One of the things that pisses me off about him is that, even though he pisses me off, I still like the guy.
He's fine. The first three movies were good enough that I can repress the other ones.
I thought he sounded a little uncertain. Probably started too high, should have transposed it down a fourth. But not a bad effort.
he sounds good, man. I have spike's problem. I see him and I'm all, awwwww.
also, although his commitment to civil liberties is less than zero, and he's done a million things I disapprove of, I do not, in fact, hate barack obama.
6, 7: Yeah, that's about it. Terribly disappointing, I'm only going to vote for him as the lesser of the available evils, but man, is he personally appealing.
I don't think he sucks (modulo 9000 different things, but). In any event, despite not thinking he sucks, I do hate the "you're just stupidly, stupidly charming" reaction I have to him.
If this is going to turn into a 'let's share our opinions on the merits of Obama' discussion, I think he occupies the upper end of the sort of presidents the American political system will allow to exist.
If the necessary policy is impossible to implement under the current system, then you obviously need systemic or institutional change, because the necessary remains necessary beyond excuses.
If the leader cannot effect the necessary systemic change, h/she is incompetent.
If the leader cannot effect necessary systemic or institutional change, and does not even seek it, h/she is incompetent and deluded or corrupt.
Congress and the foreign policy establishment can do policy. The leader, the President, if h/she is good and ambitious, seeks exactly to effect systemic, institutional, and ideological change that endures past her term, and constrains her successor.
This is what George W Bush sought and accomplished, to our dismay.
If those to the left of center really believe that necessary systemic, institutional, or ideological change are impossible, it is the job of a political leader, like a Walesa or Norquist, to change those mistaken beliefs or conditions that lead to those beliefs.
Obama is as bad a President as we have ever had.
NBC projects Newt Gingrich as the winner of the SC primary. Hilarious.
What kind of person votes to hear more of Newt Gingrich's incredibly annoying voice?
13: We're not allowed to be too mean to South Cackalacky. Alameida's not been feeling well, and we don't want to insult her heritage at a time like this.
12: NBC projects Newt Gingrich as the winner of the SC primary. Hilarious.
HOT DAMN! Perfect. (No, I don't like Newt Gingrich, and I only very slightly prefer him to Romney, and all the R candidates are detestable and in a just world half of them would be in jail.)
13: What kind of person votes to hear more of Newt Gingrich's incredibly annoying voice?
Neo-Confederates mainly concerned with putting those uppity negros back in their place. They want a full-throated Confederate flag-waving 'conservative' candidate for President and I want them to have what they want. So they can get their asses kicked.
11: Obama is as bad a President as we have ever had.
Shut up with the trollin' Bob. ffeJ is right: on the standard presidential scale (and the history of our Presidents is a litany of mediocrities punctuated by some real disasters) Obama is headed for the top ten. And he is, on a scale of left progress, far better than almost all of Democrat high-muckety muckdom, except for a few outliers.
If you mean that we have almost gone backwards in some ways, well, those are the historical times we live in. The right-wing counter-revolution that swept the world after the fall of the USSR has peaked out, but the wave has left lots of the wrong (in every sense of the word) people in strong positions, and fighting back takes a long hard slog.
max
['Could be worse. Way worse.']
I had a funny exchange with Thundersnow's mom tonight. She was advocating the Republican line, saying how sad she was that my generation would be saddled with debt.
I countered, "Yes, but it's debt at a terribly good interest rate, and either party's going to rack it up a bit more. Republicans would like to spend it invading Iran. Democrats would like to spend it on healthcare. Personally, I'll take the latter, thanks."
I wish I'd had the presence of mind to add, "Your generation spent money while lowering taxes to an irresponsible and unfair rate. My generation intends to fix that problem."
Well, good lord, what did she say, Stanley?
Tragedy of Very Low Expectations. Max. Very few Presidents have managed a declining employment to population ratio throughout their entire term:Hoover? Or is Obama's great accomplishment the shooting of Nato troops by Afghanistan regular soldiers after ten years of occupation?
Background to the Foreclosure Fraud Meeting in Chicago Monday
"Call Your Attorney General Today to Oppose Big Obama Push to Get Mortgage Settlement Deal Done"
That's right; Fight to Save Millions from Obama's Corruption and Coercion. You did hear that Eric Holder is connected to the memo that legally justified MERS? Besides illegal conflict of interest, if the court decisions hold, Holder might be facing disbarment. MERS is not just indefensible, it's ridiculous.
I amuse myself tonight with Donny Gluckstein followed by Peter Watkins followed by David Harvey. A riddle.
The right-wing counter-revolution that swept the world after the fall of the USSR
Started quite a bit earlier than that. Reagan, Thatcher. Hell, even Carter was quite right wing on domestic policy by Dem standards and more interested in economic 'efficiency' than reducing inequality.
For this:
What kind of person votes to hear more of Newt Gingrich's incredibly annoying voice?
You have to admit that if you were a Republican, you'd have a hell of primary voting dilemma on your hands. Mitt? or Newt? Or Santorum? Or Ron Paul? Maybe Ron Paul! But he's pretty old, and unelectable. Shit. So, Newt? Or Mitt? Santorum?? He's nuts on birth control and looks unserious. Shit!!
Newt actually seems like he has his feet under him when he makes replies. That's saying something. (I'd probably sit the whole thing out, were I a Republican.)
Well, good lord, what did she say, Stanley?
She smiled and took a drink. I suspect she kind of agrees with me but votes Republican because money.
Bob is right and Max is nuts. J*eff H*anna may be right too, but that doesn't make Obama a good President.
Permanent state of war, permanent dmage to civil liberties, subservience to finance, mediocrity on the environment. The medical care deal was a gift to Big Med and perpetuated the deficit problem while Obama made little noises about "entitlements".
Liberalism is being renormed still farther to the right, and maybe that can't be stopped, but let's not celebrate.
Permanent state of war, permanent dmage to civil liberties, subservience to finance, mediocrity on the environment. The medical care deal was a gift to Big Med and perpetuated the deficit problem while Obama made little noises about "entitlements".
You'll have to make a strong case that Obama has made these things permanent, while Bill Clinton was, what, just a lightweight?
Since when are you worried about the deficit problem, by the way?
There is a long term deficit problem. There is no deficit crisis. The main factor in the long term deficit is out of control healthcare costs. The short term non-crisis deficit is mostly due to a weak economy, secondarily to tax cuts and military spending, and hardly at all to discretionary spending or entitlements. It will be worsened by austerity. This is straight Dean Baker and not far from Brad Delong.
26: Out of control healthcare costs affect the deficit to the extent that they're Medicare/Medicaid paid, no? So they are a function of so-called entitlements. Just to be clear.
I'd have to review what happens to the existing and ongoing deficit if we eliminate the Bush tax cuts, adjust capital gains rates, and raise the cap on Social Security payroll taxes.
This is not to say that healthcare costs aren't a problem. Obama's apparent deal with Big Pharma in healthcare reform was grim, but it's not necessarily written in stone.
When you lump Meidcare and social security as "entitlements", you make it seem that Social Security is part of the problem, when it isn't. But Social Security is one of the targets.
Runaway healthcare costs would be a problem with or without Social Security, though it wouldn't be part of the deficit problem if there were no medicare. Americans pay about twice as much for medical care as pther developed nations, without getting better care.
28.1: Sure. If you think out of control health care costs are driving the long-term deficit problem, then you think Medicare is driving the long-term deficit problem. (Medicare happens to be a so-called entitlement, but we can dispense with that term if you think it necessarily ropes in SS.)
28.2: I'm having trouble parsing this. Sure, if there were no Medicare, people would die more often and painfully, but we'd have less of a deficit problem.
Certainly healthcare costs are a problem, and I mourn the loss of single-payer healthcare as much as anyone, but, um ... are you saying that you'd like to do away with Medicare or something? I don't get it. Deficits are a matter of balancing income and expenses. We don't have enough income. We should increase the income (which is at historic lows) and try to simultaneously lower the expenses.
It's just that health care is expensive no matter who pays for it. If Medicare disappeared tomorrow, wildly expensive treatment would still be a problem, just not the government's.
If your point is that #26 could be read to say that the longterm deficit has nothing to do with medicare costs, yes, it could, and that was wrong.
Entitlements: we have just seen ten or twenty years of people talking about how entitlements are bankrupting the country. Everyone has internalized this at some subliminal level. But this is misleading. Medicare is, in the long run, and Social Security isn't. The reason why they are lumped is that some people want to attack them both. It's not really mysterious or idiosyncratic to want to unlink the one causing the problem from the one not causing the problem, and the way to do that is to avoid the term "entitlements".
Second, the attack on "entitlements" assumes that benefits must be cut, whereas the better solution would be to bring American healthcare costs down to the international standard.
I think that I've made a fairly clear statement of the situation. Do your best with it.
Everyone has internalized this at some subliminal level.
I haven't.
What was your understanding of the word "entitlements" before this exchange? What was your understanding of the effect of entitlements on the long term deficit? Did you distinguish between the roles of Medicare and Social Security in the long term deficit?
For the rest, yes, fine, we can avoid the term "entitlements," as I already said. What we get then is the proposition that Medicare is causing the problem, and the solution is to bring healthcare costs under control. Well, no kidding that we have to do the latter. I disagree that that will solve the problem, however. Proposing that it will supposes that we have no problem with the income (taxation) side of the equation.
I didn't really need you to explain the situation, you know, John. Just saying: at this level of discussion, anyway, I get it.
Did you distinguish between the roles of Medicare and Social Security in the long term deficit?
Yes.
wildly expensive treatment would still be a problem
You know what I'd like to see is more analysis of what healthcare actually costs. For instance, obviously it does not cost the hospital $20 to give you one ibuprofen. It costs them more than it would for you to just buy a bottle at Target and take one yourself, but we don't really know how much.
On the other hand, you never get billed for the work that some claims specialist does to unfuck your billing after the insurance company screws up you over, but obviously it costs the hospital quite a bit to employ that person, get them a desk & a computer & a telephone & a supervisor, etc. etc.
It just seems to me like so much of this debate occurs in a context of a deluge of marketing nonsense on one hand and a dearth of actual, useful information on the other.
I have never understood what you've been getting at. Something dissatisfied you about #26, but I wasn't sure what.
Nobody in an actual position of power is stupid enough to truly think that invading Iran would be a good idea, are they? I mean, bombing, of course, they'd be doing that already if McCain had one, but invading would be a disaster on a scale the US has never faced. Much, much worse than Vietnam.
