Multiple outbursts from the sun could trigger magnificent aurora in the northern half of the United States this weekend. https://t.co/rMNUUAYQNe
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 9, 2024
(Since I’m a devout animist, I’m hoping the outbursts will reset some emotional meters among our more excitable fellow citizens.)
Momentum is on our side.
Reproductive freedom has won in every election where it was on the ballot since Roe v. Wade was overturned.
From California to Kentucky, the people of America have voted in favor of freedom. pic.twitter.com/RehnuzxuKo
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) May 9, 2024
.@VP @KamalaHarris's nationwide economic opportunity tour highlights how the Biden-Harris admin is
✅ lowering costs
✅ supporting communities
✅ and helping people thrive#DemsDeliverhttps://t.co/vxWCdYqgBj— Georgia Democrats (@GeorgiaDemocrat) May 9, 2024
Four years ago today, amid an out of control pandemic, the unemployment rate hit the highest level since the Great Depression. It's now been under four percent for more than two years. The Biden administration did a remarkable job leading us out of covid and bringing back jobs.
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 8, 2024
The scene tonight at the ?@VP? house. Night Market! pic.twitter.com/6I6MCxqpLG
— Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) May 10, 2024
Loved bringing Nina with me to the Night Market celebrating #AANHPI Heritage Month at the residence of our first ever South Asian and Black @VP!
The fact of this event, and how it makes our communities feel seen, recognized, and welcomed, is why representation matters. pic.twitter.com/lvGLskTIjb
— Dr. Michelle Au (@AuforGA) May 10, 2024
Don’t you hate it when corporations outsource their customer service?
We’re working to protect American call center workers & hold corporations accountable for sending these jobs overseas. Ohioans should have the option to talk with workers based in the US. pic.twitter.com/BusSU1gSSM
— Sherrod Brown (@SenSherrodBrown) May 9, 2024
Another well-deserved shout-out to our own DougJ!
Do you think the important big accounts out there who follow us enjoy us completely clowning the idiots on here because they wish they could do it too but they can’t?
?? I’m convinced of it.
— LadyGrey ???????????? (@TWLadyGrey) May 10, 2024
Sadly, YES…
trump gets a pass from so many people because he is treated like an animal whose derangement cannot be helped, or a hurricane, whereas biden is treated as a proxy for your mother, whom you hate pic.twitter.com/R236kQjE5D
— kingseeker peter frampton (@revhowardarson) May 9, 2024
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Torrey
The images take a moment to load on my computer, so when I saw the first line of the thread was “multiple outbursts,” I immediately assumed it was going to be about something else. The last entry confirmed that, while my assumption was incorrect, it was not unwarranted.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
Wait, so Biden’s not senile anymore?
ETA: He’s got Schrodinger’s Senility. Whichever reality helps Trump for any any particular taking point is the one observed.
Baud
Also too, AL, you’re not a normie. You’re who’s keeping me from going full normie.
dmsilev
@Baud: It’s similar to how Barack Obama is simultaneously an unwitting pawn of nefarious Others and an all-knowing conspiracy master.
I think it has something to do with quantum mechanics. Most of these things usually do.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
He’s senile and he’s not senile, he’s so very Schrodinger sans the cat and the box.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
@dmsilev:
Heh. My ETA just added that concept.
Dangerman
Um. What?
It’s early West Coast time and the coffee hasn’t kicked in but I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.
Ken
Sherrod Brown: Don’t you hate it when corporations outsource their customer service?
I must admit to being of two minds, since 24/7 customer service is a good thing, and if it’s all done from the US that means some people will be pulling night shifts.
Also, I think this bill might be irrelevant by the time it’s passed, since corporations are salivating at the thought of AI-driven customer service. “Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it.”
dmsilev
@Dangerman: It means “Democrats bad”, for all values of “Democrat”. Not worth spending any additional mental effort looking for any more specific meaning.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ken: I’m still trying to get tiktok to let me back into my own account, so customer service is on my mind. I can see my account from someone else’s account. It’s there. I just can’t access it
ETA: Also the last tweet in the post makes me want to smack that guy.
dmsilev
@Ken: AI-based “customer service” has the problem that the “AI” systems have no real concept of “correct” and will cheerfully give customers wrong information. There have already been some lawsuits where companies have been forced to make good on the promises or claims of their “customer service agents” when those claims or instructions caused direct financial costs to the people calling in (things like flight change policies on airlines, is the example that comes to mind).
Ken
@Dangerman: He started out “I do not relish another Trump presidency, but”, so you know whatever’s after the “but” is going to be a doozy.
Also this is an interesting counterexample to this XKCD, since it only took seven words for the “uh-oh”.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Dangerman:
The writer of that nonsense:
https://history.uchicago.edu/directory/Gabriel-Winant
He’s on “research leave” at the moment and clearly his research has been hitting the proverbial crack pipe. He’s also been up to his eyeballs in current shit slinging vis a vis Israel and his quoted comment is pretty much in line with what I see a lot of leftier-than-thou types say about Biden.
He’s a member of little-known “Dissent” magazine editorial board which also explains his cocakamamie comments about Biden. This is an example of his I/P material:
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/a-response-to-joshua-leifer/
Ken
@dmsilev: I didn’t say it was a good idea, just that corporations are salivating over it. I’m sure they think it will cut costs, but that’s because they haven’t thought about what it will do to their electric bills.
TBone
After reading many comments at another site showing how desperate the tankies are, trying so very hard to make Rump’s NY trial into proof that he’s innocent and the best guy for 2024, I am now once again looking forward to seeing who among the rethugs will make the biggest sacrifice of him or herself to the eternal flame(out) trying to distract from the facts of Rump’s guilt. Yesterday’s contenders were Tim Scott and Rick Scott. Today: anybody’s guess so far…
TBone
My second thought this morning (after a rude awakening) was that I am still SO proud of Stormy. Keeping your cool under fire like that is no easy task! I hope Rump gets washed away off the Wildwood beach tomorrow.
🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TgtARTw3L2Y
Soprano2
I don’t understand that last tweet at all. How does he think Biden is aligning liberalism with the “global right”? What the hell is that anyway? Do these people realize they’re only talking to themselves, because most people can’t tell what the hell they’re trying to say?
p.a.
NNnnnoooooooooo! Ignore the reality-based evidence: Countercyclical spending is s0¢iali$m!
3Sice
@Ken:
Does Senator Brown do a 90s overcooked Hank Azaria/Apu accent “comedy” bit at his rallies?
See also: TonyJ’s notes on the current state of UK Labor.
Lyrebird
@dmsilev: oh I think there’s a little more to it,
@Dangerman: ..and I waste time wondering, does this guy get *paid* to shill for Putin or does he simply enjoy it?
IMNSHO it sounds to me like horsesht specifically designed to keep Biden from getting any credit for his persistent support of Ukraine
Soprano2
@Ken: Don’t some of them already have that? I’ve had experiences calling customer service where it seems there is no person available to talk to you about anything. That’s a mistake IMHO. I’ve noticed that many companies’ “live customer service” is actually a chat bot, it’s not “live” anything.
p.a.
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I only know (what little I know) about UofC from their economics dept, “the school of…” Friedmanesque conservative, corporate ball-washers.
