Greetings from Detroit! Lovely day here; 70’s and sunny.
Here’s a very small activist and her dad. Her mom is working at Netroots.
Back to bidness. Organizing the south was primarily a labor discussion – Fight For Fifteen and UAW representatives on the panel- lots of discussion of Moral Mondays and the UAW organizing effort in Tennessee.
Very passionate people – there was some frustration with the lack of engagement by labor groups and progressive organizations in the south.
The panelists seemed to be completely convinced that the following is true-
From MaryBe McMillan, 1st on L in photo:
“The only way we win economic justice in this country is to organize the south”
Great back and forth between panelists on the following –
From Cherie Deseline, 3rd from L in photo:
“The systemic root of exploitation of workers is ownership of bodies, especially black bodies”
From Carol McDonald, 2nd from L in photo:
“Can’t work effectively in the south without anti-racist lens on organizing. Not believable or credible without it”.
MomSense
Just from the three quotes you shared, that sounds like a powerful panel.
Elizabelle
Good luck, Kay. Appreciate your keeping us apprised.
⚽️ Martin
Malaysian airliner apparently shot down over Ukraine. We’ll see who is responsible.
piratedan
and you would think that with the legacy of coal miners unions that places like West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee would have a foothold… Cripes, these guys should be made to watch Matewan to see if there’s any reason NOT to organize.
Cassidy
If I can add a suggestion, labor and voting rights activist need to aggressively an gage with the police and fire unions in the South. Typically, those two back each other and have their hands in local politics. You also need to change the phrasing. Cops and firefighters, when talking labor issues, usually mention one another in the same breath. They need to be encouraged to throw their weight behind the teachers as well, bringing them into that protective fold.
schrodinger's cat
@⚽️ Martin: Malaysian Airlines seems to be plagued with bad luck.
SatanicPanic
@⚽️ Martin: Obama. Duh.
The Dangerman
Insert an Eight Clap (UCLA thing) here! Also, FWIW, the Judge that ruled the Death Penalty unconstitutional yesterday? Former UCLA football player.
@⚽️ Martin:
This is all kinds of not good. Was this a response to additional sanctions yesterday or just some schmuck fucking up royally? Of course, it could also be just a shitty coincidence on where the plane had a mechanical problem but that would appear to be an infinitesimally small possibility.
Thor Heyerdahl
@⚽️ Martin: CNN has another Malaysian plane crash to cover 24/7.
⚽️ Martin
@schrodinger’s cat: If the reports are correct it was hit by a surface to air missile while flying at over 30K feet. That’s not bad luck. Someone fucked up badly.
gogol's wife
@⚽️ Martin:
F–ing Putin. This is terrible. 295 innocent people.
And Putin is responsible, however you slice it.
ETA: Barring mechanical failure, which seems highly unlikely.
mdblanche
@⚽️ Martin: Well, that explains the unholy orgasmic moan I heard coming from the direction of Atlanta.
⚽️ Martin
Ukraine had claimed no more than an hour earlier that a Russian fighter shot down a Ukrainian fighter. This escalated quickly.
SiubhanDuinne
@⚽️ Martin:
@gogol’s wife:
Why in the name of all the gods was a passenger airplane full of people routed through an active combat area?
This goes way beyond tragic. Just horrible.
SiubhanDuinne
I hate that the Malaysia airlines story is derailing Kay’s wonderful NN thread.
Any front-pagers around, might we have either a new open thread or a dedicated air disaster thread? Thanks!
EDIT: Oops, sorry, I missed that Kay had given this an Open Thread tag.
Never mind.
mdblanche
@The Dangerman: I’m guessing it’s one schmuck fucking things up royally. Which is why it’s always a bad idea to give schmucks SAMs. Now they get to set the terms and neither side will be able to do much to deescalate things for a while. Between this and the Middle East I can’t say I’m enjoying the 100th anniversary reenactment of the July Crisis.
piratedan
@SiubhanDuinne: seconded….and Kay’s topic is refreshing to know that there are some people out there looking to make the job easier by helping to focus on what needs to be done. Also too, great suggestion Cassidy, need to make common cause with the folks that are natural allies and work together.
the Conster
@mdblanche:
Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
It’s a regularly scheduled flight that goes at 10,000 metres, well above the altitudes where combat aircraft operate. As was pointed out in the thread below, that’s not normally something you mistake for combat aircraft.
Iowa Old Lady
John McCain is on the air pontificating about war. I’d laugh except at some point it stops being funny.
⚽️ Martin
@The Dangerman: I would go with schmuck fucking up royally. Even we managed to fuck up that royally when the Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner in the 80s.