37: We're talking past each other somehow. I've said it a couple of times now: it's fine to talk about expenditures that are through the roof and causing a problem, but I really think you can't have that discussion without also talking about income that's problematically low (and not just because of the recession).
You're so naively trusting of the people in power, Natilo.
Well, I did mention the tax cuts.
41: We'd need to get the number crunchers in here to map out just what happens over time if the Bush tax cuts are eliminated, capital gains taxes are increased (or, heavens, even eliminated, as they were under Reagan, I believe), and so on. There's been some number crunching on that around and about on the internet, but I didn't save any links.
A decent part of the deficit problem would be mitigated, certainly, but that doesn't eradicate the healthcare cost problem writ large. That is, after all, a problem not just for the deficit but for every freaking one, from those who pay exorbitant amounts for health insurance, to those who bankrupt themselves over health care expenses, to those who go without health care at all.
I think it's a mistake to cast the long-term deficit as driven chiefly by healthcare costs (as you did in 26): that just invites libertarian/Republican types to propose privatizing or eliminating Medicare altogether as some magic deficit-solver.
"Number Cruncher/Crusher" would be a good name for an educational superhero.
Entitlements: we have just seen ten or twenty years of people talking about how entitlements are bankrupting the country. Everyone has internalized this at some subliminal level.
Yes, this is broken and stupid. Entitlements are good! The idea that there are things people should be entitled to just by virtue of existing is totally right on. Unfortunately (and not accidentally) it gets all mixed up with the idea of feeling or acting entitled and a presumed contrast between being entitled to something and deserving it.
y'all have my blessing and official permission (keeping in mind that I was born in GA and not transported to S.C. till I was 6 days old) to make fun of south carolina all y'all want. white people in S.C. are overwhelmingly a bunch of crazy-ass, racist nutballs who are armed to the ever-loving teeth. let's mock them from a few states away, just in case; say, stanley's house. people shot more holes in my dad's roadside obama sign than you can imagine. he had to replace that shit like 12 times, no kidding. I mean, they do that to "yield" signs too, and I don't think they hate yielding per se, but...
re: 36
The US would benefit from something like N.I.C.E.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_for_Health_and_Clinical_Excellence
NICE attempts to assess the cost-effectiveness of potential expenditures within the NHS to assess whether or not they represent 'better value' for money than treatments that would be neglected if the expenditure took place. It assesses the cost effectiveness of new treatments by analysing the cost and benefit of the proposed treatment relative to the next best treatment that is currently in use.
I never understood why ol' Newt was on the outs within the Republican Party. He's certainly the most Reaganesque of them, with his stern-then-genial race-baiting and broad pronouncements about human nature.
I mean, okay, he's had his little marital peccadilloes, but he's not a Democrat, so why should that matter? Reagan was our first divorced president.
I would love to interview Heebie U students and find out what they think the lowest acceptable level of comfort is. Really engage them on what you deserve even if you're the type of person who takes advantage of the system.
The few times I've discussed politics with conservative students, that seems to be the most galling idea: that the system will get taken advantage of. And sure, it will. There are always jerks in any system, and they know jerks, and they know how those jerks would behave if they were in a working entitlement program. (In our existing culture. I think some of the Freebie Glee would diminish if we weren't quite so capitalistic.)
But Cain wasn't allowed to have an affair! I'm just so confused about what the rules are!
Is it that you can't have an affair if you are a democrat *or* you are black? Can a woman have an affair? Would a lesbian affair be worse, or would it be hott?
Or Ron Paul? Maybe Ron Paul! But he's pretty old, and unelectable.
If Ron Paul were running in a Democratic primary, I'd vote for him. I have the same "charmed-by-a-President-who's-culturally-one-of-us" reaction to Obama as everyone else, but I fundamentally agree with Glenn Greenwald:
http://www.salon.com/2011/12/31/progressives_and_the_ron_paul_fallacies/singleton/
As Newt explained, he married his side piece AND converted to Catholicism. Boom. Tabula rasa.
But then there's Diaper Dave Vitter. I got nothing.
I'd like being an 8th-class citizen under Paul. That would be great. I love it when d00dz demand the lady issues be treated like silly distractions.
53: what, you're white. Quit complaining.
But Cain wasn't allowed to have an affair! I'm just so confused about what the rules are!
Newt goes on the offensive when asked about his affair and demands that the other side stop deprecating themselves. The best defense, etc.
How many liberals who support Paul were making the same arguments about Buchanan, when he was running? He has the same isolationist foreign policy, worse on the drug war, but doesn't, as far as I'm aware, want to dismantle Social Security and Medicare.
Didn't Newt used to be despised as not a real conservative on social issues? I can't remember him actually taking any non-loathsome positions on social issue, but I thought he had an image like Giuliani, of being soft on the all-important family-values/hating deviants stuff.
I'm pretty sure his appeal is still paper-thin. He's only not loathed at this instant because he's not Romney.
God I hope he gets the nomination.
I love it when d00dz demand the lady issues be treated like silly distractions.
Of course, Greenwald doesn't say that.
In any case, I'd feel much more optimistic politically in a fight to preserve abortion and equal protection rights under the Paul regime than I do in a fight to dismantle empire, the drug war, and the prison system under the Obama regime.
Of course, Greenwald doesn't say that.
So... you'd vote for Greenwald?
In any case, I'd feel much more optimistic politically in a fight to preserve abortion and equal protection rights under the Paul regime than I do in a fight to dismantle empire, the drug war, and the prison system under the Obama regime.
Because why not? We're in imagination-land!
50, 55: Even Newt had to bow out for a bit when his philandering became public. And Cain is a flake in a way that even Newt isn't.
56: Buchanan was a much more out-of-the-closet racist. The people getting attached to Paul did it when they were thinking that he was their image of a libertarian, before all the stuff with MLK Day being properly referred to as "Kill Whitey Day" came out.
To quote Ta-Nehisi Coates: "If an unreconstructed neo-Confederate is the best your best soldier against the Drug War, you have already lost."
My dream candidate is Barfl Larbledoogr. If only ze would run as the Sifuparty candidate we'd solve all these problems we've been having.
I think he left due to a combination of affair disclosed around the time of Clinton's impeachment, everybody around the top personally disliking him more and more as they got to know him, and somebody needing to take the fall for the 1998 midterm losses.
If Ron Paul were running in a Democratic primary, I'd vote for him.
I'm not inclined to protest votes, but I'd be tempted.
I fundamentally agree with Glenn Greenwald:
I basically do, too, but when Greenwald compares Obama to Paul, he clearly has his thumb on the scale, portraying Obama honestly and in context, but refusing to take Paul's repugnant and batshit-crazy views at face value.
It's also possible that Greenwald really doesn't get that Paul's policy prescriptions would lead to economic chaos. Greenwald also tries to portray Paul as someone who would challenge the economic oligarchy, but that's just silly.
Because why not? We're in imagination-land
Fair enough, I'll just go back to despair.
I've lost the ability to read Greenwald. I get a sentence or two in and feel like I'm in the presence of the coworker who likes to stand an inch from my face and talk really loudly, only all the words that are coming out are preachy.
I don't know that there's any extraordinary need for despair. Presidential elections are pretty far down the list of ways to effect political outcomes. Do you own a tent or a website?
If Ron Paul were running in a Democratic primary, I'd vote for him.
I'm not inclined to protest votes, but I'd be tempted.
I just boggle at statements like this. "I would protest someone who I don't think is good enough by voting for someone who is reprehensible!"
Finally watching the OP video, Obama reminded me a lot of Jon Stewart, right after the verse, when he spread his hands and looked around sort of twitchily.
I just boggle at statements like this. "I would protest someone who I don't think is good enough by voting for someone who is reprehensible!"
I acknowledge that this correctly characterizes my temptation.
||
NMM to young children Joe Paterno. I think it's an accurate report this time.
\.
The problem with a protest vote for Paul is that whoever you're trying to communicate with can't tell the difference between your protest against drone wars and your protest in favor of the gold standard. And if it's just yourself you're communicating with, why not write in Greenwald?
42
I think it's a mistake to cast the long-term deficit as driven chiefly by healthcare costs (as you did in 26): ...
The long term deficit is driven chiefly by healthcare costs so if you deny that you are abandoning reality based politics.
73: The Republican characterization of Obama as inarticulate and confused in front of a crowd, entirely dependent on a teleprompter, remains astonishing to me. With all the ways that rightwingers contradict reality, this one is trivial, but it's still stunning.
48
I mean, okay, he's had his little marital peccadilloes, but he's not a Democrat, so why should that matter? Reagan was our first divorced president.
Reagan wasn't having an affair with wife number 2 while married to wife number 1 (and then with number 3 while married to number 2). Also wife number 1 endorsed him (sort of).
50
But Cain wasn't allowed to have an affair! ...
A recent affair. Plus the sexual harassment stuff.
80: Oh, sure. But time marches on. Reagan broke new ground in his day; Newt is breaking ground in his.
57
Didn't Newt used to be despised as not a real conservative on social issues? I can't remember him actually taking any non-loathsome positions on social issue, but I thought he had an image like Giuliani, of being soft on the all-important family-values/hating deviants stuff.
If I recall correctly Gingrich had no problem with running pro abortion Republicans in liberal districts. And he is erratic prone to doing things like this .
6,7,8: aren't expectations now so low that it is impossible to be further disappointed ?
79: I thought that this on the broader "Obama is dumb!" meme was good.
70: And uses a 50-slide, 12-bullets-per-slide PowerPoint to communicate the barest arguments, like "War bad."
I trust Obama a lot more on civil liberties for Americans than Ron Paul. I mean, sure, Ron Paul would be better on the federal level GWOT type stuff. However, he would let states do whatever the hell they want, and I would not trust him even on the federal level for union organizers or disruptive economically left types. On foreign policy (ex civil liberties issues), what Drum said - I'm closer to Obama than Paul, much closer. Though at least there I understand the attraction for those to my left on that issue.
But for those of you sympathetic to the idea of protest votes for Paul, or at least for the Paul-curious, I'm wondering, how would you feel if he were all National Reviewy on GWOT and civil liberties issues, and his economic extreme right views remained the same, but full on Grist on environmental ones? Would you still feel the same way? If not, why?
79: That this message gets delivered by the likes of Palin suggests that the GOP is essentially some ham-handed sketch comedy group.