Are there more like this guy there?
cmorenc
Reproductive freedom may be winning at the ballot box, but SCOTUS may have another monkey-wrench to throw in the works when the abortion pill decision comes down in the next month or so. They could restrict it to prescription-only and soon to follow could be upholding state restrictions against permitting out of state physicians from prescribing it across state lines to states disallowing such.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: They are like trump in that they can string a whole bunch of words together w/o ever making sense.
Scout211
Speaking of normies, there is an interesting commentary on Public Notice this morning highlighting the many Republicans who are appearing on the Sunday talk shows and royally flopping. The viewers who watch those shows are typically normies so I think there is still a market for them, albeit much smaller than in the past.
The interviewers these days seem to be asking more follow-up questions of Republicans and asking them to explain their obvious
liesinconsistencies. And more of these Republicans are now moving to only appearing on Fox, which is another interesting change. More Democrats are appearing on the networks Sunday shows now and the Democratic message has a slightly better chance at reaching normies through those shows.Nukular Biskits
Good (meh) mornin’, y’all!
Sid
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I didn’t get the line about hating his mother- is there some context there that we’re supposed to understand?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Dangerman: I hear you.
In the contest of over who can be the dumbest person on the internet, it looks to me the guy who made that statement is throwing haymakers.
Anyway, isn’t “globalist” a MAGA hat code-word?
Scout211
Did you know that House Republicans are preparing articles of impeachment against President Biden? Link
No, not for that and not for that other thing.
. . .
Yawn . . .
OzarkHillbilly
I think I have a hummingbird with a drinking problem. The other morning she was passed out on their favorite feeder. There were a dozen or more birds buzzing all around her, even hovering above her head to get at the nectar port she was blocking. When they finally had the feeder drained, she was still there, still passed out. I had begun to wonder if she might be dead.
Went out to get the empties for refilling and when I walked up to hers I startled her and she fell flat on her face. Stumbled around on the ground for a bit before she got her feet under her and got the wings working again and finally took off.
I think I embarrassed her, she hasn’t been back.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Beats the hell outta me but probably is. Guys like him are why the Horseshoe Theory of Politics carries so much weight with me.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: What do you put in the feeder? 😂 A while ago, the dog startled a hawk that had scooped down, and it couldn’t take off. They ran around the yard until I was able to get hold of the dog. The hawk eventually calmed down enough and left.
OzarkHillbilly
Just the usual, some gin, a dash of vermouth, shaken not stirred of course.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Sid:
Calling Dr Freud! Dr Freud! We have an Oedipal emergency. STAT!
In all seriousness, I think I see what the person was trying to say because it’s typically levied at people who lean on the “Ok, boomer” reaction to most things, which is essentially a jibe at their parent’s generation. But if that’s the case here, it’s a very inside-baseball kinda reference.
catclub
Einstein’s explanation of radio. Radio is like having a very long cat stretched from New York to LA. You pull its tail in new york and it meows in LA…. except there is no cat.
OzarkHillbilly
Heh:
Laura’s got her panties in a bunch.
Eyeroller
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: It seems to be meant literally in this context. There is a global far right. What is puzzling is why this doofus thinks Biden is aligning “American liberalism” with it.
Suzanne
I don’t understand the implications of “Ohioans should have the option to talk with workers based in the US.”. Like, is it “Press 3 to talk to a person seated in the US”?
I don’t get how this works.
Nukular Biskits
@OzarkHillbilly:
It was hopefully just exhausted from the journey.
catclub
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: ‘mother’ is simply a standin for someone normal (opposed to Trump) who tells you to do the right thing, and therefore you hate them.
The hating them is actually your problem.
TBone
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/paul-manafort-poised-to-rejoin-trump-world-aided-chinese-media-deal/ar-BB1ma3Xr
There is talk of Manafort being placed in charge of the 2024 RNC convention.
Eyeroller
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: You put research leave in scare quotes as if he’s being punished for something, but it’s a highly coveted status for faculty. It is usually for a semester and means they don’t have to teach.
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: it’s code for Jewish.
Eunicecycle
@Soprano2: I had an experience lately with one of the AI chatbots that was NOT good. Or it was a really stupid bot. All this one could do was repeat info from the FAQs based on key words I guess. But I had to go through the torture of communicating with it before it would let me “chat” with a real person. I think it was SiriusXM. I had to keep saying, No this does not answer my question!!!!
Suzanne
@catclub:
What misogyny? What toxic masculinity? Why won’t women fuck me?!
Lord. #teambear
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Neat
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh. :-(
hueyplong
@TBone: Manafort owes his freedom to Trump and not to Blanche, but here Trump is not actually commenting on Blanche’s competence in working for a Manafort acquittal. He’s congratulating Blanche on assisting his omerta program and taking whatever dive (including conviction) was required in order to prevent Manafort’s case from damaging Trump personally.
Barry
@Dangerman: “It’s early West Coast time and the coffee hasn’t kicked in but I have no idea what this is supposed to mean.”
Current Russian/Chinese troll script, leftist having a temper tantrum, … who knows?
smith
@OzarkHillbilly: On a more serious note, you might want to sterilize that feeder. Bird flu is a possibility.
Eyeroller
@Suzanne: It may be an allusion to the identification of the Democrats as the “Mommy party.”
TBone
@hueyplong: bingo
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Eyeroller:
Not intended as scare quotes.
TBone
@smith: good eye
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@TBone:
So much code in one little statement. I need a cheat sheet, can’t keep up.
Eyeroller
@OzarkHillbilly: Birds that eat berries (which hummingbirds don’t) do sometimes get drunk but that sounds like a sick or injured bird.
hueyplong
@Suzanne: “Why won’t women fuck me?!”
This all seems kind of wildlife biological. RWNJ men’s shitty plumage (MAGA hats) turns off the smarter females of the species, so that in a few cycles of reproduction we should be ok so long as the game isn’t lost on other fronts before then.
There is currently more than one “reproduction” issue at play in the USA. Let’s win them both.
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/the-origins-of-the-globalist-slur/555479/
Splitting Image
comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I didn’t even know they were still around. I thought they merged with “Commentary” back in the 1970s to form “Dysentery”.
(Seriously, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard Dissent mentioned in any other context in at least 30 years.)
Soprano2
@Scout211: They really are desperate, aren’t they? People can see right through that, most Americans will agree with what Biden is doing and it’s well within his power to do it.
NotMax
Weekend watch.
John Oliver on the war on libraries.
Matt McIrvin
@Dangerman: I’d guess it’s about Israel.
I’ve been seeing a bunch of people citing Sarah Kendzior’s thesis that Biden and Democrats are basically on the same side as Trump, too.
Kay
@Soprano2:
He’s a Leftist, Jewish history professor who opposes the Right wing Israeli government. He thinks Biden is aligning liberalism with the global Right because Netanyahu (and his ministers) are aligned with the global Right. They are. Netanyahu brags about it.
and here
and here
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
I assume her name is Peggy.
SFAW
“I do not relish another Trump presidency, but I am more-than-willing to line up against the wall, if it means I can go to my grave demonstrating my oh-so-pure ‘thoughts’.”
Someone should ask Winant if that’s what he meant to write, but fat-fingered it.
Eyeroller
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I don’t think he was talking about “(((globalists))).” Leftier-than-thous talk about global this and global that a lot, and they mostly mean “everybody but Americans.” Global South is a particular buzzphrase. It has some meaning as a shorthand, but it lumps together a lot of different countries and cultures.
