see you think there should be ‘a lot, lot more’, but honestly I don’t know how you’d even go about measuring it, or how you’d know if there was enough. Trump is the Republican nominee because the core base of the party consists of racists and cranks, and no amount of media scrutiny into Trump’s wild, racist statements would have prevented that outcome.

Also, too, this: “despite Robin’s comforting McGovern analogies.”

…strikes me as another exercise in deliberate obtuseness.

The media allowed trump to pivot what he wanted to pivot to and could have uncovered a lot more if they weren’t making reality tv

I assume the insulting part is the hypothetical accuasion of betrayal. If I told my colleague he can’t use my letter-opener because ‘erstwhile colleagues can stab me with it and leave bleeding on the office floor’ I might get a negative reaction even though I didn’t suggest anyone would (nb. not passing judgment on its effectiveness as rhetoric….)

It seems to me the discussion of US party politics here (which I don’t usually follow that closely) polarise around a ‘populist’ pole, which I do find rather ‘white’ and even a bit unsavoury at times, and a ‘liberal’ pole, which I find authoritarian and elitist. Mainstream left positions as I see them offline and in other places online just aren’t well-represented. Fwiw everyone I know irl whom I regard as on the Left has reacted with outrage to the kinds of things Js. is talking about regardless of whether they are Asian or Muslim. That’s not to argue for complacency about racism, just stating that my experience of my acquaintances is really quite different from Lynne’s, apparently.

(Just probably state for the record that I’m white and the only time I’ve been commenting when Trump was discussed I think I said more-or-less what Js. said.)

For the record, I happen to be white and male and I think the choice btw Trump and Clinton is so obvious it’s not a question that even warrants discussion (i.e., of the jotting up of pros and cons variety). And, also f.t.r., I voted for Sanders in the primary in my state.

W/r/t statements relating to immigration and race broadly understood, Trump has crossed lines not crossed since George Wallace (or maybe Pat Buchanan, though I’m not sure Buchanan went as far). Moreover, as P. Campos remarked on LGM, Trump’s apparent psychological profile is such that he shdn’t be trusted w command of a set of steak knives, let alone a set of nuclear codes for an arsenal capable of blowing the planet up many times over. He’s also just ******* ignorant of matters that a candidate for president shd know something about. These things are disqualifying for the presidency, irrespective of his other positions. IMO.

“Not many people evinced etc.” *in the CT threads in question*, presumably. That’s how I read it, tho Lynne can speak for herself.

For the record, I happen to be white and male and I think the choice btw Trump and Clinton is so obvious it’s not a question that even warrants discussion (i.e., of the jotting up of pros and cons variety).

Yes, a “better” argument for Trump is still a stupid argument.

What Wilder gets and most here ignore is that “Trump is worse than Clinton” will in actual practice turn into “Clinton is good” and much time and effort will be spent defending and praising and excusing Clinton with some kind of intention of weakening her enemies and empowering her allies, perhaps us. But will in fact mostly empower Clinton and weaken anyone or anything to her left.

And Clinton is a horrible monster.

I have the same impression as Lynne re the reaction to js’ comments on Trump – I guess I wouldn’t call it academic (though I know what Lynne means) so much as insensitive. I identified with what js said particularly because I have Muslim relatives, but I would have thought other people might’ve able to understand his position more than they seemed to.

I do feel sometimes that the CT commentariat – not all of it, but a significant proportion – is white, male, American and tends to not always get non-white, feminist or subaltern perspectives on particular issues. Or maybe it’s that they don’t seem to care – gender, race and colonialism/imperialism are other people’s problems, not theirs, even though in fact they are relations of power and privilege.

(Lynne as to bianca comparing me with Rich, I think it’s unfair and untrue, but unfortunately bianca seems to have a strange attitude to me – I thought it was over but again earlier in this thread she seemed to get offended by a remark of mine to her which was simply meant as a mild disagreement on a point of content, in no way as an attack on her. So I think maybe bianca reads me as being more aggressive or arrogant than I think I am, or something. But I’ve tried before to clear this up, and it doesn’t seem to have worked, so I guess it’s better just to let it go)

Layman @305 — You can read this thread and this thread and decide for yourself. Maybe they read differently to me than they do to some or most others. Note, tho, that I don’t really mean to draw your attention to Bruce Wilder’s comments (or mine), so much as to responses (or lack thereof from commenters active in the thread) from self-identified left-liberal regular CT commenters.

And this comment by bianca steele pretty much sums up how I thought those threads were going. So cheers to bianca steele for that.

On a more positive note, Londoners have just elected their first Muslim mayor in the face of (a) a repulsive Islamophobic campaign against him by the mainstream right (b) a smear campaign against the left-wing of his party by liberals within the party, based around false accusations of racism.

Against my better judgement: I responded to this for the first go-round here, in one of those threads.

Meanwhile, “erstwhile comrades and allies”? Since when? If Trump wins, we’ll have to be allies out of necessity. If he loses and HRC wins, are we “comrades and allies”? At that point I expect the Democratic base to decide once again that they really do like warmaking, surveillance, sweeping executive powers, police powers, and repression of protest as long as a Democrat is doing it. So the whole comrade and allyship thing lasts as long as Trump does, and hopefully he’ll be gone in the general election. After which it’s back to “you think you’re the moral elite”, and I don’t expect the people asking for support against Trump now to repay that help in any way.

engels @312 — Yes, that is a good thing. Tho am I wrong in thinking that Khan is actually closer to the closer to the Blairite wing of the party than the Corbynite wing? (Again, not taking anything away from the fact that given the context, this was an excellent win.)

Relatedly, it’s frankly painful that my main source for UK news/web browser homepage—i.e. the Guardian—has revealed itself to be so thoroughly in the Blairite camp. Maybe this was always obvious to people who knew more about Labour party politics, but it wasn’t to me.

I used to be to like the the threads here, but there is just too much of people ignoring the legitimate points of the other side and the circular firing squads are out of hand.

My opinion–

Trump is a possible fascist and therefore worse than Clinton. But Clinton might actually be worse on foreign policy. But you can’t tell, because Trump is totally unpredictable. Clinton is horrible, but in relatively predictable ways. But she might possibly plunge us into a war in Syria or even the Ukraine and unlike her supporters ( as opposed to reluctant lesser evil voters like me), I think she is a damn fool. Stupid, arrogant, like the best and brightest that got us into Vietnam. How anyone can see her laughing about Qaddafi’s death and not feel disgusted…well, Clinton supporters have some very effective filters. But still, Trump is the one appealing to naked racism about policy here at home, so I understand what js is saying. (Though IMO Clinton’s speech to AIPAC was racist as hell.) I do think Trump is much worse overall, but I keep going back and forth because if you aren’t horrified by Clinton I really don’t care what you think about anything.

But I also agree with bob mcmanus and Rich P–there are a great many people who want and demand lefties support Clinton and I find the lesser evilism argument convincing, but they don’t really mean it. They actually think Clinton is great. They pretended to hate Bush’s policies, but when Democrats are in power it turns out they didn’t really care about any of the things they said they cared about, unless the Democrat in power still condemns it. I suspect that if Obama supported water boarding so would some Democrats.

“I used to be like” should read I used to like. I blame my iPad.

js @ 310

I’m ill-equipped to explain bruce wilder, but I’m not entirely sure he’s saying what you think he’s saying. I think he’s bemoaning lesser-evilism and the extent to which adherence to it amounts to shoring up the status quo, although not in the way I would do it, and I have so argued when he has raised this comparison before. I also think he’s been quite clear in denouncing Trump. That said, I understand your perspective. And, I resolve to try and read more charitably, if that matters.

I skimmed the threads js. linked. What a clusterf—. I don’t normally participate in discussions of Republican primaries. Because I’m not a Republican and don’t give a damn about their internal politics. I’m sorry if js. and others perceived unwillingness to engage as acquiescence. I think that’s the least of the problems here, not that more immediate issues aren’t important. If there were in fact that many people in the comments section supporting Trump, yeah, I’d be gone.

I could have cursed in this comment a lot more, but some people don’t like that.

But this is why I have zero patience with many ( not all) of the Clinton advocates. If one forthrightly admits that the lesser evil is evil in many respects, then fine.

While I’m happy to call Clinton evil, this is a demand for a denunciation game. “But why didn’t you denounce X” is a real waste of time (although fun when trolling).

@325 Please stop it with the “HRC may be worse in Yemen and the Gaza stuff”. Sheldon Adelson who wants to drop an atomic weapon in a desert in Iran to make sure Israel’s security concerns are met in negotiations has pledged to give Trump probably more than $100 million. No, HRC has never contemplated dropping an atomic weapon on Iran to win an advantage in negotiations; she said that she would retaliate with a nuclear strike if Iran carried out a nuclear strike on Israel. This is not the same thing. It’s not reasonable or perhaps even sane to think that we run the same risks with the nuclear codes in Trump’s hands that we would were the codes in in HRC’s hands.

I haven’t read all of this thread, but from my memory of the thread where this Trump issue came up, I think there was some pushback against the idea of Trump being better than Clinton.

What happened next as I remember it was that this turned into a sub-thread argument about “identity politics” more generally, and more broadly in terms of race, culture, and gender as well

I don’t really have time to read the thread again, but I do remember thinking (and hopefully I wrote) that js had a good point at the time and also that the initial point Bruce Wilder made was thoughtless and disappointing

But I also want to say at the time I didn’t actually believe that Bruce Wilder was in favour of Trump, or that he was in favour of Trump’s racist and anti-Muslim policies ( although now apparently Trump tweeting about eating Taco bowls at his hotel chain makes everything alright with him and Mexico :-/ ???? I do miss Belle’s posts at the moment)

How I interpreted Bruce Wilder’s comment was that he was rejecting Hilary Clinton’s neoliberal politics, and that in doing this he used ill chosen and thoughtless rhetoric saying Trump was better than Clinton.

js. had and has a really valid point that people who are actually potentially going to be affected by Trump’s racism do not really have the luxury of condemning Hilary Clinton with pro-Trump rhetoric, and that this sort of rhetoric is a dangerous avenue to go down given Trump’s political positions

Bruce Wilder has a particular interest in the broadly populist institutions and economy of the post-war period, and is generally critical of neoliberal governance and institutions, in this case I really wish that at the time he had written something more objective like —

“the emergence of Sanders and Trump as Presidential candidates in the primaries show that the neoliberal hegemony since the 80s is being challenged by strains of left and right populism”

I think that is probably what he actually thinks, and his rhetoric was ill chosen and was criticised at the time (apart from then in my recollection it turned into a more general sub-thread argument about identity politics) so I am a bit uncomfortable with him being a branded a Trump supporter now in subsequent threads without context unless people go back and read the original thread

js. @316

“engels @312 — Yes, that is a good thing. Tho am I wrong in thinking that Khan is actually closer to the closer to the Blairite wing of the party than the Corbynite wing? (Again, not taking anything away from the fact that given the context, this was an excellent win.)
Relatedly, it’s frankly painful that my main source for UK news/web browser homepage—i.e. the Guardian—has revealed itself to be so thoroughly in the Blairite camp. Maybe this was always obvious to people who knew more about Labour party politics, but it wasn’t to me.”

Teju Cole wrote about this on Facebook:

“The new mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, is Muslim. Good. Khan beat a nasty opponent, and will have lots of racists upset. Alhamdulillah. Great symbolic achievement. Symbols matter.

Now, what’s he actually going to do about London’s ridiculous property market? Who is he willing to offend? Is he another neoliberal? As an MP, what’s his record on war? How far will he go to be unthreatening? Any good critiques from the left? (Links please.) The times are hungry for heroes, but I’m twitchy about hosannas. I say let’s check in with Mr Khan in a couple of years.”

If you think Trump is a challenge to neoliberalism, then you are seriously mistaken.

If you think that supporting Hillary is equal to being fooled by Lesser Evilism, then you are seriously mistaken.

Can’t stop talking about Trump. Engels with his usual talent for understatement puts his finger right in the wound at 315. Democrats in general were entirely on-board with the anti-democratic coup conducted by HRC’s coalition of special interests until Sanders showed-up. Rather than respond positively to someone committed to socialist change a great many so-called ‘lefties’ immediately set to work demolishing any possibility of real debate.