87 -- That doesn't describe me, but I'll venture an answer. Presidential leadership and presidential power are often quite different things. There's not nearly as much power wrt environmental issues as there is wrt civil liberties. There's also the difference between the sort of positive action you want from an environmental president cracking down on polluters and negative action you want from a president not putting people in jail for bullshit.
I don't believe that Paul would be capable of delivering on his promise wrt GWOT -- imagine, if you will, who he nominates as SecDef and what the Senate does with that -- but obviously predictions of the future aren't worth the pixels they're expressed in.
Would you still feel the same way? If not, why?
On the environmental stuff, it's still possible to believe that Obama's heart is in the right place, and that he's been thwarted by factors that are external to him. On the civil liberties stuff, it's a much more difficult case to make.
For me the debate on Ron Paul has been misplaced. Ron Paul can't get the nomination, he couldn't win the election, and as President he couldn't end the GWOT. There's no hope there, and we don't have to worry about him either.
He's just a reminder of how far we've fallen and how few our options are. Just think of the things you don't like about the US politically and institutionally, and imagine that they'll be the same or worse 20 years from now. It's not mostly Obama's fault -- there are the Republicans, the media, many Democrats, and much of the electorate.
The most comfortable thing is to renorm and go on with your life in the hope that you and yours won't be touched. Greenwald tries to prevent that, and I don't know how much it will be possible anyway.
My understanding is that 2000-2012 has been transformational, and not in a good way. Much more so than the Reagan years, because the 2007 bubble burst really changed the rules under which all future governments would be operating, so we're going to be hearing, "unfortunately, nothing can be done" even more than we have been. Losing 15 trillion dollars of household wealth (50,000 / ea) gets you into the "transfomation of quantitative to qualitative differences" zone. We're going to be watching that play out for 30 years.
In an atmosphere of permanent war and weakened civil liberties (the Greenwald part).
Obama's supporters always say that he's being thwarted by the Republicans, but Obama seldom says that and many voters don't know that. Obama's story is always that what we're seeing is a successful case of working bipartisanship, where nobody gets exactly what they want but a satisfactory compromise is reached. People tell us that single-payer and the public option was blocked by the Republicans, but because Obama never wants to be seen losing, most people don't even know that he ever was pretending to be in favor of single payer.
John, I think the 'permanent war' trope is a little overdone. The wars were fighting now are fundamentally different from the wars the Neo-con Right was dreaming about, and actually started to wage from 2002-2007. Sure the people who get killed as just as dead, but we're not talking about shock and awe, or about fundamentally transforming Yemeni or Somali society. (In the former case, we're on the side of the dictator.) The Afghan war will sputter to an inconclusive end, eventually, and we'll get bounced from Pakistan (probably as the last real AQ leader gets it). In Yemen, eventually the dictator goes down, and his replacement decides that allying with the Arab Spring is better politics than aligning with the US.
Permanent war -- I guess, probably. But we'll be 'permanently' in a sort of 90s in the Balkans thing, not so much with the vast overambitious Iraqi and Afghan projects.
Was Obama ever in favor of single payer? I sure don't remember that.
Presidential leadership and presidential power are often quite different things.
1) We are only a few past a day that should have blurred this question. How much power did Martin Luther King have?
2) I guess I see power differently than some, I value leadership much more than power. Nobody has much power. GWB decided he wanted to invade Iraq. There were thousands of veto points he had to get past. He did not have the power. 2 heads of states (Russia and China), 5 generals, 50 colonels, 100 congresspersons could have stopped him, or made him pay a suicidal price.
3) Obama is the only person in the world who can ask 10 million people to come to the Mall and have it happen in a week. Would you go? You people are crazy to think he doesn't have power.
He just doesn't want to use it for good.
Charlie, what about Iran? It's not a sure thing that we'll attack, but the trial balloons are up everywhere, and we don't know what Obama is thinking or who will be President a year from now,
The only power, everywhere and always, is social power. It has absolutely nothing to do with Law. It is always a derivative of leadership and rhetoric.
People tell us that single-payer and the public option was blocked by the Republicans, but because Obama never wants to be seen losing, most people don't even know that he ever was pretending to be in favor of single payer.
This sounds more like the public option.
94: Only as a state senator, never when running for or serving as president.
96:I think that is up to Iran.
The plan is to starve Iran into submission and bring them into the neoliberal hegemony without firing a shot.
Iran is not North Korea, so I think it will work.
Syria will be next year, and bloody.
It is just a failure of imagination.
Let's use Romney.
Could Romney get on National TV in March 2013 and say:"Damn Democrats are filibustering my tax bill. If you want to help me out, please come to Washington right away. And come armed." ?
If he couldn't, why not? If he wouldn't, why not? What ya gonna do impeach him? Military coup?
The beginnings of fascism, or socialism, or civil war, are always 5 minutes of prime time away. Anybody who sits in the Oval Office knows that.
What is interesting to me is the way the law, and social inertia, and institutions, and anomie...whatever...inhibits and protects people.
Back to Paris 1871. One woman yelled at one soldier, we know their names, and a Revolution was born.
96 -- I doubt there's much appetite in the Pentagon for anything serious with Iran. Based only on rational thinking, so I could be totally off-base. My guess is that most of the official silence is part of a game of good cop bad cop.
Bob! Fascism! Yes, I suppose Obama could have tried that.
He could not have gotten 20,000 people into the streets of Omaha, or 100,000 in the streets of Baton Rouge -- and if he'd tried the latter, the result would be scary enough to enough people to lead to a military coup.
"Permanent war"? Try the normalization of preventative detention; the declaration of enemy combatants; the radicalization of US local police power in terms of detention; the construction of massive, well-funded "fusion centers" to share information across layers of law enforcement; the normalization of torture; the evisceration of due process for non-citizens; the dramatic shift in US banking policies for non-citizens; the indiscriminate use of federal terrorism statutes to prosecute enormously diverse range of crimes; and -- arguably the single biggest change -- a near-default presumption of guilt for international visitors to the US.
It didn't start with Obama or even George W. (IIRIRA passed under Clinton in '96, though enforcement kicked into high gear after 9/11). But it certainly has been cemented and institutionalized under them, and I don't think we'll claw our way back for another two generations.
The Bush folks were right about one thing: They did create a new reality. They were leaps ahead of the press and the old-school pols in recognizing the opportunity that 9/11 presented, and with enforcement-friendly legislation ready and waiting, they successfully pivoted our society into a radical new era.
I don't disagree with anything in 104. I think 'preventive detention' is going to run into some heavy weather in the courts once AQ is indisputably defeated -- which may not actually be that far off (even counting the franchise outlets in Yemen and Somalia).
As for the rest, this is who we are as a people right now. Absent the kind of revolution Bob dreams about, it's who we're likely to be for quite a while yet. Whining about some politician's inability or unwillingness to remake us fundamentally isn't all that productive, imo, and a distraction from the struggle against those who'd like to push us in the wrong direction.
105.2.2 gets it exactly right.
Don't get me wrong, I think Obama is a coward for refusing to confront the military/intelligence complex, Republicans, and 85% of the public wrt GTMO prisoners and the 9/11 plotters, for instance. I can understand the calculus that doing so (and the moments for this were in April/May 2009) would doom efforts on the stimulus and health care. Both of which absolutely had to get through the Senate. Smart people were telling the Pres that the stimulus was just enough to work -- and while there were plenty of people to tell him it wasn't enough, it's not shocking that the Admin made the wrong choice. On health care, it was always clear that there were not 60 votes for a public option, and absent revolution, green lanterns, or underpants gnomes, there weren't going to be any. So, I think the early 2009 calculus was horribly flawed, because I think the advantage actually gained from pandering was negligible. Cowardice for nothing.
once AQ is indisputably defeated
You think that's going to happen? That there will be a moment when the Administration admits that there's no meaningful AQ any more and doesn't immediately replace it with the new scary flavor-of-the-month terrorist organization? I don't have any serious knowledge of this, but I'd be surprised.
this is who we are as a people right now
Charley, if I didn't know you personally I'd think this was the worst kind of passive, authoritarian thinking. You cannot be serious. "This is who we are as a people"? We just magically got there somehow, like maybe woke up one day and -- whoops-a-daisy -- were suddenly radically more conservative?
Executives have the power to steer the ship. Not the power to change the ocean currents or to dictate what every person on the ship is doing, I agree, but certainly to steer the ship. The Bush and Clinton administrations used that power in different (though overlapping ways) and now the Obama administration is using it.
The people that he puts in decisionmaking positions matter. Napolitano matters. John Morton matters. The US attorneys matter. The fact that the administration has exerted tremendous pressure to get 400,000 people a year deported matters. The fact that the administration is pioneering a process to make sure that anyone caught trying to cross a border leaves with a criminal record matters. It is a sea change.
Public opinion affects presidents, yes, but presidents also affect public opinion. When the president's chief point person on immigration goes on national television and says "Even bad laws have to be enforced," she is sending a signal.
There are a couple of thousand things the Obama administration has done that I could name, off the top of my head, that I like and am grateful for. I will vote for the man in November because of those, and because the alternatives are in nearly every way much, much worse.
But it's not whining to point out the ways in which he is making our country measurably worse, and it's not a distraction. It is in my opinion very nearly a duty.
The Bush folks were right about one thing: They did create a new reality.
Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.
I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?
The Republicans have a usable, accurate understanding of history and politics, and the Democrats don't. I keep arguing about this with Democrats. I've never even had my point acknowledged.
Reality isn't a given. Reality isn't stable. Reality has multiple possible futures, and what history is about is realizing some of them and not others. You're looking for the transient moment of opportunity when it's possible to choose the future.
Ariel Sharon's "facts on the ground" is a version of this. While you have the controls in your hands, you take a gambling initiative which might succeed and might fail, but which in any case will make your adversaries' plans moot so they'll have to start over again from zero.
Democrats seem to be incapable of doing this, and even against it in principle. Maybe they're just rule-followers who spent too long being good boys in school. Maybe their minds are too dominated by normal distributions and equilibrium models. Maybe they think of politics as administration. Don't know.
The heroes of liberalism weren't like this.
In a way it's the Kirk/Spock dichotomy.
Bush didn't get the AUMF he wanted, and we're not, as a legal matter, involved in a war against "Terror." It's a war against AQ and affiliates. As time goes on, attempts to conflate new groups with AQ will become less and less credible. Eventually, so incredible that even our courts won't believe it.
If a president can get an AUMF against the flavor of the month, then he can detain members/supporters of that flavor.
Based only on rational thinking, so I could be totally off-base.