RevRick
@dmsilev:
@Baud:
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: One of the hallmarks of fascism, according to Umberto Eco (in his 1995 essay), is the assertion that the enemy is simultaneously weak and strong, easily subdued but ever-threatening and ominous.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@TBone:
Learn something new every day.
If there’s one thing that’s remained constant with the modern GOP, it’s dog whistles. JFC.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I just want to talk to a person who I can understand. A long time ago I worked for an outfit that sold ads on school sports posters. We had to screen applicants for the job over the phone – we had them read the ad from the paper to us out loud. One thing we screened for was voice – was it loud enough, was the person easy to understand, did they talk slow enough? Any kind of pronounced accent was a “no hire”, we told them the job was already filled. We also had to have them read the ad to make sure they were literate enough for the job. There was one time I hung up on an AT&T customer service person and started over because his Indian accent was so thick I literally could only understand a few words he said, and he wouldn’t slow down enough for me to understand him. It’s not customer service if the customer can’t understand what the person is saying.
frosty
@Eunicecycle: Same as my experience with eBay’s chatbots. Type in your question, it picks a few key words and links to FAQs. I ALREADY READ THEM!!!!The only saving grace is that it provides the link to a real person without too much wasted time and the people on the phone were very good.
TBone
@NotMax: 💙
Baud
@Kay: Thanks for the explanation. The tweet is still worthy of scorn. Once you say you prefer Trump, you’ve jumped the shark IMHO.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Putin, though, clearly took great relish in stabbing Netanyahu in the back and supporting Hamas after Netanyahu spent so much time trying to build bridges with him.
I’d call Putin part of the global far right, but foreign-policy leftists in the US have a weird tendency to give him a pass.
Baud
@Suzanne: Sounds like pandering, but I haven’t read the bill and if that’s what Brown thinks it takes to win, more power to him.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin: Thing is, Hamas is right wing too. Everyone in the Middle East is right wing. All the conflicts are right-wing conflicts.
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I learned all of this stuff against my will but learn I did because anyone spouting this shit is a fucking natzi who needs punched.
Kay
@Eyeroller:
I don’t know about that but global Right has a real meaning. It means the anti democratic leaders who are authoritarian, roll back civil rights, and oppose liberal views on social issues – gay rights, abortion, feminism, etc. Hungary, Poland, Russia, etc. Anti liberal, xenophobic and ultra nationalist.
SomeRandomGuy
So, you’re hoping there’s gonna be a SOLAR FLARE that’s big enough to VAPORIZE TFG? Isn’t that a little EXTREME?
(Yes, I’m deliberately misunderstanding your intentions in the most dramatic way possible. It’s what I do, when I try to imitate MAGAts.)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Splitting Image:
I remember stumbling onto it when it was referenced in a Marxist geography publication whose name escapes me, back in the late 80s. Had totally forgotten about it until I looked up the author.
Soprano2
@Kay: I kind of thought that was what he was getting at, but to me it’s all in code. It’s a bad message if even a person who follows politics regularly can’t tell what you’re trying to say. I think he’s wrong, too, you can’t sum up the Biden presidency based on our relationship with Israel.
Soprano2
@Eyeroller: I think “Global South” is the phrase they use to replace “Third World”. I always wondered which were the “Second World” countries. LOL
TBone
@TBone:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eOcimzsviFA
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Well, that particular Leftist doesn’t give Putin a pass, but I agree with you many on the US Left do. It’s incoherent.
I’m just shocked there’s a historian on the Left at U of Chicago.
He says he probably won’t get tenure :)
Eyeroller
@Kay: Some commenters were reading too much into the word “global” and I thought that was unwarranted even though I disagreed with the guy’s attitude. I hadn’t seen your comment. The word is not always a dogwhistle.
RevRick
The thing about the posts here on Balloon Juice is that they are speaking to the choir. None of us is gonna sit on the sidelines come November or vote for Vonshitzenpants. We’re donating, writing cards, and if we still have the energy, phone banking.
Biden polls exceedingly well among the informed voters. Trump excels among those who are willfully ignorant, who don’t consume any news, but react to the world with fear, contempt and resentment. Dietrich Bonhoeffer had an observation about stupidity— that it’s actually more dangerous than evil, since evil can be opposed.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Soprano2:
The aforementioned Leftier-Than-Thou crowd spends every waking minute of their lives doing exactly that.
They probably voted for Nader back in the day, assuming they were of voting age.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Ken: My godson is trying to rent an apartment. Aside from the high non-refundable application fees, customer service regarding the application’s status is often an overseas call center. This has been a problem as the center takes messages but cannot answer a question, and there is never a call back to him with an answer. So I blame the corporation because their “help” line as well as anyone else is not empowered to help.
frosty
@Soprano2: First World was the more-or-less free developed West. Second World was the Communist countries. Third World was everything else.
I guess since the fall of the Soviet Union there was essentially no Second World left so Third World was right out. Global South is the replacement.
TBone
@RevRick: reminds me:
jonas
Oh a lot of them already do it. And it’s always a horrible experience. I’ll take a guy in a call center somewhere in south Asia with marginal English skills any day over some AI bullshit.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: The “Second World” meant countries whose economies were between prosperity and poverty. Originally intended to refer to the Communist states after the war.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: You can if you think the Israel/Palestine situation is more important than anything else.
A while back we were talking about how a way not to get overstressed and exhausted by politics is to pick a few issues you care about and concentrate on those. It’s great advice for practical activism–it encourages deeper study and more meaningful action. It does, however, have a down side, which is that if you concentrate wholly on those issues you can start feeling contemptuous of other people for concentrating on their issues instead.
When it comes to criticizing your own “side”, I think there’s a balance to be struck. I would never try to silence progressives who think Biden is letting them down on the thing they care about most. (I just saw a whole drama over on Mastodon in which someone was trying to do this, a white guy basically yelling “Trump is worse!!” at some Black progressives who perfectly well knew that but dared to have criticisms of Biden.) But when you go the maximum drama route of actually insisting that Biden is worse, it gets dumb.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I would just suggest that everything isn’t a message. He’s not a political operative. He’s a labor historian. He just writes what he thinks. He’s drawing a connection between the global Right and Netanyahu’s (extremely) Right wing government and that is supported and not at all a radical opinion. The far Right in Israel work to roll back progress on “social issues” too, just like Putin. It isn’t just nationalism. They’re Right wingers across the board. Netanyahu himself brags publicly that he’s aligned with them.
I think it’s childish to say he’s “mad at his mom” because he wrote something unflattering about Joe Biden – I mean, come on. It’s not a personal attack on Biden. He’s objecting to Biden policy.
Eunicecycle
@Soprano2: that just happened to me this morning. I had a very hard time understanding the CSR but could pick up enough words that I could get my problem resolved. The CSR obviously spoke English much better than I speak another language, but it was still a struggle. He may have been in the US though so I don’t know if Sherrod’s solution is the answer.
SiubhanDuinne
@p.a.:
My mother was a graduate of the University of Chicago. She was an English major, nothing to do with politics or economics, but in the 1930s the school had an overall Commie-pinko reputation. She used to amuse me when I was a little girl by singing a satirical song she learned there (set to a mournful, hopeless, minor-key Russian melody):
Kay
@Eyeroller:
Agree. Sorry. I shouldn’t have responded to you like you were misinterpreting it.
TBone
@TBone: tik tok, motherfuckers. Criming in plain sight again isn’t going to end well again.
