Been a busy week, so I guess one of the more amazing bits of deeply serious contrarian lunch-box “liberal” punditry just slipped through the cracks, (at least for me). But today, via Chris Clarke, writing at PZ Myers’ place, I finally learned that yes, Matt Yglesias did say that Bangladeshi workplaces are appropriately more deadly than those in the US:
Bangladesh may or may not need tougher workplace safety rules, but it’s entirely appropriate for Bangladesh to have different—and, indeed, lower—workplace safety standards than the United States.
The reason is that while having a safe job is good, money is also good.
There are lots of ways to gut the “thinking” behind those words — and many of them have had a work out [LOOG!] on the ‘tubes, [Chris Clarke, again] to be sure — so for here I’ll just note that one of the things that Yglesias elides in that passage (and the rest of the post, and his next thoughts on the subject) is that the Bangladeshi economy — and ours — do not exist in hermetically sealed isolation chambers. There are real costs we and the Bangladeshi’s pay in the game to seek the lowest possible labor rates — a price both economic and moral, paid not just over there, but here too.
That leaves aside the baseline question of just how much economic misery would be too much even for a MOTU, or a former philosophy major, to impose in the name of untrammeled free trade? Children may well prefer under-nutrition in exchange for all-daylight-hours of labor to absolute starvation.
Slaves as economically useful units generally may expect care and feeding (when oversupply doesn’t render the cost of upkeep to onerous for the job creators)…and so on. Where does Yglesias draw the line, if he does — and should he do so, what possible moral system allows one to inscribe as freaking low as his scribblings on Bangladesh would imply?
With that — over to you. Y’all have a reputation as a pack of snarling, vitriolic something-or-others.
Prove it.
Image: John Planella i Rodríguez, Weaver, (La nena obrera) 1889.
low-tech cyclist
Over at CogBlog, Sir Charles and I have both been on the case.
Trust me, we haven’t pulled any punches.
Tom Levenson
@low-tech cyclist: Excellent.
jl
Didn’t Larry Summers run this stuff up the flag pole a few years ago? That didn’t go well.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
Money is good, staying alive is optional. Or something.
Poopyman
The answer to the question in the title is that I don’t think I should waste my time with him.
Tom Levenson
@Poopyman: Wise man.
Mnemosyne
I guess we shouldn’t have changed any safety regulations after the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire since we couldn’t judge the cost-benefit calculations those workers made when they took those jobs. After all, many of them had to make a split-second cost-benefit decision between leaping to their deaths and being burned alive.
PhoenixRising
Speaking for myself, I haven’t had time to accurately proof my own headlines, let alone yours, but…
El Caganer
I liked Chris Clarke’s piece, but this is my favorite:
http://www.mrdestructo.com/2013/04/destructo-salon-does-matthew-yglesias.html
Maude
Too bad Matthew wasn’t trapped in the factory. His point of view might be different.
He is despicable. Spoiled child.
Litlebritdifrnt
Matty has been so eviscerated lo these past couple of days he has already called uncle on twitter and apologized for being such a total dick. So there is that.
karl
The thing that got me about this foofaraw was that Yglesias never addressed what I thought was the real policy point of the original LGM post: not so much that Bangladesh and friends adopt our safety regulations but that the retailers (Walmart, Nike, and friends) be liable for workplace safety wherever their goods are made.
Hell, that’s a fairly cheap market-based solution YG should jump at.
Eric U.
I don’t think any post about MY should fail to include a few typos — per sentence
El Caganer
It took a few readings to get why this sort of writing was so familiar (including partial walk-backs), and then the light went on.
Matty Wiggles: Pantload v2.0
Just Some Fuckhead
Trust fund douchebag says something douchey.
Maude
@Mnemosyne:
The point is that the fire escape door was locked. They were trapped inside.
DH
I think I understand. Once upon a time I read Capitalism and Freedom, by Milton Freidman. It’s very well written, and if you don’t think about it, is sounds plausible. But if you step back for a moment, you realize that Friedman’s analysis is all based on the 2 following assumptions:
1. Class does not exist in Society
2. The top 1%, who don’t exist either, don’t use their power to twist the market to their advanage.
Granted accepting these assumptions make you have a very tenuous hold on reality. But if you are climbing your way to the top like Sammy Glick…oh, I am sorry..Matty Iglesias, it makes perfect sense.
? Martin
Well, it is a valid argument. We can build cars that are capable of eliminating injuries from accidents, yet nobody here would be able to afford it. Why is industry immune from this same phenomena?
And like I mentioned in the previous thread, the fault with this isn’t Bangladesh, it’s us. Supply side arguments apply no more here than they do with tax policy. The solution is on the demand side. Like with the car above, if WE aren’t willing to pay, then Bangladesh won’t have the economic means to address this.
pokeyblow
Of course having money is good. Just ask Mitt Romney or any of his five trust-fund sons.
Or ask any of the Wall Street CEOs who had lunch with a starstruck President Obama a week or so ago.
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt: From his apology:
What is he talking about? What is the sound basis for globally differentiated regularly regimes? Isn’t that just a fancy way of saying what he actually said in his gaffe–that Bangladesh has appropriate reasons for having crappy safety regulations?
pokeyblow
Of course having money is good. Just ask Mitt Romney or any of his five trust-fund sons. Mitt will explain that money is so good, the Chinese have to build razor-wire walls around their factories to keep eager applicants from rushing in.
Or ask any of the Wall Street CEOs who had lunch with a starstruck President Obama two weeks or so ago. They think money is simply the best!
Violet
@Litlebritdifrnt: From his apology:
What is he talking about? What is the sound basis for globally differentiated regularly regimes? Isn’t that just a fancy way of saying what he actually said in his gaffe–that Bangladesh has appropriate reasons for having crappy safety regulations?
dm
Matt should just come clean and admit he outsourced that column to McMegan.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
The folks at Lawyers, Guns & Money had several posts about MattY’s stupidity over the past few days. Erik Loomis primarily.