My sense was that Bush/Cheney was flying the trial balloons for war in Iran, and the bureaucracy was shooting them down. For instance, back in 2007 when speculation was really hot-and-heavy, somebody released the National Intelligence Estimate that said Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program.
Granted, that conclusion has been walked back somewhat ...
But it's not whining to point out the ways in which he is making our country measurably worse...
I think there's probably little disagreement in this forum that the developments you mention are a turn for the worse. The question is to what extent to hold Obama responsible. We could be facile about it and adopt a 'buck stops here' attitude, but that doesn't tell us where the problems are in the system, and where to apply pressure in order to change it.
I think we need more Democrats in congress, more liberals in the Democratic party, and less shitbirds in the electorate. That's the problem. You can dump on Obama all day, and on some days I'll happily join in, but I'm reasonably sure he's not the bottleneck here, so I don't see a lot to be gained in going on about his failures.
I've taken to telling people who have to option of dual citizenship to make sure they get it. I'm too old and decrepit to emigrate, and I have family problems, but I'd love to otherwise.
Obama and the Obama loyalists are what turned me. Obama has done everything he can to marginalize the left of his party, and he hasn't given up on bipartisanship even yet. When the other guys are Boehner, Cantor, McConnell, and now Gingrich, bipartisanship is nutty.
I agree that the President is responsible for the immigration crackdown. He's made a political calculation, and, on the politics, he's probably right. Should people be pushing back against that? Absolutely.
Pointing out that he's a coward isn't, I'll be the first to admit, likely to be productive.
The culture has to change. And it may be that it doesn't have to change all that much: enough sign that a 60 Minutes story about some awful enforcement story would actually sell a bunch of soap would get stories out into the mainstream (where the dominant narrative seems to be that the Kenyan socialist is doing everything he can to increase the number of illegal immigrant welfare chiselers). Our politics isn't really set up right now for the truth about the immigration crackdown to become more widely appreciated as an issue; maybe there will be an opening in a second term.
105.2 gets it exactly wrong. If Obama were leaving the Patriot Act etc. in place complacently, he would be a reflection of our national cowardice. But he isn't: he's actively and intentionally continuing the erosion of civil liberties. Calling criticism of this "distraction" from fighting the Republicans is to invoke a tribalist illusion that their direction is fundamentally different. It isn't, in this arena: it's slightly less jingoistic, more consultative, more effective as regards practical goals, but still the same damn thing.
I want to support Obama for reelection for practical reasons, and in many areas of domestic policy for principled reasons, but won't let that keep me from yelling for more.
I just boggle at statements like this. "I would protest someone who I don't think is good enough by voting for someone who is reprehensible!"
Your newsletter: will you show me it?
And what JE said. To cite realism is to refuse to conceive of change.
The culture has to change.
Yep. The 3 weeks I recently spent in Alabama were eye-opening. Not a day went by I didn't hear something pointlessly hateful and ignorant, and from the type of people who've never voted GOP in their lives. The American political system is approximately as shitty as the American people are.
To cite realism is to refuse to conceive of change.
If I saw this on a bumper sticker, I would laugh. Out loud, even.
That's another thing that changed me. Not only were the Obama supporters and Democratic Party loyalists getting nasty and authoritarian, but I ended up admitting that actively or passively, a high proportion of Americans are completely authoritarian and militarist by now. Likewise, most Americans think that the bubble burst was caused by black people buying homes and that the sure will be austerity and low taxes.
As for the rest, this is who we are as a people right now.
I think this is fundamentally wrong.
Being a people who are (1) willing to rationalize away and make excuses for an existing global complex of military bases, interventions, and torture/detention policies so that we can still believe we are the good guys is different from being a people who (2) would affirmatively demand those policies in a climate in which they weren't pushed down our throats by the political and economic leadership class and the corporate media.
We don't have a global empire because of a bottom-up, populist bloodlust that demands permanent war and a new Unified Combatant Command for Africa. The very fact that Ron Paul is the most popular candidate among servicemen is a good sign that, if there is a cultural explanation to be had for our empire, it has a lot more to do with the world-managing pretensions of our elite institutions and capital interests than it does with a internationally unique love of Jack Bauer among the masses.
122: The first two changes I noticed after setting foot on American soil: Airlines now invite active military to board with 1st class passengers, and the security announcements at the airport now warn that jokes about security issues can result in arrest and imprisonment.
The fact that this can be described as an "immigration crackdown" shows how effective the re-jiggering has been. Rules about what is required to open a bank account, who can be allowed to travel and where, what kind of identity and status documents must be produced on demand -- these affect native-born Americans every day, not to mention millions of international tourists, businesspeople, investors and students.
In the name of security, we've accepted a massive set of restrictions on our ability to travel, spend money, and otherwise go about our daily lives.
The fact that people have re-calibrated their idea of normal, and have accepted and in some cases embraced these restrictions, does not in any way lessen the amount of liberty we have given up.
And the fact that authoritarians of both parties have busily occupied themselves with convincing us that only poorer, browner, or more criminal people are subject to these restrictions is testament to Americans' heartfelt desire to keep believing in our country as basically fair, equal and just.
Also, this unbelievable video from the NYT yesterday about Citadel cadets participation in the campaign. I was under the impression that it was verboten for active military to use the uniform for political activity. Are they excepted because they're cadets?
Immigration has been coming aboard Amtrak trains to check ID for quite some time.
Regarding Obama again, his playing ball with the austerity / anti-entitlements is an unforced error as far as I can tell. He gained nothing specific by that, and would have lost nothing much if he'd failed to play.
It's quite possible that he believes that stuff. Geithner and Summers and some of his others seem to lean that way.
And as I forgot to say -- if Obama had publicly fought for a bigger stimulus, and lost, he could say that they stimulus was too small, which it was. But now he owns it.
Cadets aren't active military, are they?
Citadel isn't real military I don't think. It's a state run military school. (It may be that Confederate soldiers are allowed to participate in politics).
I tend to think worries about a military coup in the US are overblown, but every now and then I see something like that video and think, ''Eh, with a bit of encouragement in the right places, it could easily happen."
128: West Point, USNA, Air Force Acad. cadets/middies/whatevers are active military I believe. But the Citadel is play soldier.
Airlines now invite active military to board with 1st class passengers
Active military in uniform. Which always makes me wonder: why are soldiers wearing uniforms in airports anyway? Camouflage fatigues, in case they need to hide and shoot someone from inside Hudson Booksellers?
Recently I was waiting in a line somewhere -- I forget where -- and a man several places ahead of me in line shouted to a soldier a few places behind me "come up and get in front of the line, son! thanks for your service!" Some of the rest of us in the line kind of exchanged puzzled glances, but didn't object.
126: The Citadel is only connected to the military insofar as the armed forces are the inspiration for their particular brand of cosplay.
The very fact that Ron Paul is the most popular candidate among servicemen
I did not know that. I would say it's partly a function of their attention to his foreign policy positions and lack of care about his domestic prescriptions.
Ron Paul curiosity perpetually chagrins me: the man wants to do away with the Departments of Energy, HUD, Commerce, Interior, and Education. Enough said. Look at this. Come on: extends Bush tax cuts. Abolishes the "Death Tax". Lowers corporate tax rate to 15%. Repeals ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, and Sarbanes-Oxley. This is dealbreaker material, pace Greenwald.
Immigration has been coming aboard Amtrak trains to check ID for quite some time.
Customs and Border Patrol has announced the authority to check papers of anyone traveling within 100 miles of a border or port of entry. That covers about two-thirds of the of US population.
As outlined in this NYT article, the inspections are theoretically directed against immigrants:
ROCHESTER -- The Lake Shore Limited runs between Chicago and New York City without crossing the Canadian border. But when it stops at Amtrak stations in western New York State, armed Border Patrol agents routinely board the train, question passengers about their citizenship and take away noncitizens who cannot produce satisfactory immigration papers.
"Are you a U.S. citizen?" agents asked one recent morning, moving through a Rochester-bound train full of dozing passengers at a station outside Buffalo. "What country were you born in?"
When the answer came back, "the U.S.," they moved on. But Ruth Fernandez, 60, a naturalized citizen born in Ecuador, was asked for identification. And though she was only traveling home to New York City from her sister's in Ohio, she had made sure to carry her American passport. On earlier trips, she said, agents had photographed her, and taken away a nervous Hispanic man.
There is no legal requirement that a US citizen, naturalized or otherwise, carry a passport with them at all times. But without one, Puerto Ricans and other American citizens can be subject to detention and even deportation because a federal agent or judge does not believe their claims of citizenship. It's not theoretical; there have been numerous cases already.
131: sorry, that's what I meant, that The Citadel isn't really a military academy.
Which always makes me wonder: why are soldiers wearing uniforms in airports anyway?
I know almost nobody who has served in the military (a couple of people, in my parents' circles who served during the Vietnam war, but I'd be hard pressed to think of people who served post-Vietnam).
A while back I was on a trip with somebody who was an ex-Marine of relatively recent vintage and it was really interesting to watch him, once to twice in each airport we passed through, walk up to a stranger, and start talking to them for a couple of minutes. Eventually he explained that they were people he recognized, from their gear, as being in the military (none of them were in uniform) and that he just wanted to offer encouragement or ask where they were heading.
I thought it was a nice gesture on his part, but it definitely made me conscious of how far removed I am from military culture.
Based on that experience, I'd be inclined to be supportive of something like:
a man several places ahead of me in line shouted to a soldier a few places behind me "come up and get in front of the line, son! thanks for your service!"
For whatever discomfort I may with over-valorizing military service, there really is something to the idea of "support the troops."
I think that checking papers within 100 miles of entry points is bullshit but the Repubs hate Obama on immigration because in many ways he's actually been an improvement.
The Republicans scream about illegals committing crimes but it's the Obama administration that's actually made criminals a much higher priority in deportations. They also hate that the the factory raids now focus on the employers instead of hauling away all the workers in handcuffs. There's also the screams of "backdoor amnesty" about the new guidelines to have ICE not pursue non criminals, parents of children who are citizens, etc. Another reason for the "record breaking" number of deportations is due to the number of agents on the border has more than doubled in the last ten years. They're counting people caught at the border and held for a day and then sent back as deportations.
...there really is something to the idea of "support the troops."
No there isn't. It's a quintessentially vacuous sentiment.
No there isn't. It's a quintessentially vacuous sentiment.