Kay
@SiubhanDuinne:
I toured it with my oldest son and I told him “you can’t go here -everyone looks serious and sad”.
There’s like 6 weeks of nice weather in Chicago, it was a beautiful day and no one was outside.
Suzanne
@Baud: It also sounds vaguely racist? Like, why call center workers and not other workers? If someone can communicate adeptly enough, I don’t care where they sit. And it seems like pandering to the aesthetics of the kind of crappy people who get offended just hearing about other people pressing dos para español.
If you want to onshore workers, fine, but this is gross.
Doug R
@Ken: It’s starting to bother me. Especially here in Canada. Our large banks like the Royal Bank and TD Bank (yes the one the arena in Boston is named after) and large communications companies like Rogers take advantage of Canadian ownership rules and tax breaks.
I think when they outsource work to another country, especially overseas-they should lose some or all of those tax breaks.
Some people like working night shifts and Hawaii time is 7 1/2 hours different from Newfoundland time if my math is right.
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: One of my favorite comedians/podcasters Andy Klein is Iranian and he brought up the point that the Left was all in on the Iranian revolution but was naive about the fact that what would follow it would likely be even worse, and that turned out to be true. So you throw out the moderate, ineffective government and get rewarded with a Fanatical, Islamist dictatorship that harms women and LGBTQ people even more, turning back decades of hard won progress. And they are still stuck with it, forty years later.
jonas
@RevRick: Bonhoeffer’s observation on “stupidity” vs. “malice” is so on the money these days. Here’s the rest of it:
If that isn’t a spot-on diagnosis of the last 7 years, I don’t know what is.
UncleEbeneezer
Eyeroller
@Eunicecycle: I don’t hear as well as I used to, and I have a hard time understanding people with accents.
OzarkHillbilly
Did not have this on my 2024 bingo card: ‘Eunuch-maker’ mutilator jailed for 22 years
A self-styled “eunuch maker” who mutilated paying customers and streamed it online has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 22 years.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: And Biden’s aligning us with them. Unlike Trump, of course. Yeah, right. Anyone who could seriously assert such a thing should probably be getting checked for brain worms.
teezyskeezy
@Miss Bianca: Funny how in a matter of a few days “brainworms” that went from a sarcastic insult to being literal and unironic.
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2: I.think the “Second World”, such as it was, was supposed to be explicitly linked with the USSR. First World: Team USA. Second World: Team Commie. Third World: Unaligned, or too poor to give a crap about.
That’s my understanding of it, anyway.
ETA: or what Frosty said.
narya
@Kay: It’s not a welcoming or friendly place. I’ve lived in the city since I moved here for grad school in 1986, and the weather is fine (I’ve lived at roughly the same latitude my whole life), but I realized within days that I had never seen so many uptight people in so few square miles at the university. And they clung to their up-tight-ness.
Kay
@Miss Bianca:
I don’t agree with him – I think Biden’s State Department have absolutely no use for the Israeli far Right hence the resignations we’ve seen, but I don’t think “unlike Trump” makes sense either. He’s not comparing Biden to Trump. He’s comparing Biden to a US policy that would oppose the Israeli Right. Biden could be aligning with the global Right to a lesser extent than Trump and still be aligning with the global Right. I don’t think he is but that’s the assertion.
It’s just everything isn’t a R v D political statement. He thinks Biden is aligned with the global Right independent of Trump.
Omnes Omnibus
That’s fine as far as it goes. The problem is that just because someone sincerely believes something doesn’t mean that they are right.
Kay
@narya:
That’s interesting. Was my sense walking around. My little sister (the smart one in the family) went to law school there and she said she felt sorry for the undergraduates – they seemed sad to her too.
He was born serious and can be a little pessimistic. I thought he needed a few people who play frisbee, go outdoors, smile, that sort of thing.
jonas
An older colleague of mine was a U of C undergrad and once told me the popular saying among students back in the day was that “the only thing that goes down on you at Chicago are your grades.” So yeah, kind of a serious, dour place. Good if you’re into Nietzsche and stuff, though!
Miss Bianca
@Kay: And I maintain that anyone who could piously state that he despises Biden more than Trump and justify it with a BS take like “he’s aligning us with the global right!” is full of shit and, despite all his no doubt awesome academic credentials, an idiot. A well-educated idiot is still an idiot.
In fact, I, to borrow a page from this idiot’s book, despise a well-educated idiot on the left even more than I despise an uneducated Trumpist idiot.
Miss Bianca
@Kay: who was it who said that the University of Chicago was home to the biggest bunch of neurotic youth since the Children’s Crusade? Or words to that effect.
Kay
@narya:
University of Cincinnati was free to him so I’m a cheapskate and take him down there and am singing the school’s praises and on the ride back home he senses my (blatant) sales job and says “you go there, then. I’m not”. I was like “I will” – like an idiot. I forgot I was not college bound. I was ready to find my dorm.
jonas
We already knew this, but there’s a not unsubstantial chunk of the progressive left who really would prefer another four years of Trump because while it might destroy America (sorry, Amerikkka), it would certainly “heighten the contradictions” in a satisfying way for them.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: He is directly comparing Biden to Trump, though–he’s saying Biden is a worse person, because Trump is just doing it because he’s a dum-dum but Biden is doing it on purpose.
That reminds me a lot of Greenwald and his criticism of Obama on the drone war. I backed off on calling Greenwald on it at the time because I also wanted Obama to stop the drone war. But Greenwald’s take turned out to be totally disingenuous and cherry-picked as the one issue where Obama was “worse than Bush”.
Omnes Omnibus
@Miss Bianca:
Probably Another Scott.*
*IIRC he was there as an undergrad at the same time as David Brooks.
3Sice
@Suzanne:
All onshore call center employees have the Transatlantic elocution of a Yalie.
-Roll Eyes-
John S.
@Omnes Omnibus:
The discourse over the last few decades would seem to suggest otherwise (or at the very least that “feels” and “vibes” are more important than facts).
Eunicecycle
@Eyeroller: that could be my trouble, too. I did try increasing the call volume and it helped marginally.
Soprano2
@UncleEbeneezer: I read Mark Bowden’s book about the Iranian hostage crisis; he talks about this, how the liberals in Iran thought they could ally with the hard right conservatives and keep control of the situation. They thought Khomeini would remain in France; boy were they wrong. It was a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” situation because they all wanted to get rid of the Shah.
Caveatimperator
@Matt McIrvin:
That’s the critical part. His post is not merely criticism of Biden. It’s criticism of Biden that is framed in a way that openly compares him to Trump and calls him worse than Trump.
It only makes sense if you believe they have the exact same relationship with other countries’ far right parties (which is not true at all), and the only difference is that one is open about it and the other is covert about it, and you think being open is the better position.
It also only makes sense if you ignore Biden’s stance on every domestic issue, where he’s nothing like Trump. Well, he’s nothing like Trump unless you divide everything into “revolutionary communism” and “every other political position.”
It’s an argument you can only make if you’re privileged enough to think that Trump’s policies on abortion or policing or climate change don’t matter to you.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
As I said I disagree with him but the context of these Biden criticisms is the belief that Biden refuses to recognize the hard Right run in Israel during the last 15 years. They think he is operating out of nostalgia for the Israel he came up with. Operating from his (real and sincere) affection for Israel. They want a recognition that this is a hard Right government that has been in place for at least 15 years. They’re opposed to Right wing governments, understandably. They are, after all, on the Left.