Kyle
@El Caganer:
You beat me to it.
MY is thoroughly eviscerated by Mr. Destructo:
Matthew Yglesias Enjoys Murder
? Martin
Why pass the buck to the MOTU? How much is too much for us? We’re the ones buying the stuff. Nobody here is so stupid to think that the $10 clothes at Old Navy can be manufactured, shipped halfway around the world, and given usual retail markups with union wages and benefits all along the chain. We keep buying them, though. True of lots of other industries too – we like our cheap shit, and we know damn well what the costs are.
Mike G
@El Caganer:
You beat me to it.
MY is thoroughly eviscerated by Mr. Destructo:
Matthew Yglesias Enjoys Murder
dm
Matt should just come clean and admit that he outsourced that column to the same cut-rate sweatshop McMegan uses.
(Damn, can’t go back and delete the first draft.)
? Martin
Why pass the buck to the MOTU? How much is too much for us? We’re the ones buying the stuff. Nobody here is so stupid to think that the $10 clothes at Old Navy can be manufactured, shipped halfway around the world, and given usual retail markups with union wages and benefits all along the chain. We keep buying them, though. True of lots of other industries too – we like our cheap shit, and we know damn well what the costs are.
Morzer
@Violet:
Yes, and of course he doesn’t know anything about them in a meaningful sense. He’s a pudgy little child of privilege who has never experienced any of the things he yaps on about in lazy, semi-literate prose.
jl
I remember when MY, after the financial and economic disasters of 2007 to 2009, that were the worst since the Great Depression and left most of the glib neoliberal Washington Consenssus in smoking ruins, MY announced he would devote himself to shallow neolib nattering, since that was obviously the way to really be innovative, helpful and relevant.
And I thought to myself, OMG, MY wants to become Micky Kaus. And I quit reading unless he commits some special horror.
MY has never bothered to do numbers. Now I guess he cannot even bother to do any research at all (he should rate big corp media pundit status soon), and does not do concepts either.
At the bottom of this ridiculous post, MY notes a correction he made. The corrections says he ‘misstated’ it was a fire, not a collapse. If he had done any reading at all, or paid attention, it seems to me that the building was in violation of Bangladeshi law, cracking apart and the police ordered the place evacuated, but somehow the boss got the workers back in again just in time for it to collapse. So, if MY knew anything at all about this situation, it is difficult for me to see how the cause of the accident could be misstated.
So, that takes care of MY’s carefulness, general willingness to any research, or attention span, or something.
ruemara
Wait, what? He didn’t just say that, did he? I love how my liberal betters are so lacking in liberal quality when it comes towards us lower class working peons.
David Koch
What do you expect?
Yglesias grew up in an academy that educates the Vanderbilts and Ralph Lauren’s kids. The notion that poor humans were placed on earth as raw materials to fertilize the portfolios of the rich was bound to rub off on him.
Bruce S
Matt Yglesias has copped to the fact that the reason he supported the war in Iraq – until it became a totally obvious fool’s errand – was because he was “kind of a jerk.”
The more things change, etc. etc. He’s not incapable of being insightful on occasion, but he has the heart of a “neo-liberal.” Which means no heart at all…
Mnemosyne
@Maude:
Yes but, in Matt Yglesias’s world, they chose to work in that factory where the exit doors were chained shut, so it was all just part of the invisible hand of the market deciding who wins and who loses.
David in NY
You know, I stopped reading MY because I couldn’t stand his typos, and some above have noted that failing. But I think it’s actually important. What it means to me is that he fucking doesn’t READ WHAT HE HAS WRITTEN. Too bad Atrios ever linked to the SOB. He’d be a complete nobody, but for that good luck.
Mnemosyne
@Violet:
As far as I’ve been able to tell from the stories, the factory owner blatantly violated the law and ignored a government shutdown order. So it’s less a problem of building codes not existing and more a problem of a really rich guy using his money and power to break the law.
No wonder Yglesias approves. It’s what he aspires to.
(Fixed grammar.)
low-tech cyclist
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I don’t know what he’s said on Twitter because I don’t go there, but his followup post on his blog was very much a non-apology apology.
I started from what he said in the followup post when I went after him here.
Davis X. Machina
@David Koch: One can rise above such things. I sat in classroom chairs that in other, earlier days, were sat in by Clarence Thomas, and Chris Matthews.
BGinCHI
The fetishization of jobs is so ridiculous in this country. And by that I mean that jobs are good and positive in the larger social sphere regardless of context. Jobs that exploit people have a price. Jobs that lead to harming of common goods (clean water, air, etc.) have a price.
The overall understanding of economy and how it works is so damn dismal.
Time to require econ in high school.
jl
OK, let’s look at MY’s argument. One, Bangladesh is poorer than the US, so it should have lower safety standards. But how much lower? Well, OK, levels are key in this part of the argument. The Maddison project database says Bangladeshi current real 1990 $ GDP per capita is about $1300. Been so long since that was level in US, can’t really compare. But Bangladesh is about the same now as Sweden and Norway in 1880s, Japan right after WWII, Korea after Korean war.
So, I guess we can check whether MY has a case on the level argument. Were those countries running things on the Yglesias Principle? I guess we can check. I guess unless they they did things back then in the way Bangladesh deos them now, they should be immiserated failures. Some one can check whether that would be true. Maybe MY could have checked?
On other hand MY has another argument, that Bangladeshi wages are rising rapidly, which means that, by neoliberal logic each worker’s productivity is rising. So seems like the NPV of a worker’s expected current and future productivity should be going up. Maybe they are worth more now than in recent years and it would be less efficient to kill them off at the old rates. But from what I read, that is exactly what is happening. Some stories say no progress in worker safety, one I read suggested say recently accidents and deaths have increased. ILO stats site is being updated, so I can’t check recent data. But that part of MY’s analysis doesn’t seem to work either, unless the stories I read are wrong.