I'm sorry my comment wasn't clear in context. I mean that it made me appreciate the idea of small, human gestures of support to people in the military -- many of whom are clearly young, anxious, and very much at the mercy of larger forces beyond their control.
"come up and get in front of the line, son! thanks for your service!"
My mother was in Grand Central with my Fox News aunt visiting from Florida. My (generally liberal, not at all radical) mother was *mortified* that my aunt was ostentatiously approaching all the Nat'l Guard dudes to "thank them for their service." Mother said, "I mean, it was really a bit much. And they're only in the National Guard!"
NickS is right in 137 and 140. I've certainly talked in a friendly manner to members of the military seated next to me on an airplane: they've been through something quite difficult. Any given one might in actuality be an asshole, but the majority of them aren't.
I believe in "supporting the troops" insofar as these extra courtesies and displays of respect for the fact that they've gone through a hellish experience.
I consider their decision to join the military either misguided, or the best among terrible choices, or the right decision for their personal circumstance, but not inherently something that deserves respect.
129: I don't understand the Citadel at all. With the existence if both real military academies and the ROTC option for those not admitted to the former, how can one justify attending a fake military college. Besides family tradition, that is.
not inherently something that deserves respect
Agreed, if "inherently deserves respect" signals something like this idiotic bumper sticker I observed recently:
"If you're reading this, thank a teacher! If you're reading this in English, thank a Marine!"
Wow, what an asshole.
142 entirely misses the point. The issue is not whether the troops are assholes or not, nor is it about whether war is an unpleasant experience, but whether we want to elevate members of the armed forces into a privileged class.
I try to always signal my respect for active duty military by giving them my latte cup in case there's any foam left at the bottom.
The future Confederate Army has a ready-made officer corps.
146: ffeJ, I'm willing to elevate them to a respected class, how's that? My 142 was intended to say that I don't withhold respectful treatment. Far too many soldiers have entered into their decisions due to financial hardship.
I can't tell if your "privileged" is a dog-whistle of some kind: that is, I'm fine with targeted government programs to assist returning veterans. I read recently that the suicide rate among veterans is at 18/day. I didn't track down the reference, so I can't swear by it, but it wouldn't shock me.
My conclusion from these things is not to shoot (figuratively, obviously) the foot soldiers of a system that virtually escorts them into their circumstances.
In reality, most servicemembers, especially those who have served in combat, are about as far as you can get from a privileged class -- putting aside the class and race issues in recruiting, it's a very low paid job that is dangerous and psychologically scarring job that doesn't prepare you for much else. Of course the same people who are sanctimonious about thanking strangers for their service in airports are often the ones who support cutting their benefits and socialist health care, so there's that.
114: I actually have an old British passport that I could, after paying an exorbitant fee, renew. But I don't. England's no better than here. London's probably more expensive. France is more authoritarian: watch some flics work sometime. I hear good things about Berlin, but don't speak the language.
Of all the horse race pundits, who is counting and forecasting delegate counts the best, and aware of impact of winner take all states vs more proportionally allocating states ?
I predict drinking in front of a TV on March 6th, 2012.
A Supertuesday tradition.
I make sure to spit on every veteran I meet, because I'd hate for conservatives to have to lie for the next thirty years.
154: the needs of the many outweigh those of the few/proud.
121: OK, overbroad, but in this context I stand by it.
I actually have an old British passport that I could, after paying an exorbitant fee, renew.
At the moment Britain is the last place on earth to run to from the USA. But bear in mind that a British passport is, for the time being, effectively good for almost anywhere in Europe.
Also bear in mind the thing about grass being greener.
154 made me laugh, ruefully.
151.last of course gets it right: the same people who are sanctimonious about thanking strangers for their service in airports are often the ones who support cutting their benefits and socialist health care
150: Ugh. You're right. I repent of my previous position that we should shoot (figuratively) the troops, and skimp on their medical and psychological care. I don't know what I was thinking.
I doubt there's much appetite in the Pentagon for anything serious with Iran.
That doesn't matter, they didn't want Libya either. Israel, or the White House through the CIA, has the power to present the Pentagon with a fait accompli...not a ground invasion necessarily but a blockade and a bombing campaign.
159: I take that to mean that you didn't intend anything by "privileged class" that indicated a policy prescription. If you'd be so kind as to grant the rest of what I said about respectful treatment, I'd be grateful.
I don't want to fight with you; I was positively inclined toward your 113, though it doesn't do to say so.
Also, I've said this before, but I simply do not buy that Ron Paul is a racist. In a practical sense he's been one of the most genuinely anti-racist politicians on the national scene for quite a while now and I don't understand why people can't see that. Standing up over and over again and saying that the Iranians are human beings just like a suburban American, that Afghan civilians killed in drone strikes are human beings just like us, that American Muslims who want to exercise their freedom of religion (Ground Zero mosque, etc.) are just as American as evangelist suburbanites...that's what anti-racism looks like. That's exactly the reason you want someone to be anti-racist in the first place, and it's the reason that regardless of whether I would want him to be President I want him to be as strong a presence as possible on the political scene. If he's stood up this consistently, publicly, and fearlessly for groups so despised and unpopular what makes you think he won't be standing up for black Americans if he has to (as indeed he has, very clearly, on drug war issues)? The newsletter stuff is interesting as a sociological excursion into some of the nastiest types attracted to Texas libertarianism in the 1980s, but I don't think it says much of anything about his racial views on a deeper level.
An irony in all this is that the newsletter stuff was first whipped up and pushed by two of the nastier racists on the American political scene, Marty Peretz in James Kirchick, as a blow against Paul for his defense of the humanity of Arabs and Muslims.
I think a deep question for a liberal when thinking about Paul is whether in the future the progressive possibilities to be gained by aggressively mobilizing the power of the Federal government outweigh the dangers of what Federal power could do under the control of the worst elements in this society. I don't think we're at that point but in my darker moments I wonder.
The newsletter stuff is interesting as a sociological excursion into some of the nastiest types attracted to Texas libertarianism in the 1980s, but I don't think it says much of anything about his racial views on a deeper level.
Dude, he signed his name to straightforwardly racist crap. I don't know what his racist views are on a deep level. But I do know that whatever they are, they are such that he's willing to serve his political ends by signing a newsletter that refers to MLK Day as "Hate Whitey Day". There's a whole broad range of possible psychological states that could lead to thinking that was all right, and I can't tell where he falls in that spectrum. But I don't care -- I strongly disapprove of all the possibilities.
I think a deep question for a liberal when thinking about Paul is whether in the future the progressive possibilities to be gained by aggressively mobilizing the power of the Federal government outweigh the dangers of what Federal power could do under the control of the worst elements in this society.
And I think, as stated, this is a profoundly misguided statement. Anyone who's thoughtlessly talking about the risks of Federal power, as opposed to government power generally, has bought into a state's-rights framework that ignores the risk of oppressive exercise of governmental power in the hands of the states.
The important political issue in this area is where the line should be between how government may, and may not, exert coercive power against individuals. Caring whether the coercive power is exerted by the federal government or the state of Alabama is interesting only on a technical legal level (because we're stuck with a constitutional framework that makes those two levels of government more distinct than they are in most countries) or on a pragmatic level (because in any given question you think one or the other is more likely to do what you want). It may be practically important on any issue, but it's not theoretically driven, and it's not always going to come out the same way.
PGD, hello.
162.last: I'm a little bewildered here: who's aggressively mobilizing the power of the Federal government? Obama? The last god-knows-how-many decades of US rule?
Are you casting the progressive's dilemma as one about (gasp) socialism versus libertarianism?
I'm trying to take this seriously, and I can make up stories about what you're pointing to, but 162.last needs some expansion.
165.last: unless your theoretical view of political power is strongly influenced by whether or not you can marshall a racial majority on any given issue.
"Today, gangs of young blacks bust into a bank lobby firing rounds at the ceiling...We don't think a child of 13 should be held as responsible as a man of 23. That's true for most people, but black males age 13 who have been raised on the streets and who have joined criminal gangs are as big, strong, tough, scary and culpable as any adult, and should be treated as such"
I should have outsourced 166 to 165.
I think a deep question for a liberal when thinking about Paul is whether in the future the progressive possibilities to be gained by aggressively mobilizing the power of the Federal government outweigh the dangers of what Federal power could do under the control of the worst elements in this society.
Anyone who opposes the social safety net on the grounds that the drug war is an abuse of federal power has a disqualifying failure to grasp nuance.
161: Sure, ok. Sorry I got a bit pissy about it. When I say privilege I mean the sort of ambient reverence for soldiers and military culture that often manifests itself as concrete privilege. To name an example, recall the horror when the police injured or arrested OWS who were veterans. Why should we be one iota less horrified at police brutality directed at any citizen?
I don't know what a 'respected class' actually means in practice.
Having more than one passport is useful more or less regardless of which they are. Not to go Godwin but having a Spanish Fascist Passport saved many lives. I just don't expect the US to be a good place to be a few years from now.
Sure, John. The people lucky enough to have a second passport can should leave, and ...
I'm willing to become dictator of Spain, if the offer comes.
172: Comity.
And thanks, parsimon, for saying what I would have if I hadn't gone for a walk.
162: If he's stood up this consistently, publicly, and fearlessly for groups so despised and unpopular what makes you think he won't be standing up for black Americans if he has to (as indeed he has, very clearly, on drug war issues)
Why do all these homosexuals keeps sucking my cock?
OT: Oh, eBay, you and your vast yet irregularly-updated and occasionally grotesquely oddly-sized collection of vintage suits complete me.
Just buy pants at Land's End like a normal person for once.
Patriots!
I guess the Ravens beat the spread, though -- at least as of earlier this week.
I think a deep question for a liberal when thinking about Paul is whether in the future the progressive possibilities to be gained by aggressively mobilizing the power of the Federal government outweigh the dangers of what Federal power could do under the control of the worst elements in this society. I don't think we're at that point but in my darker moments I wonder.
You'd really trade drone strikes for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, labor laws, and environmental regulations? And a president who only offers hesitant support for building a Ground Zero Mosque for one who offers strong support for that right, and the right of companies to refuse to hire them; a president who supports document checks within a hundred miles of an airport for one who supports the right of airlines to refuse to allow Muslims to fly at all?
Surely Ron Paul would support drone strikes against innocent civilians, as long as they were arranged by private contractors and not the big scary government?
Patriots!
Patriots!
Patriots!
Patriots!
You'd really trade drone strikes for....
I'd trade a great deal for an America that killed fewer people, abroad and at home, but I'm a sentimental fool.