@SiubhanDuinne: KAL 007 was behind schedule and veered into Soviet airspace in an effort to get back on schedule. Soviets shot that plane down. Pilots have a fair bit of latitude in flight planning and set waypoints for the plane to follow. The autopilot isn’t smart enough to know that a war is taking place along a route and it may not be immediately obvious to the pilot that the route takes them over that region. 777 is a rather new plane, however. I don’t know if the autopilots understand restricted airspace, but I would imagine so given how big a deal it is here in the US. Maybe Malaysian Air Lines didn’t update that information? Don’t know. Even so, like with KAL, that’s not a big enough mistake to fire on.
mdblanche
@SatanicPanic: You’re John McCain, aren’t you?
SatanicPanic
@Iowa Old Lady: That train is never late
lol chikinburd
@SiubhanDuinne: You’d indeed think that disciplined, professional military personnel would never make a mistake like that. However, there was Korean Air Lines 007, with a U.S. congressman on board, shot down by the Soviets; there was that Iran Air flight shot down by the USS Vincennes…it happens, apparently.
SiubhanDuinne
@Amir Khalid:
Thanks. True enough, and I wrote my uninformed comment before going back to the thread downstairs.
Villago Delenda Est
Unfortunately, it does indeed boil down to this.
cleek
weird how planes just keep exploding over Russian airspace.
MomSense
@Cassidy:
I guess I am not as familiar with the fire and police unions in the South but up here they tend to be very conservative and not keen on identifying with teachers or other types of unions and union members. I’m not sure why that is. I’ve tried even on a personal level with cops and firefighters I know–and nothing. In fact it was worse than nothing because of what I heard them say.
⚽️ Martin
@mdblanche: A shoulder-mounted rocket can’t hit a plane at that altitude. It’s either a mobile or fixed anti-air unit, or a fighter plane. A mobile unit would be 2-3 vehicles – one being the radar unit, one being a missile unit. In either case, multiple people would have been involved in the decision.
SiubhanDuinne
@⚽️ Martin:
@lol chikinburd:
You’re both right, and you both informed me. Much appreciated.
Villago Delenda Est
@⚽️ Martin: Fucking up happens, but I suspect someone with access to heavy duty superpower grade anti aircraft hardware got trigger happy.
Amir Khalid
@⚽️ Martin:
MAS has been flying the 777 for well over a decade, so that series is not new to it. And unless a passenger plane with civilians aboard was clearly being flown by someone trying to crash into some target (unlikely at cruising altitude), I can’t see how to justify shooting it down.
another Holocene human
@Cassidy: This has been happening in Florida since Rick Scott to the extent the police and fire locals are willing to come on board. They do planning at top level with the state fed but at local level they sometimes have a habit of only turning up when they need something. JMHO.
raven
Anton Gerashenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s Interior Minister, wrote on Facebook that the plane was hit by a missile fired from a Buk launcher over the country’s east, the Associated Press reports.
⚽️ Martin
@Amir Khalid: Some flight data is out now. It was cruising level at 33K feet, obviously under autopilot.
another Holocene human
@Villago Delenda Est: Not only as “workers”.
Gin & Tonic
@Villago Delenda Est: Shortly after the crash, Igor Strelkov, one of the “separatist” leaders of the “Donetsk People’s Republic” posted on his VKontakte page (like a Russian Facebook) that they’d shot down a Ukrainian AN-26, and said “this is a warning – don’t fly in ‘our skies.'”
As I pointed out downstairs, the Buk SAM system is mobile and self-propelled, and has a range of 22,000 meters.
another Holocene human
I hope this link works, #blocbuilders organizing black and brown youth (their words) in Florida to vote and get rid of Scott as part of their push to end SYG.
Mnemosyne
@Gin & Tonic:
So it sounds possible that some overzealous idiots on the separatist side mistook a passenger jet for a Ukrainian plane.
ETA: But I’m sure Moscow Bob will be here any minute to tell us that the anti-aircraft system was built in a garage by anti-Nazi Ukrainian grandmothers and certainly not given to the separatists by Russia.
Cassidy
@MomSense: It’s a strange brew. Cops and firefighters tend to be conservative, ranging from moderate to crazy, but none of them in departments with strong unions can deny that they have an excellent pension plan and protections because of the union. The unions protect everyone even if they aren’t members. The union guys tend to be Democrats. Add to that, a lot of the cops and FF are married to teachers, nurses, gov’t employees as well. And finally, a lot of people in the south who are in jobs that are protected by unions are anti-union.
All the in mind, when the city or county gov’t tries to make cuts, the police and fire unions are the tip of the spear in keeping the council/ commissioners in check (see current stuff in Memphis). If we can get these strong unions to lend their clout to the teachers and civil service unions, expanding the “we’re all in this together” mentality, it will go a long way to increasing labor solidarity across the state(s). Individuals may be conservative, but the union still handles business in the best interest of labor.
beltane
Where’s Bob from Portland to tell us how it’s the Ukrainian Nazi’s fault?