MY and McArdle should team up. Is she at Slate now?
Edit: also, MY ‘reconciles’ these two approaches by saying ‘split the difference’. What does that mean? What if the real GDP per capita gap between the US and Bangladesh grows, but real productivity (reflected in real wage growth there) also grows. Do you still ‘split the difference’?
David Koch
Hilarious.
let’em
eat cakedie-at-work Yglesias cast his first vote at age 21 for ….. wait for it…. Mitt Romney.His stated reason for voting for Mittens was that he wanted to retain the status quo in Massachusetts. A self proclaimed progressive championing the status quo – hilarious.
DH
Off topic, but guess who Meet the Press is going to have on Sunday:
That’s right, John,”did I mention I was a POW in Vietnam” McCain!!
Versailles on the Potomak, indeed.
That is kind of an insult to Louis the 14th. He had better legs
srv
United Colors of Benetton
Davis X. Machina
LGM has the history of how, and why, the various protections for workers in Fair Labor Standards act, written to cover all employers, were lifted for foreign manufacturers whose good were imported into the US.
It was apparently one of FDR’s priorities. Sen. Hugo Black walked point on the legislation.
Mino
The Bangladeshi would seem to have higher standards than we do. They have arrested the owners and the building engineers involved. Whereas, Rick Perry is still touting unregulated Texas and the owner of the fertilizer plant is still free as a bird.
Of course, they have angry citizens in the street. We are too civilized over here for that.
Morzer
@efgoldman:
Alright, let me retrospectively specify that Yglesias is pudgy in an evil, Yglesias-specific kind of way, unlike the comely charm manifested in the radiant and well-rounded childhood of efgoldman.
NotMax
Finally a post referencing the Bangladesh disaster. Yglesias’ stance, while squalid, is but an incidental theme in the horrid ongoing symphony of suffering.
@efgoldman
FYWP’s favorite tune?
pokeyblow
Bastards are being totally unfair to Rick Perry:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/texas/article/Perry-disgusted-by-cartoon-depicting-explosion-4467642.php
Morzer
@efgoldman:
Look, I can work with a degree of personal rotundity, but if you even try and get me to spin the fact that you played the viola, I’ll drag you down to the Crimes Against Humanity tribunal at the Hague myself.
JWL
Who on earth would anyone pay Matt Y. to contend otherwise?
Say what you will, the guy knows who butters his bread.
Morzer
@JWL:
Even if he does consistently drop the bread on the floor buttered side down.
jl
@Davis X. Machina: Thanks for pointing that out. I will follow the links at LG&M.
MY’s pissy ‘explology’ update doesn’t make any sense either. He says he was responding to to some dude recommending US level standards (as in West, TX standards, or Gulf Oil spill standards, as if they were so uniformly high?) and that was obviously silly. Then MY says that what happened in Bangladesh as immoral and bad, and against the law, and that is all bad he disapproves.
OK, good, MY is not completely gone nuts, I suppose. But what does that have to do with his argument, which was about economic efficiency? The strong implication of his first post was that, hey, COUNTERINTUITIVELY (heh heh… ) we need to consider that maybe Bangladesh is doings about right, or closer to right than what misguided bleeding heart liberals recommending US standards want.
And what, pray tell, does that have to with whether current economically efficient standards in Bangladesh are legal? Not much as far as I can see.
I’m dubbing MY Meggy McKausias. Why would anyone read this guy?
pokeyblow
@efgoldman: I hope it’s clear I was being sarcastic. I think the cartoon is completely called for; I’d like to see it picked up and re-ran nationwide.
nota bene
Yglesias apparently thinks he’s being misread.
I think he’s talked himself into a corner and can’t just say “I’m sorry for blurting out something so vapid, amoral, and ill-considered.”
El Caganer
@Mino: Yes, but the owner feels bad. And is praying for the victims and their families. So there’s that.
Morzer
@nota bene:
I wonder what sort of counter-tops the not-ef-goldmanesquely-pudgy little varmint has in his luxury mansion?
jl
@efgoldman: McCain and Graham again? WTF. Why not just run one of the recent Face the Nations they have done and edit in Gregory over the Schief.
Would save production costs and mean higher profits. The stockholders of NBC should sue if they don’t do it that way.
karen
I’m confused. I always thought MY was a liberal, or at least progressive, that’s not the case?
Morzer
@karen:
I think these days it’s more accurate to say that he’s a very wishy-washy libertarian who likes to believe that he is a liberal.
PeakVT
@karen: Socially liberal, fiscally libertarian is his current schtick.
DH
@efgoldman:
And guess who wrote an Op Ed for the Kaplan Prep Test Daily this week?
That’s right! Joe “I never a Middle East War I didn’t want to involve someone else’s sons and daughters in” Lieberman:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-danger-of-repeating-the-cycle-of-american-isolationism/2013/04/25/16da45f8-a90c-11e2-a8e2-5b98cb59187f_story.html
And his co author is former Senator John “Not meant to be a factual statement” Kyl!!
Let’s take bets: How long will it be before the Kaplan daily has a op ed piece by Senator Baccus bemoaning the lack of civility and bipartisanship? Anyone? Bueller?
And Hiatt and Lally expect me to pay for this shit? LOL
Poopyman
@Mino:
Ah yes! It Can’t Happen Here. Which is true, until it’s not. Don’t know what it’ll take to blow the lid off this country, but it’ll be after the pressure’s been building for decades. It won’t be pretty.
pokeyblow
@karen: He’s a spoiled douche who was blogging around the time the first bloggers came to semi-prominence. Atrios, in particular, seems quite fond of him and continues to promote his crap now and again. cf: Kevin Drum.
jl
@karen:
MY has to follow Slate House Style: counter intuitive BS backed by glib palaver that often falls apart as soon as you look into any of the relevant facts, numbers, or overall concepts, logic, or even basic commonsense of the argument.