Having dysfunctional health care and a lack of labor and environmental laws isn't exactly not killing people. We have to balance the quick, decisive killings with the slow, indirect, and painful ones.
189: It's much more complicated than that. Some slow deaths don't hurt at all so those should be reserved for the virtuous. Some of the fast ones hurt lots. We need panels of experts to decide who gets what, and who should be assigned particular jobs and perhaps hazmat gear.
Maybe people could bid for particular deaths?
[Pauses.]
I can write a treatment for a feature (maybe even a trilogy) by Tuesday.
Also, I've said this before, but I simply do not buy that Ron Paul is a racist.
Coates ought to have the last word on this.
If we're talking about peoples' deep, hidden motivations, then Obama gets to be a champion of civil liberties. If he's signed his name to some nasty stuff, well, I'm sure there are mitigating circumstances; he can certainly talk nicely about the subject.
Whoops, snarkout got there first with the Coates link.
And a sideways reference to a sweaty, post-game locker-room tryst with Vancouver Canucks forward Mark Messier!
Anyway, I think there's an explanation for how neo-Confederate sentiments keep coming out of the mouth of Ron Paul, a man so dedicated to racial equality that he voted for making Martin Luther King Day a national holiday insists the race-baiting newsletters published under his name weren't racist (and that 95% of black men in DC are criminals), but maybe it's a fifth dimensional imp using his powers to torment a principled anti-racist. Someone should tell Grant Morrison, or possibly Slate.
197: I love the Mad Bald Scot like a mad, bald, Scot bro, but he has never seemed to have much in the way of political interests.
I guess he did, a few years ago, remark that he didn't think there was much potential in stories about Batman beating up waves of poor, stupid, unhealthy minority criminals, rather than garishly-costumed avatars of emotional and sexual decompensation.
Note the way this tends to go:
When talking about the right-wing irrelevancy, Ron Paul, we/you talk about platform, policies, ideology, attitudes.
When talking about a left-wing irrelevancy, like the Greens, you talk about them strategically, how many votes will they cost Democrats, EVERYTHING IS ALL NADER"S FAULT, and rarely if ever bother to compare positions and policies.
This pattern tends to drive discourse to the right, and foster tribalism over policy improvement.
||
You guys, I am so, so, so dumb.
I am supposed to be going to Canada tomorrow for a job interview for next year. A real interview! In a country with health care! I planned my outfit and put together such a great teaching demo and thought about what to say in interviews and got very nervous and keyed up, and then...
Guess where my passport is? It's in Montana! Guess where I am? I'm in DC! Guess who is not going to Canada tomorrow after all? ME!
I already burst into tears about this several times. Now, if everything goes according to the incredibly sketchy last-second backup plan I've devised, I will fly there on Tuesday morning and show up in time for the second thing on the agenda.
Way to start things off on the best possible foot, Dr. Messily. Nice work, there.
Also there is no alcohol in the apartment and I can't bring myself to go outside. WOE. WOE IS ME.
|>
201: Oh, lordy, Messily. This cuts me to the core -- I would do this. And -- I'm sure you thought of everything already, but -- there's really no alternative? Notarized affidavit of citizenship, expired passport? Anything? Eh -- it doesn't matter. They will be delighted with you on Tuesday!
201 sucks.
Perhaps you could gain access to canada illegitimately, feigning deafness?
Yes! Convince the immigration dudes that deaf people sign their passports!
Pssst...there is this Indian reservation on the border with a possible lake-ice maybe river crossing. Cost ya a few hundred dollars if you can find a willing driver.
I had a lot to drink 5his afternoon!
I had vague memories of people not needing a passport for Canada. Google tells me those memories are correct and out of date as of 2009. Sorry, that really sucks. Perhaps everybody could have a drink thinking of you and the combined intake would be enough to drown your sorrows? Or maybe somebody delivers?
That sucks. I didn't even know you needed a passport to visit Canada.
We need passports to go to Canada now?
That does suck, but I would think an employer would be understanding with interviewees delayed through international travel.
it seems like the earliest I can get the passport is 8 am Tuesday. I can't (for reasons I can't figure out) change my flight online and it's sunday night, so I guess I'll have to go to the airport tomorrow morning and see what happens. I'm supposed to do a teaching demo at noon on Tuesday. It is going to be a tightly scheduled morning.
Also I forgot, it's Sunday, which is why I can't get the passport til Tuesday, but regardless all the liquor stores are closed anyway so it's a good thing I didn't go try to find any
Really I don't think you need a passport to go in to Canada from the US, but you do need one to get back into the US, and so the Canadians are all "well we don't want you to be stuck here, better make sure you can go home again, buster".
So in effect you do need one to go to Canada.
the "and it's sunday night" in 211 was supposed to also say "so nobody is answering any phones".
That's what I've been told for about a decade now. To get back from Canada you need either a passport, or a BIRTH CERTIFICATE plus some photo ID.
Sympathies, Messily. That's stressful. But it sounds like you've found a workable solution, and I hope your trip goes great.
A bit risky, but what about entering Canada w/o the passport and having it FedEx'd to you there so you can re-enter the U.S. with it?
212 is my understanding as well. The CSBA website says Canada doesn't require a passport for U.S. citizens, but other sources say Canada won't let you in if you can't get back to the U.S., so essentially Canada requires a passport. (I guess they used to let you in, and then everyone hoped someone would mail you your passport to go back?)
There are some other travel documents that qualify as substitutes, but I don't think you can get them much more quickly than you can get a passport.
Anyway, that really sucks.
"Since June 2009, everyone from every country arriving in Canada by air, land and sea has needed a passport or equivalent travel document."
Charley! Fly to DC with Messily's passport!
I spent a while trying to figure out if there was any way 216 would work, but decided that the downside (I end up in DC, my passport ends up at a hotel in Ottawa waiting for me) was too big to risk it. Also people told me the airline would not let me board without a passport anyway.
I went to Canada in 1998 with nothing but a driver's license and a trunk full of cash amounting to $1 less than the limit allowable by law.
Charley is MIA. Probably skiing or something. I totally did already text him to find out if he had any plans to come to DC tonight.
I also made my parents call their friends who work for senators, to see if any staffers were flying and would be my courier. No go.
Stupid Montana, all far away from everything with no direct flights.
216 isn't really that risky. FedEx does service the frozen wastes of my ancestral homeland. And you're right Messily: you can go into Canada with a government-issued photo ID. You just can't come back without a passport.
Ah, you're flying. I hadn't considered that. I always cross the border on foot.
Yeah, up until quite recently you could get back with a birth certificate, but then they decided to stop the hordes of illegal Canadian immigrants sneaking into the US with forged American birth certificates. Or something.
I always cross the border on foot.
Silently, watchfully, alive to the forest around and the danger of revenuers. That Canadian Club's getting to Mr. Capone or VW'll know the reason why, ya mugs.
You could end up living in the Moose Jaw airport for decades without proper ID.
225- the risk was in me being stuck in DC. I'm sure the passport would get safely to wherever it was sent, but if I weren't there too, I'd be in trouble.
Problems such as this will be completely obsolete once Obama has as all microchipped. Oh, you guys didn't hear about that?
Get the passport, go, and do your thing. Occasionally sigh and mutter "TSA", "Damn!", and "Fascists". That will take care of any perceptions of lateness, tiredness, and all that.
You will do fine. Stop agonizing. Shit happens.
225- the risk was in me being stuck in DC. I'm sure the passport would get safely to wherever it was sent, but if I weren't there too, I'd call the friendly Canadian hotel desk staff and have them send it to DC? Or is there a snag in this plan that I'm not seeing?
Anyway, I would probably email your interviewers, explain there's been a delay in your arrival time, and ask if they can rejiggle the schedule a bit. Travel plans are always already in jeopardy, and surely they're aware of that and capable of being reasonable.
E. Messily, I know flying is more difficult and my understanding is that you'll be SOL without your passport, which is lousy. (I went through all sorts of contortions about making sure we could get Mara over the border pre-adoption, but it was no problem.) I'm so sorry you're dealing with this and hope that the extra wait just makes the committee like you more.
Messily, that's such a nightmarish scenario. Maybe you can blame the weather? OPM has declared tomorrow a late arrival day in DC.
I haven't been like seriously drunk in a long time. But I closed one eye and corrected all the spelling errors for you.
Yeah, I emailed them. It will probably be okay, although the timing Tuesday morning is going to be closer/more stressful than I'd like. Now I'm going to watch Law & Order and not think about it for a while.
Sorry, yes, I was in Idaho most of the day. (Nice snow at Lolo Pass). Can't make it, and our house guest isn't heading your way until Tuesday. I saw Max in town on Thursday, but he's probably back by now.
I've talked my way into Canada without a passport before, but it's a pretty big risk to take.
Cecily, if a candidate called in with this type of thing and I was on the committee, I wouldn't hold it against them. I almost called you "celery" to be funny - look how drunk I is - but realized it wsn't sufficient.y funny.
but realized it wsn't sufficient.y funny.
Wait, we have standards now? I am not comfortable with this.
I heart drunkie-geebie. This is making me really happy. (I'm emotionally weird tonight. I hear tomorrow when Val and Alex go home; they won't be back here for another hour or so. I'm hoping they'll only be here another school week at the most because their parents are so ready but then I have to deal with real life, which is good and bad. And holy fuck, I took actual naps this weekend. Also the bourbon, though apparently not to anything like heebie levels. Maybe that should be my next goal.)
No, not for you all. But I have to be terribly funny.
I feel like I need to get a lot of mileage out of my drunk-drunk state.
Let's talk about our emotions.
Yay, drinking! I wish I was drinking more.
heebie should work on getting drunker.
I wish I were drinking more, essear. Standards.
My classes start tomorrow, so I think inevitably heebie should rock a beer bong.
I'm worried about being hungover.
244: But yay, Val and Alex going home, right? It's easier for you, and it's all happy for them. (Are they nearby? I was wondering if they're playdate material for Mara, once they're back with their parents. )
As if!
People should bring back saying "As if!"
My secondary emotion is feeling terribly guilty at how little work I've done this weekend. My tertiary emotion is thinking it's a little fucked-up that I feel like I should be working through the whole weekend. My quaternary emotion is absolute terror at the ridiculous schedule I have for the next month.
How did people say that without getting tangled in the bizarreness of the two syllables?
People saying "as if" are totes fetch.
Heebie, can you do fart noises? On the internet?
