Lemme have it, Contraritariat. Tell me why this is wrong, all wrong.
Well, you used "shear" instead of "sheer."
I thought it looked funny. Then I decided I was thinking of Shearer's website and that this was fine.
Urban dwellers are not real americans, unless they are native-born construction workers, firemen, or nurses. So whether or not what you are saying is true, it's not photogenic.
Also, the financial industry can telecommute effectively, and so respond by moving work to places where power and transport are less damaged. The impact will affect people rather than profits.
New Yorkers are not generally Real Americans, but when it's time to co-op 911 they certainly are, and this will tug just-so-slightly at that part of Real American brains.
Oh great, so now on top of the rats there's all kinds of genetically modified laboratory supermice running around Manhattan? Forget global warming, this is going to turn out to be the pivotal event that signals the beginning of the murine apocalypse.
That would be great if corporations start fighting successfully to regulate carbon emissions, despite growing consensus that it's all made up.
On point one: this was just too much of a freak storm for people to really grasp it. And the "global warming means more things like this" relies on a conception of thermodynamic systems that people -- especially people who don't want to think too hard about big, terrifying things -- don't get. The "well, did global warming cause Sandy?" "Er it doesn't exactly work like that" conversation will get repeated again. Besides, there is historical precedent (Donna, the LI Express) if you squint right. It may well convince New Yorkers -- and the New York area in general -- that there is absolutely no doubt about climate change.
On point two: there isn't really a unitary "business community" to keep pushing back; there are some businesses (energy) that push back, and will continue to do so. They have the GOP in their pocket, so on that count nothing will change. Other businesses -- up to and including otherwise evil financial industry firms! -- may well come around as far as trying to do mitigation in a limited way, but the system is structured such that a few malovelent actors (and their captive political party) can wield undue influence. Still, there will likely be a lot more serious attention to climate change at least appearance-wise from a much wider array of businesses.
On point three: FEMA is really quite solid now, as it always is when a Democrat is in the White House, but it is going to continue to serve as a useful base-energizing punching bag for Republicans; did you see the GOP working to shore up financial regulations in the wake of the 2008 crash. Sorta? Briefly? But not really. No particular upside except in a highly limited, immediate way and anyhow they don't believe in it.
The lunch seminar I was trying and failing to find earlier today was about geoengineering. I ended up at a talk about galaxy formation instead, which was fun! But off-topic. Anyway, climate change is kind of obviously the elephant in the room but it doesn't seem like it's being mentioned much in media coverage of the hurricane, does it? Even though I still pretty much think geoengineering is a terrible idea I'm becoming really intrigued by the way it breaks people out of their previously rigid mindset about climate change.
What will happen, though, is that FEMA gets shored up, because the most self-serving thing for every politician to do is make sure that they've got a competent response to tragedies when they occur.
That doesn't account for why FEMA would ever be defunded / badly administered. (Swing state level seems to matter - viz. Florida vs. Louisiana.)
Prediction no. 2 is probably correct, and prediction no. 3 depends on who gets elected. Prediction no. 1 may even be true, but only for the few days it takes for everyone to forget about it.
the murine apocalypse
Thanks for the warning. I'm switching to Visine.
unless they are native-born construction workers, firemen, or nurses
See the Rockaways, population thereof.
The end of climate change denialists in respectable political discourse will be when finance realizes it can make large amounts of money in carbon credits and adaptation strategies. But the energy industry will still try.
Every time this subject comes up, it's worth pointing out that California actually has a climate change law up and running, and other states will too, soon. Just because Congress won't act doesn't mean there's nothing to be done.
10 isn't very coherent. In my head there was another sentence about how I think we're unlikely to get much mileage out of isolated events like this hurricane, but how I think if people start doing real work in the direction of something like putting enough sulfates in the stratosphere to cool the earth we might get a really interesting freakout that actually accomplishes something. (Did you see the news recently about the person who was just unilaterally trying to do iron fertilization in the ocean somewhere off Alaska? Crazy! I bet we're going to see a lot more of that sort of thing.)
Sorta pwned, but re 2, I think the energy industry will trump all others, even if the finance and insurance industries suddenly become visionary and benevolent.
did you see the GOP working to shore up financial regulations in the wake of the 2008 crash. Sorta? Briefly? But not really.