And looks like Slate is becoming ever stricter in following the house style manual.
Kaus, McArdle and Yglesias should get together and give an FriedmanSFest innovative futurology seminar, and charge big bucks. They would clean up and make bank.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
This is the moral problem with being a knee-jerk contrarian — sometimes taking the “contrary” side means that you have to defend the proposition that the deaths of over 300 people in a preventable accident are no big deal.
Roger Moore
@jl:
Math is hard. Let’s go shopping!
NotMax
@efgoldman
So far as I’m aware, their public airwaves broadcasting licenses still are (on paper) dependent on satisfying the “public interest, convenience and necessity.”
That was the genesis of the programs, at any rate.
Shalimar
It would be entirely appropriate for me to kill Matt Yglesias as long as I don’t get caught. What harm would there be? He isn’t going to be complaining after he is dead, I didn’t get caught so it didn’t cause any problems for me and it opens up a job at Slate for an unemployed journalist. It’s a win for everyone.
mainmati
Bangladesh may be desperately poor but poetry and literature are a longstanding national pride. I don’t have any data but it wouldn’t surprise me if the owners of the Plaza-cum-Sweat Shop were Pakistanis. Bangladesh used to be East Pakistan, after all and labor exploitation is the name of the game for Dakha.
Point is that, while international certification has been increasingly successful for things like coffee, cocoa, even some lumber and other products, we’ve had very limited success much less enforcement when it come to labor-intensive manufacturing. That needs to be the new priority and, ironically, the costs of improved labor safety and minimum wage in Bangladesh will a) have very little impact on the final costs/selling price of your clothes and b) may actually stimulate greater diversification of small scale manufacturing in Bangladesh by making the marketplace more competitive.
Roger Moore
@jl:
In fairness to Slate, they hired him because he had a solid track record of producing exactly that kind of writing in his previous gigs.
scav
@Roger Moore: GI Joe! That you?
Cacti
Yglesias glibly identified what is necessary for the existence of his first world, petit bourgeois lifestyle:
A large class of third world stoop labor to manufacture the goods he consumes.
Cacti
Also too, with the exploding fertilizer plant in Texas, the red states are doing their best to emulate the workplace safety conditions of Bangladesh.
Higgs Boson's Mate
Because he’s already all asshole and there’s no room?
Kay
@Cacti:
It’s funny how it backfired, though. It’s sparked this big, real discussion about labor and whether it’s ya know, TRUE that we have to meekly accept BAD or WORSE, which is always how it’s framed.
What if it’s possible to pay people wages, allow them to stay alive, and be able to afford a t-shirt?
Ten years ago this narrow, crabbed selection he presents of BAD or WORSE would have been accepted without question.
Why do people call him a “contrarian”, anyway?
This is the most conventional, status-quo defending piece imagineable.
Kay
@mainmati:
Wow. You mean it’s imagineable to regulate while still paying people? That we’ve succeeded in other areas outside of clothing manufacture?
Because Slate tells us that won’t work.
You’re the real contrarian, I think :)
Comrade Jake
Are we sure McMegan wasn’t subbing for Yglesias that day? This seems like something she would write, albeit with a touch more pink Himalayan salt.
Comrade Jake
OT: thank God CNN cut away from that hack Ed fucking Henry.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@efgoldman: It’s saturday. It’s got to go out and drink one day a week after listening to our crap.
Cervantes
Whenever I hear anyone arguing [for] slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
— Abraham Lincoln, 1865
Kay
@efgoldman:
That’s why “contrarian” bugs me. I understand the way it’s used for this group of “opinion journalists” but most of their stuff could be reduced to “you know, I’m with wealthy people on this one, again”, or, better, “job killing regulations”
That seems conventional to me. It’s 90% of what we hear. “Contrarian” gives them way too much credit.
RSA
@low-tech cyclist: (Nice post.)
Yglesias:
How clueless is this? “I’m writing from my deep knowledge, and you people just want news.” No, Matt, people are looking at the real-world implications of something you advocate, and finding obvious problems you seem to have missed.
dance around in your bones
Watching the Prez speak at the WH Correspondent’s Ass Dinner, and I just have to say how much I love him.
Charisma, he has it.
ETA: Michelle looks fuckin’ gorgeous.
raven
@dance around in your bones: Yea, just turned it on after watching the Last Emperor.
raven
The Blame Bush Library!
dance around in your bones
@raven: I know other people write the jokes for him, but he is funny, and his delivery is pitch-perfect.
I bet he’ll be funnier than Conan.
raven
I’d thought about having my library in my hometown but I wanted to keep it in the US!
raven
@dance around in your bones: And he can go to his left!
raven
@efgoldman: Far enough to get to the rack!
dance around in your bones
@raven: He’s getting off a lotta good zingers.
Also, someone should tell Callista Gingrich that helmet hair is not a good look. I mean, really.
Elizabelle
Yeah, excellent speech by PBO. Humor etched with acid. Deserved, too.
raven
@Elizabelle: Bachman’s book burning!
Yutsano
@efgoldman: Are there gonna be hurt fee-fees? I sincerely hope so.
raven
Who’s the dude with the headband and zz beard?
pokeyblow
Please don’t flame me for asking, but the majority of the commenters at this blog really love Obama, right? My sense is that the original content-posters are generally a pragmatic bunch, but don’t typically hover into Obama-apologist land. But the commenters (with exceptions) seem to like Obama quite a bit.
Case in point: I think Obama is a great speaker and a terrifically-sharp guy. But I also think the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is such a nauseating exercise in decay… much that is wrong with America, with human nature, amplified, focused, and spotlighted for David Gregory’s dance exhibit… that I’m quietly disgusted that Obama would show up, let alone put any effort into “pleasing” while there.
So, to me, hearing how Obama “killed it” at a piece-of-shit event like this dinner doesn’t do a damned thing to make me trust him more, or support him more, etc.