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic: As I pointed out downstairs, how did these “separatists” get their hands on high grade anti-aircraft hardware that one does not purchase at a local gun shop, or find casually parked on the street of some Russian town.
Someone (I don’t know who, can’t imagine who would be so irresponsible to do so) provided this weapons system to the “separatists”, who would also have to be trained in how to use the system, it’s not a simple matter of pointing it at a target and squeezing a trigger.
Anoniminous
Organizing the South means facing the fact whites (roughly 70% of the population) will not tolerate equality with blacks (roughly 30% of the population. We see this in the attempts and successes to roll back the gains of the Civil Rights Movement by the white power structure. A result of this is a strong correlation between the Black population in the South and poverty. One result of this is the feedback loop: lack of jobs -> lack of money -> low rate of economic activity -> low rate of local economic investment -> lack of jobs. Thus, in and of itself, Union organizing, as important as it is, is only part of the solution and perhaps not even the most important part.
⚽️ Martin
From the reported location of the crash 20 miles or so from the Russian border, it almost had to have been shot down by something inside Ukraine. If it was a Russian rocket, it was one deployed pretty far inside Ukraine. It it was a Russian fighter, it too was pretty far inside Ukraine.
If Ukraine did it, it’s going to change things dramatically. If Ukraine didn’t do it, I don’t see how it doesn’t hang entirely on Russia. Separatists don’t have this kind of firepower.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
I’m going with the grandmothers, myself. Gospodin Romanov is a serious useful idiot, and he’ll be displaying that quality shortly, I’m sure.
Cervantes
@⚽️ Martin:
Yes, and not long afterwards, the captain was awarded the Legion of Merit for “outstanding service as commanding officer.”
(I don’t remember exactly what other decorations were bestowed on the crew after the “incident” but I’m pretty sure there was something for everyone.)
El Caganer
@Mnemosyne: I dunno – my first thought was that it was the Russian military, not the separatists. All parties are denying like mad. Horrible, whoever did it.
Origuy
I came here to talk about the airplane, but everyone’s said what I was going to, so I’ll try to steer it back to Kay’s topic. My dad has been a member of the International Brotherhood of Operating Engineers since he got out of the Army after Korea.He’s retired now. He’s proud of the union and went to get his 50 year award a few years ago. The union health benefits paid for my mom’s struggle with emphysema and the pension keeps him in his house. Yet he still votes Republican and watches Fox News. I just don’t get it.
Gin & Tonic
@⚽️ Martin: Separatists don’t have this kind of firepower.
They could. Here’s a report from ITAR-TASS from about two weeks ago that they got control of a Buk system.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: It was a little old lady from Donetsk who has a BUK system parked in the rickety old garage with gardenias planted around it!
Frivolous
Incredibly cute baby.
Origuy
@⚽️ Martin:
Separatists shouldn’t have that kind of firepower. However, Russian military TV reported on June 29 that a 9k37 Buk, which does have that range, fell into the hands of the separatists.
ETA: And Gin & Tonic beat me to it. Sorry for diverting the topic again.
Mnemosyne
@El Caganer:
Even if it was technically the separatists, they didn’t build that anti-aircraft system in a garage in Donetsk using rubber bands and MDF. Somebody in Russia gave it to them.
piratedan
@⚽️ Martin: yes they do, given to them (The Ukraine, when they were friends) by Putin. They’ve already confirmed that they shot down a Ukrainian aircraft earlier…. they’re (the pro-Russian Ukrainian separatists) busy deleting tweets that they have a working BUK in order to cover their asses, apparently.
Amir Khalid
@El Caganer:
Well, of course. This is not going to win whoever did it any new friends or admirers. I’m curious now to see what, if anything, Bob in Portland says about this.
El Caganer
@Mnemosyne: Or they captured it from the Ukrainians. The one scenario that I don’t think is at all possible is that the Ukrainian military did this – what in the world would they be shooting at?
Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)
@Amir Khalid:
From the thread below.
Mnemosyne
@Amir Khalid:
His reaction is exactly what I thought it would be: False flag!
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: Alex Jones is heard from.
Anoniminous
@Origuy:
US Labor Movement purposely, earnestly, and continuously purged anyone with any sort of ‘Communist taint.’ The history of the CIO gives the whole thing in a nutshell.
max
@Cassidy: Cops and firefighters, when talking labor issues, usually mention one another in the same breath. They need to be encouraged to throw their weight behind the teachers as well, bringing them into that protective fold.
Seconded! The usual sorts have already worked the divide and conquer thing on the private-sector unions and they’re working the same scam on the public sector unions.
max
[`I’m from a billionaire-funded foundation and I’m here to help those poor suffering little … what were they again? Oh, darlings. Yes, lovely. So, speaking of efficiency…`]
mdblanche
@⚽️ Martin: Well that makes things sound even worse.