I haven't done much work for like a month and a half. It's good to be a first year.
Quit trying to make "people" happen.
262: Sure, I could. If I were lame.
Earlier Blume got mad at me for yelling extremey loudly directly in her ear. Which, arguably, I shouldn't have done, even if things were super exciting.
I've always wanted to be a drunk bitch.
You just aren't drunk enough I guess.
White wine. What about you, essear?
As in, "What did you drink?" Not some slurring barmaid proposition.
Obligatory drunken white-wine sappy-song link.
white wine bong, I don't give a fuck.
Somebody in high school called me "Celery" all the time. I liked it better than "Sicily" or "Cess pool" which were two other popular options.
I wish Criminal Intent were on. SVU sucks.
255: Having Val and Alex go back to their parents is a total win-win. It'll be really nice to be back to the three of us here and their parents have shown huge progress and I think will be fantastic parents. Val and Alex can't wait to go back to them. For the time being, they'll be 20-30 minutes' drive away, but there are plans for playdates at both households to help the kids transition. Their parents at this point are totally on board about helping them transition by letting them come back here to play if it's what they seem to need or letting Val have Mara over the way she wants to. I think they'll keep that attitude up even after the reunification happens.
Just kidding. Humorously pathetic. Because I'm quick-witted.
Wilde's play never would have gone anywhere if the young ward had been named Celery.
I hope, Celery, I shall not offend you if I state quite frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible personification of absolute perfection.
See?
287: Disagree! There could have been celery sandwiches instead. Or something.
Has anyone else read the Earnest-inspired steampunky YA novel All Men of Genius? I'm not sure if I was predisposed against it because of the Bud (?) Real Men of Genius ads or because it involved no meaningful introspection or what, but someone should probably talk me into liking it. For one thing, being annoyed about anachronistic queer sex stuff in an alternate universe story means I'm a loser, right?
OT: Somebody sounding really stoned called me and left a message asking for me by name and begging me to call them to reconnect. I'm 99% sure they have the wrong person. I think I have to call them and tell them that I'm not who they are looking for, but I'm kind of afraid I'll get sucked into a vortex of whatever is wrong there.
I wrote a song today. I think it accidentally rips off "My Best Friend's Girl".
If you used vodka in your bong would you just end up really fucked up or on fire?
295: neither. You'd end up somewhat less high with a headache.
291: We were moderately vortex-sucked long ago, when some poor woman called sobbing because her boyfriend, who lived in Chicago and shared my last name, never showed to pick her up at the airport. And he stopped answering his phone. She was super desperate and looking for anyone who knew him. CA ended up calling hospitals for her, I think. In any event, we were fairly sure that the "boyfriend" really only considered himself her boyfriend in her town, and maybe had a wife in ours.
291 updated: That is the last time I ever call somebody with a South Carolina number.
I'm imagining Heebie as Helen Humes in this song liveblogging in her corner.
301: He was just really drunk, lonely, and redneck-y.
No. But, I'm told the guy he did know had sisters who were hot enough to make a dead man orgasm. Fortunately for me, there are lots of people with my last name in town but I'm related to none of them.
The Unfogged Austin contingent really needs to make an effort to get heebs drunk more often. Also, the Montana contingent has really let us down.
304: Meetup at a rest stop on I-77 in North Carolina!
We have to be careful about being overly judgmental of the Montanan commentariat. At any moment, they could all be eaten by bears, moose, Albertans, or a combination of the three. That's a stressful existence.
c'mon moby, I promise not to be drunk? return my calls when I'm on vacation! this is serious, man. you gotta uear my viewsh on ron paul.
and is 283 real? because I thought...that isn't what I thought was happening to grey gardens. but they're just renting? but. nemmine. GO TEAM DURNK HEEBIE!
309: How about, "That is the last time I ever call somebody with a South Carolina number unless I know them."
What Montanans do is get embarrassingly entangled with ewes.
and the ron-curious in this thread should really be ashamed of themselves. he's not a huge racist, (because why would an american man in his 70s ever be racist?) he was just pretending to be a giant racist to get elected? for 10 years or something? and now he still talks a lot of crap about how the civil war was about states' rights to south carolinians, while standing in front of a giant confederate flag, but we can't look in his heart so he's not racist? fuck right the fuck off with that one.
259: Speaking of crazy schedules, I'm currently on a 35 day 9 city spree (two with multiplicity two) that had me home for a total of about 48 hours. Hence my not being around here much.
OT: Based on my lack of interest in the early game today, I don't think I'll watch a Giants-Patriots Superbowl.
Moby, you should have pointed him to this comment thread. He could banter with drunk heebie! It would be awesome!
315: Do not want. I have to get up at dark-thirty tomorrow, lie to various people about the status of various projects, and then drive to suburban Philadelphia.
314: allegiances aside, it was a a pretty intense football game that you missed.
313: Jesus, dude. I'm going to be home about 8 days between January 29 and March 1, and I thought that was bad. (Part of what's bad is that some of this travel will be in Asia, I hate long flights, and I expect I'll be all time-zone-confused for a while.)
I work from home tomorrow. It's awesome to work from home.
312 I've long since come to the conclusion that TNC's 'but we can't look into his heart' stipulation in every post on Ron Paul is just his way of twisting the knife. Walks like a duck and all that.
I think I'm going to work from home my hotel room tomorrow. I'm feeling kind of sick, which I suspect is just allergies, but it's making me nervous since I really don't have time to get sick right now.
318: I watched the whole game. I was surprised by my reaction, as it was objectively a good game.
319: It's crazy, but I'm certainly not complaining, since it's better to have more job prospects even if it makes for nutty travel. (Though I do wish I would have known how long I'd be gone when I was packing.)
318: Yeah, freaking Ravens confirmed their Cleveland Browns heritage. Creative incompetence at the moment of seeming triumph.
I'm dreading applying for jobs. I shouldn't be since there are deadlines looming for a few interesting ones.
Only one of my upcoming trips is a job interview. One is a seminar I foolishly scheduled when my winter schedule was empty, one is a conference I don't really want to go to but agreed to because the invitation to give the only talk on topic X was really flattering, and the other is the conference that actually sounds like a lot of fun. I really need to learn to say "no"....
325: I think you mean "The THREE-TIME SUPER BOWL CHAMPION NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS proved their greatness, without having to stab anybody or obstruct justice in relation thereto."
Last week I agreed to give a seminar in May at a department where absolutely no one works on anything I consider remotely relevant and which has no job opening. I'm really going to regret that.
But, anyway, hooray for job prospects, Upetgi. Good luck.
328: But did they use any kind of video equipment?
Is it just me or does 'Upetgi' make you think of some Kurosawa or Mizoguchi tortured samurai flick?
I'm kind of cheating in that I'm including Christmas travel and puzzle travel. But at least there's not much in the way of long trips. None of that travel is outside north america, much of it is ground rather than air, and all but 48 hours were EST or CST.
Looks like I'll stop having excuses to not get work done on Sundays a couple of weeks early.
330: Thanks! No offers yet, but it's looking very good. Which is pleasantly surprising, since my smaller search last year was a big failure.
331: You mean the sort of video equipment that the Ginger Hammer* wishes to prohibit people who work for NFL teams from pointing at giant fat guys standing outside in the fresh air while yelling at other giant fat guys and waving their arms like they're trying to beat out a suit of flames?
* Roger Goodell.
328 - Ray Lewis is a born-again Christian, but nobody calls him "Ray the Devout". Ray Lewis is a generous donor to multiple Baltimore children's charities, but nobody calls him "Ray the Philanthropist". He has six children, but nobody calls him "Ray the Fecund". But stab one little sheep two guys to death, and it's murder jokes up until they put you in the Hall of Fame.
Some of my best friends are giant fat guys who stand outside yelling in winter.
So far this year I have the same number of interviews as I had last year, but at on average less prestigious places. Better odds of getting an offer, I guess, but it's less clear that it'd be an offer I want. Although I still seem to have fairly good odds of getting an offer at one place I would love to be, but which would be almost certain to kick me out in five to ten years.
339: On the veldt, fat guys were better able to reproduce because they could stand outside and yell for longer than skinny guys.
328: without having to stab anybody or obstruct justice in relation thereto
All of that happened after they had already won.
I received an interesting talking-to today about my bright future as a tax exile. I felt so plutocratic.
340.all-but-last is me this year too. Good God this is a bad market year. Degree in hand, I'm not worth more than I was.
It's always disturbing when I have the volume relatively high and my iTunes shuffle decides to remind me that I have bits of Norwegian black metal scattered through my music library.
Every once and a while I look at the job rumor mill from before the recession. The market really was different then. It's a factor of two or three.
If you traveled at near light speed for a few years, you could return to a job market where everyone competing with you now is retiring. It will be a completely different job market.
There used to be jobs in California. That must have been nice.
There are a lot of people I respect on the market this year. I can't help but get kind of upset by the number of older people occupying good jobs and making decisions about who to hire who are just manifestly less qualified and competent than the young people they're judging.
I can't help but get kind of upset by the number of older people occupying good jobs and making decisions about who to hire who are just manifestly less qualified and competent than the young people they're judging.
This makes me want to throw myself and my big pile of impostor syndrome off a cliff, if it makes you feel any better!
Whenever I think that my Old People managers just don't get it, I wonder: what will I think about the Young People when I'm an Old Person one day.
You should make a song about that.
Well, there are also the older people who I think no one of my generation will ever come close to measuring up to. They can judge me all they want.
Blerg. In real life it seems like every conversation I've had for the last month has ended up being about the job market, and now it's happening here. And it always makes me feel like I'm being an asshole. I should stop thinking or talking about these things.
Also, this comment to 247.
Sorry!
There's a job in my field in Narnia.
Sorry! I should get better at keeping my mediocrity angst to myself.
351: I've considered this, but it wouldn't help. They'd replace me with...nobody. And not because I'm irreplaceable.
291: A good opportunity to use the principle "if it's actually important they'll call again tomorrow."
If we all kept our angst to ourselves, what would these threads be about? I'm sure you're not mediocre and not an instance of what I was griping about. I'm also sure that I'm being unfair to some of the people I had in mind when I wrote 350. It's not like I've ever done anything of lasting value.
WE CAN'T DO MORE WITH LESS WITHOUT LESS
anything of lasting value
This is the yardstick? Fuck it, then. I'm sure there's a bridge or cliff somewhere around here.
It's not like I've ever done anything of lasting value.