But that's not in their best interests in quite so short-sighted a manner. What I mean is that we're going to hear a lot of "Climate Change -> Fast, Competent Response!" as in, "that's how you respond to climate change responsibly!"
13 The Rockaways are pretty diverse, both economically and racially with lots of very poor non-whites.
I'm sorry, but New Yorkers (like Californians) are only Real Americans if there's something to gain from exploiting their deaths.
there isn't really a unitary "business community" to keep pushing back; there are some businesses (energy) that push back, and will continue to do so.
I was really just thinking of energy, anyway. But also anyone with manufacturing plants or interest in keeping people driving.
Anyway, what I mean is that the lobby representing pro-carbon will continue to suppress any meaningful reform.
What I've noticed on the baseball discussion board is that the people who used to be saying "It's ridiculous and childish to say that just because there are some bizarre weather events, that means there's evidence for so-called 'climate change'." have suddenly switched to saying "It's ridiculous and childish to say that just because there is obviously climate change going on, that mean's it's ANTHROPOGENIC climate change". I guess that means the debate is over, but the argument goes on.
I also would like some of what Heebie is smoking. The political consensus has moved sharply towards indifference or 'it's a commie-islamist-Euro-secularist plot' viewpoint in the years since Katrina. There's a lot more short-to medium term lost profits in dealing with climate change than the reverse. That's one reason to favour handouts to car manufacturers and energy producers for things like electric cars, wind and solar - building a nice lobbying group.
Why do you think so? Because people with power always keep it?
Seems to me that the combination of widespread drought in the midwest and a photogenic hurricane in NY would make this year the year we believe in climate change. But I've been pretty fatalistic about climate change mitigation for several years, and believe that adaptation will all be retrospective, likely after the second local disaster. After the first disaster, people will still try to re-build what they had.
Yeah, I've seen some of 21, too. Maybe that will be the new drumbeat.
Bellevue is being evacuated + 4 other hospitals are down in the neighborhood. NYC is really starting to depress me.
We're commuters, and a carbon and/or gas tax plus the additional AC costs I am expecting next summer would just take us down a class.
I want the rich fuckers to pay.
21, 25 - Right. This is step two, which will eventually be followed by steps three ("it's anthropogenic climate change, but it's too late and expensive to do anything about it!") and four ("why didn't those libtards warn us about this when they had a chance? is it because they hate the heartland?").
27- I submit you should insert this in front of step three: If the Chinese and Indians won't do it, why should we?
I want some good beats I can dance to. These ones just aren't doing it.
Read somewhere a guy in Michigan losing power fromm E coast shutdowns. How long have we been worrying about the grid? Twenty years? I mean, yeah folks, inequality means sucky infrastructure.
We desperately need a FDR, somebody to put us into the Green equivalent of WWII. We need economists to say that Tax-til-their-eyes-bleed + spend has terrific fucking multipliers. We need it ten years ago.
Have you tried Oppan Gangham Style?
27,28: I've already seen step three crop up. And the argument in 28 has been around too.
Presidential Contender Jill Stein Arrested in Texas attempting to connect pipeline to Sandy
I have been following that story. Maybe I should be there. Would getting arrested make me feel better or worse? Would y'all be proud or laugh?
The scene around the tree blockade continues to be a police state. Six sheriffs have apparently showed up to patrol the new tree blockade by Pika and Lauren. Someone standing on the shoulder of a public road to exercise their freedom of speech or assembly is likely to be harassed by police for not showing or having identification. Trying to deliver food or water to tree sitters is an act that will get a person arrested
Blame Texas for this link of the Int'l pipeline. Those corps are completely limited to Tyler or sumpin. Not Obama's fault. Never nothing Obama's fault.
If the Chinese and Indians won't do it, why should we?
For the LOLz.
I doubt that Sandy will have much effect on people's views on climate change.
Not that it makes a lot of difference belief in climate change was never the real obstacle (which is that doing anything effective would be extremely expensive).
belief in climate change was never the real obstacle
One will not be very effective in generating the necessary funding without belief in the problem.
Maybe if more people watch Revolution they will be ok with our future without energy as we currently know it.
http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/capandtrade/capandtrade.htm
What an actual, operational climate change program covering 12% of America's population looks like.
