dagblog - Comments for "Steven Walt makes a case for change"

Celtc? damn, I would've hung

PeraclesPlease — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 07:58:51 +0000

Celtc? damn, I would've hung around for that. What's a wannabe politico-linguist to do...

I agree with much of your

ocean-kat — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 06:51:09 +0000

I agree with much of your post. I hate spin even if it's for my side. I have defended republicans here several times when the democrats put out some silly spin. I've called out some of the anti Romney spin in 2012 just because I thought it was silly stupid attacks. As you know I was there when the Obama partisans invaded the tpm cafe. You may not remember that I was pretty pissed about. Probably more pissed than you. It wasn't just the partisan rants and spin instead of analysis. I was especially angry when they started to copy and paste pages from a celtic dictionary and recipes to shut down conversations they didn't approve of. Most insults don't hit the mark but I know when someone is trying to insult me. Whether it's overt or backhanded, under the table or in your face insults. I'm not into telling other people how they should react to insults. Whether it's better to be cool, calm and collected or get angry. You may think it's because of your strong sense of self and independence of thought. Ok. I think I have just as strong a sense of self and just as strong of a sense of independent thought. I've never had a problem standing alone in my views and defending them or taking solo action when I deemed it fit. My personality is such that I get pissed and I react accordingly. I'm comfortable with that part of my personality.

Oceankat,here's the

artappraiser — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 05:43:05 +0000

In reply to You pretend you're just

Oceankat,here's the difference between you and me: I never felt a personal insult from him because I don't consider myself a "snowflake", especially if a "snowflake" is as unclearly and confusedly defined as he uses the term. Just as someone else ranting about liberals being fascists about political correctness, or Sandernistas, or "Repuglicans", or whites who voted for Trump being racists, I don't take that as a personal insult and never do and never have because I have a strong sense of individualism and loathe being stuck in a stereotyped group. Just won't do it., no way.

But the rant and group name-calling type of discourse always bothered me even though I don't take it personally, I just don't want to hear it! I'd rather not see it I consider it idiotic, meant for lowest common denominator. It's frigging stupid emotional crap trying to demagogue people into political action via stereotyping enemy groups. And I do sometimes see it here from friendlies, about Republicans, and it just so turns me off unless it's tongue in cheek and done with humor, and then I like it. Because it's sort of parodying those who do it sincerely.

Back in the Bush years of the bygone blogosphere everyone thought it cool do rants against the enemy groups, ranting was a new cool thing. That was a long time ago! Can't we all just admit it just so uncool and stupid now? Nowadays people see Trump being expert at this technique and more don't think so highly of it even if partisans about the opposition. I'm grateful for that, because it was: stupid.

I'm just not interested in spending time on a site where people do it a lot, especially as I more clearly see how short life is. Why do I have to be the sounding board for anyone's angry rant about Republicans or snowflakes?! Guess what, doh, I don't--I can be dismissive of that person's laziness in discourse just as I was dismissive of laziness in discourse with undergrads when I was a T.A.

The only intriguing thing about Peter was that his memes seemed all confused when he does his rants. They didn't make sense. They took 60's leftist lingo and applied it to enemies of Trump. That just didn't make sense. I was looking at him like a specimen, just like a ranting crazy person on the street, or a ranting nut on Fox News or an angry child. And surprise, surprise, when he was challenged with "WTF are you even talking about?" , he could switch into another more normal non-rant, non-insult voice, in which he expressed opinions that no one here likes but I don't mind reading in the least.

Back in the Bush years a lot of blogs found that a variation of this rule for commenting which worked: no personal insults of other members. That you can insult Bush or Kerry or Dems or Republicans all you want, but not directly other members. Also if you are to argue, to criticize the comment and not the person making it. I think Peter for the most part followed that rule, tinkering around the edges.

But the blogosphere rant/insult style of commentary is so so very old and tired, and I never liked it in the first place, that I totally welcome PP saying "talk normal or leave."

Here's the thing., there's another problem, another issue involved. With Trump doing it all the time., there is the argument among political activists whether the opponents should give back as hard as he's giving. I understand that. That's a political tactic. It's about manipulating the public, inflaming passions, and looking down on that public like they are stupid enough to be manipulated with emotions.

To me, this is the real civility argument: do you want to hang around with and discuss and analyze news and policy and politics with some intelligent educated people, or do you want a political horse race site and political activism site where people shout at each other and try to gin up excitement about politics and try to do rant and poltitical spin? It is the same argument I had in 2007-8 with Josh Marshall talking about making TPM Cafe for "activist journalism" when a bunch of us had been using it for intelligent discussion about domestic and foreign policy and news since 2005.. And I was going: you can't do that, you can't mix those two groups, it's like oil and water. Right after that he opened the floodgates by basically introducing all the Obamabot activists from the other side of the site into TPMCafe. You either want to produce political spin or you want to deconstruct political spin, you can't do both.