I'm glad I could help drive you into this other mire of angst! It's nice how the two are located so conveniently next to one another so one can be easily pushed from one to the other.
I was happy to learn, from some procrastinatory/idle curiosity searching* I did recently, that of the people with sufficiently uncommon names for me to find them using lazy search techniques who did well academically in high school, almost all of them are doing well now, some in academic positions. It did make me feel like I've wasted years, though, but I try not to dwell on that.
*Brought on by people mentioning, on occasion, in comments here that they actually went to school with such and such in some news story. Basically, I wanted to know if anyone I knew had become notorious for something. Apparently not.
1/√2 (|impostor syndrome> + |smug ass>)
My father sent me an academic paper on the impostor syndrome once when I was feeling particularly down. New England Protestants, everybody!
367: Better than being in superposition of
|smug imposter> and |ass syndrome>.
368 Did it contain an elegant proof of 367?
Read 369 in Russian accent to compensate for lack of article.
What do you have against us Poles?
The Mire of Angst or the Slough of Despond? Which has better restaurant options for vegans?
Vegans take everything way too far. Now that Meatatarians have stopped harassing vegetarians, I think we vegetarians should wage a public-relations war against vegans. No butter? No cheese? Milk in my morning coffee MAKES ME ALIVE. Back off my cheddar.
It's not like I've ever done anything of lasting value.
358: MOVE TO NARNIA!!! I will entertain you, and take you to island paradises and whatnot.
I mean, I guess he doesn't have to, but moving to the other side of the world without having secured a job seems pretty risky.
368: So true. Also, biographies of the fairly-great as presents. I wish they only inspired me.
This is why I'm a terrible drunk. I wake up mildly hungover at 3 am with super insomnia. And work in 3 hours.
You have to be at work at 6 am? That sounds... unusual for academia.
heebie how about a song?
How much would I have loved this request? Unfortunately I basically toppled over into the bean bag next to my chair shortly before it appeared.
Oh, no. I have to start the day at 6.
Well this will just give you a head start.
I don't want one either but it's 2:12 here and I'm awake. I have no reason at all to start, much less get a head start.
I have a foolproof alternative to imposter syndrome!
||
My primary emotion right now is worrying about my sister and the fact that she won't get help with some pretty serious issues. In crisis, she's too scared and afterwards she just blames stress. Watching people you care about suffer from stupid shit--shit that could be treated but isn't because they are afraid of the medical establishment and/or don't see anything wrong--is awful. One of the most horrible feelings I know
My secondary emotion is that I'm mad at myself for letting this derail me. I can't spend 20 minutes crying every time I get off the phone with my sister and do work/look for a job etc.
Fuck a bunch of...whatever. Fuck.
|>
I don't wanna head start.
The Ramones' attempt to appeal to the families-with-young-children market after doing, let's see, "I don't wanna walk around with you", "I don't wanna go down to the basement", "I don't wanna be learned", "I don't wanna fight", "I don't wanna live this life", "I don't wanna grow up"...
I am taking a random day off -- I had a bunch of vacation, and a day where there was nothing pressing. I think I will probably play with the children's new Xbox all day.
389: But they do wanna be my boyfriend.
Bg, the positive in that is that at least she's willing/able to talk to someone about it. Not all that easy for the someone, but better than having her completely shut everyone out.
391: I don't know why they also wanna be sedated, but it sounds unchivalrous.
388: Sorry to hear that. I think that's where a lot of the stuff I complained about Lee doing falls, though I have more leverage than a sister would to push her to get treatment.
392, 396: Thanks for responding guys. It's a slow, painful process. I'd even be able to hook her up with low-fee psychiatrists who want extra training in therapy (one stop shopping) who, if they thought meds would be helpful would talk to her about her feelings about taking meds etc. And I'd help her pay some of the cost.
The thing is that she's at high risk for a lot of serious stuff. But it will be a long, slow road. What I'm struggling with right now is taking care of myself and not getting overwhelmed by the frustration and sadness, since action steps are unlikely to work now.
I am trying to tell her that she has a ton of strengths and is a wonderful person but that she has real problems. It's a delicate balancing act.
But the most important thing is to take care of myself and not get derailed. I've lost too much of my life to that sort of thing already.
388: Are there other members of your family you could share the weight with?
Re: Impostor Syndrome, where are you currently in the cycle (as if I have to ask)?
Bertrand Russell was ready to commit suicide around 1917 because he couldn't solve the Liar's Paradox. Several of the Wittgensteins committed suicide, and Ludwig often thought about it, because they had not met their standard for themselves.
If these guys felt this way about themselves, just imagine what they thought of the average unaccomplished person.
398: No, both of my parents are a tremendous burden themselves. In fact the trauma of having a mom with SMI is a big part of why she needs the help.
My uncle (Dad's brother) isrelatively sane despite being a Republican, but he would push for meds straightaway, and she feels like nobody is listening to her.
My BF is a real support, and I have a good shrink, so I won 't go off the deep end. There are some people I can talk to to help me take care of myself. My mom's brother is a total nutjob who married a woman from the phone sex line, and her other siblings have mostly adopted self preservation strategies.
It's really up to her. I just have to learn to bear watching it.
If these guys felt this way about themselves, just imagine what they thought of the average unaccomplished person.
I get the feeling that these sorts of standards tend to involve a sort of narcissism, a feeling that only you are called, so that you don't think of them as applying to people at large. I guess that's a disrespect too, but not one that amounts exactly to finding others wanting. (Except in the case of others actually working in the same sort of field.)
At one point Wittgenstein rhetorically welcomed the possibility of nuclear war:
The hysterical fear over the atom bomb being experienced, or at any rate expressed, by the public almost suggests that at last something really salutary has been invented. The fright at least gives the impression of a really effective bitter medicine. I can't help thinking: If this didn't have something good about it the philistines wouldn't be making an outcry. But perhaps this too is a childish idea. Because really all I can mean is that the bomb offers a prospect of the end, the destruction, of an evil, - our disgusting soapy water science [ekelhaften seifenwäßrigen wissenschaft]. And certainly that's not an unpleasant thought, but who can say what would come after this destruction? The people making speeches against producing the bomb are undoubtedly the scum of the intellectuals, but even that does not prove beyond question that what they abominate is to be welcomed.
402: I think that's right.
(Except in the case of others actually working in the same sort of field.)
A guy I worked with used to say of such an individual, "Ian doesn't see the need for the second theoretician."
403 is great. Searching to get some context came across this Wittgenstein/Russell story.
"When, in the 'twenties, Russell wanted to establish, or join, a 'World Organization for Peace and Freedom' or something similar, Wittgenstein rebuked him so severely, that Russell said to him: 'Well, I suppose you would rather establish a World Organization for War and Slavery', to which Wittgenstein passionately assented: 'Yes, rather that, rather that!'"]
403: Oh yeah, Wittgenstein certainly thought that lots of people were pretty lame/vicious. The inhabitants of that village where he taught school, for instance. But not because they were unaccomplished, is what I was thinking.
Ekelhaften seifenwäßrigen wissenschaft: good name for a punk artrock band.
Semi-related Wittgensteinism:
Sometimes a sentence can only be understood if it is read at the right tempo. My sentences are all supposed to be read slowly.
Ekelhaften wissenschaft would be more a death metal band.
407: Some sort of sister project to Einstürzende Neubauten.
Does Wittgenstein always sound like an angry teenager?
403 is more fun if you imagine it's the rant of an extremely precocious toddler being forced to take a bath.
408:
Nick Charles: The important thing is the rhythm. Always have rhythm in your shaking. Now a Manhattan you shake to fox-trot time, a Bronx to two-step time, a dry martini you always shake to waltz time.
401: It's good that you've got at least a couple of people around you who can be of some help. And if they're mainly not from within your family, maybe that's not all bad - nonfamily sometimes understand less, but on the other hand they're less likely to get caught up in negative family patterns/dynamics.
408: On the other hand, we have Nietzsche:
What is most difficult to render from one language into another is the tempo of its style, which has its basis in the character of the race, or to speak more physiologically, in the average tempo of its "metabolism." There are well-intended translations that, as involuntary vulgarizations, are almost falsifications of the original merely because its bold and merry tempo (which leaps over and obviates all dangers in things and words) could not be translated. A German is almost incapable of presto in his language; thus also as may be reasonably inferred, of many of the most delightful and daring nuances of free, free-spirited thought. And just as the buffo [comic actor, buffoon] and satyr are foreign to him in body and conscience, so Aristophanes and Petronius are untranslatable for him. Everything ponderous, viscous, and solemnly clumsy, all long-winded and boring types of style are developed in profuse variety among German--forgive me the fact that even Goethe's prose, in its mixture o stiffness and elegance, is no exception, being a reflection of the "good old time" to which it belongs, and a reflection of German taste at a time when there still was a "German taste": a rococo taste in moribus et artibus [in morals and arts].
A German is almost incapable of presto in his language; thus also as may be reasonably inferred, of many of the most delightful and daring nuances of free, free-spirited thought.
Here "thus also as may be reasonably inferred" captures the lack of presto perfectly and must have been deliberate.
In other job market news, I got knocked down to 60% time last week. Which sucks most heartily, as we will be slowly losing ground to debt again. Better than being laid off, but since the company only has enough cash to make it through March unless we close a round of financing, I'm searching hardcore. The good news: already scored a phone interview! Also, there are a ton more jobs available than there were when I was last looking 18 months ago.
We were talking about Gingrich's relationship with the Republican Establishment earlier in the thread, and I think Atrios nailed it:
I assume we'll get a bit of a Bow Tied Republican freakout over Newt, and then if he keeps winning David Brooks will discover his Burkean Humility, or whatever, and all will be well.
416: are you planning on staying in that part of the country? And I'm sorry to hear it.
419: I'm looking everywhere. I'd like to stay in the Bay Area, but given our current location we'll be moving no matter what, so where we go isn't really geography-restricted.
I would like to belatedly withdraw 162.3. I can plead only my deep desire to secede from the American South as a defense.
I'm foolishly watching the umpteenth Republican debate. Much quieter audience than in South Carolina.
Much quieter audience than in South Carolina.
Not a good sign for Gingrich, I would imagine.
I still think it will be Romney for the nomination. But I find it amusing to watch the GOP party elite in full-blown panic mode over the prospect of Newt. Why, it's as though they don't trust the homespun wisdom of their own voters, those supposed repositories of all that is real and good and authentic in America.
SC is where they worshiped Strom Thurmond. Their piety is forgiving of the excesses of powerful men.