Not to put too fine a point on it, when historians compare the 2016 nominating process of the two major political parties, only one looks remotely like a fascist coup. And when the unwelcome prospect of an actual democratic debate involving more than one candidate was forced upon the rubber-stampers, twas when a great many so-called anti-authoritarians grovelled and abased themselves publicly to better serve the status-quo.

Dems are the establishment. The Democratic party is supported by some of the richest capitalists in America and, based on the record, couldn’t give a fuck about the plight of the victims of income inequality other than to provide bread as well as water to the victims of both parties.

Kudos to all Sanders supporters. Don’t give an inch.

I’m not trying to convince you of anything, Lee. You didn’t understand any of those things, which isn’t really a problem since other people did. No, what I meant was that you’re being annoying by writing one-line incredulities without presenting your reasons for believing whatever it is that you believe.

It comes as no surprise that all the non-white male and white-female supporters of HRC (and BHO) cannot see Lupita’s multiple interventions as they deploy their identity politics in support of the vicious racist status quo.

This is the hegemonic anti-racism that doesn’t know of the Clinton Foundation, their term as U.S Secretary of State, peddling toxins and violence to invisible faraways populated by disposable multi-coloured bodies.

Invisible Haitians
Invisible Yemenis
Invisible Palestinians
Invisible Central American children whose fragile bodies ought to be used to ‘send a message’
Invisible Iranians
Invisible everyone who’ll be disproportionately affected by TPP, and the love for the sweet toxicity of fossil fuel addiction

I remember engels once asked Val’s opinion of Margaret Thatcher. I thought, ah, easy shibboleth. And then I read Val’s answer. And I think does Val come from Sara Ahmed’s Australian feminist tradition? And I see cites of bell hooks, but strangely those who stand against this are the ones with a race problem, the ones allowed by their privilege to avert their gaze from the suffering of more vulnerable others.

—
Interesting reading js. lamenting Khan’s Blairism. When I read the ‘brown’ Clintonites comments, I hear them in candidate’s Khan’s voice, all realistic and punching left.

kidneystones @ 340, self-parody is just a form of masturbation.

You don’t have to be a fan of Khan’s politics (I’m not) to take satisfaction in the way the race-baiting campaign against him was decisively rejected by Londoners or be happy to see the back of racist scum like Johnson (another character whom Ze would doubtless categorise as a harmless buffoon). No, he’s not a Corbynite by any stretch (and that’s true of the majority of Labour politicians, rather than members).

Lee: “No one else displayed that she knew what you were on about, either.”

Factually incorrect. Corey Robin, the person who started the thread, did. Cranky Observer did. Really other people did, but I’m not going to bother arguing that: suffice it to say that I “declined to explain” after a whole lot of paragraphs of explanation that you countered with your usual sure-fire style of asking the question over and over. Your inability to understand arguments is your problem, not mine.

Rich Puchalsky #350: “Factually incorrect. Corey Robin, the person who started the thread, did. Cranky Observer did.”

They both affiliated with your mood, but not with your factifications.

Corey neglected to mention that the top marginal rates are back to where they were before the Bush Tax Cuts. He neglected to mention that the middleclass rates have stayed the same in the face of the lesser depression, and properly so. And he neglected to mention that no politician in their right mind thinks that tax rates are forever because the next officeholders can change things depending on the electorate.

Cranky defends your definition of “achievement”, if it includes “long-term disasters for one’s own side” (i.e. big failure). But under that redefinition, we might be led to conclude that all Presidents’ records are replete with big achievements.

You draw logical, factual lines only where they ALREADY agree with your emotional mood.

kidneystones: “Can’t stop talking about Trump.”

By the way, some time has gone by since kidneystones posted this and I haven’t seen written expressions of shock and horror from the other people posting here. Are you white people who are using your privilege to quietly slink away from your allies?

Rich Puchalsky #354: “I’m not rearguing that thread”

You cannot reargue it! To RE-argue something, you must have argued it the first time. You did not.

You wrote instead, “If you can’t figure out what I mean by ‘major accomplishment’, then it isn’t worth my time to explain further.”

So now, I have to call Corey and Cranky to figure out your definition of “big achievement”.

But I am not going to call them.

Why bother them? What they have wrote doesn’t work in your behalf; their comments don’t illuminate your definition.

Indeed they refute you: According to their kinds of examples, Obama has been no less effective than any other President.

May I just point out that I did abusively denounce (the view attributed to and repeatedly disavowed by) Bruce in the thread Js. linked? Don’t I get any radical activist points for that? I’m almost thinking of putting my recycling in the wrong bags this week in retaliation…

Don’t worry, I consoled myself with Horkheimer:

A revolutionary career does not lead to banquets and honorary titles, interesting research and professorial wages. It leads to misery, disgrace, ingratitude, prison and a voyage into the unknown, illuminated by only an almost superhuman belief.

“I’m almost thinking of putting my recycling in the wrong bags this week in retaliation…”

The horror. The horror.

I am checking Rania Khalek’s twitter feed to see what she has to say about Sheldon Adelson’s $100 million pledge to Trump. Nothing so far. Strange. Does this make it more difficult to say that Clinton may well be more dangerous than Trump?

Don’t know when we are going to see Trump’s returns. One possibility is that Trump may actually have less post-tax personal income (even with with his expensing everything from his residence to his personal grooming for his brand as Piketty warned) than Clinton and be more beholden to his backers, such as Adelson.

Socialism or barbarism

… This week was arguably the worst for Mrs Clinton since her shock defeat to Mr Sanders in Michigan in March. A stinging loss in West Virginia was followed by fresh allegations that The Clinton Foundation, the charity she founded with her husband, may have broken federal law by channelling money towards a company part-owned by close friends. She also received a chastening reproof from the director of the FBI for describing the agency’s investigation into her use of a private email server when she was secretary of state as a “security inquiry”. James Comey said that he did not recognise that term, adding: “We’re conducting an investigation . . . That’s what we do.”
The vulnerabilities of her candidacy were laid bare in a poll of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, the most valuable swing states in November’s presidential election. It showed voters regarding Mr Trump as more capable on the economy despite confusion about his own tax plans, and on terrorism, despite Mrs Clinton’s seat in the White House situation room during her four years as secretary of state. It suggested that Mrs Clinton was more unpopular than Mr Trump, and that Mr Sanders would beat the billionaire comfortably, while she barely has her nose in front. …

@Ze K
So Trump, someone who apparently masqueraded as his own PR person under a diff. name on occasions in the ’70s/80s/90s, is a mere buffoon while Clinton is a “power-craving psycho,” eh?

That’s complete nonsense. Clinton can be criticized for many things, but there’s no evidence she’s any more a psycho than the run of politicians. Of course, in Ze K’s universe there may be only two categories: buffoons and power-mad psychos. You’re either one or the other (certain favored leaders excepted from the generalization).

As to West Virginia, it’s an atypical state (for reasons that wd take too long to go into) and those figures are not surprising.

@lupita
I don’t recall any other such links.

There have been links in the past to material in French here, and I’m pretty sure German and Spanish as well, and given the length of time CT has been in existence I wouldn’t be that surprised if that were not the first Portuguese link .

I would probably not be quite so harsh in my characterization of W. Va. as Layman (having lived there albeit briefly and a long time ago), but it’s been a solid Repub state in presidential elections for a while now, and its demographic makeup is well-suited to Trump’s appeal (for lack of a better word).

@Ze K
It shows that he’s a relentless narcissistic self-promoter and if that doesn’t approach ‘power-crazed psycho’ — well, I’m not sure what does. Words like ‘buffoon’ and ‘clown’ don’t capture it.

Il est démontré, disait-il, que les choses ne peuvent être autrement: car, tout étant fait pour une fin, tout est nécessairement pour la meilleure fin. Remarquez bien que les nez ont été faits pour porter des lunettes, aussi avons-nous des lunettes. Les jambes sont visiblement instituées pour être chaussées, et nous avons des chausses. Les pierres ont été formées pour être taillées, et pour en faire des châteaux, aussi monseigneur a un très beau château; le plus grand baron de la province doit être le mieux logé; et, les cochons étant faits pour être mangés, nous mangeons du porc toute l’année: par conséquent, ceux qui ont avancé que tout est bien ont dit une sottise; il fallait dire que tout est au mieux.

I thought I could find a Spanish version, but can’t, but be assured: todo es por lo mejor en este mejor de mundos posibles.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darueber muss man schweigen.

May this string of random quotes in random languages serve as proof eternal of the diversity and cosmopolitanism of CT.

There was a Chinese guy who used to comment here once – I think his name was Mao Chemh Ji – does anyone know what happened to him?

You know, I’ve been thinking about this, and I maybe I’ve been approaching it the wrong way. I had been thinking that this election was an especially pronounced example of the dynamic by which the GOP candidate says horrible things and motivates both bases, after which we get neoliberalism. And that references to comrades and allies was especially silly, since the left is going to give whatever they can give and get nothing. But maybe this is really an opportunity for the general collection of voters who supported Sanders.

Sure, I think it would be fine to support HRC, in exchange for a massive political bribe. What will you give us for our support? Nothing so crass as money. How about Sanders gets to nominate all Supreme Court justices during HRC’s term? Or socialist parties in America get, I don’t know, half of the Cabinet positions. Or maybe HRC agrees that any future wars and trade treaties have to be approved by a council of anarchist delegates. Those are all possible strictly through Executive action. How about it?

Remember, comrades-to-be, no price to stop Trump is too great! If this doesn’t happen, it’s on you. I don’t see how disappointed Sanders voters can really muster the enthusiasm to turn out and vote for HRC without something like this. So you’d better start writing letters to her now demanding one of these actions, or Trump wins.

“Things that make you go hmmm”
Current US Ambassador to Brazil Served in Paraguay Prior to 2012 Coup

p.s. was referring to the Mao/Henri stuff.

@399 When you’re right, you’re right. “Let them eat words.” HRC on her way to Rustbelt states to deny any connection to NAFTA, TPPP, Libya, O, the DNC, and her general indifference to anyone not ready to pony up 6 figures. Her message? “Trust me.”

@ Rich P, this act is creaky and tired. Suggest something concrete; otherwise, you’re just a useless crank.

Layman: “Suggest something concrete; otherwise, you’re just a useless crank.”

Oh dear, in comparison to all of the high-powered political fixers here I guess that I really am. If only I’d suggested some concrete plans, like the plan to denounce people on a blog and bring change! Last time I talked to Rahm he told me that too — “Puchalsky,” he said, “your problem is your lack of plans, you crank. If you had a plan we’d get it done. But you don’t, so get lost.” I was crushed. But I’m going to write up a plan and send it to HRC, and I’m confident that this time I won’t be thought of as a crank at all.

Just can’t put my finger on it…

You need more Data…

“Oh dear, in comparison to all of the high-powered political fixers here I guess that I really am. ”

Most other people here don’t seem to be on this silly ego trip you’re on, the one where you rant at everyone else about how stupid they are, how their answers are all wrong; but somehow, you can’t seem to ever point to a right answer. Why is that, I wonder?

can I just express appreciation?

Like, in these projections, I think I know who McManus Engels Wilder Puchalski are* ‘and of course each of the blog ascendants

A community of political sanity (wh paradoxically leaves the sane member helplessly neurotic!)

Projection. “It’s all in the mind”‘-George Harrison yellow submarine

Ze K @267

‘What’s “white racial resentment”? I get the impression that there’s a whole bunch of perfectly decent people who are sick and tired of being called racist, homophobe, misogynist, etc. every time they deviate from the party line, liberal orthodoxy. Like what I read recently about “all lives matter” being a racist statement. IOW, a backlash. Would this qualify as “white racial resentment”?’

It may be that there are decent people (my impression is that there are very few perfectly decent people; maybe none at all) who are sick and tired of being called racist (inaccurately); however, I am sure that there is a far larger number of racist people who are sick and tired of being (accurately) called racist. If there are white people with racist attitudes who resent having their attitudes and behaviour described (accurately) as racist, then I think their resentment can reasonably be described as white racial resentment.