I don't know what doing something about climate change means in this context, but I think whoever (Teo?) said the other night that we're in adaptation territory is absolutely right. Also, Halford is right in this thread: the adaptation/mitigation will happen on a state-by-state basis for the foreseeable future. Unless, that is, there's some kind of real political realignment that none of us (sorry, bob, you don't count because you're despicable and inconsistent) can really imagine happening soon happens anyway. And if that happens, which I have a hard (though not impossible) time imagining, I don't think climate change will be any kind of a driving force behind the realignment and thus will remain on the sidelines of national political discourse. But then again, nobody ever expects the Spanish Inquisition, the implosion of the Whig Party, or the impact of the Dred Scott decision on what should have been an ascendant Democratic Party, so who knows.
39
What an actual, operational climate change program covering 12% of America's population looks like.
Which isn't really accomplishing anything.
Yes, clearly, reducing carbon emissions in a state with 38 million people and about 15% of US manufacturing (with an impact far beyond that, given that businesses will have to adopt nationally in response to California standards) is accomplishing nothing, you despicable racist fuck.
Put differently, California as an independent nation would be the 12th largest carbon emitter in the world, and has committed to reduce emissions by 25% over 2006 levels, or to 1990 levels.
Oh Roberto, such folly. It isn't like any environmental laws that California did first ever went anywhere.
I tend to be on team Teo on this one. It's good CA has their plan and Sweden generates power from trash or whatever but without a plan that addresses India and China on a big scale and soon we're SOL. Arguably that horizon has already been crossed.
Not arguably; it's been crossed. Which I think puts you on Team Teo twice over.
without a plan that addresses India and China on a big scale
Where's bob and his nukes?
It's not like you get to choose between adaptation and mitigation. We'll definitely need to spend money on adaptation, because climate change is happening. It can be more or less severe depending on the total amount of carbon in the atmosphere, which is why you also need to reduce emissions. Anyone saying (and I don't think Teo is saying this) that because we need to adapt we don't also need to reduce is selling you something, probably coal.
I think Teo's point was that it's too late for mitigation only; we'll have to adapt and mitigate. Or not, which will mean more adaptation (or not, which will mean those of us who consume a lot of dystopic tween fiction will have a leg up).
The coal people called my house and asked me if I hated jobs. They didn't tell me who to vote for.
selling you something, probably coal.
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Anybody into Chess?
Morphy reincarnated as a program, smashes Rybka as black four pawns down.
Fucking wow. Via Cowen
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48:That's not funny. Google Peter Frase Four Futures Ezterminism
Although the global oligarchs aren't going to go to war to protect your way of life.
Even though everyone will agree that climate change is occurring.
Never happen. Plenty of people still believe Earth is 5000 years old and evolution is a hoax.
I don't know what doing something about climate change means in this context
Get them sulfates in the upper atmosphere! (Seriously essear has me convinced that this might actually be terrifyingly practical in a reducing-warming way, while obviously really horrible for all kinds of other reasons. Can you imagine how excited people will be if the (short term) solution involves not reducing but doubling the pollutants we put in the atmosphere? Ugh.)
53: I've done some editing for that website.
Or, perhaps, sure it's happening but it's all part of God's plan.
40:Yeah, Jill Stein and I are the really evil ones. Let me check to see if I have droned a couple kids dead today, or evicted a paraplegic (action alert last night at FDL).
Not my guy anymore. All yours.
Mutual as hell, motherfucker.
China needs to do a lot more, and has some serious pollution and climate issues. However, the political leadership all acknowledges climate change is a problem and is beginning to make some substantive efforts, including major government investment in green energy. Importantly, what China's government could be much better about is getting the American and other foreign companies who manufacture in China to follow environmental laws. As Chinese people have told me when I've talked to them about this, it's a bit rich to export our pollution to developing countries and then demand they clean up pollution before we do. Also, in 2008 China's per capita emissions were around 4 tons, India's were under 2, whereas the US was at 18.5 tons. Chinese people also (rightly, IMO) ask why should they be deprived refrigerators when Americans have 3 cars and 5 TVs and walk-in-freezers full of deer carcass in their basements.