Mnemosyne
@Villago Delenda Est:
I just asked him why the separatist commander publicly took credit for it if it was a false flag operation, so we probably won’t hear from him for a few days. That’s usually what happens when you give him actual facts. Unfortunately, he then re-surfaces making the same claim and you have to present the same facts again. Over and over again.
Keith G
@Origuy: Have you ever had the chance to fully engage your dad with conversations about what parts of conservative ideas attract him and what part of progressive politics repel him?
I am quite curious as to what those data points are for people who behave like your dad does.
Trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
Hard it imagine that NATO &/or the US don’t have sufficient reconnaisance resources aimed at the region to know what happened, i.e., who shot what from where. Whether they share the intel either publicly or through channels to the Malaysian government remains to be seen.
Those poor people.
cleek
oh, hey. nevermind.
Amir Khalid
We may need a new thread just for MH17.
Origuy
@Keith G: Not really. I think some of it is just identifying with the Republican “tribe”. My mother worked for the party and had a patronage job at the License Branch. (This was Indiana; the governor’s party controlled the state auto License Branch (aka DMV) I never really wanted to get a full on discussion. It’s hard to do when you are a visitor at Christmas time.
Gene108
@Villago Delenda Est:
I think it has to include Latinos, as they are the “cotton pickers” and in the Southeast their numbers have increased in the last 20 years.
Mike J
@⚽️ Martin:
I found NOTAMs on the FAA site prohibiting flight over Somalia and warning that crews flying over Iran should know where Iran allows them to fly, but nothing about Ukraine.
Chyron HR
@Amir Khalid:
We may need a new cable news network just for MH17.
Wally Ballou
RIP Elaine Stritch.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/18/theater/elaine-stritch-tart-tongued-broadway-actress-and-singer-is-dead-at-89.html
Mike J
@Mike J: And then I found it:
So you’re allowed to operate inside Ukraine, but be careful.
Trollhattan
@Mike J:
–BBC
Nick
U
C
L
A
UCLA FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!!!
SiubhanDuinne
@the Conster:
Fair warning, I’m stealing that line.
mdblanche
@Amir Khalid: What has the reaction in Malaysia been to this so far?
@Chyron HR: I’m pretty sure our current CNN can handle a crashed Malaysian plane. It’s everything else we need a new cable news network for.
Mike J
@Trollhattan: After a plane was already shot down. So yeah, if I were on one of those planes I’d be glad to hear that, but there was no international agreement to avoid Ukrainian airspace beforehand. Which is what I would expect, since there hadn’t been massive military air operations going on.
Paul in KY
@Origuy: Have you asked him to explain the cognitive dissonance? ‘Republicans hate unions & union members. You love unions & are a union member, etc. etc.’
Edit: Saw your response up above.
muddy
@MomSense: @Origuy: Patriarchy? Manly men doing manly menz job?
Trollhattan
@Mike J:
I interpret the official position more or less as “Yeah, it’s a little risky because people are shooting at each other, and we don’t think you’re at risk, but do call if you see anything weird.”
So now, this.
mdblanche
Unconfirmed reports that 23 US citizens were on MH17.
Amir Khalid
@mdblanche:
It’s not morning yet here, so there has been no reaction from the public. PM Najib Abdul Razak is giving a media conference at KL International Airport in a couple of hours (4am local time, which if memory serves is 4pm Eastern Time). Our new transport minister Liow Tiong-lai is coming back to KL from Beijing, where he was discussing the search for MH370 with his counterpart in China.
Amir Khalid
@Trollhattan:
Lufthansa, and Air France, and a few other airlines. Ministries of Transport and equivalent agencies around the world are no doubt directing airlines under their jurisdiction to do the same.
FlipYrWhig
@muddy: @Origuy: I assume it’s this: “I’m a hardworking guy who made my own way. Republicans stand for people like me. Democrats want to take the money I earned and use it to dole out favors for lazy moochers.”
mdblanche
@Amir Khalid: Thanks for the info. Malaysian transport minister has to be one of the most thankless jobs in the world. I wasn’t aware the time difference between Malaysia and the US was that large. Now get some sleep. ;)
Villago Delenda Est
Kay, this is great reporting on an important issue. Someone obviously was still coherent enough to send the right woman to NN to keep us informed!
Villago Delenda Est
@FlipYrWhig: …who all happen to be brown or black.
FlipYrWhig
@Villago Delenda Est: And that one hippie.
raven
@FlipYrWhig: I watched the Muscle Shoals documentary last night and there was this great part where the dude was talking about Wilson Pickett and Duane Allman. He said, “the folks around here got used to the black recording artists being around but the long haired hippies, that was too much”!
muddy
@FlipYrWhig: I know people who insist they are Republicans because “my family has always been Republican”. Issue by issue they want the Democratic agenda, but they just *know* that Republicans are right, and they vote that way. It’s maddening. Not that it matters much in this state.