The top-trending story at real clear politics is an extraordinary piece on the WAPO and the DOJ’s handling of the investigation into the HRC’s illegal email activities (alleged, ahem). The author, Andy McCarthy is a right-wing crank and former prosecutor. I’m familiar with his stuff and wouldn’t ordinarily make any reference to his work. His latest, however, is the most widely-read piece on this aggregator site. His arguments, which I won’t repeat here, are worth noting for two reasons: the first is that they’re gaining some traction, and second because McCarthy’s arguments are sure to become part of the attack line against HRC, definitely by the GOP, and possibly by dissident Democrats who would rather not support a candidate who arbitrarily decided to delete thousands of emails while under investigation. The FBI does not, as their own leaders have stressed, conduct inquiries, but instead investigates possible illegal activities. The Dem position that HRC was the victim in Libya, rather than Ambassador Stevens, rests entirely on the credible supposition that the GOP fabricated a cover-up out of nothing. The same, however, cannot be said as easily of the FBI investigation of HRC. HRC’s incredible claims become even more incredible now that we learn that all four-years worth of emails of her principal IT manager in charge of the server have also mysteriously disappeared.

Crooked Hillary. It fits.

Layman: “I’m talking about the fury with which you deride those who say they’ll vote for Clinton to avoid a President Trump,”

Oh dear. Why would I have written that I would vote for HRC (if my vote mattered) to avoid President Trump, if I was deriding people who would vote this way per se? No, I was deriding people who try to say that if you don’t do this, you’re exercising white privilege, and who call on a bogus solidarity that is completely one way in that the left is supposed to support neoliberalism without neoliberals having any intention of giving anything back to the left after the election is over.

“If in fact you mean to say that the existing power structures are such that we’re stuck with this bad choice, and we ought to make the best of it until we succeed in changing those power structures”

Oh dear. Where have I last written anything like that? Could it be … that I linked to such a statement right upthread in #314, and that I’ve written the same thing a whole lot elsewhere here? But sadly, whenever I do this, other assholes than yourself say that there is no possible way that I can believe what I believe if I believe that, and I never really get to the concrete solutions even if I could think of some that broadly apply to people here.

So I think I’ll just keep on as I’ve been going, thanks.

Ze K @415

‘Why would a racist be sick and tired of being called racist? It doesn’t make sense.’

Yes, it does. Sometimes people resent having their behaviour described as cruel even when the description is accurate; sometimes people resent having their behaviour described as mean even when the description is accurate; sometimes people resent having their behaviour described as unfair even when the description is accurate; and sometimes people resent having their behaviour described as racist even when the description is inaccurate. Often people who have been, for example, cruel, mean, unfair, or racist consider that those descriptions don’t apply; but just because that’s how they see it (that the description doesn’t apply) doesn’t mean that it’s so.

I’ve seen people disagreeing something so who’s to say who’s right? God?

I don’t recall Rich saying he votes.

If the feminist in her living room with spouse and sons says “All men are beasts” the “amae” response is “Rawrrrr.”

Why among relative strangers am I not completely comfortable with that?

RNB–

I don’t think I have said Clinton is worse than Trump. I would say that on particular subjects, Trump has been both better and worse than Clinton, sometimes within a couple of sentences. He has been critical of her interventionism, for instance, and then turns around and advocates war crimes. He says we should be balanced on the I- P conflict and is derided for this by Clinton, and then he says Israel should build more settlements. I can think Tump is a dangerous unpredictable clown , prefer Clinton, and still despise Clinton. In fact, it’s easy.

As for ritual denunciation, which someone else said I was demanding, guilty as charged, but I’d put it differently. There are some people who say we should support Clinton, but don’t do this with enthusiasm because they acknowledge her flaws. Then there are people who demand we support Clinton, dismiss her flaws, or even share her views. I respect the views of people in category one and not those in category two.

“I always have to mention the (true) hypothetical that if my vote actually did matter then I would vote,”

Thanks for the link. One thing I find unclear is, what does that hypothetical look like? Under what circumstances would you decide that your vote actually might matter? Do you mean something like ‘you live in a state where the outcome is in doubt, during an election where the electoral outcome is similarly in doubt’?

Donald @ 432

Do you belief no one ever takes issue with what another says unless they “hate” them? “Hate” is a strong word, usually referring to irrational feelings where there should be rational listening.

Someone upthread asked about what Rania Khalek said about Adelson’s support for Trump. It’s not hard to find, but she mentioned it here–

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/hillary-clinton-attacks-her-church-over-israel-divestment-vote

Curious who sets the “terms.” Though the idea that there are terms is just another example of too much sociology. Are we trying to please the OPer, or the sense of the commentariat, if this exists? Or some higher power? It’s bullshit, IMNSHO.

Khalek in her EI article seems to think they both stink. She was more positive about Trump back when he spoke about being evenhanded, but she evidently changed her mind. I think it was silly to put any stock in anything Trump says, though it was revealing when Clinton reacted negatively to his short- lived call to be evenhanded.

You seem to want more from Khalek. I don’t. People who are concerned about the Palestinian issue will get an accurate description of what the two candidates have said from that article.

Layman: “Strangely enough, I don’t recall anyone saying that “if you don’t do this [vote for HRC to defeat Trump], you’re exercising white privilege”. Who said that?”

js. gave the polite version, but RNB as usual gives the impolite version:
“Someone not enthusiastic about handing Trump a decisive and humiliating defeat to Hillary Clinton probably suffers from some combination of sexism, authoritarianism, various forms of ethnic and racial prejudice and ignorance. ”

Yes, you can nitpick about whether they and similar people said exactly that. The message is the same as the message they’ve been directing at Sanders supporters from the beginning: if you don’t vote HRC you’re a racist or a sexist.

RNB @ 437

Also, Power Rangers are so diverse! “Even the liberal” Brookings says so.

BW: “Counterfactuals are the best evidence.”

I know how ridiculous it is. A few centuries ago, I would have had to ritually declare that I believed in God in certain discussions, maybe later I would have had to preface every remark with an expression of confidence in the Party, now I have to talk about my hypothetical vote.

442: “…they’ve been directing at Sanders supporters from the beginning: if you don’t vote HRC you’re a racist or a sexist.”

If politics is a dynamic self-organization of affects and affiliations, than “with us or against us” is only what matters, and once I decide to exclude myself from them, say older black southern women, then, from their perspective, I suppose they get to decide why they think I am choosing to oppose them. I am not sure why, from outside, I should be able to persuade them to accept my own self-justification, which serves me not them.

Politics ain’t beanball, it’s Schmittian war.

RNB: “I clearly said that you could also be authoritarian and/or ignorant.”

The Marxist statist is saying this in response to an anarchist, so we can leave the “authoritarian” part out. And I’m clearly not ignorant about the American political system by any reasonable standard. Therefore you are exactly the shameless person that I always thought you were.

Rich: I know how ridiculous it is. A few centuries ago, I would have had to ritually declare that I believed in God in certain discussions, maybe later I would have had to preface every remark with an expression of confidence in the Party, now I have to talk about my hypothetical vote.

And I would have had to ritually deny that I’m a feminist, by expressing disinterest in any part of the conversation except decorum, manners, and feelings! We’ve come a long way, babe!

I suppose the answer is that Clinton and Sanders supporters pretend or act like there is some larger community or referee standing outside and above both that they are addressing, judging fairly the claims and accusations. And to an extent there was and is, for instance those who have yet to vote.

But Sanders supporters should be addressing the undecided with our own arguments, not addressing Clinton supporters, or defending ourselves from Clintonian attacks, which are just trying to frame the differences to their advantage.

I’m long past caring about being called sexist or racist, directly or subtly and try not to feed the trolls

Who the heck here is using the bad names for Trump against Sanders? That charge is as accurate as the one that I support Marxist statism, a charge just leveled by the desperate Puchalsky. Sanders has already said that the biggest issue for him is a commitment by Clinton that she’ll nominate Justices likely to reverse Citizens United which she for personal reasons alone is likely to do.

bob mcmanus Clinton and Sanders supporters pretend or act like there is some larger community or referee standing outside and above both that they are addressing, judging fairly the claims and accusations.

Quite apart from this particular intra-partisan campaign, consciousness of a real and imagined larger community cum referee(s) has long entailed a whole set of standing tropes and clichés of American politics. Politicians drone on about what the American People want. Conservatives attack the liberal media. Some liberals have tried to influence politics by criticizing journalists and the practice of journalism as a profession, the free press being the referee and fourth branch of government, blah blah. I see on Real Clear Politics that the regular Democrats took the primary they stole in Nevada fair and square and, like Elvis, left the auditorium and turned out the lights; Sanders supporters were shocked.

I talked to a friend on Thursday. She does not like the way Sanders talks, and hates the frumpy outfits Hillary wears. She’s the undecided primary voter. How should the campaigns address her concerns. Competitive makeovers?

I watched one of Sunday morning political shows — apparently Republican politicians are reconciling themselves to Trump. Few indications from the pundits that any of this is predictably idiotic, let alone consequential.

Like many of my generation, for a long time I was sceptical of internet technology. Whatever the potential, the main purpose seemed to be for bored office workers to send e-mails such as “Can people take only ONE MALTESER AT A TIME from the chocolate tin as some of us haven’t had any while others have had FOUR!!!” Or “Has anyone seen my elastic band?” Website forums, which promised unprecedented global debate and discourse all seem to degenerate into the same nine people slagging each other off, like Eastenders with exclamation marks. There’s probably a forum for astro-physicists, in which every thread ends with someone calling themselves Black Hole posting “So – Quantum Boy upholds the possibility of string theory in a parallel universe! Why aren’t I surprised? Face up to it, your theory’s are anti-matter you tosspot sub-atomic loser.”

Powerlessness and social acquiescence are strange bedfellows.

LOL — I see Bruce Wilder still has a bit of the revolutionary romantic in him! Powerlessness and social acquiescence are the most natural bedfellows in the world, what else are you supposed to do when you’re powerless?

Ze K @423

Some statements are accurate; some statements are inaccurate; in each case it is the facts that make them so. If you want my opinion of the accuracy of any specific statement I’ll do my best to provide it,

For example, you write ‘I’ve seen defenders and opponents of the race-based “affirmative actions” accusing each other of “racism”.’ Is that statement accurate? I don’t know enough about the facts to answer that question.

#468 wins the thread—possibly the blog, if that’s possible

PGD: what else are you supposed to do when you’re powerless?

Uh, . . . find or build your power. If you need power, you should get busy, get organized.

Social acquiescence isn’t what you do after you are completely powerless; it is what you do with your remaining power, when you’ve been persuaded that there is no practical way to use it effectively. Social acquiescence is giving away your remaining power cheap.

If CT ever forms its own political party, we definitely need to adopt engels’ list in 454 as our platform.

Rich P: “…now I have to talk about my hypothetical vote.”

No, you don’t have to, but when you say you’d vote if you thought it would matter, the question asks itself.

“…but RNB as usual gives the impolite version:”

Yes, I saw that. After the fact, but a close enough match. Feel free to shout at RNB, then.

Layman: “Yes, I saw that. After the fact, but a close enough match.”

There isn’t anything after the fact about it. The entire HRC campaign has been using the “Bernie Bro” idea to make this claim for pretty much the whole primary. It’s propaganda: it’s not some individual peculiarity of RNB’s. Here’s a breakdown of the whole thing.

And it’s why the kind of people who use these smears will never be allies of anyone.

Rich P, I must say that I don’t find you a useless crank as layman suggested above. I find the case you put for whatever you are arguing very useful for showing its untenability. I am glad you are here.

@473
Although there’s one group engels forgot:
– hates the term ‘identity politics’ and those people who keep using it even after I’ve explained several times that it’s a neoliberal term

(You’d think they could work out that if they hate neoliberals, they shouldn’t use neoliberal terms, but no, they’ve got no consistency. What can you do?)

Ze K @483

‘Assuming the TV … is on …’

There is no reason to assume that the television is on. You don’t have to have the television on.

‘Mr. Poroshenko is specifically identified as “OUR UKRAINE INSIDER POROSHENKO”, not as “Poroshenko, discutant of politics with a US Ambassador”.’

Poroshenko’s discussion of politics with the US ambassador is recounted in the document; the fact that he is specifically identified as an insider of the political party Our Ukraine does not change this, and being an insider of that party is not synonymous with being a CIA informant.

Likewise, the fact that Temer is explicitly described as offering an assessment does not change the fact that his discussion of politics with the US ambassador is recounted in the document.

In both cases your reasoning is faulty in the same way: an explicit statement of one description does not automatically make all other descriptions false.

@486 Hi Rich, thanks for this. I am keenly interested in Trump and his supporters and you’re welcome to make whatever assertions you like regarding my political sympathies. I’m sure others are capable of reading my comments in favor of Sanders for themselves, even if you just block them out.

