delrem
delrem's JournalI don't see it that way.
I see DUers as being individuals first and foremost, each with a different upbringing, education, experience, building a different understanding. Nothing of that "reflects on a political candidate".
Even when someone flies a candidates icon, I don't presume that they're somehow a proxy for that candidate. That wouldn't be fair to "candidates". It just wouldn't.
w.r.t. "candidates" in the Dem primary - well, I'm Canadian so I look at the US circus from the bleachers. We have our own problems. But in that regard I look at the policies that each candidate brings to the table, and I look at the history of the candidates themselves to get an idea. For example, Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair, *and the history of their parties*, will all present their best foot forward e.g. on "the environment". They all might say the same kind of thing, relatively speaking, about how they care. So I look at their historical record with an eye to that. In general that's how I judge "political candidates", or "politicians".
NYC_SKP wasn't a member of Bernie's campaign.
What contributors to DU say doesn't reflect directly back on specific politicians.
It isn't even close to being that kind of thing.
In one series of exchanges on this topic I learned that one contributor here said, back in the day, that a prominent Dem politician was "morally depraved", reiterating that the Dem politician is just plain "depraved", and there was no ban, no hide, yet it was during the last primary -- but now that same contributor says that altho' that post claiming "depravity" was totally OK (because considered true, or why?), thinks this ban is righteous because.... some difference cited in what read to me as argylbargl.
That doesn't make sense to me. Because "depraved" isn't on a list of banned words?
I learned that "the c-word" has been used thousands of times on DU, with absolute impunity. Esp. when directed at R's, used with glee. This case was an oblique usage in a massive fail of a joke, in response to a troll.
Generally:
Contributing to DU has made me care more about the words I use. In fact just a day ago I was searching for another word to use because the word that came to my head, "brethren", was male-centric and didn't capture the full meaning intended, or rather, it was *exclusionary* in a subtle and somehow insidious way -- whereas in my lazy normal day to day I just let that stuff go, because impossible to be perfect. So yes, language is important.
But shit, are we not allowed to make a mistake?
A president Scott Walker is something to be feared.
The guy has won elections and has wreaked havoc on labor, esp. -- if I recall correctly.
But really, I can't think of ANY Dem who couldn't beat him in a Federal election.
I think 2016 should go to the Dems for the taking, it's so obvious.
So it's a question of where Dems hearts are.
Actually, Rove *defined* a so-called "reality based community",
as some kind of reactionary body.
I don't agree with Rove's definition of "reality", and I think his phrase "reality based community", which he ties to the left, is nonsense.
Apparently you're unable to question Rove's political definitions.
Yes, Rove did indeed use the mindf*ing phrase.
It's interesting that there are people posting to DU who play with it, as in this case a "conservative democrat", whatever that might mean beyond an opposition to liberal and progressive movements in the Democratic party. And I guess you play with it too.
What exactly did Rove say? I'm unsure and I'm not going to look it up, I'll paraphrase from memory that he said something in an awful and sneering attack, that his camp had control of "reality" because it controlled events, that by the time the liberal/progressive/left figured out what reality was, Rove and his power base had already changed it and had moved on.
Something like that, right?
But what does that make of the phrase "reality based community", when cited as a proud attainment by a self-described "conservative Dem", who disassociates from and attacks the liberal/progressive/left factions within the Dem party?
Demonstrations work but we've got to follow up on them
and I remember that the largest world wide demonstrations in history were against the Iraq war.
The war that happened anyway.
The fuckers.
I know.
eta: the honest truth is, both Hillary and the Republicans are afraid of Bernie Sanders.
Here's the point that you miss.
The folk who post at DU who condemn radical right-wing Christians aren't condemning Christianity.
They aren't wanting with all their hearts to go to war against Christianity.
In these discussions, that difference isn't being made w.r.t. Islam.
Get it yet?
What is meant by "the left"?
Sarah Haider wouldn't get the treatment that she complains about from me.
I consider myself to be to the "left", politically.
I can't think of anyone I'd consider to be to the "left" who would support and promote a religious state, whatever religion, whatever ethnicity the religion might be mostly associated with. In fact I categorically deny the association.
The complaints she makes, that individuals have called her "an Uncle Tom", "a House Arab" and so on, for speaking out against religious fundamentalism, don't strike me as being definitive of any "left" that I know of.
I just don't get it.
I hear her making legitimate arguments that certain individuals crossed lines, in their rhetoric, their apologetics, and there's an implicit demand that those individuals either defend themselves, or accept that she is right and apologize. But those are all individual disputes with individual writers, bloggers, opinion mavens, and I'm not convinced that it's correct to characterize them and their arguments as being somehow decidedly "leftist" according as some global definition.
In fact I don't think a global definition, where some avatar eg Max Blumenthal or whoever can exemplify "the left", could possibly be correct.
Perhaps those individuals are considered to be "left" on certain topics, where an argument can be made.
But there's no attempt to make an argument that these people are "left" with respect these complaints, terms like "left" are just put out there as being somehow fact.
I'm only 1/4 way into her amazingly powerful talk.
She's a powerful speaker and thinker, and I recommend people click the link and listen.
I would say that the Liberals under Pearson and Trudeau, esp., were center-left.
If such a scale makes any sense at all.
A debate about that would have to start by giving at least *some* definition of what is meant by "center". Then the debate would examine who these power brokers were, who their associates were, and what they did in Canadian politics - how it played out in the context of their times.
Here's a problem that I have in defining "center":
One difference between Liberals and Conservatives that I can "feel in my bones" and that is unquantifiable, is that Pearson, Trudeau and Chretien, are much better representatives of what I *want it to be*, to be a Canadian patriot, than any Conservative that I can think of - going back in my reminiscing. I still consider them (these liberal leaders) to be role models. How can that kind of unquantifiable and totally personal *feeling* be measured on a scale of left/right?
Names like "Progressive Conservative" are no more than names.
In BC, the discredited and essentially disbanded "Social Credit" movement bought out the "Liberal" name, so in large part except moved on by time and expedience it's the same thing, the same political party, and it gets pretty fucking confusing if a person imagines the name has some special meaning, beyond the fact that it denotes a political party controlled by a certain power group.
"Blackwater" "Academi" "Xe Sevices LLC" "Constellis Holdings" all denote the same general thing, but if we want to know what the thing is we don't find an answer by examining the various names.
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Member since: Sun Nov 25, 2012, 01:12 AMNumber of posts: 9,688