UncleEbeneezer
Do these people have no understanding of how gross this looks? Especially given that Golan and her family fled Russia to get away from…a frightening rise in Anti-Semitism. Even if you think Eurovision should treat Isreal like Russia, go protest Eurovision HQ. Protesting the singer herself, is a really bad look that just reeks of Anti-Semitism. Especially given the fact that the Nova music festival was where Hamas started this mess by killing 300+ innocent concert-goers/civilians.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: In economic terms, some countries like Turkiye could have been lumped in as “Second World”: developing economically, but still lagging behind Western Europe, Japan and the US. Iran might have been also, back in the 1960s.
In political terms, a division between the US-alligned, Soviet Union-alligned, and all others is what was usually meant. For a while in the late 1950s and early 60s, leaders like Nehru, Sukarno, and Tito tried to set up a 3rd, “non-aligned” pole but that movement never seemed to get much traction.
Daoud bin Daoud
@Soprano2: the Soviet Union and other communist countries.
prostratedragon
@OzarkHillbilly: That mug shot — wow!
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Miss Bianca: The infantilism of Trump, and using this rhetoric to give him and the Republicans a pass and slam the Democrats instead, is the dangerous part. Only Democrats have agency, so blame all your problems on them. What harm can inept, clownish, baby Trump cause anyhow?
Who does this asshole think Trump and his foreign policy team were aligning US with in the world when they were in power?
Eyeroller
@Soprano2: I was an undergraduate while the protests were going on and I was at a university with a petroleum engineering department, so there were quite few Iranian students (undergrad and grad). I well remember the students marching with their anti-Shah signs. One of my fellow physics majors was a woman with a British mother and Iranian father who grew up in Iran, and she told me about arguing with her compatriots, who mostly seemed to have this expectation that has never, ever worked out for the left-leaning side AFAIK. At least she could get or perhaps had British citizenship.
Caveatimperator
@UncleEbeneezer:
The crankier corners of the anti-Israel protests clearly hate Israeli people and Jews in general, not merely the Israeli government or military or the specifics of the way they’re conducting the war.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Oh, people can have opinions that don’t align directly with our political project. He’s not a campaign aide. He’s not setting out to make liberals “feel” any which way. Can I just suggest that the belief that this Leftist history professor on social media is somehow a giant threat to Joe Biden is maybe a little paranoid? It’s important to re elect Biden. But we don’t have to turn everyone who criticizes him into an enemy of democracy. That’s baby-bathwater in my opinion. We’re so anxious about saving liberalism we’re now going against its basic tenets.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay:
I do understand the context, tyvm. Understanding the context, however, does not cause me to change my belief that it was a dumb comment.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
It starts to feel like we’re scouring the internet looking for dissenters. I don’t want to become these far Right people in a project to beat them. He’s not a Democrat! He’s a Leftist. Leftists have as much in common with Democrats as Democrats have with Republicans. He’s under no obligation to join our party, promote our party, or censor his opinions because some in our party find him dispiriting or whatever. He’s not actually responsible for our huge anxiety over this election. Not his job.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: We like to jump on dumb comments here. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we think that they were significant in any way.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Kay: Someone says some shit, we talk about it and say our shit. Everyone says their shit and we don’t have to agree.
But when someone says something stupid or wrong (or when do the same), no one should be given a pass for it just because we/they “are not a campaign aide”.
We’re all engaged in civic discourse and it all adds up. Don’t want someone to tell you that what you wrote on a public forum was stupid or harmful? Don’t write it in a public forum.
Geminid
@Soprano2: There was an Iranian opposition group MEK (Mujahaddin El-Khalk, I think) that fought the Shah’s security forces in the years leading up to the 1979 revolution.
The MEK fell out with the mullahs not long after the Shah fell and began armed resistance to the Islamic Republic. They were brutally repressed and thousands were executed. Mr. Raisi, the current President, earned the nickname “Hangman” as one of a 3-judge panel that toured Iran’s prisons in the middle 1980s and ordered the hanging of at least 5,000 political prisoners, mainly MEK members. No one knows how many because the proceedings were held in secret. Raisi had no legal training whatsover, but he had what the regime felt was the right attitude.
jonas
Of course people are free to criticize Biden and say he’s coddling Netanyahu and his right-wing cronies all too much, but “aligning America with the global Right?” JFC, that’s just so mind-bendingly *stupid*, it hurts. Call me when Biden hosts members of the AfD party at the White House or something.
Kay
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon:
I guess I disagree with the direction “it all adds up” is going, IMO. I think that’s headed straight to finding enemies among anyone who isn’t engaged in our political project.
E.
@SiubhanDuinne: I bet your mom knew my grandmother! She was at Chicago at the same time. Got pregnant her senior year and had to leave.
artem1s
@TBone:
makes perfect sense. GOPer money that is earmarked for something and TIFG can’t get his hands on it unless the GOP caves and allows one of his lackeys to take charge of it.
I predict the convention will end up being 100% virtual pay-per-view and every dime will go to pay the legal fees he and Manafort owes Blanche.
Kay
@jonas:
Okay. I’m fine with that. But I don’t think we have to go to some snarky “he hates his mom!” bullshit. That isn’t even confidence in our position. This kind of cheap shot just reeks of fear to me. I don’t think it’s even smart politically. We want to ATTRACT. He’s not a threat.
Kay
@E.:
Oh, that’s kind of sad, although obviously led to you, right, so happy/sad? :)
Did she ever graduate?
prostratedragon
Yesterday, a day in which Susan Necheles cross examined Stormy Daniels, this might be the funniest thing that happened:
Kay
I met with Sherrod’s campaign people and IMO Sherrod is running further Right then he has in the past. I don’t like the gimmicky call center onshoring type stuff. I don’t know if it’s smart. He’s very good at campaigns so hopefully he knows what he’s doing. The amazing part of him was always that he’s very liberal but managed to draw some away from Republicans in counties like mine due to his support for labor, labor protections in trade deals, ect.
What’s interesting to me is Marcy Kaptur went the other way. She now runs more liberal than she is. It worked for her, too. She’s my rep.
Kay
I thought Tim Ryan was smart to run Right – a lot of liberal Democrats thought I was wrong and I was wrong- they were right. He lost Democratic voters. I hope Sherrod doesn’t make that same mistake.
Ksmiami
@SiubhanDuinne: hmm. university of Chicago- my friends in its bschool said it was the place where fun goes to die.
Ksmiami
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Yep. He can say what he wants, but others can tear apart his idiocy. The stakes in 2024 are too high for false narratives
Suzanne
@3Sice: SuzMom used to be a supervisor in a call center, for many years. Many of her employees were, as one would expect in Arizona, Mexican or of Mexican descent, and they speak English as a second language (with fluency) and have accents. It reads to me like Sherrod Brown is catering to a racist/xenophobic attitude here, and I think it’s gross.
I mean, do I have the right to have “people based in the US” build my cellphone or my car or do pretty much anything else? If it’s about onshoring work, that’s fine, but the attempt to appeal by saying that is constituents should have the right to choose who serves them is…. quite sus.
sab
@Suzanne: I have been appalled by Sherrod Brown’s ads this cycle. Tim Ryan redux.
ETA I suppose he has good polling, so it is more a reflection on Ohioans than on him, but I agree: gross.