Recently I was at Town Meeting (yes, wrong time of year but the budget keeps getting voted down) and was amusing myself deciding which party the people were in based on their comments, or better yet before their comments. It’s not always easy. But at one point I grew bored because it got super obvious.
One guy didn’t get the concept of multiplying fractions and wouldn’t sit until we all went through the 3rd grade with him again, an older woman who held forth on why her neighbors don’t bring her dog home instead of calling the cops, and a woman who insisted that the budget needed to be said no to just to express displeasure with the previous town administration. When they went on to the subject of taxes and services, you know where all the idiots fell. They want the roads repaved, and think that the guys who dig out the storm drains ought be doing it. Yes, those 2 guys and the single axle truck and a couple of wheelbarrows will pave the roads. FFS, you voted down the bond for road improvement last year because you didn’t want to pay more taxes.
Sorry to rant on! These people give me that itchy feeling in the palm of my hand like I want to give someone a good smack. Maybe I should run for moderator next year and be strict about people staying on topic. Crack that whip!
JoyfulA
@Cassidy: With a Democratic mayor, after decades of effort, the Charleston, SC, firefighters finally got the right to organize. That was only after a sofa warehouse fire killed many of them.
gene108
@Cassidy:
It’s basically the story of the South, since colonial times, when racial superiority was used as an excuse to keep the folks, who didn’t own a plantations and slaves, dirt poor and without any infrastructure to better their lives, so the plantation owners could make more money.
It’s just a weird sort of tribalism, where they’d rather be a part of the tribe than support policies that would make their lives better. And the wealthy aristocrats of the South are the tribe’s leaders.
The thinking goes something like this: You may have electricity, indoor plumbing and other modern conveniences, but I’d whoop your butt, if you set one foot on the patch of dirt my shack sits son.
It’s weird sort of need to bully someone else or believe they can bully someone else, since the system bullies them and when you take away someone to punch down on it creates a lot of confusion about their place in life, because at some level they realize they are basically at the bottom of barrel and cannot stand it.
Trollhattan
Welp, there goes that opportunity to learn what happened.
Trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
You’re right, and now it’s official.
Amir Khalid
@mdblanche:
Back when MAS’ 777s weren’t disappearing into thin air or getting shot down, it was a much easier job. We used to have one Transport Minister whose time was taken up with blithering idiocy, dressing like a clown, and running his own ethnic-based party into the ground.
Violet
I feel terrible for Malaysia. So awful, especially after the previous disaster.
Cervantes
@Amir Khalid: Really awful what’s happening (again). Sorry you have to deal with it (again).
Yes, the time difference right now is 12 hours; we’re on Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4) here on the coast. When we are on Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5, November through early March) the difference is 13 hours.
Get some sleep if you can.
the Conster
@Origuy:
This article breaks it down for you. It’s biological.
Origuy
@FlipYrWhig: I’m sure that plays a part of it. I don’t think race is an issue in my dad’s case. Some of it is the small government thing, I think.
Chyron HR
@Trollhattan:
What’s to know? Obviously Nazis shot down a plane full of noble anti-fascists, or possibly vice-versa.
In any case, the only sane response is to exterminate every
man, woman and childNazi, Naziette and Naziling in Ukraine with Russian helicopter gunships.Emma
@Wally Ballou: Oh Lord. One of the great dames of stage and life.
Roger Moore
@Origuy:
Which can be awfully hard to separate from the racist stuff. The key thing behind the takeoff of the small government movement was the need to provide the same government services to everyone equally. People who were happy with governments providing lots of services in the days of Jim Crow became staunch supporters of small government after Brown v. Board of Education. There’s certainly a perception among a lot of small government types that the services they’re most eager to cut are disproportionately benefiting minorities.
Cassidy
@JoyfulA: That’s a big lessons learned for us. Every recruit class in the country watches the video on that fire.
@gene108: The root of it is hopelessness, not racism. That’s not to say that the south isn’t steeped in racism, but it’s a byproduct of being born knowing you’ll work until the day you die. The carefree youth of high school is as good as it gets for many southerners.
Roger Moore
@another Holocene human:
Related to SYG, Talking Points Memo is reporting on a couple of studies of the effect of Castle Doctrine and SYG laws. The two studies used different methodology to determine that they had no appreciable effect on overall crime rates, but did boost the homicide rate materially. Unsurprisingly, the increase in homicide rate was mostly among white men, with no appreciable change in the homicide rate by white females or minorities. Nobody could have foreseen!