Second, you evidently believe that the CT readership does not extend beyond the inner-circle of elite intellects parsing BW on this thread and exchanging high-fives. My guess is that the actual readership is considerable larger, almost all of whom may well ignore me, and maybe even you. The OPs on this blog are almost always interesting. The comments, I confess, not so much, particularly my own.

I’m happy to chime in when my intellectual and moral superiors are declaiming that all who support borders are racist, life has improved for African-Americans under Obama, and that Trump could never win the nomination. Last week, we had people asserting that Trump couldn’t possibly close the gap on HRC. This week we have Trump even, or ahead in Ohio, Florida. I’m happy to remind you that I, alone, predicted as much. Just as I predicted that Labour’s strategy of demonizing those who wanted an EU vote as bigots and racists would cost them big. Trump is a liberal moderate vulgarian who’s yet to start a war or bomb anyone. I can see how you’d prefer HRC over him.

@488 Nice try, homie. You’re on board with the wars, Libya, TPPP, and the rest. The difference between you and me is that you’re already making excuses for pulling the lever again for endless wars. Unlike you, I recall easily and clearly an unbroken record of war and destruction initiated by both the GOP and the Democrats. And unlike you, I’m ready to support anyone who’s willing to kick that fucking mess to pieces.

Only Sanders offers a real possibility of change and it’s got nothing to do with angels on pins. The GOP already have their change agent. Whether they can control Trump is an open question. Had Dems realized earlier the mood of the nation and paid more attention to Trump, rather than mocking those of us who were, Sanders and his allies might be running the Dem ticket instead of the Wall St. and the rich.

@490

It is straightforward. Trump is a bombastic and racist loon who will alienate every foreign leader he talks to, whereas Clinton is a much more skilled diplomat.

So Trump will talk about killing lots of people, but end up isolating the US and hence be much less effective than Clinton. Of course, Clinton’s body count will be accompanied by lots of hand wringing about humanitarian efforts, and difficult moral choices.

Thats the argument, more or less. I’m not sure I buy it exactly, but it isn’t totally crazy.

armando: “Of course, Clinton’s body count will be accompanied by lots of hand wringing about humanitarian efforts, and difficult moral choices.”

Complete with self-declared Marxists defending those killings. That’s what they do; I guess it’s a habit.

I hope that HRC wins for global warming reasons if nothing else. Neoliberalism has more or less decided that something has to be done about global warming, as the Paris Agreements make clear, and Trump’s base is still in full denial and he couldn’t do anything about it even if by some freakish reversal he decided to. Trump is himself, of course, a full-blown denialist. HRC will butcher a lot of people, but so will Trump, so that’s kind of a wash.

As for the rest, the next four years are going to something like this, for me anyways:

1. HRC wins! Then the people who I work with will get to grind away slowly at global warming issues (remember Obama’s “leadership” on Keystone XL?) while the Democratic base (plus Marxists!) chants “you’re sexist” if anyone objects to a bomb being dropped anywhere, or;

2. Trump wins! Then I get the “pleasure” of having to help organize a whole lot of people who suddenly decide that the stuff that Obama did is dangerous now that Trump is doing it, and they show up for demonstrations because Trump Is Bad with no idea of what goal they have in mind other than to stop Trump, who is Bad.

Of *course* the thread on trolling pushes 500 comments. Of course it does.

… Rich at 488: ” The coalition that reluctantly and regretfully backs HRC is a whole lot closer to my politics than the GOP coalition.” This is very sensible. We don’t get to order off a full-service menu in November.

Anderson @ 496: This is very sensible. We don’t get to order off a full-service menu in November.

So, it is sensible to acquiesce in a choice made for you by people who despise you, because . . .

Clinton does not need you or your support and isn’t going to do anything to secure that support, other than try in desultory fashion to fool you with tons of advertising bought primarily as a sop to Media giants.

It is as it was: the powerful do as they will, and the rest of us must suffer. Why pretend?

@RNB

catastrophic foreign policy errors.

Is that what neoliberals are calling imperialism nowadays?

“Sanders supported a non-binding Senate resolution that called on Gaddafi to resign his post in a peaceful, democratic transition of power.” (source). This counts as “supporting regime change”, but he never supported air strikes.

But, come on, what’s one more slur against Sanders in something that’s ostensibly supposed to be against Trump.

@501 As Clinton says, Libya could be worse; it could be Syria where the dictator has held on to power.

I just quoted a statement where Sanders urges Obama to make the intervention in Libya short, which it was. Do you have a quote where Sanders tells Obama not to strike Gaddhafi’s forces? If not, it would seem that the evidence we have is that Sanders did not oppose the short military action in Libya that Obama approved. I would be happy to read Sanders’ judgments as to what should have been done before the strikes, and am more than willing to grant that Sanders had better ideas about how to proceed in Libya than Clinton or Obama did. But the evidence you provided does not yet establish that.

RNB: “While HRC stupidly and cravenly gave W. the authorization for war, she also clearly warned him against going to war without the breakdown of the inspections process and without broad international support.”

The problem with the Iraq war was not that it happened before the inspections were ‘completed’ (whatever that means), or that it was unilateral. The problem was that there was an Iraq war at all; and that the premise of the war was a radical doctrine under which the U.S. asserted the right to launch a war on the basis of what it suspected another country might do at some time in the future – which is to say, the doctrine transforms the U.S. into an aggressor nation.

RNB: “The American people would be guilty of crimes against humanity if we gave Trump the nuclear codes and put him in a position to threaten enemies at his whim with nuclear annihilation.”

So when HRC, as a member of the Senate, entrusted with secret knowledge and elevated to a position of power, in turn empowered the President to launch an illegal war, without knowing how he would use that power, this was not a crime; but when voters with no secret information and no power, vote for a candidate, without knowing what the candidate will do, this is a crime?

@308 I am suggesting that the war would not have happened had the inspections team been given time to indicate that it was satisfied. As I remember it, anti-war people here thought Blix would cave into US pressure, but he did not. And without the UN imprimatur and broad international support, I don’t think George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton or Hillary Clinton engage in regime change in Iraq. But I do agree with you. I think the sanctions the US had imposed on Iraq, including the ban on the dual use technologies needed for reconstruction, were unjustifiable. I do believe we Americans are obliged to make sure our politicians do not overlook the enormous so-called “collateral damage” US policies have, and that will mean that Clinton has to be challenged every step of the way. But Trump is beyond all this, and it would be the most indictment of us as American people were we to allow someone as unstable, vicious, irrational and terrifying as Donald Trump to have the nuclear codes.

Honestly, could Hillary be a worse candidate? What she really wants to promise is that, as President, she’ll find and release the Secret Goverment UFO Files…?

Honestly, could Hillary be a worse candidate?

I think we’ve learned there is always a way.

bruce wilder @498

‘It is as it was: the powerful do as they will, and the rest of us must suffer.’ That is true; and yet it is not true that none of our choices ever have any effect.

@515 Whom are you quoting, RP? You linked to a piece. Is the quote in the piece to which you linked @502?
What you linked to was an assessment of Clinton’s claim that Sanders supported the strikes against Gaddhafi’s forces.

It concluded: “We rate Clinton’s statement Mostly True.”

This is from the link you provided. It could be wrong. It could be part of the propaganda machine, but it’s the link that you provided, for goodness’ sake.

I really would get off your high horse and stop accusing me of being “deceptive and misleading”. You are the one mishandling your own evidence, not me.

I see that you took the quote @515 from Sanders’ website
1. What you quoted is not a quote from what Sanders wrote or said before or during the Libyan intervention.
2. Sanders own website presents him as favoring the establishment of a no-fly zone in Libya, which of course cannot happen without intervention.

I can see why the other link you provided judged Clinton’s claim that Sanders supported the strikes against Gaddhafi as Mostly True. Again that was the conclusion of the piece to which you linked.

Sanders website links to a New York Times article in which it is discussed whether Obama was in violation of the law to extend the intervention in Libya. Koh makes an argument that it was no illegal. I am finding no quote therein from Sanders arguing that Koh was wrong. Again Clinton’s claim does indeed seem to be mostly true.

No I am not a campaign operative. I am horrified by Trump. And you can’t read your own evidence.

@ kidneystones

The GOP already have their change agent. Whether they can control Trump is an open question.

The GOP has already proven that it cannot control Trump since he is now their candidate much against their will. But I think that if he reaches the presidency he can be controlled by the markets just as all the other heads of state in the world are since that is what neoliberalism means, that states are subordinated to markets as opposed to liberalism in which states and markets are merely separated.

Voting for the market choice, Clinton, would permit Americans to identify for a few more years as members of the freest, most democratic, and most powerful country on earth and continue bombing, invading, and torturing at will, with no consequences. However, if Trump wins and begins fiddling with the system – free trade agreements and immigration, not the wars, those are fine – he would unleash the fury of the markets, be deposed just like Berlusconi was, and Americans would undergo a crash course in the functioning of global neoliberalism. Americans would end up just as neoliberal as ever, but a bit wiser.

The debate is narrow–not about foreign policy in general, LFC. Clinton claimed that Sanders supported the intervention in Libya. Sanders voted for a Congressional resolution which called for a UN resolution for a no-fly zone which cannot be established without intervention. Clinton said that since Sanders sponsored the Congressional resolution and the UN called for a no fly zone Sanders supported intervention as that is necessary for a no-fly zone. The piece RP linked to concluded that Clinton’s claim was mostly true.

Still RP calls me shameless and accuses me of being misleading and deception. But you are free to take RP seriously. I find his debating skills risible.

@2. You really don’t make contact with what I have said about why Trump poses such a threat to humanity. He had Bobby Knight introduce him as someone who would have dropped atomic weapons on Japan. He has recently been bought by Adelson who has recommended dropping an atomic weapon in Iran to get them to negotiate properly. Trump having the nuclear codes would be at the least a psychological crime against humanity and the American people are duty-bound to send him to a humiliating defeat. I see nothing exaggerated in what I am saying.

I’ll say it again the piece you cited said that the links are correct (the Congressional resolution expressed support for a UN resolution for a no fly zone which can’t be established without intervention) and that what Clinton said is mostly true: Sanders also supported intervention in Libya!
So you are arguing with your own evidence, RP; not me. Do you see that?

RNB @530
Well I agree that Trump should be resoundingly defeated. On that point at any rate we’re in accord. (I understand the debate was on a narrow point but I guess I was trying to pull back from it. In a campaign words like ‘intervention’ will sometimes get used broadly and this kind of debate, about who was in favor of what and when, will result. I’ll just leave it there.)

Again from the piece Puchalsky linked to:

‘The Senate resolution [which Sanders sponsored–RNB] asked “the United Nations Security Council to take such further action as may be necessary to protect civilians in Libya from attack, including the possible imposition of a no-fly zone over Libyan territory.”

The two related U.N. resolutions — 1970 and 1973 — called for drastic measures to pressure Gaddafi to stop his alleged human rights abuses, including establishing a no-fly zone and imposing an asset freeze on members of the regime. Neither resolution explicitly call for regime change, though.

But Clinton as secretary of state and leaders from other countries did use the two U.N. resolutions as a platform to take actions that they hoped would pressure Gaddafi to step down and allow a transition to democracy.’

It was naive of Obama, Clinton and Sanders to believe that any intervention in Libya would not eventually involve the UN, NATO and the US in regime change, given the way Gaddhafi would likely to react to that intervention. If Sanders did not want regime change, he should not have sponsored the Congressional Resolution. So on this question of Libya, Sanders does not have a record of being more anti-interventionist or having better judgment than Clinton.

Sanders does not seem to have had the hokey idea of Clinton’s to establish a no-fly zone with Russia apparently against itself. We haven’t talked about their differences in Syria. Sanders has not pressed Clinton here.

By all accounts (other than her own) Clinton was one of the strongest advocates for regime change in Libya, highly willing to use the military to achieve that goal. Clinton’s role in this decision is consistent with her role in other similar decisions like that of the Afghanistan ‘surge’. When the room is mostly full of Democrats, Clinton is the greatest hawk in that proverbial room. If she were to become president, we can expect a return to the sort of bipartisan, conventional-wisdom approach to foreign policy that Obama has struggled to break from. We already see the beginnings of this among those republicans who dislike Trump.