CliosFanBoy
on what fing planet is Biden aligning liberalism with the “global far right”????!!!??
UncleEbeneezer
@Caveatimperator: Yup. We know that the Progressive Left has way more Racism, Misogyny and Transphobia and other isms/phobias than it likes to admit. And that those things often hide in plain sight, in our language, behavior and even political stances because we either don’t/refuse-to see them or because we come up with ways to rationalize them, under the guise of some other progressive cause. Why wouldn’t that also be true of Anti-Semitism?
Black People tell us our movements are still riddled with Racism. I believe them.
Women tell us that our movements are still riddled with Misogyny. I believe them.
Transgender People tell us our movements are still riddled with Transphobia. I believe them.
I’m not sure why Jewish People are the one group we are supposed to say “well, hold on now” to, as a response. It just doesn’t make any sense.
E.
@Kay: Never graduated and resented that fact, deeply, for the rest of her life.
rikyrah
@cmorenc:
I have been of the belief, since the beginning, that Big Pharma wins this case. I have not seen how they could carve out an exception -for this one medication – so…Big Pharma wins.
I thought the two cases on this were:
The completely utterly bullshyt case about the doctors who were ‘ harmed’ by it – never should have got past standing.
The other one was the regulatory one that would be stabbing the heart of Big Pharma.
Citizen Alan
@Soprano2: My immediate thought was that he’s one of those idiots who thinks that the ukrainians are the real Nazis.
yellowdog
@artem1s: There’s no way the orange turd will be able to give a live, cogent, and coherent acceptance speech. So of course, being virtual solves the problem!
Matt McIrvin
@UncleEbeneezer: I personally knew a leftist back in the day who jumped directly from legit criticism to Israel to “all Israel Jews knowingly support what Israel is doing” to “it’s because the Jewish religion is inherently racist”. It was like there were no firebreaks there.
So I couldn’t say the criticism of anti-Zionism as having an antisemitic component was all hot air.
(Though the same guy had proudly announced after 9/11 that he thought 9/11 was a good thing and was hoping for more attacks like it, so I suppose I should have seen this kind of thing coming.)
tam1MI
FIFY.
The number of vulnerable people the “Uncommitted” crowd is willing to sacrifice to horrible fates is astronomical. The fact that they will be happy to let miscarrying women bleed to death in bathrooms, to condemn trans people to laws denying their right to exist, to rip the vote away from black people – oh, and let’s not forget, to give Israel free reign to genocide Palestinians off the face of the planet – all in their beloved cause of Teaching the Democrats a Lesson, should tell you everything you need to know about their so-called “principals”.
rikyrah
this heifer here
😠😠😠😠😠
Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) posted at 1:08 PM on Thu, May 09, 2024:
GOP Missouri lawmaker Rep. Cheri Toalson Reisch says child labor laws should be rolled back because her constituents are raising lazy children who join gangs instead of working fulltime at age 9 like she did. 👍 https://t.co/1cJUrQaL3Q
(https://x.com/shannonrwatts/status/1788632132136448397?s=02)
rikyrah
southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) posted at 0:51 PM on Thu, May 09, 2024:
I know cruise ships are utterly
massive, but I didn’t realize that they could just collect a 44 foot, 25 ton whale on the cutwater and keep on trucking like it was a barnacle. https://t.co/BIdAblBq1f
(https://x.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1788627907394387997?s=02)
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
That’s what we in the business refer to as a “red flag.”
Kay
@E.:
Ooof. It was hard for women. Is. When I was in law school one of the students became pregnant. No one mentioned it, probalby just because some law students are not the most flexible people and they can’t deal with…uncertainty. I saw her on the stairs and she was really huffing and puffing – there was an elevator but her doc probably scolded her about exercising so she’s going to take the stairs even if it hurts. I asked her how she was – literally just an ordinary “look straight at her, ask this clearly struggling person how she is” and she started crying. Really crying. She said no one ever mentioned the pregnancy at law school. She felt invisible. It just broke my heart. She was super smart and she’s a well regarded immigration lawyer in Detroit so.. happy ending!
rikyrah
Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) posted at 8:39 AM on Thu, May 09, 2024:
Hillary Clinton on Trump: “The world has been here before. People did not take the kind of threats that we saw in the 1930s as seriously as they should, including American journalists … a determined demagogue unfortunately supported by members of his political party, people who care more about a future tax cut than the sanctity of the Constitution, are falling in line behind him. And I don’t think the press has done enough to say, ‘Ok, the circus is here, you can watch the circus. But let’s tell you what that means. Let’s talk to people who have a real understanding of how dictatorships evolve'”
https://t.co/2QZU9D8UH8
(https://x.com/atrupar/status/1788564355358785845?s=02)
rikyrah
@Eyeroller:
I dunno. That was my first thought – what Kay saw in the word choice. His words were chosen carefully. Then again, I’m not one to give people the ‘ benefit of the doubt’.
Kayla Rudbek
@Soprano2: first world = developed countries, Western democracy. Second world = Soviets/Communists/Eastern Bloc. Third world = everyone else
Miss Bianca
@tam1MI:
. “Principles”. Ahem. One of my principles being pedantry. But absolutely QFT on all of it.
opiejeanne
@Geminid: There was a significant presence of Iranian engineering students at my college in the 1960s, scions of wealthy families, and one really stands out in my memory: Bobby Sedjati (I have no idea how to spell his last name). He’d sit at breakfast in the commons and regale his table-mates with how awful America was while eating. He was like a rare specimen at this fairly conservative school and while a large number of young men were partly attending to avoid the draft, their political opinions rarely rose to the utter contempt he had for US policies.
He was the leftiest person I’ve ever met. I assume he went home to Iran after graduation since he was in the US on a student visa, and I have long wondered if he lasted long after the overthrow of the shah, or maybe the shah’s forces got him first.
Soprano2
@Eyeroller: I was a freshman in college dating an Iranian student when they took over the embassy on November 4th. You can only imagine how much fun that was. I felt sorry for him and his friends; they all came here to get an education and stay out of the Shah’s army, but they also didn’t have any sympathy at all for the right-wing radicals. My BF showed me a picture of his sisters all dressed in Western clothes; they wanted a closer relationship with the West. My college was going to establish a sister campus in Tehran before the takeover happened, I think that’s the reason all those Iranian students were there. It was quite eye-opening for my 18-year-old self to talk to them, because I knew nothing about Iran or what was happening there (probably like most Americans).
Soprano2
@Kay: I think a lot depends on who his opponent is and what they’re saying.
Soprano2
Well, I think I have the right when I call customer service to have someone on the other end of the line who I can understand when they’re talking to me. There are many Americans whose regional accents are so thick that they shouldn’t be doing these jobs, either. But yeah, some of the “these jobs belong in America” stuff is kind of gross.
Steve in the ATL
@Soprano2:
and because of that revolution, the Iranian rial is the weakest currency on the planet. Surprisingly, it’s almost 3% weaker than Baud Bucks.
narya
@Kay: I went to Oberlin for undergrad (and, yes, was on the student council . . .); lots of those activities, plus a lot of very smart people. As you might imagine, it was quite the transition for me
ETA: a transition from the folks in college to the uptight people at grad school, I mean. College was also a transition–class differences abounded–but I was so oblivious to so many of them.
Steve in the ATL
@Soprano2:
I used to deal with a bank that had call centers in Atlanta, Miami, Richmond, and Clarksville, Tennessee. When people called and heard “thaaaaank yuuuuu fer callin'” they would hang up and call back until they got one of the other call centers.