Original Lee
@muddy: One thing that helped in my mom’s village was the mayor presenting a very detailed budget for each bond issue and making it available at the library and online. For instance, Main Street needed to be repaved. So he pulled out all of the invoices from the last repaving job (for First Street, which is perpendicular to Main Street), and made a table out of them. Then he took the total and calculated the cost per foot of street, multiplied by the length of street that needed repaving (showing all the math for repaving 2 blocks of downtown). Then he showed the NEW total cost based on the old invoices, added in inflation using 3 different rates (because you know they will argue about how much prices have increased), showed THAT total, and then divided by the number of ratepayers to show a cost per taxpayer. Then he basically said, we can have a bond issue for this, or we can assess everybody x amount to get this done. It has to get done, it has to get paid for, and all I’m doing is giving y’all a choice as to how the money happens. If the bond issue does not pass, this is the amount that comes out of YOUR pockets. Almost every bond issue has passed by about 30 points ever since. Amazing.
mdblanche
MSNBC just had some commentary on MH17 from I. P. Freely.
JPL
So I just started streaming MSNBC just got taken. The supposed military official called the reporter a dumb ass.
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: I am so sorry for the country of Malaysia & of course, all the poor souls who perished. I hope we find out exactly what happened here.
WaterGirl
@Original Lee: Smart.
Paul in KY
@Origuy: Obviously the smallest government possible is what it takes to run a nation of 300 million in the 21st century.
Trollhattan
@Chyron HR:
By Jove, I think you’ve got it!
Also, too,
Ugh.
Chyron HR
@JPL:
Well, in all fairness, the odds are that he was right.
Linnaeus
Regarding the question of why someone Origuy’s father might still be a Republican voter even while benefiting from and supporting institutions like labor unions, here are some thoughts based on my experience. These don’t apply to all people equally.
1. Race. This should not be underestimated as a factor. The GOP is effectively a party of and for white people. Racial animus (towards nonwhites) and racial solidarity (towards other whites) can overcome any feelings of class solidarity with fellow workers.
2. Gender & family roles. See #1.
3. Compartmentalization. It’s not unusual for someone to simply separate how they feel about unions, etc. from their other political beliefs. There’s a number of mechanisms people do to justify this, such as one that has already been mentioned here: the idea that “I earned that” or “I’m entitled to that because…” and “they” (whoever that might be) are not. Or, perhaps, people don’t feel especially strongly about their union or other community institution that they are a part of – they just accept that it’s there and deal with it.
4. Salience. This is related to #3. Some people find certain issues to be things they feel about more strongly than others and vote accordingly. This is not uncommonly due #1 and #2.
mdblanche
And with the world now suitably distracted by MH17, Israel is about to launch a ground invasion of Gaza.
I’m now half-expecting an announcement that one of the MH17 passengers was named Franz F. Hapsburg IV.
Villago Delenda Est
@Trollhattan: Man, they’ve been really busy in Langley this morning framing those innocent Russian “separatists” haven’t they?
I’d love to be running the donut and espresso (or expresso, per Weird Al’s video) stand at Langley right now, doing land office business as those guys and gals must be working up a hell of an appetite and thirst from all that framing they’re doing.
raven
@mdblanche: Right, because when the world wasn’t distracted they didn’t do what they wanted to.
mdblanche
@Chyron HR: I caught the whole exchange. He was right.
Linnaeus
@the Conster:
I need to read up more on that. Chris Mooney’s been writing a lot about that topic, but I’m not sure his work has really gotten the examination that it should.
I’ll admit that I tend to be skeptical of such arguments because there is too much of a history of essentializing human differences on the basis of biology. That, combined with some of the abuses of psychology and psychiatry in the 20th century, means we should be careful about these kinds of claims. I’m not saying that Mooney is wrong or that there’s not interesting work being done in that area, but this kind of thing has gone in some very ugly directions in the past.
Botsplainer
@gene108:
Some did work to end it.
http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/621
Interesting guy. He was a Mississippian, born of a Presbyterian minister in 1871.
Trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
In fairness, if you suffered through all those False Flagging 202 lectures and assignments, this is like your coming-out party.
Ninedragonspot
@Trollhattan: here is the video released by Ukrainian Security Services.
raven
@Ninedragonspot: Oh, that was helpful.
SatanicPanic
@Linnaeus: I second. I’m also weary of studies that so readily confirm my own biases.
Trollhattan
Taking a page out of Bibi’s book?
mdblanche
@raven: Yeah, it’s probably just a coincidence but yesterday Israel was at least paying lip service to cease-fire negotiations. Today they’re escalating and guaranteeing weeks if not months of slaughter. They were only pretending to care about the rest of the world but now they’re not even pretending.
Botsplainer
@Linnaeus:
My maternal grandfather was a union member, and a bigot on an institutional level, not personal. He was a 4 time Roosevelt voter (probably Truman as well) that turned Republican with Ike and never looked back.