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Signing up to volunteer with Cambridge for Warren on Saturday. What should I do? Canvas, phonebank, visibility, and data entry are the choices. I'm pretty unlikely to pick phonebanking.
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Does "visibility" mean waggling a sign on a corner? That could be ok.
Skipping ahead from 9 and 11, on FEMA, e.g.,
FEMA is really quite solid now, as it always is when a Democrat is in the White House, but it is going to continue to serve as a useful base-energizing punching bag for Republicans
I've heard an awful lot of comments from regular citizens on how it's *totally obvious* that FEMA, and state EMAs, should absolutely not be, say, privatized. We need accountability, we need to know who to call, states can't always deal with this stuff on their own, you never know what's going to happen, anyone who thinks that's a good place to skimp is not thinking straight ... so the reflections go.
On preview, I see things have moved on.
No, you still don't get it, Drum.
It isn't about what's expected, or hoped, or dreamed and the fucking disappointment.
It is about what was/is necessary.
And if the system makes the necessary impossible, you tear down the system.
But demanding another FDR was not an fucking aesthetic position, it was a compelling moral obligation. When the fail comes, you are not disappointed, you are ashamed
How many good people have lost their homes through no fault of their own in the last four years? It's a sin besides a crime.
62: Data Entry. That way you don't need to talk to people.
There's a new development going in along the East River, to my south. Given what happened to the neighborhood with Sandy, seems like the least they could do is put in a decent-sized seawall as part of it. If we'd had just a couple more feet of wall, the school wouldn't have flooded. Not to mention the various underground garages filled with Lexus SUVs.
65
No, you still don't get it, Drum.
Speaking of Drum, here he is on the post topic.
Not to mention the various underground garages filled with Lexus SUVs.
It's tough to keep those out without restoring marshland as a natural barrier.
62: you should canvas if you can stomach it. You're about as fantastic a person to play that role as I can imagine.
Fantastic in a good way. Meaning, not actually fantastic, but sort of the opposite of that. Um, excellent or something.
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This may be the first year we actually run out of Hallowe'en candy! I think the Jack-o-Lanterns carved by our houseguest and her friend definitely helped.
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50: we'll have to adapt and mitigate
Maybe we can have "Adapt and Mitigate" videos along the lines of the "Duck and Cover" shorts from the '50s.
43
Put differently, California as an independent nation would be the 12th largest carbon emitter in the world, and has committed to reduce emissions by 25% over 2006 levels, or to 1990 levels.
Promises are cheap. California has promised all sorts of things like high speed rail and generous pensions. Time will tell how many are fulfilled.
Anyway holding emissions flat just delays any effects a few years.
No Halloween here
Hurricane Sandy and the Second Contradiction of Capitalism
Louis Proyect, Manhattanite, includes links to an Atlantic article and to "Last fall, as part of a massive report on climate change in New York, a research team led by Klaus Jacob of Columbia University drafted a case study that estimated the effects of a 100-year storm on the city's transportation infrastructure." Bad news.
1st contradiction is the declining rate of profit
2nd contradiction is maintaining necessary conditions, including labour, environment, resources, infrastructure etc.
I personally think this is wrong, I would subsume the "2nd contradiction" within a much wider "social reproduction of labour" including capitalism's need for free (at no cost to profits) domestic labour for example. I don't consider a contradiction, but part of the dialectic between capital and labour.
We will see who pays for NYC's/NE cleanup and reconstruction.
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I have power back! And heat. Yay electricity. And thank you, crews from Florida (!).
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Fantastic, Witt. I understand completely. Get warm.
76: And thank you, crews from Florida (!).
And some would call them "obscene"
One or two live crews from Florida?
Oh, now I get 78 and see that I was pwned.
Not havin' no idea of what the pwnage was for
I can't tell if 82 is sincere or a play on some lyric.
Went up to the house
Knocked on the door
Not havin' no idea
What the night had in store
If I'm reading you right, you're saying is that this is all a big coincidence and you haven't in fact ever heard of any Miami-based rap groups, let alone pwn me.
Someday I will do my shot-by-shot deconstruction of the semiotic subtext of "Me So Horny" and then ye shall know my wrathpeople will wonder why I would spend so much time on a project with so little socio-cultural value.