Steve in the ATL
@narya:
You are everything that is wrong with America!
I should probably quit watching Fox News now….
Uncle Cosmo
@TBone: It’s the contemporary replacement for “cosmopolitan,” which the original Nazis used as a less overtly antisemitic way of saying “Jew” & smearing them for allegedly holding allegiance to something other than Germany.
(Fun fact: In the early days of the Third Reich, many laws restricting the social and economic rights of Jews specifically exempted those who had served honorably in the armed forces during the Great War.** That might’ve had something to do with the fact that Hitler’s commanding officer who recommended him for the Iron Cross was Jewish. Or it might’ve just been a nod to the then-current belief among Germans that the Jews had largely avoided the risks of combat while profiting handsomely from the war economy. I’m not really sure.)
** Didn’t last long – by 1935 IIRC those exemptions were removed.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Sab lives in a blue area of Ohio and I live in a red. I tend to get in a defensive crouch, thinking all counties are like mine and they will all like a lurch Right so Sab is a good reality check.
We (our Democratic group) actually told Tim Ryan that the local economy was very good – just jamming. For some reason he decided to run on “the economy is terrible” and we were “you know, Tim, that’s not true so perhaps stop saying it?” – we had billboards advertising for workers at that point- they were in a kind of bidding war. It was weirdly throw back, that campaign. It was like a populist campaign from the late 1990s.
Anyway, he managed to triangulate right into a loss. Republicans hated him just as much and Democrats were ambivalent on him.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
I mean, aside from the fact that I don’t know that I really have any actual-enshrined-in-law rights about who serves me in consumer transactions, I agree: you need to be connected with someone with fluency and adequate communication ability (which would include intelligibility) in the language(s) spoken where the service is provided.
But no one has — or should have — the right to expect service personnel to conform to their prejudices. Call centers specifically are one of those axes around which a lot of open racism seems to spin. “What’s this country coming to, I had to PRESS ONE FOR ENGLISH?!?!”
If you want to onshore work, fantastic….. then move to onshore garment production and furniture manufacturing, too. It’s when you seem to be trying to scratch the racism itch of shitty constituents with this specific trope that my eyebrow goes up.
Geminid
@opiejeanne: I’d be curious to know also. He might have thrown in with the Oslamic Republic. Some lefties have no problem with authoritarian movements if they can be part of the authoritarian structure. And the Islamic Republic would hsve appealed to his anti-Americanism.
When I followed Iranian opposition sites and individuals during the riots caused by the murder of that poor Kurdish woman by the morality police, I encountered an idea that had not occurred to me before. Some Iranians argue that the Islamic Republic is an aberration in Iranian history and culture, representing a foreign ideology more Arabian than Persian. I don’t know how much traction this view gets among Iranians but it seems like a potential ideogical threat to the men who rule that nation.
Chris
@Soprano2:
Yeah, customer service has been getting automated for decades.
I remember this episode of JAG, of all things, with a running gag where the admiral is trying to reach somebody for some mundane personal business, and gets progressively more pissed off over the course of the episode as all he can get are prerecorded voices asking him to choose which other prerecorded voice he’d like to be transferred to. That was… the nineties? Per Wikipedia, 2005 at the latest.
Geminid
@Kay: Is Sherrod Brown saying much about the Gaza war?
narya
@Steve in the ATL: Yes; yes I am. I’m really just a boring old, not-very-ladylike lady, but we are DANGEROUS.
Chris
@Dangerman:
I assume this is an Israel reference, because it’s the only way I can even squint enough to make it make sense.
Still, I can only note that portions of what can be called (though only with a great generosity of spirit) “the left” have been doing this “actually liberalism is the new fascism so I don’t have to join them against Trump” dance since long before Gaza. It’s sort of their version of the right’s “but what if people who want affirmative action are the real Ku Klux Klan?” shtick.
Another Scott
@Miss Bianca: @Omnes Omnibus: Hey!!1
His was in History, IIRC. We didn’t share any classes AFAIK.
My mom worked for a prof the business school. AFAIK that prof had almost nothing to do with the “freshwater” craziness (he worked on the Index of Leading Economic Indicators that one hears almost nothing about anymore).
We each got a good liberal education at the UofC. He, like too many, decided to use his education for, er, …, less than noble purposes.
Cheers,
Scott.
3Sice
@Steve in the ATL:
Onshoring won’t raise the dead.
The key take away is that those demographic pools are no longer available for call center work. Immigrants will staff any “onshored” jobs.
Another industry where old whites complain endlessly about the modern workforce is trucking.
As to customer service interactions; If you want greater clarity use the online portals and chat functions – a copy paste of an alpha-numeric string doesn’t get muddled. Voice is shifting to a legacy offering for the olds.
Kay
@Geminid:
No. In his defense though he was never a big foreign policy person so I don’t think people expect him to.
They’ll ask us to do some event for Connie Schultz, Sherrod’s wife – that’s what they’ve asked for in the past. The library director is a secret Democrat so I can usually get him to host. Schultz is a reporter and author so we do like a “literary” hook to get her a nonpartisan event in the library. A ruse. Obviously it’s political to us.
Kay
@Chris:
My youngest sent me : “liberals oppose all wars except the war we’re currently in, and support all civil rights except the civil rights we’re currently fighting for”
Without comment. Like this is unequivocally true. He’s actually better than he used to be. His gf is a normie Democrat. She’s been a moderating influence.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah: The guy makes his living from using words. He doesn’t choose them accidentally.
Caveatimperator
@Kay:
Sometimes I feel as though the online left doesn’t actually read the news as it is, but reads a version of it filtered through their philosophy and through their limited social media subculture.
Biden sending weapons to our allies fighting in a war makes him pro-war, but ending the war in Afghanistan does not make him anti-war.
Liberal politicians speaking out about police abuses, and proposing reforms in the case of many city and state level politicians, does not make them pro-civil rights. Because they aren’t campaigning to abolish police forces and they mostly don’t believe that police are evil as a concept.
UncleEbeneezer
Exactly. Just like Zionism far too often has an Islamophobic component and Feminism far too often has a Transphobic component etc. The former(s) don’t inherently have to have the latter. But you have to be in pretty extreme denial to not recognize how common it is. And being reflexively dismissive and defensive about those truths, only helps perpetuate the Isms/Phobias that plague our spaces and movements.
Just because bad faith actors like like Tim Scott claim the Dems are the “real racists” doesn’t mean we don’t have a real problem of racism on the Left. Just because MTG weaponizes accusations of misogyny amongst Democrats, doesn’t mean the Left doesn’t have a serious problem with misogyny. Just because Caitlyn Jenner weaponizes claims of Transphobia on the Left, doesn’t mean that Feminism doesn’t have a Transphobia problem. Etc.
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay:
Wait–is he not a US citizen? Does he not care about our democracy or the consequences of its demise? The upcoming election is “not his job” only if the answer to those questions is “no.”
UncleEbeneezer
@Uncle Cosmo: I just learned that “Rootless Cosmopolitan” was popularized in…wait for it…Russia!:
I always assumed it came from Germany.