RNB, you are engaged in sophistry. Multiple people, myself included, suspect(ed) that you were a hired hand for David Brock. Consider that before you accuse the next poster of being a closet Trump supporter.

Have you asked yourself why Sanders was one of the ten Senators to sponsor a resolution that supported UN resolutions to do what was necessary to protect Libyan civilians from Gaddhafi? The UN resolutions authorized the use of force whether it took no-fly zones (which take a lot of military intervention to create) or strikes or bombing against Gaddhafi’s forces or whatever was necessary to protect the Libyan people from a dictator in his death throes acting violently.

Sanders did not have to get involved–he could for example have said that he did not think Gaddhafi posed a significant threat to civilians– but he was actually a sponsor of the Senate resolution. For him to turn around and say that he did not support the actions taken to protect people from Gaddhafi is disingenuous.

This is why the link you provided said that what Clinton says is mostly true.

I guess you are not embarrassed by the evidence you cite undermining your own arguments. There is probably a word for someone unfazed by such self-contradiction.

TTN @499 — That is fucking excellent. I did not know about this, cheers!

Pleased to have added something worthwhile. Enjoy.

I am sure that the paid Clinton spokespeople have been told to lay off foreign policy and focus on health care, family leave and not putting women in prison for an abortion.

RP, the piece you cited has the Senate Resolution and Sanders supporting both 1970 and 1973. Moreover, the Senate resolution would seem to have expressed support for the UN process in regards to Libya which results in 1970 and 1973 which according to the piece you cited authorizes the use of whatever force was necessary to protect Libyan civilians. For Sanders to turn around and say that he did not support force or the UN process in regards to Libya–when that was the point of the Senate resolution–would be disingenuous.
Again this is why the piece you cited says Clinton is mostly right. The piece you cited.

RNB: “RP, the piece you cited has the Senate Resolution and Sanders supporting both 1970 and 1973.”

No it does not. Now you are straightforwardly lying.

RNB: “the piece you cited has the Senate Resolution and Sanders supporting both 1970 and 1973”

*ctrl+F’s “1973”; –> 0 of o.

@547 Jeffrey you may have not noticed that I am defending the conclusion that the piece RP himself cited reached. It’s not aggressive to do this; it could be embarrassing for someone to discover that the evidence they cited reached the opposite conclusion that they said it did. But I would not worry about my embarrassing RP.
Sanders never argued against the use of any kind of force in Libya. He had plenty of opportunity to do so. But in fact he only seems to have requested in public that the intervention remain limited. Which in fact is approval of the use of some kind of force. And Clinton was not wrong to read the Senate Resolution that he decided to sponsor as approval of the appropriate kind of force.
There are tough questions here about R2P, and there is a reason why a decent person like Sanders in fact accepted the need for force to deal with Gaddhafi.

Umm LFC I wrote one sentence that Clinton, like Trump and Sanders, supported the use of force against Gaddhafi. Then Rich accused me of being a shameless liar, while citing a piece that said Clinton was mostly right that Sanders supported the use of force against Gaddhafi. I think he has made a fool of himself. Jeffrey disagrees.

Let’s not let anger at me distract us from Lupita’s call @526 to put Trump in office so Americans can become wise, chastened neo-liberals.

@557 Since you don’t give the impression that you are someone convinced by reason and argument, I guess I have appealed to you in terms that you understand.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/king-hillary-clinton-paying-trolls-attack-people-online-article-1.2613980

From novakant’s link at #559, something written by Shane Ryan:
“Using a tactic called “astro-turfing,” Clinton surrogates like Brock have attempted to advance the concept of the “Bernie Bro,” and to promote the idea that Sanders supporters are little more than a sexist cult.”

That’s why this is about more than just one guy who mysteriously can’t criticize Trump without also criticizing Sanders. RNB, whether a paid operative or not, is calling on a propaganda technique that predates his comments here, and actually predates this election. Maybe people should learn how to recognize it.

Shane Ryan: “It was also about turning the Internet into a political wasteland, so that if anyone sought information that might be against Kremlin policy, they’d encounter a confusing morass and feel immediately discouraged.”

LFC: “It happens to be past midnight here, not of course that that makes a bit of difference to people whose devotion to The Truth is so intense and overwhelming that their idea of the best way to spend the hour btw 12 and 1 a.m. is to engage in a detailed analysis of the differences betw Resolutions 1970 and 1973 and to consider whether the Sen. res. that Sanders sponsored endorsed only one or by implication both. At this pt in the sad recent history of Libya I’m really not sure who in the electorate gives a flying f*ck exactly what Sanders’ position was on this.”

I invite anyone who cares to look at just how difficult it is to prove a simple matter like what Sanders supported in a Senate resolution when the text of that resolution and the text of two different U.S. Resolutions, one mentioned in it and one not, are all freely available. A determined obfuscator can simply never admit the point and continue on.

Is RNB “trolling”? I don’t like the definition of trolling in the OP. RNB appears to me to be a standard sophist, using a style of refusal to admit anything that’s part of this core community. I can count at least three people upthread who’ve done the same thing about their own pet issues when I cited past comments to show that they were wrong.

RNB @ 471: “Trump supported the strikes against Gadhafi. As did Sanders. It is not clear that leaving Gadhafi in power would have yielded a better situation in Libya.”

I’m with Rich on this one. RNB’s claim here looks false, conflating ‘strikes against Gadhafi’ with a call for Ghadafi’s resignation and possibly a no-fly zone to protect civilians. Sanders did not call for the use of military force to oust Ghadafi from power – he called for Ghadafi to peacefully resign, and to prevent Libyan air forces from targeting civilians.

RNB @ 503

Unless I’m wrong, this Sanders statement comes 9 days after Obama committed forces to intervene in Libya. If so, it can’t be read as a call for the President to intervene in Libya, but rather as a call for the President, having already done so, to get out quickly.

@562 You’re hilarious, RP. Do you think the piece you cited was also using sophistry in reaching the conclusion that Clinton was mostly right about Sanders’ stance in Libya? Is it sophistry to say that Sanders also supports drone warfare, and is not the hippie pacifist people here seem to think.

RNB: “Note how massive a military intervention a no-fly zone is.”

It is not ‘strikes’, and it is not a call for military intervention to oust Gadhafi, and you know this.

As for being psycho, Ze K, you should probably consult Gaddhafi’s actions as he was losing massive parts of the country.

RP@446 I know you know. And, that you are most often ahead of me on the path.
Rich may be making a believer out of me
etc

The duo’s mutual sidekicksmanship often manifests itself during road trips. “Whenever we drive down to Cincinnati to see bands, I take the wheel,” Morrell said. “Me being the leader, not to mention the one with the car, I’m always the one who drives.” Rotham, however, sees it differently. “As the man with the plan, I choose to take the role of navigator on road trips,” he said. “Marc couldn’t find his ass with a homing device, so that means I’ve got to man the maps. And, let’s face it, even though Sulu pilots the Enterprise, he still takes orders from Kirk. I am captain, and Marc is my first lieutenant.“

Why I find interesting about RNB’s later efforts is the explicit way in which he treats U.N. Resolutions as meaning what neocons always said that they meant. In this theory, a U.N. Resolution that authorizes anything pretty much authorizes everything: authorizing a no-fly zone is actually authorization to bomb anything on the ground or indeed go to war.

But yeah, who cares, U.N. Resolutions are sooo boring, they only lead to major wars in which thousands or hundreds of thousands of people are killed.

Donald @ 318 was a pretty good comment btw

Oh layman are you saying that I was wrong to say that Gaddhafi was using rocket-launched grenades when it was the rebels who were using them. Gaddhafi used jets and helicopters. Not getting your point.

RNB: “Sanders had to consider the possibility that Gaddhafi may strike against those who were preventing him from using his helicopters.”

With grenade launchers?!

RNB: “No the point I am making–and it’s the point that is rightly made against Clinton’s advocacy of a no-fly zone in Syria–is that a no-fly zone is a massive military operation likely to lead to much deeper military entanglement.”

This is not the argument against Clinton’s advocacy of a no-fly zone in Syria. The argument against that is that it would involve shooting down Russian planes, because Russia is a de facto military ally of the Syrian state, and is operating air forces over Syria.

RNB: “But as one of ten who explicitly approved the setting up a no-fly zone in a terrifying situation Sanders is not one of them.”

If only he’d been more cynical — more cynical than you, since you still were/are defending R2P as of maybe a month ago. Cynical enough to know that his non-binding Senate resolution would lead to a no-fly zone and that would lead to bombing and then the same forceable, military regime change that HRC advocated. Everyone knows there’s no difference between not being cynical enough to predict a consequence and actively advocating for something.

bob mcmanus is basically right that Sanders, as a Senator, is necessarily implicated in everything that the system does. He’s a democratic socialist Senator, but still a Senator. The point of this isn’t to say that he’s a wonderful hero, it’s to analyze the propaganda that keeps people from seeing any possible difference, even any imaginary difference.

I am not defending R2P but trying to dwell on the tragedy it is that it cannot be implemented humanely. I want to make sure that there is no way that R2P can’t be implemented before we harden a categorical opposition to it, as the evidence is leading us to do. We really should talk about Syria in this context, though I agree with mcmanus that the piece on France is important and interesting.

RNB: “So obviously if Gaddhafi’s advantage is with his jets and helicopters and NATO takes those out, then he tries to keep and win back territory with more brutal things on the ground which requires some kind of response. ”

Well, no. If you’re enforcing a no-fly zone, you’re not enforcing a no-keeping-nor-taking-of-territory zone. Those are different things. Supporting the one doesn’t necessarily mean supporting the other. You’re simply wrong.

No LaymanI don’t buy that. You don’t have a no-fly zone to have a no-fly zone. You have it to protect civilians so it follows that if the consequence of your no-fly zone is to worsen the already horrific situation among the people you are protecting you have to extend the intervention. Which from the NYT piece is apparently what the military told Obama and Clinton would have to happen. Again Sanders having as of one of only ten called for a no-fly zone is implicated in all that follows

RNB: “No LaymanI don’t buy that. You don’t have a no-fly zone to have a no-fly zone. You have it to protect civilians so it follows that if the consequence of your no-fly zone is to worsen the already horrific situation among the people you are protecting you have to extend the intervention.”

Put another way, then, supporting a no-fly zone is just like supporting a massive nuclear strike. Because, as you say, you don’t have a no-fly zone to have a no-fly zone, you have it to protect civilians, so it follows that if the consequence of your no-fly zone is to worsen the already horrific situation among the people you are protecting you have to extend the intervention, and a massive nuclear strike is one way to extend it.

Really, a no-fly zone is just like eating babies! Because, of course, eating babies would certainly be an extension of your intervention.

@RNB, yes, of course, you only argue for the slippery slopes you like, where calling for someone to resign and for a no-fly zone is just like calling for strikes to remove someone from power; and where saying forces which have already been inserted should be withdrawn quickly is just like calling for them to be inserted in the first place.

What kind of a jerk writes that?

You got me!
https://youtu.be/UrgpZ0fUixs

Again I am not advocating war but recognition of the tragedy it is that we may have to develop a categorical opposition to R2P. It creates a sickening situation for humanity going forward.

What a privilege to be able to use the imperial “we” and determine whether what “we” tragically oppose will be sickening or not for … humanity!

You’ve been laying eggs under my skin
Now they’re hatching out under my chin
Now there’s tiny insects showing through
And all them tiny insects look like you

(I thought maybe we could do the whole album?)

There is the privilege of inaction when you have the resources to make things better for others at very least cost to yourself.

Welcome, imperial “you”. Of course you meant “we”, as in, “we Americans”. The privilege I am talking about is that of the US determining whether action or inaction is good or bad … for humanity! I wonder when the US will make things better for others by permitting a non-Westener to head the World Bank or the IMF. It would cost nothing.

The question here is whether those who support a no-fly zone do. So Gaddhafi hits a NATO plane trying to take down one of his jets or helicopters? What do you think happens? NATO does not strike his capabilities on the ground? Really?

“So Gaddhafi hits a NATO plane trying to take down one of his jets or helicopters? ”

…with his grenade launchers. Phooey.

Could it be that Clinton is subjected to sexism from pathetic, whimpering men as a woman who is willing to use force?

Maybe those pathetic, whimpering men are anti-imperialists.