But my sense is, the commenters on this blog, for the most part, really like the guy and are eager to celebrate him whenever opportunity arises. Is that right?
CaseyL
Conan… isn’t very funny.
raven
@pokeyblow: No one cares what you think.
Elizabelle
@pokeyblow:
I thought the President took a lot of shots at what passes for journalism these days.
Somehow the journalists take themselves and the dinner more seriously.
Morzer
@pokeyblow:
You are never going make it to the big time if you keep dancing around like this without taking a swing.
pokeyblow
@raven: Thanks a lot, raven. That was really nice, and you obviously put a lot of thought into it.
You should be really proud of the effort.
raven
@efgoldman: After a three hour movie about China it just happened to be on.
raven
@pokeyblow: I wrote fuck you but changed it.
raven
@efgoldman: The reason is I wanted to. Everyone knows what it is.
eta Don’t bother with a spiffy response, I’m crashin.
Elizabelle
“NPR is the table for kids with peanut allergies.”
That was funny.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@RSA:
There is absolutely no fucking evidence he knows shit about “the sound basis for globally differentiated regulatory regimes,” either.
eemom
@pokeyblow:
hmmm.
I haz me a sneaking little suspicion about you….something about a man, and a curtain…. ; )
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
Looks like someone needs to brush up on his “Politics and the English Language”.
pokeyblow
@Morzer: I know this sounds pathetically naive, but I would like to find a place to enjoy commenting. I like the editorial content pretty well here.
And beatsticks like raven, insecure and under-resourced, are everywhere. That doesn’t worry me.
But please answer my question directly. I think I know, but would really appreciate it if someone more literate and comprehending, less compensating, than raven would spell it out for me.
It’s not really a crazy request, you know… you all (or many of you all) have been posting here for a while. I haven’t.
pokeyblow
@raven: You are truly a computer master. Did you dress yourself today also?
eemom
@pokeyblow:
tee hee
Elizabelle
What a surprise.
Nino Scalia is sitting at the Fox News table. Next to Bill O’Reilly.
Morzer
@pokeyblow:
There’s a question amid your verbiage?
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@pokeyblow:
Well, no. The FP posters generally like Obama quite a bit too. If you’d read anything from the 2008/2012 elections, you’d grok that.
As to your point about the WHCD, I don’t give a shit whether he “killed it” or not, but it’s something Presidents are expected to attend, just as they’re expected to show up at GWB’s “library” opening.
pokeyblow
@efgoldman: Thanks. I have no idea who or what this trifling raven is, but worthy of respect sure as hell isn’t the answer.
Back to my original, sincere, question… it would be helpful if someone said something like “yes, by and large this blog is read by big Obama fans…” or “well, when DougJ posts, the typical reaction is like this…” or (what I think is the case) “there are probably 60+% big Obama fans here, but there are also vocal, further-left, critics who are often around.”
Why in the hell would asking a question like that disturb a poor inferior like raven so much? It is a straightforward question. Were someone to ask me a question like that, say, about a tavern I was sitting in, I wouldn’t say “fuck you!” (I wouldn’t start to say it and then change it either, for what it’s worth.)
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
Spielberg’s “Obama” video is pretty funny.
Morzer
@pokeyblow:
Have you considered reading the blog, contributing to our little literary salon and forming your own opinion?
I know it’s a boring, old-fashioned kind of approach, but it works for a lot of people.
Publius39
@pokeyblow: Troll much?
dance around in your bones
@efgoldman: Maybe a flame-thrower would do the trick.
Seriously, what is with the non-movable hair? It’s not natural.
Yutsano
@eemom:
A tell?
Morzer
@dance around in your bones:
Let’s face it, if your career path involved kneeling before Newticles the Trigamist and worrying about what you might bang your pretty little head on, you’d probably invest pretty heavily in a hair helmet too.
pokeyblow
Brother Machine Gun &c, thanks for that. I didn’t follow the election on this blog, but I’ll take your word.
You raise another nuance I think I’ve observed… there’s a lot of credence here for “what the President HAS to do.” This becomes part of the equation when considering health care, Guantanamo, prosecution of Wall Street, “looking forward” with respect to the Iraq invasion.
It seems like the bulk of comment here accepts the proposition that Obama is (more-or-less) fighting as hard as he can for “liberal” outcomes, but is smart enough to know he can’t do more than what he currently is doing.
Respectfully and non-trollingly. Just trying to understand.
pokeyblow
No, Yutsano. I grabbed the first name which occurred. Tom Levenson? Zandar?
Not a tell. Please tell me you have more to do with your life than trying to figure out who some dickhead named “pokeyblow” is fronting for/against.
PLEASE!!
scav
Oooo, this one is of the fluttery eyelash species.
Yutsano
@scav: Methinks the lady doth protest too much. Also. Too.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@pokeyblow:
You’re shifting what I said. WHCD and attending the GWB “library” opening are what I consider ceremonial requirements of the office. They have nothing whatsoever to do with the issues you mentioned. And if you read the debate in the comments here, you’ll find significant disagreement and frustration on a whole host of issues, even among those who would consider themselves “Obots.”
So if you’re genuine (and not a DougJ spoof or one of the resident trolls putting on a fresh-face act), you can join in discussing all those issues on numerous threads as they appear in the news.
Morzer
@scav:
I wonder why it’s trying to play the innocent little virgin game when it’s been here before. This really isn’t a very impressive second impression.
Elizabelle
Rebroadcast of O’Bama and O’Brian speeches.
shecky
It’s kind of hard to rip Matt Y a new one, because he’s right. Demanding that Bangladesh have the same regulatory schemes as the US sounds noble, until the burden erases any advantage the country might have had, and Bangladeshi workers are out of work. All because we charitable first worlders are so concerned for the plight of impoverished worker conditions. Better not to work at all than work in a factory that wouldn’t pass muster in California.
Well, maybe Texas.
