I got to hear Lisa Nakamura talk about griefing a while back. She talked about racism and homophobia on 4Chan and online gaming sites. Part of the discussion was about how rampant ethnic slurs, etc. can make those places feel unwelcoming.
One of the things that struck me as an under-studied phenomenon was the way that newspaper comment sections (you see that TO had 77 on her original commentary) are not just echo chambers -- over time, they actually *shape* the news. I see this in particular at newspaper website that I read regularly. You see editors and reporters making subtle (or not-so-subtle) adjustments in coverage that reflect common themes in the comments.
I look forward to a five-part investigative series on how Tedra Osell's thinking is, in fact, what's wrong with America today.
First of all, that letter is hilarious.
When that 85-year-old dude was in his 20s-30s-40s, it surely was possible to go for long stretches of time with only one spouse working and even still manage to save money.
But I guess people were also just better back then, so maybe he's right.
Where does Tedra say that they're actually living paycheck to paycheck? And this 85 year-old clearly has a different idea about the transferable value of a PhD than any young person I know does.
Where does Tedra say that they're actually living paycheck to paycheck?
I dunno, doesn't missing mortgage & utility payments as a result of a missed paycheck imply, well, living paycheck to paycheck? She does imply that that's in store, or at least likely.
(From her article: "I'm already planning on calling our bank and utility companies to find out what will happen if we have to be late with our payments next month.")
One of the things that struck me as an under-studied phenomenon was the way that newspaper comment sections (you see that TO had 77 on her original commentary) are not just echo chambers -- over time, they actually *shape* the news. I see this in particular at newspaper website that I read regularly. You see editors and reporters making subtle (or not-so-subtle) adjustments in coverage that reflect common themes in the comments.
I find this very idea horrifying. Aren't the comment sections on newspaper websites the lowest of the low?
(As opposed to the fine community here at The Mineshaft, of course. Coverage clearly ought to be shaped by what happens here.)
Yes. They are vile cesspits. How do you see them adjusting newspaper coverage? Could you draw that out more, please?
Two things about that: 1) it might be a rhetorical move, 2) calling them to inquire isn't at all the same thing as actually being late with a payment.
(I'm pretty sure that everyone who has actually lived paycheck to paycheck knows that you get a certain grace period, depending on the kind of utility. Gas bills can give up almost two or three months. Phone gives you one month. Bank will give you a month but then your interest and minimum balance go up. Electric might give you two or three months but then get very nasty. This all probably depends on your state, but, again, if you were really paycheck to paycheck, you'd totally know.)
11 to 7, of course. I am also interested in hearing more about how comments sections affect coverage. Linkage I could understand more.
OK, I read the comments. Favorite phrase: to continue quoiting a tax rate without quoting all the loop-holes is dishonest and frankly shows your nativity towards the tax issue.
But speaking of comments, Tedra has responded to the 85-year-old with an overview of their finances (at that link).
"Living paycheck to paycheck" means different things to different people. If you have money in 401(k)s or other investment accounts, even if you incur penalties to access it, it is still there, and you do still have it.
This isn't to say that T.O. isn't completely right in her initial piece. The cranky old guy's response partakes of the "you just ain't workin' hard enough, gal!" family of replies, but he's not necessarily a hater.
Isn't he kind of definitionally a hater? Also, old guy, you have no clue how riled up you could get by this particular author.
15: He's 85. As someone said upthread, it's quite possible he doesn't get that a single-income family can have a very hard time these days, and also doesn't get that savings these days don't necessarily go into a mere cash/checking account.
I don't utterly defend the guy; I think he just doesn't understand how finances can tend to be arranged these days. He may not understand why someone would choose to maintain a single-income household if it means living paycheck-to-paycheck.
That said, of course Tedra has rightly addressed broader issues, and the fact that the 85-year-old chose to focus on her family's personal savings philosophy doesn't speak well.