“Or it is the result of people wanting to hate Clinton in sexist fashion for her unfeminine embrace of force and then having to imagine that Sanders or even Trump is different in order to shield themselves from the sexism that actually drives them.”

Or it’s that you started this exchange with a falsehood, and won’t admit it, which means everyone else must be a scoundrel.

The falsehood presumably being that Sanders who supported “humanitarian bombing” in Serbia supported military intervention in Libya in the form of a no-fly zone which was likely to require strikes being taken against Gaddhafi’s military capabilities?

pathetic, whimpering men

unfeminine embrace of force

Really, where is Val? My intuition tells me there is something wrong with RNB’s gender characterizations but I can’t put my finger on it. We need an expert here.

It’s hard to think of a better way to end a critique of Western, white, male, middle-class over-representation than a bunch of links to the Soft Boys.

I only take that kind of criticism from those named after Western, white, male, middle-class people.

RNB: “At any rate, this faith in a man who has supported “humanitarian bombing”, voted for the Iraqi Regime Change Act, supported Obama’s recent bombings in Syria and Iraq and drone warfare, signed on the invasion of Afghanistan, and decided to be one of only ten Senators allowing for a no-fly zone in Libya as some kind of hippie pacifist reflects the desire of people for a savior”

Wait, I thought that you were supposed to be deeply worried about Trump.

If David Brock had the brilliant idea of having his people pose as Marxists in order to discredit Marxism, or something like that, I’m going to owe engels a big apology. Or, who knows, maybe with “Could it be that Clinton is subjected to sexism from pathetic, whimpering men as a woman who is willing to use force?” he’s supposed to be discrediting feminism or something.

At any rate, back to RNB’s wonderful prose. It really is a gem of technique. The paragraph starts with stuff about how Sanders is bad — he does all these bad things just like all other bad politicians. But then, even if he was good, he’d be a “hippie pacifist” — weak, whimpering, ineffectual. So he’s bad at approaching an ideal which is, itself, bad, and the people who are even attracted to that ideal are looking for a savior and themselves other-directed and weak etc.

This kind of thing was implicit in RNB’s whole shtick from his first posts here that I saw. The people who eagerly joined in with his accusations as a vehicle for their resentments are now, I guess, posting videos and pretending that it was someone else who gave credence to this guy.

Lupita’s Trump financial coup scenario is about the first interesting comment on this thread. Does anyone have any references which might flesh it out?

Yup much more worried about Trump than Clinton or Sanders. It’s good that those who support Sanders do not do so on false pretenses, like he is the anti-war candidate.
Cmon Lupita, don’t backtrack like Bruce Wilder. You clearly think Clinton as the candidate of financial elites will fight their imperial wars that Trump will not. You prefer Trump. It’s so annoying when you and Bruce Wilder try to hide your madness like this.

It’s good that those who support Sanders do not do so on false pretenses, like he is the anti-war candidate.

Afaict most sensible leftists supported Sanders on the basis of his views on inequality, welfare, etc although he did a bit better on some foreign policy issues under pressure from his supporters (eg Israel)

Well on the questions of inequality, welfare, medical care, worker rights and women’s rights Clinton is incomparably better than Trump even if not as good as Sanders who has lost the nomination. Trump is also an authoritarian racist.

#626 Sure, I agree

I may take a break after Trump is defeated resoundingly

By how many percentage points does Clinton have to win for you to get your performance bonus?

RNB’s ranting is kind of fun to watch, and I should just lurk, but Someone Is Being Wrong On the Internet, so I can’t shut up completely–

1. On no fly zones, from what I’ve read RNB has a point. In order to enforce such a thing you might have to bomb some targets, things like radar installations and anti-aircraft missile bases, or so I’ve read. Sanders strikes me and most people as not very interested in foreign policy, so he might have endorsed no fly zones thinking they were a relatively safe way to intervene. In general, he seems to have followed the lead of the Democrats in most of his positions. Voting for the Iraq Regime change act was probably more of the same–it’s boilerplate. Not exactly brave of him, but a politician who opposed such a thing back in the day would have been accused of being pro-Saddam. It’s a far cry from voting for that and actually supporting an invasion of Iraq. There were politicians who opposed this. Obama opposed it and so did Sanders. Clinton did not. Seems important to some of us. And actually quite a few Sanders supporters were/are critical of his positions as being too hawkish, but he seemed amenable to pressure more than Hillary. And anyone who jokes “we came, we saw, he died” has a very creepy attitude towards the use of force. I’m 100 percent sure that if a Republican was caught on tape saying that it would be considered a Very Big Deal by all the center-liberal Hillary supporters.

2. RNB says Sanders ” supports Israel 100%.” Actually, he has changed under pressure from his supporters. This is why you will find some pretty harsh criticism of him back in 2014, where he yelled at some pro-Palestinian demonstrators, but two years later he criticized Israel’s tactics in Gaza while both Clintons defend Israel’s actions by saying the civilian deaths were all Hamas’s fault. Since RNB must know this, it’s hard to understand why he frames the issue in this misleading way.

3. And the idea that people dislike Clinton’s militarism because of her gender is, well, silly. I despised Bill Clinton when he was President for the same lefty reasons I despise Hillary Clinton. There was an article in Salon the other day which said that Hillary is a Cold War Democrat, which seems about right to me. That’s the type of Democrat that thinks the proper way to prove one’s credibility as a leader is to be “tough” on crime, “tough” on foreigners, and who thinks, as IIRC Albright said once, what good is this wonderful military we have if we can’t use it. The Clintons aren’t the only Democrats who think like this–obviously, since people praise her foreign policy experience as though it is a positive, there must be quite a few Democrats who think like this and only oppose militarism when it comes from Republicans.

4. Trump’s worse. Occasionally he sounds like he is better on some issues, like when he criticizes the Iraq War or says we should be evenhanded on the I/P conflict, but then he usually follows up by saying something worse, like advocating the murder of family members of terrorists or saying Netanyahu should build more settlements.

5. I hate American politics.

“Since RNB must know this, it’s hard to understand why he frames the issue in this misleading way.”

This strikes me as a good all-purpose response to almost anything RNB writes.

@631 Yes this is why I am up at night worried about a Trump victory. It could happen.

@637 So says the person defending the integrity of Gaddhafi. Great stuff. But I am sure I won’t make inroads with this group.

As several have noted, Trump makes so many contradictory statements, which suggests only that he understands exactly how this game is played.

It suggests he is what he has always been, not that he has adapted to politics.

You might imagine that you are his mother; but I don’t think you are.

As contradictory as Trump’s statements may be, what his commitments are, are clear on a moment’s reflection. He has no limits on the use of force and collateral damage he’ll countenance to get others in a weaker bargaining position. He will disfavor minorities in manifold ways and let bosses get away with hell with workers. He’ll humiliate women. He’ll celebrate the death penalty and torture. He’ll unleash anti-intellectualism and degrade our culture in manifold ways.

@644 Please direct me to a piece where Sanders’ and Clinton’s positions and voting records on Israel/Palestine are compared. I don’t think there is much difference here, but I may be wrong. In Adelson’s pocket Trump is to the right of both.

No I am not Trump. I am John Barron.

Sigh. I just said Sanders was yelling at pro- Palestinian demonstrators during the Gaza War and was pulled left by his supporters, so no, I am not going to look for the kind of evidence you demand because you choose to ignore what everyone has seen in the campaign. In the days before the primary Sanders was criticizing Israel’s killing of civilians in Gaza– he confused deaths with casualties and was criticized for this, while Clinton defended what Israel did.. Clinton has also said she wants to take the relationship to the next level.

The only people who see Clinton and Sanders as the same on this are pro-Palestinian types who want complete purity on the issue and rightwingers who think Clinton is going to stab Israel in the back. Literally everyone else sees a pretty big gap between what they have said.

I grant that Sanders has openly recognized the human tragedy that the Palestinians suffer in a way that the Clintons have not, as they continue to blame every innocent Palestinian life lost on Hamas military tactics. I just don’t see what Sanders would do differently. But I am open to education.

Look we are going to have to end this lovefest because my week before summer session is almost over. I’ll be handing over the Clinton shilling to another publicist, Carlos Danger; that should also double the Latino presence on the list.

LFC,
LFC, I would like to see your argument that supporting the military intervention to set up a no fly zone is

a. a stance against military intervention in Libya,

b. that Sanders would have said “no” to the military leaders claiming that they couldn’t create a no-fly zone without the broader mandate that Sanders was willing to give NATO in Serbia,

c. that Sanders can be claimed to be innocent of knowing the the broader powers the military would have wanted when he signed on to a no-fly zone, given his support of in Serbia; and

d. the Senate Resolution was not a pledge to respect the UN resolutions which eventually resulted in *1973* as regards to intervention in Libya.

I continue to think it’s disingenuous of Sanders to say that he opposed the military action in Libya given his sponsorship of the Senate resolution and his previous support of humanitarian bombing.
Really Sanders is also capable of prettifying his record too. Clinton is right to challenge him on this in my opinion.

Reuters: EXCLUSIVE: Trump says he plans to dismantle most of Dodd-Frank financial regulation if elected; he will outline economic vision in two weeks
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-exclusive-idUSKCN0Y82JO

(Last link apropos of those arguing that Trump represents a challenge to ‘neoliberalism’ and/or expecting him to be deposed by global capital…)

Yup, I wonder whom I would vote for were it to come down to Sanders v. Trump. I guess I would just abstain.

I mean: after all Trump says he opposed the military action in Libya and I believe him.

I think Sanders supported the military actions taken against Gaddhafi’s military and Ze whatever tells me that Gaddhafi was a man of great integrity; I also truly believe that Trump is less trigger-happy despite all that talk about carpet bombing, dropping atomic weapons and enjoying the jouissance of torture.

But I don’t like Trump’s trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the editors at my favorite magazine People by not copping to being John Barron. Seriously: you mess with the tabloid editors on whom our culture depends, and you have gone too far. So I just wouldn’t know whom I would vote for.

I’d probably sit it out.

RP @662
his [RNB’s] denial of difference wasn’t between Clinton and Sanders, it was between Trump and Sanders.

The original statement that set this off was couched that way (though I frankly don’t recall well that particular piece of the thread or might have skipped it). But I’ve read enough of the thread to know that RNB was also, particularly in the later stages, arguing that there is relatively little difference between Clinton and Sanders on foreign policy. E.g. @656: “But again the difference with Sanders [i.e. between Clinton and Sanders] is not that great.” And earlier, for ex., RNB made one of several repeated references to Sanders’ support of the NATO air campaign in Kosovo (this @599):

Sanders to this day proudly defends the “humanitarian bombing” of Serbia which resulted in regime change! Let’s let him say that he did not support similar actions in Libya, though he admits that it was a human rights catastrophe as with the Kosovar Albanians. If that is true, then why the apparent double standard: why the willingness to use NATO in aerial bombardment to protect European lives but not Arab lives?

Here RNB is saying (1) Sanders supported (some kind of) intervention in Libya, but if he did not (2) he is a hypocrite or has double standards b.c he supported it in Kosovo. Leaving aside the merits, it seems an odd point to be making at this stage of the campaign.

What I don’t quite understand is why, when HRC is overwhelmingly likely to be the nominee and people interested in defeating Trump shd be aiming to unify the party in some way, RNB is doing his best to alienate Sanders supporters. If one were to give RNB every benefit of the doubt, one might say he was stung or offended or something by some effort Sanders made to draw distinctions betw himself and HRC on Libya; RNB found this “disingenuous” on Sanders’ part and proceeded to go on a tear about it. From a political standpt it doesn’t make much sense though to be reinforcing bitterness betw the two campaigns right now.

From following the campaign, albeit casually not with v. close attention, it was apparent to me that foreign policy and intl affairs are not Sanders’ main interest. It’s not what propelled his candidacy. And his relative lack of interest helped make him willing to change his mind occasionally — Donald @632 points out (and I’ve no reason to doubt this) that Sanders’ publicly expressed views on (aspects of) the Israel/Palestinian conflict changed somewhat under pressure from supporters — and might also have led him to make statements he wd have thought twice about later. I don’t know about the latter but it’s possible.