Ted & Hellen
@pokeyblow:
You are awesome. But you can’t say things like that here.
dance around in your bones
@Morzer: I might go for a head condom if I was Callista.
Which I am not, nor will ever be.
Obama was much funnier than Conan has been, just as I predicted. And pokeyblow, I recommend that you lurk for a few years before you comment. Get the feel of the place.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Ted & Hellen: You, on the other hand, can fuck off.
Bobby Thomson
@karen:
No, you are confused. Yglesias has never been a liberal, except in a “even the liberal” or “conservatives’ favorite liberal” sense.
Morzer
Of course, it could all be a big, funny coinkydink…
PeakVT
Cat-ercise. Don’t try this using Tunch.
pokeyblow
Ted & Hellen, are you one of the “resident trolls?”
Can you give me a brief primer on the sociology here?
Morzer
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
I suspect Head and Telling is just sockpuppeting as pokeyblow inbetween bouts of fecal face smearing in the name of ‘art’.
pokeyblow
Morzer, I made that comment after Limbaugh’s comments on Sandra Fluke. I heard Greek Islands advertise on Limbaugh’s show, and I called to complain.
So, what exactly have you exposed, Clouseau?
Yutsano
@dance around in your bones: I lurked for about a year before I started commenting here. And when I started I got savaged a few times. But wifey decided she liked me, so I stuck around.
Baud
@pokeyblow:
Yep. And he killed it tonight.
eemom
@Ted & Hellen:
dude, yer killing me here….
Morzer
@pokeyblow:
Your attempt to pretend to be a blog virgin, my little incompetent acquaintance.
Try harder, kid. Mr Google is not your friend.
Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)
@? Martin: Well, the Bangladeshi government has some tools at their disposal, namely criminal punishments, which appear to be forthcoming.
Ted & Hellen
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS):
Oh dear, now I’ve upset a Botulist.
And just by showing up. Yay.
Morzer
@Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage):
A government that has criminal punishments and is not afraid to use them?
Are you sure?
pokeyblow
Morzer, I never said I was a blog virgin.
In fact, since you’re so observant, you should look above to see where I note Matt Yglesias’ long friendship with Atrios.
I’ve been asking about this blog. Which I’ve known of for a long time (3 years, much more?) but haven’t paid tons of attention to before a few months ago.
Not that fucking mysterious.
Now you can go on weakly dissing me, or stop being a dick.
Yutsano
@efgoldman: Notice how all the MOTUs are flocking to Asia and not Africa? Africa has pretty similar labour costs yet very few open up factories there unless it’s for African-only goods. Bangladesh must have some other positive going for it beyond the cheap labour costs.
pokeyblow
efgoldman, they won’t think of costs in Bangladesh (or here) as purely exogenous. They will actively work to push those costs downward.
Morzer
@pokeyblow:
Oh you do try hard, don’t you? Pretty presumptuous attempt at a save – except that we have things like time stamps in the modern world. You are even less like a virgin than Madonna – and at least she’s intermittently entertaining.
Away with you, you bungling little jackass.
Ted & Hellen
@pokeyblow:
I love you.
Yes: Bot City run by the vicious Kool Kids Gang from the Nixon Republican side of town. Unself aware tribalists who hang out here, at this ostensibly political blog, even when they are chatting about RL shit like tools and cooking and tv shows, apparently because they have no friends or family IRL willing to listen to their bullshit.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@Ted & Hellen: Who said you upset me? You think way too highly of yourself. So fuck off.
Morzer
@Ted & Hellen:
I do find the sight of you sock-puppeting so desperately hilarious. When are you going to declare yourself a martyr to yourself?
pokeyblow
Morzer, I’m not denying anything. I knew about this blog, I saw some post (which I’m not going to bother tracking down) which struck me as relevant, and I made what I should expect to be a completely kosher comment about my complaint to a Limbaugh advertiser.
You, sad and unaccomplished, think that finding a rare post on this blog from me over a year ago (one I completely and proudly acknowledge) proves something… I shudder to imagine your vacant trophy shelf. Dusty, ignored and cobweb-strewn.
You should work for Breitbart. The money is better.
Ted & Hellen
@Morzer:
This is awesome. :D
Russian Steel
Hyello
Am nyew to yoor blog and am desirous of dyirections for to find trolly flametime blog-fight on topics of my choosink.
You can hyelp, da?
Kyle
@Ted & Hellen:
Perhaps you need to ask yourself how things transpired in your life that resulted in your coming to the conclusion that being supremely annoying was something to be proud of.
parsimon
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Matty has been so eviscerated lo these past couple of days he has already called uncle on twitter and apologized for being such a total dick. So there is that.
Sorry to be coming in late, but, link, by chance? I know Yglesias posted a follow-up at Slate, but that was not an apology for being a total dick.
Has he actually acknowledged his total dickitude on twitter?
scav
Oh Miss Manners. Virginal innocent pokeyblow drops lace hanky and asks in single burst BF (ETA whoops, T&H so even better) AreYouPossiblyTheLocalTrollOfDecorumAndSociology? Can we buy them Credenzas for the Happy Event? One for the Ages.
pokeyblow
Thanks, Ted & Hellen, but I’m hoping for a less personally-engaged description.
I assume you’ve been here a long time, and know the score, but “Nixon Republicans” seems too strong. Maybe I’m thinking of the front page and not the comments, but I sense there’s revulsion at outright criminality here, at least once it’s fully explosed, but lots of shrugged-shoulders and downward glances about real reform.
Not because the crimes are tolerable, but because the fragile personality of Obama is perceived as insufficient, or too vulnerable, to do anything reckless toward their stoppage.
Ted & Hellen
@Kyle:
Well now, that would all depend on WHOM it is that finds one annoying, now wouldn’t it?
And since tribalist, humorless, Military fetishist, unself aware Obots who guard their self regard within this echo chamber as though their lives depended upon it, are generally the folks who are most annoyed by my presence…yes, I would say that I am indeed very proud.