It was complicated – he was truly a product of his geography and time. He could come up with the most hateful stuff about black folks in general – racist, not empathetic, would spout every stereotypical slur imaginable, if he didn’t know the person, which was the key.
See, the bigotry was all learned from his childhood – he knew he was supposed to hate, because it had been drilled into him, over and over again. Meanwhile, his personality was pretty generous and open, and he never met an enemy on a personal level. He’d talk to anybody, would do anything for them. If he worked with a black guy, his co-worker was great – they’d share meals, pal around together at work (he’d say “Oh, he’s different. Not like one of ‘them’.”) There was a very old black man who lived down the road that my mother remembers as “Uncle Levi” from when she was a child. Levi had been born a slave in Kentucky and was maybe 10 years old when freed after the 13th Amendment percolated through Kentucky. He was well into his 90s when my mother remembered him, but she always remembered that every election day my grandfather would go pick Levi up to go vote (I don’t think they voted the same way very often, as my grandfather would have been kind of an unreconstructed Southern Democrat back then, and at levi’s age, he’d have been a Republican, but that was OK with my grandfather, who laughed about it later), and then would bring him to the house to share a meal.
Like I said – complicated.
El Caganer
@Ninedragonspot: Something’s really squirrelly about this. I’m now inclined to think (but freely admit that I’m no expert) that the separatists shot the plane down, since no other explanation makes much sense (false-flag stuff sounds like bullshit). At the same time, I’d seen some items indicating that the SBU was completely compromised by Russian intelligence, so I wouldn’t be inclined to put much stock in their video. It’s a tragedy for the people who lost their lives and their loved ones, but I don’t see it making any difference in what’s going on on the ground in Ukraine; despite what John McCain may think, we’re not going to be sending in the Marines.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Here’s a transcript in English.
Svensker
@SiubhanDuinne
Can’t. I already done stole it.
Villago Delenda Est
@El Caganer: Oh, John McCain is permanently in the “You really should keep your pie hole shut, asshole” mode ever since he picked that stupid Snowbilly for his running mate in ’08.
Linnaeus
@Botsplainer:
Oh, it’s definitely complicated. I just offered up those thoughts based on what I’ve observed in others, including members of my own family. Your maternal grandfather sounds a lot like my paternal grandfather, although my grandfather never voted Republican.
Mnemosyne
@Trollhattan:
I am medium-convinced that this was a fuckup by separatists who were infatuated with their new toy and mistook the airliner for a Ukrainian plane. A completely horrible and disastrous fuckup with gigantic consequences, but probably at base a fuckup.
rikyrah
Called the ‘ at least I’m not a Nigger’ syndrome that whole lotta folks down South suffer from.
⚽️ Martin
@Gin & Tonic: That’s a different transcript, but similar in content. The translation “Is there anything left of the weapon?” I think is wrong. I think it should be “Are there any weapons?” Makes more sense given the reply as well.
JPL
@Villago Delenda Est: She rubbed off on him.
Ninedragonspot
@raven: Hmm, you seem nice.
⚽️ Martin
CNN:
⚽️ Martin
@Ninedragonspot: Raven is nice. Not a lot of proficiency in Russian around here though.
gogol's wife
@Gin & Tonic:
They left out all the obscenities. “‘Are there many dead?’ ‘Пиздец!'”
Точно.
gogol's wife
The guys on that recording say the Cossacks shot it down. This is going to get interesting.
gogol's wife
@⚽️ Martin:
Yes, he says, Are there any weapons?
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
What would “Cossacks” mean in the modern world? Obviously, I know the history, but I’m not sure what they would be referring to.
Gin & Tonic
@gogol’s wife: Haven’t had time to listen yet, just saw that Kyiv Post was offering one version. I’m sure there are plenty of obscenities. I’m sure that somebody is already at the bottom of a well with his throat cut, too.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
The Cossacks never really went away, but they’ve been in great resurgence in recent years. I have a student who’s writing a thesis on this. There are a bunch of different Cossack groups — one of which went to the Sochi Olympics and horse-whipped members of P.Riot. There have been Cossack groups going into Ukraine from the beginning of this, and some of them I assume were already based there.
Gin & Tonic
@Mnemosyne: In this context, free-floating pro-Russian mercenaries.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
My answer is in moderation. I’ll try again: The Cossacks never really went away, but they’ve been in great resurgence in recent years. I have a student who’s writing a thesis on this. There are a bunch of different Cossack groups — one of which went to the Sochi Olympics and horse-whipped members of P.Riot. There have been Cossack groups going into Ukraine from the beginning of this, and some of them I assume were already based there.