There are discernible — not, on the whole, huge but nonetheless discernible — differences on foreign policy between Clinton, Obama, and Sanders. A close perusal of the three would, I’m sure, reveal these distinctions. (J. Stacey, who worked for Clinton and whose post I’ve already linked, definitely sees distinctions betw Clinton and Obama (and favors the Clinton approach); he doesn’t discuss Sanders in that post.) If one bracketed Libya entirely and just looked at other issues, the distinctions would, I’m reasonably sure, still be there.

These distinctions would be interesting to explore in a discussion, whether online or in a seminar room or wherever, of U.S. foreign policy. But in the setting of a general election campaign of Clinton v Trump, the distinctions betw Clinton, Obama, and Sanders necessarily are going to fade into the background, at least for the duration of the campaign itself. Many people who are unhappy with or disagree w HRC’s approach to for. policy are still going to vote for her, and most people who will vote for Trump are not going to vote for him b.c of his for. policy views (whatever exactly they turn out to be).

Another obstacle Clinton faces is that she is considered dishonest. But she is no more dishonest than Sanders and certainly much less dishonest than Trump.

So look at we have learned here. In this spat over who is misrepresenting whom in regards to Libya, Clinton may be closer to to truth than even Bernie Sanders.See my @664 for some evidence. Clinton said that Sanders was supportive of the intervention through the Senate Resolution he sponsored, and I think she is right though Sanders has challenged that.

Now people may find it hard to believe this after the Republicans have told us for years about Clinton’s proclivities to lie. See Benghazi.

I think Clinton has pretty much been subjected to a witch hunt with people presupposing that she is unusually deceptive and manipulative for a politician. But she is the one closer to telling the truth in this situation.

@573 —

That thing where you think you’re talking to one person but really, you’ve run into a rather unfortunate package deal.

(Also, Oasis is the lesser evil like Trump is the anti-war candidate. Just sayin’.)

Ze K

@570
‘All this will end soon, anyway. I have no doubt whatsoever that the psycho (Clinton) will push too far, and missiles will fly.’

As evidence for any conclusion, I find an absence of doubt on your part unpersuasive.

@578
‘Qadhafi had more decency in his little finger …’

He never had enough decency to allow the people of his country the opportunity to vote his government out of office.

LFC: “What I don’t quite understand is why, when HRC is overwhelmingly likely to be the nominee and people interested in defeating Trump shd be aiming to unify the party in some way, RNB is doing his best to alienate Sanders supporters. ”

So many possibilities. I don’t really care about RNB, but I’ll go through the general reasons why there’s so much Sanders-baiting from Clinton supporters right now.

1. Maybe they aren’t Clinton supporters. RNB could just as easily be a Trump supporter as anything else, trying to make Clinton look bad and trying to make people who criticize Trump look ridiculous.

2. People who talk about the need to vote for the lesser-evil candidate are not generally actually interested in getting people to vote: they are interested in demonstrating their moral superiority. When you actually want people to vote, you’re friendly and encouraging. No one goes to your door and says “I’m here to take you to the polls so you can vote for Hillary, you jerk.” No, the point of Internet lectures on how irresponsible people are using their white privilege to not vote is to make the lecturer feel superior.

3. Most likely, Clinton supporters — paid or unpaid — are actually more concerned about Sanders than Trump. Clinton pretty much wins if she just holds Democratic states, or at least has a strong advantage. And she’s never going to get Trump-leaning voters. So the important thing is to get Sanders voters to vote for her. And telling them “You’re sexist if you don’t vote for HRC” or “You’re racist if you sit this one out” is pretty much her consistent appeal and the core of her leftward campaign, based on guilt rather than any positive qualities, since from a Sanders-voter point of view she doesn’t really have any positive qualities.

4. We’re still in the primary, and it’s David Brock running the show. He wants people on the left saying stuff like “I hate American politics” and generally resigned to numbly doing nothing but going to the general election and casting their lesser-evil vote.

Lupita @573
[RNB] My wife who is black is a Sanders supporter, though that’s straight Brooklyn identity politics.

[Lupita]I wonder where Val is when you need her.

Anyway I don’t quite know what to make of RNB’s use of the term here. He is using it in a new way – not in the neoliberal ‘there’s no such thing as oppression on the basis of gender and race, it’s all just about personal identity’ way, but in a kind of ‘it’s all about where you live way’ – as if I said ‘I vote green because I live in the inner-city Melbourne suburb of Brunswick and that’s what we do here’ kind of way (those are #auspol references, I hope they make sense). Community as well as locality I suppose, but does sound a bit patronising to RNB’s wife.

I was thinking of my earlier comment that people can get heated and self righteous about almost anything. Here’s a link to a paper on the debate over bird evolution and whether they descended directly from theropod dinosaurs. My impression is that this is settled now in favor of dinosaurs , but I don’t know and maybe I am repeating ” paleobabble”. But look at page 4– the participants really got heated about it.

http://www.ohio.edu/people/witmerl/Downloads/2002_Witmer_Debate_on_avian_ancestry.pdf

I am not sure whether you still think my line that I admittedly got from Hillary Clinton that Sanders supported the strikes in Libya is not a shameless lie as you accused me. His support of the bombing is what is implied in his sponsorship of the Senate resolution and his previous defense of humanitarian bombing in Serbia.

I guess it was not funny to suggest that Brooklyn loyalty runs deeper than racial and gender loyalty. But Brooklyn is a special place.

This worst part of this discussion began in my opinion after I made a case for Clinton being better on foreign policy than Trump. I added one line that those who oppose Clinton for the strikes in Libya should note that Sanders and Trump also supported the strikes, so this would not be a unique liability that could be held against her.

Rich Puchalsky accused me of shameless lying in my saying that Sanders supported the strikes.

So Puchalsky poisoned the discussion with serious accusations of unethical behavior on my part. If people want a better list ecology, tell him to ratchet it down.

It should be clear from the Senate resolution that Sanders sponsored that neither Clinton nor I are shameless in thinking that Sanders was on board with the military intervention that the Security Council authorized.

It may still turn out we are wrong to have interpreted the evidence this way, but it is certainly not an unreasonable interpretation of Sanders in light of his previous history.

And it was simply wrong to accuse me of shameless behavior and lying.

RNB, perhaps you should consider starting your own blog? I feel like at least 50% of my scrolling on these recent politics-related threads is moving past your comments to see if anyone else has posted something

It’s a lot of scrolling. Seem like you have a lot to say – plenty of content for a blog, no?

Also, may USian respondents please clarify:

i) isn’t it already settled policy/practice that families/associates of terror suspects are available for murder or other punishment with impunity? To be avoided, but if it happens, then shrugs all around.

ii) isn’t it settled policy that a wall exists/ and ought to be extended to keep the southern horde out? Aren’t draconian deportations already bipartisan policy? Love them but not sufficient room.

iii) isn’t it settled policy that Muslims are suspicious: that random Muslims be barred from entry into the United States, with little expressed justification or recourse to explanation/ and the practice that those in the US are targeted by US law enforcement for especial profiling and surveillance – wasn’t there a CR thread here from NYC colleges about this?

iv) isn’t it settled that a ‘what’s in it for the US’ policy defines US interventions abroad, whether military, trade, migration or on climate change?

These are good faith questions proceeding from mainstream news and activist pushback that is in evidence during a double Democratic Party term. There may be nuances I don’t understand, but I think the antecedents of Trump’s wild lashing out at minorities, women and immigrants are interesting. His ledger based foreign policy similarly seems to me to be in keeping with an ongoing tradition that includes commercial calculations of benefit in deciding where and how to intervene.

This is not just to show the hypocrisy of those who now insist Trump is the devil incarnate, unrelieved evil and a danger to the world, although that is important. Trump is a mirror that distorts, but he – a great, recent supporter of liberal candidates and their political positions, producer and purveyor of culturally valuable media content – is a reflection of the mainstream. Beyond Trump, it is useful to understand how naked bigotry, here as much as in the US, comes to appeal to so many in the primaries, inside nominally non-racist parties i.e. to become mainstream.

I don’t think dismissing RNB and his cohort is wise. The collective could pay more attention to Lupita’s questions about the underlying assumptions defining US politics and their relation to the rest of the world. For me, battles against liberals/liberalism/neoliberalism define the mainstream and are the most important site for politics today. Sure, there’s much that’s fouler to their right, but we survive the world of the liberals, the world of their feints against structures producing violence and death, and it is the sturdy army of liberals and their justifications and declarations of what is impossible that truly stands in the way of a better world.

jejeje,

I will start a petition at change.org to bring back the old Val – an unwavering voice against patriarchy and hierarchies, whose voice was a reminder of the importance of always fighting against our easiest assumptions, our blind spots and exclusions. They are much missed.

I will sign there with my full name.

Bernie Sanders: Free Puerto Rican Political Prisoner Oscar Rivera
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Sanders-Free-Puerto-Rican-Political-Prisoner-Oscar-Rivera–20160517-0018.html

Why Rupert Murdoch Decided to Back Donald Trump
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/05/why-rupert-murdoch-decided-to-support-trump.html

And this is how the troll generates strife. For what he indicates is known to be false or harmful or ignorant; but he does not say that thing, but rather something close. In this way he retains the possibility of denial, and the skilled troll is always surprised and hurt, or seems to be, when the others take his comments up. And so he sets the community apart from each other, and introduces strife where before there was scarcely disagreement..

[1] https://www.powerthesaurus.org/troll/antonyms.

Val@675,

not in the neoliberal ‘there’s no such thing as oppression on the basis of gender and race, it’s all just about personal identity’ way

That’s not how I generally see the term “identity politics” used in the US. I most commonly see it as asserting importance of oppression on the basis of race or gender or sexual orientation & etc. over the importance of class. Basically, a rejection of the old Marxist* idea that it’s really economics all the way down.

Anyhow, this thread must reach 1000 comments.

*Yes, yes, I’m sure I’m getting it wrong somehow. Replace “Marxist” with “vulgar Marxist” if that helps.

I think that I’ve learned how to deal with not being annoyed by Plume and who knows, maybe engels some day too.

My existence on this cold, dead planet has hope, meaning and purpose after all

@engels

Even if Trump says he will dismantle Dodd-Frank, there are still the issues of immigrants and NAFTA, which are his signature issues, the reason for his campaign, and the basis for his support. I do not see how Trump would be able to re-negotiate NAFTA or deport millions without intense opposition from corporations, bond vigilantes, Wall Street, and the media.

Despite intense opposition from the elite, Trump was not blocked from winning the primary elections because it would seem undemocratic and the elite do not want to play that card yet in hopes of being able to reason with him, like it did with Tsipras. However, if he does reach the presidency and he tries to change immigration practices and NAFTA in important ways (that threaten GDP growth) then, I’m afraid, the pretense of democracy will be unceremoniously ditched as it was with Berlusconi.

Lupita @ 705

I don’t know how “intense” the opposition to Trump has really been from various right-leaning elites. Noisy in a way yes. Well-publicized. But, “intense”?

The Republican Party has been used to supply obvious losers as Presidential candidates in this, and the previous two elections. The Donald fills the bill, as far as being an obvious loser. The plan, as near as I can make out, is to enable Clinton to win despite a depressed / repressed turnout that protects Republican power in Congress. All the rest is kabuki.

The vast majority of Americans are completely oblivious to the advance of authoritarian structures and precedents. I listened to National Public Radio doing on-the-street reporting from Paris this morning. NPR supplies leftist-attitude for the tote bag progressives, but no notice that the nominally left Hollande is imposing neoliberal reform by decree against majority sentiment.

if the alternative was Sanders etc then they’d be okay with Trump

And just to be clear, I think the alternative to Trump etc is Sanders etc. There is no reason to expect American politics to drift back towards where it was in the 90s. If Hillary scrapes through this time, she will be the last of her line.

Wall Street hated Clinton? I don’t remember this–I remember the 90’s as a time when Clinton and Rubin and Summers and on a lower level Tom Friedman all treated Wall Street with great respect ( except for some early complaints by Clinton about effing bond traders). And Alan Greenspan was the great oracle worshipped by all.

sounds too planned

No doubt. I intend that summary description to be read in the spirit of social “as if” it were planned, knowing that the social processes are a bit too diffuse to be as intentional as a conspiracy’s deliberate strategy.

I do think we should recognize that there are people in politics, mostly not in office, who act deliberately and with a long view, and as Lupita suggests, they intervene decisively when motivated to do so. The Republican Party has chosen losers as much from what these people do not do, and do not feel they need to do, as from what is actually done. The Party is always there, but a subtle change in the cast changes the play from drama to farce.