Thanks!
Morzer
@pokeyblow:
No, no, no. Do it properly. Take a real shot. Don’t just stand there flapping your little lace hanky at me. If I am going to be trolled by some slack-bladdered amateur, at least make it worth my time to notice your self-pitying squawkings.
Morzer
@Ted & Hellen:
Your weakness, Ted and Hokey, is that you and your sockpuppet have the same solecistic style and addiction to adjectives. That’s your ‘tell’. Please, try harder.
pokeyblow
Morzer, I’m not trolling you. You are trolling me.
You’re a sharp-eyed investigator. Check the evidence. You noticed me. Then I noticed you, and I wasn’t impressed.
Now impress me, if you like, or talk to people who care more.
Ted & Hellen
@pokeyblow:
I grovel before your complete stupenditude.
I am unworthy.
As for my summary of the vibe at BJ…I’m much more about marveling at the really fascinating psychological/social aspects of the commentariat here.
The dominant set regards themselves as LIBERAL for example. Which is to die laughing from…
pokeyblow
Morzer, are you trying to spell solipsistic?
If so, why? Doesn’t seem to be your brief in life.
Ted & Hellen
@Morzer:
I must confess that I am flattered to no end by the comparison, but our new friend is a much better writer than me. And he or she is much better at getting right to the meat, so to speak.
But again…thank you so much for the inadvertent kudo.
Morzer
@pokeyblow:
*chuckles* Ah, it stung you, didn’t it, padawan. There you were in your little anime girl short skirt with those dewy big eyes and that innocent expression – and suddenly mean old Uncle Morzer revealed that you were about as virgin as Newt Gingrich. How cruel life can be for incompetent trolls.
bullsmith
Great. So because money is good, making less money is even better. Especially if you trade safety to get not more money, but less. Because you still get some money, and money is good.
dance around in your bones
@Yutsano
I’ve tried to reply to you twice, but FYWP keeps sending my comments into a wormhole where they likely end up in an alternate universe.
It took me a couple of years to get up the nerve to comment here – lots of smart and funny people on this blog.
I like that cleek has added a ‘show list’ button to his pie filter and I have the feeling that most of the names on my list are the same person. I imagine you know who I mean.
At least B.O.B. was sometimes entertaining.
Morzer
@Ted & Hellen:
Actually, “he” is as incompetent and illiterate as you are. Which is not wholly a coincidence, is it?
To improve your defective education: kudos is the singular form you want, not the non-form kudo. Neuter Greek noun, you see. Plural: ta kudea. Do try and keep up.
pokeyblow
Hi bullsmith
I’m getting some pisspoor treatment here, and perhaps you’ll be my enemy too, but I tried to make a similar point at posts #19 and #21 (#21 is a bit edited; I didn’t think #19 went through).
I mean, what in the fuck does it mean when Josh Romney says “money is good”… ?
scav
@Morzer: The 183-184 persona stutter/switch was rather interesting.
pokeyblow
…I’m not quoting Josh Romney, just in case Inspector Lestrade is still on my case.
Ted & Hellen
@Morzer:
Really lame.
I like playing with words, as in “stupenditude,” seen above. Or did you think I believe that to be a “real” word also?
Ever hear of play, inventiveness, experimentation? Lively minds do that sort of thing.
Do try to keep up with the less insecure commenters.
pokeyblow
@efgoldman: Do you mean me? I had an impression that you were undecided or agnostic.
Please answer, it’s a direct question.
Ted & Hellen
@efgoldman:
Wow man…that is way harsh and awesomely bad ass.
Like, you just totally laid to waste, not only the trolls here but trolls EVERYWHERE, dude.
God…I hate them too. All of them.
pokeyblow
@Ted & Hellen: I thought there were lots of good, i.e., effective, trolls. Isn’t that the whole “wingnut-outrage-Drudge-link-liberal-blogs-respond” business which keeps various folks who are yukking it up with our President this very evening comfortable in their spacious homes?
I had the sense something like that was what people who read this blog thought.
Morzer
@Ted & Hellen:
I believe you can’t write clear, correct English to save your life – and I have months of your turgid wibblings to support me. Given that your little sockpuppet shares your characteristic verbose ineptitude, well, let’s just say:
“Frustra fit per plura, quod potest fieri per pauciora.”
Ted & Hellen
I refer only to trolls as defined here by the BJ Kool Kids, ie. anyone who strays from the Obama Uber Alles line as defined by…uh, the same people.
Bobby Thomson
Such anger. Such apparent unhappiness. Such inability to withstand a difference in taste without resorting to personal insult. Toxic thin-skinnedness rising from a fragile sense of self must be a universal condition. I despair…
Ted & Hellen
@Morzer:
“Frustra fit per plura, quod potest fieri per pauciora.”
Wow. You are amazing. That is so impressive. Gosh, just…wow.
Fuck, like…wow.
Ted & Hellen
@Bobby Thomson:
But Raven hasn’t posted in this thread in quite a while…
pokeyblow
Ted & Hellen, is there another blog you like? I enjoy argument, but am not crazy about being called a troll.
PeakVT
@efgoldman: There are plenty of successful trolls out there, if you count threadjacking as “success”. Drum’s got one that can throw a whole thread off with one word.
Now, just because they’re “successful” doesn’t mean they’re all that bright.
pokeyblow
@PeakVT: Do you know a guy named Hubbe?
Xenos
@David Koch: I had to look it up on wikipedia: Dalton to Harvard to NY/DC or wherever exactly it is where he is living. I have known some right-wing trustafarians who have at least gotten around and engaged with the larger world – even McMegan was willing to live in Chicago for a while.
What a parochial little punk.
Rex Everything
Cause Freddie already did, and you CAN’T agree with Freddie.
magurakurin
@Ted & Hellen:
so why the fuck are you here? Hey, maybe everyone here is a loser without friends, but what in the name of everything holy does that make you? You hang out with a bunch of losers without friends who…fucking hate you. You take loser to new and auspicious heights.