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Looks like I have to throw in the towel on (my participation in) the NYC meetup. Still no timetable for when Amtrak will be running to the city, flights from DC don't look like a viable alternative, and neither one of us is wild on the idea of playing tourist in a disaster area. Some other time!
At least we'll be getting out of suburbia tomorrow! Anyone in the District want to get together? Or maybe we'll head down to Stanleyville!
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I have no hope for reduction, although every bit of delay helps. Geoengineering scares me, but it might be the only choice. At this point I'm really just waiting for the time when we can definitively say "We told you so, you motherfuckers.".
88: go further north! Boston meetup!
90: For a little while this afternoon, when the notion of spending even one more night in this hotel filled me with utter dread, I considered it, actually.
Any recommendations for bars around here?
This is exactly like Allison in Houston. Both UT and Baylor's med schools experienced similar destruction. I know several PIs that lost decades of research, and the vivarium was in the basement of one of the schools. I know the people who cleaned it up. Some of the images were harrowing. The valuation of the breast tissue bank at Baylor, for example, took a really long time. The institution that I work for spent months drying out medical records.
See also UTMB after Ike.
91.2: in DC? I wonder if there are any former unfogged posters who live in the area who would specifically know?
91: I don't know if I'm really qualified to recommend bars. Hotel Tabard Inn has a nice restaurant, though.
I have to go to work tomorrow and I'm irritated. My office has no electricity and is not accessible by subway, so I'm to go to a Harlem office I've never been to, sit at somebody's desk without my files, and be counted. My tiny act of rebellion I guess will be not making any great effort to get there quickly since the subway's going to be terrible and I don't yet actually have the address other than 742 Inconvenience Terrace.
Pause, play.
Also I'm changing that to 742 Useless Precaution Terrace because my unfunny joke is funnier to me that way.
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Any last minute suggestions for songs to sing, in character as Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann, at tonight's Halloween karaoke? My current plan is to do Rammstein's "Du hast", dedicated to Greece.
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Any last minute suggestions for songs to sing, in character as Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann, at tonight's Halloween karaoke? My current plan is to do Rammstein's "Du hast", dedicated to Greece.
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Goddammit. I'll try not to sing the same song twice in a row, at least.
88: We are sad. We are also still willing to drink Friday night, ideally above 34th St. where our subway service will stop. New Yorkers?
To Blume, but really more of a just a rant from when I was volunteer manager for a campaign:
Don't do visibility, it's not that useful and it mostly morale boosting, I think.
Canvassing is the most effective use of volunteers, but if you'd rather do data entry, do that, it is also important, and it might free a canvasser up. (In general, volunteers who will doorknock will do data entry, but not always the other way around.) The one thing with data entry is sometimes the campaign doesn't have enough people they trust to do it all without screwing up.
I have a friend who's gone over to MA to help with the Warren campaign, come to think of it.
That really would have been great, Walt. Alas, too late now.
103: I hate canvassing and phonebanking, but that's what you have to do. As Keir says, there's usually no shortage of people willing to do data entry and other non-people-interacting tasks.
Similarly, on election day, everyone wants to volunteer to drive people to the polls, but GOTV doorknocking and phone calls are what's needed, plus poll-watching in some neighborhoods. Though, come to think of it, transportation to the polls is going to be hugely important in Sandy territory.
Related, my Halloween costume was Sexy Canvasser. It'll be a few days before I have pictures.
Germany just noticed it's going to overfulfil its renewable target and some - 50% of the grid by 2022. They may have to slow down in order not to fuck up the grid management. Meanwhile, in the UK, we're going to hit ours for 2020 under current plans and John Hayes is whining like a little bitch, but it's unlikely to stop anyone.
109. John Hayes is channeling the Duchy of Cornwall. This has been his principal function in government for the last two years and nobody's paid any attention yet.
Doorknocking is really, really effective. Especially in terms of encouraging voting, doorknocking is, I think, the most efficacious method. (Possibly not the most efficient, depending on geography and campaign data, but.)
(There's real research on this, including a hilarious paper by these Aberdeen pols lecturers who knocked up a scheme tower block in the 70's. Normally academics just do generic GOTV when they are doing this kind of research, but these guys just worked for the Labour Party, on account they were going to win by a landslide anyway so who cares?)