It's very ironic that Michael Wolraich and the other founders here came with that group. I will just leave that at this: ah but he's a published historian now.

Peter's been doing a lot of political spin. Crazy political spin that often makes no sense. I'm all behind telling him to "talk normal" Because you know what the real insult is when people stereotype for political cause? An insult to intelligence. We know not 100% of registered Republicans are evil nor are 100% of liberals "snowflakes" whatever the hell that means. It's insulting to the reader's intelligence to say that, and I'm all for leaving that kind of political talk out of my reading whenever I can unless I'm analyzing it as a specimen of the stupid.

You pretend you're just

ocean-kat — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 03:28:05 +0000

In reply to I try to avoid directly

You pretend you're just insulting groups. Some may be fooled by that lie. Most of us aren't. It's nothing more than a tactic to get around being deleted more often than you already are. It's obvious you come here to insult us. You get insulted when you insult us. We just don't lie about it and pretend when we do it.

I try to avoid directly

Peter — Fri, 19 Oct 2018 02:57:47 +0000

In reply to Thanks wd. I missed what

I try to avoid directly insulting anyone even though I receive many direct insults as you see above. I do mock and ridicule groups that people may identify with but that is their problem. I agreed with NCD about Warren having no chance in 2020 but rejected his BS about Trump needing the the SCOTUS to win that election. PP is trying to tell me what and how to write my opinions and factual comments and I reject that control freak style harassment and you see what happens.

Any opinion is welcome here

ocean-kat — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 22:19:37 +0000

In reply to commenting without

Any opinion is welcome here but one has to make good arguments to defend one's opinions. You don't have to worry about harshing our mellow because we're not too mellow and very harsh when we ~~argue about~~ discuss issues. We tend to tear into sloppy thinking and bad or weak arguments without much mercy.

eta: Team "blue" isn't against attempting to find a diplomatic solution to the problem of North Korea. We just think direct negotiations between the US and NK are fruitless. Democrats have always supported multiparty talks with several nations and NK. China and Japan at least need to be involved as well as perhaps Russia, France, GB, Germany, etc. Nothing can be accomplish in NK without multiparty talks. Additionally the talks between Kim and Trump were all just show. So of course we railed against this faux summit and the lying Trump brags about it.

commenting without

wd — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 21:49:51 +0000

In reply to Actually, one of the

commenting without registering isn't strange at all, and in fact many sites' commenting is hosted off-site by disqus. but i can't even think of a place just now that requires registration to comment.

nah, there might not be an equivalent name i might use, but i'm anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist, as in socialist (not of the democratic socialists of america 'reform capitalists' kind) , but the actual leftist 'socialist' term is defined in a zillion ways, of course. shared power, shared justice, i'd begin with.

i figure that if obama's fascism (both domestically and imperially) hadn't radicalized one enough to see that it was simply the precursor to trump's fascism, there is little hope for the future save for a massive psycho-spiritual awakening, and that looks even less likely now than it did during the OWS days, for instance.

the sole thing i like about the surrealistic trump presidency is that with his evil mouth and tweets and bellicosity he's pulled the curtain back on this nation's faux democracy enslaved by capital, and both the Rs and Ds are complicit in it. i will say that it blew me away that when Boss Tweet began attempting rapprochement with kim jong un it was...the team blue political class who railed most vociferously against it. brilliant.

ah, well, my break time's up, i won't blather on and harsh your mellows.

Thanks, I see that now. I

A Guy Called LULU — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 18:48:29 +0000

In reply to it's actually in reply to

Thanks, I see that now. I must have got cross-eyed as I scrolled up.

it's actually in reply to

artappraiser — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 17:17:36 +0000

In reply to That is an interesting

it's actually in reply to

by wd (not verified) on Wed, 10/17/2018 - 3:04pm

what a strange place this is.......

That is an interesting

A Guy Called LULU — Thu, 18 Oct 2018 17:05:23 +0000

In reply to Actually, one of the

That is an interesting comment and it is interesting where you made it. It would seem to be appropriate if directed as a reply to someone's comment rather than just made under the Subject heading.

When I click on a comment and the bottom is not visible I make a point of reading as far as I can before I see who did the writing. I could claim it was a practice to give a fair reading without bias based on what I expect from various individuals but in fact it is just a game to see how quickly the authorship is apparent. Name that tune. Usually one, two at the most, sentences suffices. So, your point of changing syntax and style is important but If there is ever a reason to suspect sock puppetry it could almost certainly be verified by checking the url data, I believe.