Mike D.
I don’t know what he’s said on Twitter because I don’t go there, but his followup post on his blog was very much a non-apology apology.
It was a non-apology non-apology. He said he stood by his basic point, which is for the good since it was that other countries shouldn’t necessarily have the same policies as the United States. That point should and does stand.
Ted & Hellen
@magurakurin:
Ummm…no. I don’t “hang out” here. I drop by two or three times most days to peruse the activities, drop off my turds, observe, engage, mock, or none of the above, and then leave.
I do not comment at all in the vast majority of threads.
I don’t care about having “friends” here. Friends are for RL. Think about it.
Pinacacci
Did not read the thread so this is probably coals to Newcastle:
Wow. Really? Wow. I can’t believe I ever thought Matt Yglesias was worth listening to about anything. This wanton disposing of morality and empathy sickens me.
fuckwit
This: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo-1W_8otS4
or rather this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps9BC7D6jC0
Omnes Omnibus
Hooray, Cupcake is back.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: I LIKE PIE!!
BethanyAnne
After his original column, and his nonapology, it’s clear that Yglesias’ best feature is his command of grammar and spelling.
ponce
It’s hard to take shots at Yglesias.
The journey from brightest kid at Harvard to second rate political rent boy at a website that died a decade ago couldn’t have been easy.
Rex Everything
The best commentary on this was from Et Tu, Mr Destructo if anyone wants to know…
demz taters
This brings to mind this Nicholas Kristof turd,”Two Cheers for Sweatshops.” Because without a 100-hour-a-week sweatshop job, how else could a wretchedly impoverished Cambodian woman earn $5 to buy a mosquito net to protect her surviving children and grandchildren from malaria?
Sgaile-beairt
what MY and co dont get, is, the choice isnt betwe en more profit /less profit, its between less profit & tumbrils….
….& its getting tres late, the hour….
((id say its a lucky thing the cops found the factory woners befroe the workers, who are calling for the death penalty, did but….who knows how many of the cops had family in the factory??)
Lurking Canadian
@Kay: I know I’m way late to the party, but THIS! This is not a “contrarian” argument. It’s not even a thoughtful argument. It’s the doctrine.
I will go farther. As far as I can tell, it is the reason we have “free trade” agreements in the first place. Grind up the brown folk so we can have cheap stuff, and if somebody suggests that maybe we shouldn’t grind up so many brown people, clutch pearls and say in shocked horror, “Don’t you want those poor people to have JOBS?”
Jim Taggart
Well, the important thing is that you use that tragedy for your political agenda.
Jim Taggart
Oh, I want to hang out here. The worst of the left.
“Oh, free trade says all those brown people must die”
“You’re so right, Republicans want people to work in crumbling buildings.”
“If the buildings crumble, it’s the fault of the people who work there.”
“Hey, that’s the free market”
Sorry, that’s the best I could do. I’m sure you all can pick up where I was going.
Jim Taggart
I like how you have disagreements in this echo chamber.
That guy who you quoted saying it was bullshit, was bullshit, but this other guy that I’m quoting says that guy’s bullshit was bullshit, but I agree that that guy’s bullshit is bullshit.
Jim Taggart
Please don’t delete me. I want to hear strongest opinions of the left. By “strongest” I don’t mean best, I mean loudest, most intolerant, most unwilling to hear any differing opinion.
Morzer
@Ted & Hellen:
Well, at least you’ve stopped claiming to produce art. I welcome this turn towards self-awareness in you.
Kay
@Lurking Canadian:
Well, I don’t know about international certification in other industries but commenter matmaini offers an alternative view!
He says we have succeeded in setting international standards in some areas!
He says there’s an alternative available somewhere between “crushed factory workers” and “no one has a job”
The “contrarians” at Slate don’t seem open to exploring this possibility. Why is that?
kdub
@? Martin:
Totally agree Martin. MY made a completely unemotional point, which is production is going to flow to the providers with less labor standards in place, due to the consumers need and want to buy at the lowest cost possible.
This tragedy is the natural outflow of that. People rarely give thought to how the amount of effort that goes into getting that product on shelves at that price.
Will this tragedy give anyone pause or any thoughtfulness of their consumption? Probably not. Better to beat MY to a pulp for his stillborn analysis, than think about how they themselves are feeding the actual beast.
Ajaye
@pokeyblow: Bazinga.
Ajaye
@Jim Taggart: I tried to watch Atlas Shrugged last night. 2016 is coming! And then winter!
Worst. Movie. Ever. Okay, I exaggerate. For me the worst movie I have encountered on Netflix instant play. I prefer pointy eared creatures in fantasy flix. I mean so effing stupid. The resurrgence of railroads? A special metal developed by one guy that’s better than steel? That is so moronic how can anyone take it seriously. Hmmm. Well this is the same world where people surrender their minds and cash to Scientology…
Back on topic, you guys must have all figured out that the only lives that seem to matter are rich white folks. Maybe a few darker rich folks we personally like, such as Oprah. So don’t blame young MY for merely reflecting our true priorities as a society in his response. Many thousands of nameless faceless laborers will have to die before third world countries have a worker’s paeadise such as the US. They all have to go through the industrial revolution on their own terms.
ranchandsyrup
It is irresponsible not to speculate that mcmegan dosed the machine made bechamel and MY took a knock to the head when he was mugged leaving mcmegan’s house.
Jebediah
@El Caganer:
I’d bet money that the fucker could feel just as bad from inside a cell.
pseudonymous in nc
@ranchandsyrup:
Yglesias’s Slate job (and perhaps his shift into married luxe condo owner) is McAddling him at a fairly rapid pace. As Erik Loomis hints, there’s more than a whiff of the Gilded Age about him these days, as he grows into his privilege.