Canvassing is also a fascinating experience from a pure flaneur/urban explorer point of view. I never looked at my neighbourhood the same way again after my runs for election.
This old comment from Halford was still cracking me up yesterday:
"My local costume store had EACH of (1) "Sexy Lawyer"; (2) "Sexy Legal Secretary" and (3) "Sexy Judge.". Now I just need Sexy Client and Sexy File Clerk and I can recreate my entire work life in sexy format."
Doorknocking is really, really effective.
If it really helps this much, on Saturday I'll go around my street and either myself or a companion will ring the bells and ask people for a question or two.
114: Unless I'm missing the point and you live in Standpipe's neighborhood . . . Targeted doorknocking is what's key. Volunteer for your county or city Democratic party and they'll give you a list in a targeted area of Democratic voters who haven't already voted. You can ask for a list near your neighborhood, but you'll take what they give you and you'll like it.
I'm going to target the house that gave out full-sized peanut butter cups last year.
Global warming denialism will continue for a long time. There's the crazification factor of roughly 25% of the population who are simply disconnected from reality and live in a world where WMDs were found in Iraq, Obama is a muslim, yada yada. Then there's the merely ignorant who will fall for the FUD being spread by the energy industry, especially since it fits the narrative of liberals freaking out about shit all the time and inevitably proposing more government as the solution.
I have a friend who is in the denialism business. It's been a long time since we spent any time together and it's been sad to watch him slide further and further into the bubble of right wing epistemic closure. Currently he's being sued for defamation by a prominent climate researcher. It'll be interesting to see how that goes.
they'll give you a list in a targeted area of Democratic voters
Last spring I did an afternoon of gathering signatures to get Warren's name officially on the ballot. The signatures had to be from people who were registered Democrat or Independent, so I had a list of those, but if there were also people at an address who were registered under something else, it listed them too. I was a bit relieved that at the two houses with one independent and one libertarian, no one answered the doors.
Libertarians believe that if the door was supposed to be answered, the market would open it.
@117
The real trouble is that global warming denialism is now an integral part of conservative identity.
Believing that GW isn't real (or that human activity isn't a major contributor) has nothing to do with anything except "showing those darn librulz".
That's why we're doomed; it's identity politics all the way down.
I know this comparison is now forbidden, but I was wonder if this what it was like to live in Nazi Germany. As long as I can remember, society has had weird ideas floating around, but never have the delusions been so systematic. Was this what it was like to live in Germany in 1939, where a majority of the people could seriously believe it when the government announced the invasion of Poland was in response to Polish aggression?
122: Very different. By 1939, the Nazis had complete control over all media and no legal political opposition. It wasn't so much systematic delusion and those who disagreed had been forced out of public life, imprisoned, or killed.
If you want to go earlier, before there was consolidation of power, you might get closer, but the level of political violence was far higher than anything we see here.
121:The real trouble is that global warming denialism is now an integral part of conservative identity.
To switch sides on GW is to admit that liberals, and especially Al Gore of all people, were correct about something. Maybe they are correct about something else, like the inanity of trickle down economics.
101: I'm iffy for Friday night -- if the power isn't on downtown by then, my mother is still staying with us, and I should stay home to hang out with her. If the lights are on, though, I'll need a drink.
123: By 1939, the Nazis had complete control over all media and no legal political opposition.
Whereas, nowadays, the capitalists have complete control over all media and no legal political opposition.
My friend the priest who traveled around the US trying to talk to largely conservative, religious voters about climate change is relatively optimistic about changing people's minds. Denialism is more the province of libertarians and ideologues; you can never persuade those folks, but there are a lot of ordinary people who vote Republican for whom "do something or your way of life will be forever changed" can resonate. Obviously that's just one guy's impression, but he's spent basically the past two years on this issue exclusively.
Thoughtcrime ain't just a river in Egypt.
It was a great moment in history when John Speke and Richard Burton were arguing over the source of the White Thoughtcrime.
never have the delusions been so systematic
This really is just entirely, 100% wrong. And oddly, I take great comfort in that.
Von Wafer has clearly failed to account for the increased destructive power of our less systematic delusions.
I wholeheartedly agree with 121. I have acquaintances who refuse to recycle, entirely on the grounds that it's what liberals want them to do and fuck a bunch of liberals (see also: I'm stockpiling incandescent bulbs and will burn every light in my house all night long for Earth Day). They would volunteer to club a baby seal or poison a whale as long as it would make a college student cry.