Chris
@Kay:
I mean, sometime after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I definitely started feeling like “the left” was massively overrated on the list of pro-Russian supporters here. In the sense that you’d look at right wingers supporting Russia and it’s, well, the former president and current presidential candidate, a shit ton of representatives and senators, and increasingly the entire wingnut media apparatus, and then you’d look at left wingers supporting Russia and it’s three guys on Twitter. Like, not even prominent enough to get a single representative elected anywhere. Same applies to lefties for Trump in general: this is not a movement with any meaningful support.
(I also have a separate shtick where I increasingly wonder whether “left wingers” who root for Trump or Putin against Biden even can or should be called “left wing” in any sense of the term, but that’s another issue).
Chris
@Kay:
How old is he?
UncleEbeneezer
@Chris: And if you want some variety, just switch out “Liberalism” and use “Colonialism.”
Suzanne
@Chris:
Thank you.
There is this tendency to overhype bad actors and loudmouth assholes and randos as if they represent a movement. They do not.
This is a big country, and a big world, and there are at least a few of every type of weirdo. I remember reading an article some years back in which the reporter interviewed a Black lesbian who really admired Rick Santorum and was eager to vote for him. THEY FOUND ONE!
Geminid
@Kay: I wouldn’t blame Senator Brown for keeping a low profile on this war. It’s a no-win situation politically so most Democrats are just praying it ends soon. Chris Van Hollen is an exception and I hope he’s willing to when he appears on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday
Administration officials don’t really want to talk about war either and that really shows when they do talk about it.
Baud
@Chris: Two things
Suzanne
@Baud:
You don’t get to paint everybody with the same brush, though. Many of our humanist movements have some high-profile supporters or leaders who have evinced some problematic attitude at one point. But it doesn’t invalidate the humanist movement, nor does it apply to others in that movement.
Chris
@Baud:
Nobody gives a shit that you’re mocking or criticizing them. Signal-boosting them is another problem.
You read a point about pro-Trump pro-Putin supporters, and then respond with “well I’ve met people who express anti-Dem attitudes from the left,” and I’m supposed to just pretend that those two things are the same? Huh.
Baud
@Suzanne: I don’t know what that means. If someone has problematic views, I’m going to criticize them, regardless of where in the political spectrum they fall
ETA: Pro-Putin is definitely a smaller category than pro-Trump. Frankly, indifference to Trump is pro-Trump in my book
ETA2: I also don’t meet many such people in real life because I shun them, but others here do, and they relate their stories.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: Okay. The thing is this particular guy is an idiot or presents as one in this particular instance. It isn’t using a broad brush to say so.
Eyeroller
@rikyrah: Some commenters saw (((globalist))) which is a dogwhistle. The guy clearly meant it literally.
Suzanne
@Baud: There’s been leadership in anti-racist movements who hold antisemitic views, there’s been misogyny in pro-worker movements, etc. Those people can be criticized, sure. But it’s absolutely not true that most anti-racists are antisemites, or that pro-labor people hate women.
Baud
@Suzanne: I don’t think I’ve attempted to quantify or estimate percentages, which of course would depend on how you’re defining the class of people in the denominator. Maybe you’re thinking of someone else’s comment
ETA
I do not dispute this statement, FWIW.
rikyrah
@Kay:
LOL
If I wasn’t from Chicago, it would have been one of my top college choices. I love the overall nerd feeling of the school.
rikyrah
@UncleEbeneezer:
Uh huh
mrmoshpotato
LOL!
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
I have had numerous such encounters with professed lefties over the years in my work in the local and state Democratic Party. Their dedication to harming Democrats–both individuals and the organization–is transparent, and they are effective at driving good people out and consuming organizational resources dealing with their bullshit, despite their relatively small numbers. They are toxic and no friend of the Democrats. Curiously, I do not recall them ever taking on Republicans or the Republican Party. Only Democrats. I feel comfortable drawing my conclusions about their intentions based on years of observation and direct experience.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah: My younger son went there and loved it. He got a great education. I went there for grad school, which is a different experience. :-) Nevertheless, a lot of useful learning happened.
Kay
@Geminid:
As I think I have made clear people in power not talking about this war because it’s uncomfortable or a political “no win” (agree) is just not acceptable to me. To a large extent I think the absolute freak out about the students is because we don’t want to talk about this war (“we” being Americans, not you).
I don’t have sympathy for the Biden Administration about it. These are decisions they made, they are powerful people, and they have an obligation to discuss them, no matter if it’s uncomfortable for them. I’m not their therapist or best friend. I’m a constituent.
So do I blame Sherrod for dodging it (if he’s dodging it)? No. Perfectly understandable politician reaction. But do I think he shuld get away with that? Also no.
We’re backing this war. That is a fact. We cannot avoid the responsibility that comes with that.
When we stop freaking about the students we’re still going to be left with this war. Shutting them down doesn’t change anything. I think it’s absolutely fucking bonkers that this country is all but blaming them for another one of our wars, as if them screaming about it somehow created it. Bonkers. We’re off our rocker again.
Kay
@mrmoshpotato:
I love how it’s like a point of pride for Chicago people. “It’s nightmarishly COLD” Just grinning about it.
It’s my favorite city.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Has Sherrod run away from talking to the Democratic base to get them out?
That’s the question.
Ryan didn’t even pull as well as Democratic lawmakers running at the same time.
Kay
@rikyrah:
That part hasn’t really started so I dont know. We’re at the “meet my regional coordinators” stage.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: LMAO! We actually had a very mild winter ’23-’24. It was in the 50’s last night, and my building’s heat turned on. What the?
Geminid
@rikyrah: Yeah, people have been warning of another Kent State and some of them seem like they really hope it happens. They know it’s other people’s blood that will be shed.
I’m glad only one person has died in these protests so far. That was in Southern California, soon after this war started, when a 55 year old man and a 65 year old man got into a heated argument. The 55 year-old lost his temper and smacked his adversary with the megaphone he was carrying.
It would have been a simple assault and battery except the 65 year-old fell, hit his head and died the next day. The guy with the megaphone was charged with manslaughter. Just a pointless tragedy.
Barbara
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Re: Gabriel Winant
“Tell me you are confident you personally have nothing to lose if Trump is elected without telling me you personally have nothing to lose if Trump is elected.”
Maybe it really is true that the best and most helpful position you can take when it comes to figuring out how to help others who don’t, for instance, have tenure at an elite university, is to shut up and listen. I feel like whatever else you can say about Biden he has done a lot of shutting up and listening throughout his career.
Kay
Today’s the day the Biden Administration deliver the report to Congress that is expected to say they (Biden’s State Department) didn’t find any war crimes.
rikyrah
@Geminid:
Imma say this, and I hope people understand..
this is why I am glad the students at HBCU’s have sat this out.
Considering that most HBCU’s are in the South, you can imagine the nightmare scenario of law enforcement let loose on campuses with majority Black populations.
You remember Kent State. Orangeburg and Jackson State were talked about in my house growing up.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah: I remember Jackson State vividly, and think it’s telling that it’s almost never mentioned, even though it happened the same month as Kent State.
ETA: I have to confess, I had to look up Orangeburg though. Hadn’t heard of it before, but was still in elementary school in lilywhite rural country then.
tam1MI
Interesting fact about Kent State: In all of the numerous photos taken of the incident on that fateful day, a Black student shows up in a grand total of one – and he is in the act of booking the hell out of there.
In James Michener’s book about the tragedy, it is stated that Black students made it a point to make themselves scarce when things started getting tense on campus. Hard experience had taught them to do so.