The Republican Party controls too many states to be accurately described as a merely regional Party. The Presidential Party component — the loosely organized group that pursues the Presidency — has weakened, and become almost vestigial, but that does not indicate a weakness in the Party so much as that the individual States are much more vulnerable to right-wing business domination in the current political environment. The Dems are arguably more dependent on big cities and a few big urbanized States; the Democratic Party apparatus is definitely weaker.

Neither Obama nor Clinton has threatened the interests of the most powerful and decisive, so they do not feel a need to act thru the Republican Party’s Presidential franchise. They leave it to others to try this or that. Trump’s unexpected success has threatened the credibility of the professional campaign consultant grifter class, which was given a prolonged opportunity to make a lot of money and ultimately came up with nothing. That’s just data, for the powers that be.

Donald Trump to meet with Henry Kissinger Wednesday
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/05/17/politics/donald-trump-henry-kissinger-meeting/index.html?eref=rss_latest

@bruce wilder

All the rest is kabuki.

That is more or less my point. This whole election, and elections worldwide with very few exceptions, is all kabuki. Latin Americans realized this when Lula and Bachelet made their peace with global capital and focused on some internal stuff that did not threaten global neoliberalism. Europeans realized this when second referendums were held when electorates got it wrong the first time and others were postponed indefinitely because polling showed they would not pass, when Berlusconi was deposed, when Tsipras changed his tune, and even when Tata Steel could not be nationalized because of European restrictions.

Trump being elected and then, either being deposed or becoming a traitor, would undoubtedly make many Americans arrive at the same conclusion: TINA.

@engels

The billionaires are backing Clinton. As to what neoliberalism means, in practical terms, it means free trade agreements with provisions that weaken social and labor rights, cheap labor for rich countries and their corporations, intellectual property rights (also for Western corporations), free capital movement (for Western financial institutions), and the transfer of power from national governments to global capital.

The bosses want Clinton, obviously.

The bosses will donate to anyone they think will have influence. What they would like is a Republican who is not an arsonist.

Btw too bad the great Col. Ghaddafi isn’t alive and running for pres of US. That wd really make the bosses nervous.

/sarcasm

The bosses will donate to anyone they think will have influence. What they would like is a Republican who is not an arsonist.

Well, if Sanders succeeds in taking over the Democratic Party, us centrists will have to go somewhere!

Academic Lurker @ 700
I think the term ‘identity politics’ can be used in a variety of ways and has complex and contradictory origins. However it seems to have arisen mainly in the US in the 90s. It’s not common in Australia, I don’t recall seeing it much till I started reading CT – from my perspective it reflects the ‘liberal individualism’ that seems to characterise much US politics and is different from the more collective approach that is common in the left in Australia and Europe (not so much the UK).

Neoliberalism drew on that tradition of liberal individualism in its attempts to resist the egalitarian and democratising trends which were common to (true) socialism, feminism, anti-racist and anti-imperialist movements. For the traditional liberal individualist view that we are have rights as individuals, it substituted the view that we all have rights as individuals and we can best assert these in the ‘free market’ (of course it’s contradictory, I won’t analyse that here).

So while I agree that ‘identity politics’ can actually be used in a variety of ways, I’d say it gets its strength in the US from liberal individualism, which has in turn been further strengthened by its (apparent) adoption by neoliberals. That’s why it seems ironic that supposedly progressive left wing people on CT, who apparently hate neoliberalism, use it to attack feminists and people of colour here.

729 is pretty good, but it might be helpful to replace “liberal individualism” with CB MacPherson’s 60s concept of “possessive individualism” in which the right to free speech for example, becomes the personal property of an individual. In this way under late capitalism our personal qualities and social advantages (including group identifications) have become “capital” to be developed and profited from. Thus under neoliberal post-Fordism, everyone becomes the entrepreneur of their own bodies and contingencies.

In this way under late capitalism our personal qualities and social advantages (including group identifications) have become “capital” to be developed and profited from.

I hope there’s some negative capital posited, because the idea that some of my friends have reaped any kind of profit from qualities not currently seen as advantageous seems dumb, especially individually. Or is it that it only applies to groups reaching a political critical mass?

bruce wilder

The polls suggested that nominating (for example) Kasich would have given the Republicans a better chance of winning the Presidential election than nominating Trump.

I don’t know whether the polls are reliable on this point, but that’s what they suggested.

Supposing the polls were giving an accurate indication, one possible explanation for why the Republicans have nevertheless chosen Trump over Kasich is that the factors which make Kasich more appealing than Trump among marginal voters and the factors which make Trump more appealing than Kasich among Republican primary voters are the same factors (or the majority of them are). Maybe (generalising) it’s precisely the candidates who are less competitive in the general election who are most appealing in the primary elections.

I’m not sure that’s true, but it’s at least plausible.

What is much less plausible — in fact grossly implausible — is that there are people who want the Democrats to win Presidential elections and who are in a position to manipulate the Republican Party to go into the tank by nominating the inferior candidate over candidates who would be more competitive in the general election.

Those two explanations are seriously divergent.

But I can’t tell from reading your comments above (707 and 714) which of these two explanations you’re suggesting.

Looking further, I note that the polls also suggest that the Democrats would have a better chance of winning the Presidential election with Sanders as their nominee than with Clinton as their nominee. Again, I don’t know that the polls are reliable on this point, but that’s what they say.

Taking that into account, the divergence in plausibility between the two kinds of explanation is even greater. It makes a lot of sense to suppose that both parties face the same basic structural problem, that the qualities required to appeal to primary voters are in conflict with the qualities required to appeal to marginal voters in the general election. It makes almost no sense to suppose that both parties are being manipulated into nominating candidates with poorer prospects in the general election.

C’mon, mcmanus, most right-to-work laws go back to the 1940s and ’50s, as I’m sure you know. You can do better than that, surely?

Anyway, it’s curious to me that the way most people here think about identity politics isn’t at all what I would’ve said (not that I would even necessarily endorse what I generally think of under “identity politics”). But probably best not to set off another 300 comments.

Yeah, I think of it as going back at least to the ’80s, tho it might be even older. Certainly, it was well established—entrenched, one might even say—when I was in college in the mid-to-late ’90s.

hardly anything changed at all

No, lots changed.

I think of identity politics as actually being the re-emergence of tradition into a modern/post-modern historical context.

So, what I think of as identity politics style feminism allows women to embrace aspects of traditional feminine qualities.

Identity politics anti-racism allows, say, African Americans to embrace aspects of their cultural heritage either from Africa, or earlier African-American culture.

I suppose for homosexual people and transgender people identity politics is a bit different due to their subaltern status historically in the West, so perhaps it is less tied to tradition. I’m not sure.

In the built form it is moving away from slum clearing so as to build brutalist sky scrapers; to building more diverse public housing styles that are more integrated into the wider community.

I think you can trace elements of this to the 60s and 70s, but I would say it maybe became dominant in the 80s and 90s.

I actually don’t think there was a time in say the 30s 40s and 50s where people never at all embraced aspects of traditional gender or racial or cultural roles or qualities, but I think a strain of leftist thought in the mid 20th C was heading in a direction of wanting to nullify differences such as gender, race, and culture.

I don’t think hardly any leftist thought has that goal anymore, and would I think identity politics is pretty much accepted as normal by people from generation x and younger.

Of course there are all sorts of problems with this on a theoretical level, as it lends itself to a relativist epistemology. But I think that since people in the main didn’t like the idea of nullifying gender, racial, cultural, sexual difference, then there is no practical alternative other than some sort of identity politics in cosmopolitan societies.

I think this is where it differs the most from traditional leftism, in that it is very much a politics of practice, encountering the other and negotiating what is acceptable difference.

Just to tie my above comment at 744 to Lupita’s comment on getting rid of presidents – we are still a fairly stable political system here in Aust, and don’t have the whole paraphernalia that Lupita describes – in fact I think the old-style left method of demonstrating in the streets had some effect in getting rid of Tony Abbott (last PM but one) – but our experience does suggest that once you start turning over leaders, it can be hard to stop. I’m not saying that’s necessarily a bad thing, though.

I think this @693 was the response to my @678 where I put the case for why Sanders’ sponsorship of a Senate Resolution indicated support for Security Council resolutions on how to respond to the threat faced by Libyan civilians and that Sanders had thus committed himself to broad military actions the Security Council thought necessary.

Rich Puchalsky responded that the Senate Resolution indicated support of action, including the establishment of a no-fly zone; but that the Senate Resolution set the limit on the establishment of a no-fly zone.

But the Senate Resolution does not say action “up to” a no-fly zone; rather it puts confidence in the Security Council to determine the actions necessary to protect Libyans. I also noted that it is simply false to give the impression that Sanders is opposed in principle to “humanitarian bombing” (this false belief may well have driven the accusations that I was lying shamelessly about Sanders having supported the strikes in Libya) and that Sanders made no statements against doing what the Security Council authorized before or during the military intervention in Libya.

I thus judge Clinton’s statement true that through his Senate Resolution Sanders had indeed given advance support for the military action that the Security Council authorized. Resolution 1973 includes the following: ‘imposes a no-fly zone over Libya; authorizes all necessary means to protect civilians and civilian-populated areas, except for a “foreign occupation force”‘.

But it should go without saying I do not thereby support the military intervention in Libya. I simply do not think there is in this case and many others the big gulf between Sanders and Clinton that many people seem to think there is.

Now here is Rich Puchalsky’s response to my argument:

“A: You’re racist if you don’t vote HRC.
B: But she talked about deporting kids to send a message and supported policies to do that.
A: So what? Sanders wants to ‘secure the border’ too, as does Trump.
B: What? Sanders wants to do that in a very different way.
A: No he doesn’t.
B: OK, I’ll dig through a whole lot of text to show that what he supported is different.
A: So now you’re ‘parsing’ text. Maybe it says that, who knows? It’s complicated. Why are you insulting me? You’re racist.”

What I have said is that those who support Trump over Clinton likely do so out of some mixture of authoritarianism, sexism, prejudice and ignorance. Of course people prefer Sanders over Clinton for other reasons: universal health care, Wall Street reform, trade policy, etc. On the first two issues Sanders and Clinton are much closer to each other than they are to Trump. On the trade issue of course Sanders and Trump stand opposed to Clinton with whom I agree here.

Clinton’s statements that she would deport children or rather relocate them to their families are indeed chilling; she has thankfully repudiated the public statements that she made during the migration of thousands of unaccompanied minors often from Central America.

But it is true that I believe that Clinton has supported amnesty for over twelve million people while Sanders has stood in the way of immigration reform. I have long said here that this is one reason to prefer Clinton to Sanders.

I am all for parsing the Senate Resolution Sanders supported. It shows support for judgment of the Security Council to determine the necessary actions as the Libyan crisis unfolded. It does not give the Security Council limits on what the Senate will approve; and Sanders is no principled opponent of “humanitarian bombing”. Sanders does not have distance from Clinton here.

I like this by Amartya Sen on identity but worry that he may exaggerate how truly plural our identities already are (as if we were already Marx’s hunter, fisherman, herdsmen and critic):

“Civilisational or religious partitioning of the world population yields a ‘solitarist’ approach to human identity, which sees human beings as members of exactly one group…This can be a good way of misunderstanding nearly everyone in the world. In our normal lives, we see ourselves as members of a variety of groups – we belong to all of them. The same person can be, without any contradiction: an American citizen, of Caribbean origin, with African ancestry, a Christian, a liberal, a woman, a vegetarian, a long-distance runner, a historian, a schoolteacher, a novelist, a feminist, a heterosexual, a believer in gay and lesbian rights, a theatre lover, an environmental activist, a tennis fan, a jazz musician, and someone who is deeply committed to the view that there are intelligent beings in outer space with whom it is extremely urgent to talk (preferably in English). Each of these collectivities, to all of which this person simultaneously belongs, gives her a particular identity. None of them can be taken to be the person’s only identity or singular membership category.”

Sen does not throw much light here on Clinton’s shifts but rather on how, e.g., Hutu and Tutsi identity could become so overwhelmingly ethnic to undercut other possibly overlapping bases of identity as to create the conditions for unimaginable violence.

So aside from Sen, there is Jacques Ranciere’s attempt to think about how those who are part of a situation but not counted or recognized actively assert their equality. Not identity politics per se.