There's real research on this, including a hilarious paper by these Aberdeen pols lecturers who knocked up a scheme tower block in the 70's
How did they find time to do research in between getting an entire tower block pregnant?
132.--My grandad in the Yukon refused to recycle because, and I quote, he supported the mining industry.
133.quote: yes, I don't understand this sentence at all. What are you saying that they did?
In Britain "knocked up" means "knocked on the door of", you parochial xenophobes.
137: yes, but what is a scheme tower, and what did they do when they knocked on the doors? leave a flaming bag of dog poo?
138: a scheme is what you call a project.
British people should be required to speak English like us 'Murcans. They can learn it off of the TV
re: 132
I know people who are stockpiling incandescent bulbs [people with darkroom enlargers, for example].
re: 139
I have a Japanese philosopher acquaintance who spent a fair bit of time in Fife. He greats me as 'schemie', as in 'fit like, schemie?', which never fails to make me laugh.
130: I don't believe it. Fox News is something new.
fit like, schemie?
I love that, aside from 139, I would have no idea what any of these three words or their combination means in this context.
It's always amusing to hear British commentators talk about a "scheme" that a politician or a council has come up with. How did we in America get the point where that word has exactly the same literal meaning, but such intense negative connotations that people only ever use it to describe the plans of their opponents, not themselves?
fit-like schemie make me twit-like
fit-like schemie make me twit-like
they're invisible, when the trip it flips
they get physical, way below my lips
... I don't understand 139 either.
142: was that sarcastic? I never finished "structural transformation of the public sphere", but I thought the conventional wisdom was that the partisan press has been the historical norm, and the American centrist establishment press was something of an exception.
Ajay/Keir are using 'scheme' in the sense of a housing project, not in the sense of a general plan or proposal. So a council estate [social housing built or owned by the state] would often be known as a 'scheme'. People who are from them, are 'schemies'.
147: It wasn't sarcastic. Did the yellow journalists of yore generate the kind of epistemic closure we see now?
149: Probably more so. wasn't it common for, e.g., socialist parties to have not only their own papers but also youth auxiliaries, sports leagues, etc.--a whole set of communal institutions? Or the less ideological party machines in 19th c American cities?
And "fit like" ... "Fit" = "what", so it's "what's it like, what's going on, how are things"?
How did we in America get the point where that word has exactly the same literal meaning, but such intense negative connotations that people only ever use it to describe the plans of their opponents, not themselves?
IIRC "scam" is a US slang term, originally Yiddish. It's used in the UK now as well, but it's definitely more a US term. And I suspect it may have poisoned "scheme" by association.
re: 151.1
Yes. NE Scots (and related dialects of Scottish Engish) use /f/ instead of the /w/ or /hw/ phoneme that you'd find in central Scots or English. So, 'what' [English], 'whit' [central Scots], 'fit' [sheep-shagging Scots].
Or, similarly, 'where', 'whaur', 'far'. Or 'who', 'wha', 'fa'.
Oddly, yellow journalism was probably a step towards pseudo-objectivity in news. Sensationalism was an alternative way of getting readership once you got outside of the partisan audience. Hearst was biased all over the place, but he doesn't seem like he was a party man. Fox, at least, seems more Republican than it does a creature of Rupert Murdoch's whims.
Earlier in the 19th century I think partisanship in news was much more extreme and possibly more extreme than it is now, but it didn't have a national, mass audience. I would guess offhand - who am I kidding, this whole comment is offhand - that especially around the Civil War you'd find heavily party/sectional biased news.
In a surprise announcement, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Thursday that Hurricane Sandy had reshaped his thinking about the presidential campaign and that as a result he was endorsing President Obama.
150: ethnicity and sectarian-bases both existed extensively in the US. Dunno much about party/political ideology, though I do remember a bit w/r/t socialists.
Oddly, yellow journalism was probably a step towards pseudo-objectivity in news. Sensationalism was an alternative way of getting readership once you got outside of the partisan audience.
It's like you've never even seen State of the Union
I just wanted to note that Bloomberg is doing his part to support the OP and prove all the OP haters in this thread wrong.