Calouste
Dutch news reports that at least 154 of those on board MH17 were Dutch nationals.
gogol's wife
@Gin & Tonic:
When I went back to the transcript, I saw that they made an attempt to include some of them, but I don’t think “Holy s–t” is quite good enough for “Pizdets.” But the very first guy says “yo-moyo” when they tell him they shot down a plane.
Trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
What would “Cossacks” mean in the modern world? Obviously, I know the history, but I’m not sure what they would be referring to. Recall the whip-weilding bastards that beat up Pussy Riot during the Olympics? They were specifically so-identified. Seemed pretty 19th century to me, but what do I know?
As to whether the shoot-down was the fvck-up fairy, I sincerely hope it was just that and not done with intent.
Trollhattan
Moderated on accounta that name, I’ll wager.
@Mnemosyne:
Recall the whip-wielding bastards that beat up P*ssy Riot during the Olympics? They were specifically so-identified. Seemed pretty 19th century to me, but what do I know?
As to whether the shoot-down was the fvck-up fairy, I sincerely hope it was just that and not done with intent.
Botsplainer
@Linnaeus:
It was always funny. He was a lifetime union guy, Roosevelt saved him with the CCC, and he’d whimper piteously about the perfidy of Democrats. I always said “and how may times did you vote for Roosevelt?”
He’d mumble “4” under his breath every time.
gene108
@Cassidy:
Did not say it was racism. Just a need to justify – usually through some expression of machismo – that you are better than someone, even if the behavior you are expressing is a net loss.
I think this speaks to the “Rolling Coal” modification on people’s trucks (it’s just not a Southern thing, I’ve seen a couple in NJ with the mod), where you do something that has no net benefit to you in terms of improving a truck’s performance or helping you financially, just so you can literally blow smoke in someone’s face, you think is wussier than you.
Maybe the machismo is born out of hopelessness. I do not know. There’s a just a stubborn Southern bit of pride in accepting their lot in life, rather than looking for way to make it better and being resistant to outsiders, who show them ways to make it better.
Botsplainer
@Mnemosyne:
In the post-Soviet sense, right now it means “pro-Russian not-Jews”.
I think I preferred the USSR to today’s Russia. There was some cassocked Orthodox monk that recently had some incredibly Czarist pronouncement to make about GLBT folks, and it got me to thinking something along the lines of “now I know why Lenin and Stalin felt like they had to crush the church with official repression”.
They’re flexing their muscles again, and acting like assholes now that they’re no longer under occupation.
gogol's wife
@Botsplainer:
You are oversimplifying.
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
It’s the Southern honor culture. Saving face and looking tough are more important than wussy things like fair treatment or collective action. And it’s not surprising that this kind of honor culture is apparently most prevalent in the poorer ranks of the white South — what else do they really have?
David Koch
@Calouste:
Ooops. Oil conglomerate Dutch Royal Shell is gonna have a difficult time spinning that one.
David Koch
@gogol’s wife:
I had no idea Daily Kos was so militant.
Botsplainer
@gogol’s wife:
I wound up seeing too much damage spread into my beloved, most secularized and fun Antiochian Orthodox Church via konvertsy who’d found a ready home within the OCA. Asshole fundamentalists who wanted to feel sophisticated and vaguely ethnic started moving up in there.
You think those Syrians and Lebs would have tolerated a rank dingleberry like Paffhausen and elevated him to Metropolitan?
Cassidy
@gene108: Well, when you look at through that lens, a young man or woman starts working and realizes that this is as good as it gets, it’s easy to see why these arbitrary and imaginary things have been created. When you have nothing, you gotta try and have something.
James E. Powell
@MomSense:
I’ve tried even on a personal level with cops and firefighters I know–and nothing. In fact it was worse than nothing because of what I heard them say.
I’ve had the same experience. Part of it is the residual from the 60s – so much of our current politics is still happening along battle-lines drawn in the 60s.
But mostly I think it’s that law enforcement and firefighters’ organizations prefer to stand apart and present themselves as non-political. When they want something from the general public or taxpayers, they figure they are better off by themselves than they would be saddled with allies that might blur their message. I can see that point.
J R in WV
@gene108:
It is not true that modifications involved in “rolling coal” provide no benefit. It lessens back pressure in the exhaust system, as does installing a fatter pipe which is usually part of the modification; both of these mods increase horsepower. Remocal of the ceramic carbon particulate filter from the exhaust system also greatly reduces exhaust gas back pressure, which in turn increases horsepower.
At the same time, they up the amount of fuel being injected into each cylinder at top-dead-center, which also increases horsepower. Along with additional soot from a richer fuel-air mixture.
I’m not trying to claim that there isn’t a “piss on you” prideful contest there, as in all road rage situations. But to repeatedly say that those modifications to a diesel engine do not provide a benefit to the driver’s vehicle is just flat wrong!