Robert, you totally made me laugh out loud.
Oh, wait: did you mean that he was definitionally a hater because he's 85?
Ahh. ? Yet the photo in the background at the vcstar website shows something excellent.
I wish I had a postcard with the banner image from Tedra's old site to send to Mr. Hater.
I cannot say I like this like of attack.
Well, remember, the Democrats/EK/MY/the Mineshaft have already sold the old folks down the river, or we're about to, or something. I can't remember Bob's exact position here.
I'm torn. On the one hand, he's clearly a "you kids need to pull yourselves up off of my lawn by your bootstraps!" guy. On the other hand, I mean, he's an 85-y-o Venturan; if he weren't like that, a replacement would almost have to be created.
Less snarkily, if you spent your early years growing up in the Great Depression, I can't imagine the forbearance it would require to *not* get all "you lazy kids," basically no matter what the situation. "We had it worse, so you don't get to complain about what's making things bad" may not have any merit as an reasoned argument, but it appears to have great psychological appeal.
By which I mean: rhetorically speaking, if the aim is to pull older folks back towards Democratic partisanship, it's probably worth remembering that they're very likely to have vivid memories of being personally much worse off. (Without getting into more complicated questions about the extent of growth since the 70s; I just mean the life-cycle trajectory of currently-old individuals.)
basically no matter what the situation
If I survive the coming Cannibal Wars (and believe me, I am prepared), I will totally lord it over everybody when I'm 85.
Whenever I hear the words "newspaper comment section", I reach for my pistol.
That guy might have some financial problems without Medicare. Just saying.
We have always been at war with the cannibals.
Isn't 85 about the median age of local op-ed readers these days?
25 is correct. We don't do ourselves or one another any favors by dissing these elders. Better to explain things, look for points of identification, and did I say, explain things -- as they are now?
The powers in play are a bit different than they had been.
Interpret the guy as charitably as you like, but he interpreted Tedra as uncharitably as possible, unfounded assumptions included, so I don't care if he ate rats or his own relatives during his hardscrabble childhood, he can just go fuck himself.
I like this "convince the crazy old assholes who write to the newspaper" plan. That's just what'll put the Democrats back on top!
We're not actually talking to the guy.
35: Speak for yourself. The satisfaction of yelling at a screen is not restricted to old cranks with TV sets.
I thought we were at war with the cannabis.
I just reread the post, and the "Tedra Osell's thinking may be what's wrong with America" is a bit much, that's true.
Forget it, then. He's clearly completely unreasonable and beyond approach, has no power anyway, and will probably die soon.
Parsi, Ventura County residents (or Venties, as we call them) are stereotypically angry. They're often called "The Grouchy Danes" because of the big Danish settlement in Solvang.
Also, just FYI on things Ventura, the big city is pronounced OHnard, not OXnard. Always funny when non-natives make that mistake.
39.1: Thanks -- I did not know that.
37: Hmm. I'm going to need to re-evaluate what's in my survival kit, then.
8, 9, 12: OK, a few examples.
1. Political figure who is a flashpoint for criticism. Comments sections full of vitriol, some substantive and some just plain racist and/or sexist. The latter seemed especially fixated on a personal style quirk -- let's pretend, since I like to wear hats, that it was big hats. Numerous comments over a period of weeks that fixated on the big hats, made comments about how the hats were a poor fashion choice only to be expected of A Person Like That, etc. What happens? The newspaper ceases using all stock photos of the political figure when she is wearing a hat. They continue to use a rotating set of file photos, but none with hats.
2. "Horse race" article that consists mainly of a he said/she said on the day's events, with no historical context. Let's say it is about a disputed public contract. My favorite kind of journalism: "Some people say this! Some people say that! Who really knows? The truth, Dear Reader, is likely somewhere in the middle." Readers' comments draw parallels between the article and past events -- often using intensely derogatory language, but not actually wrong on the merits ("Isn't this the same knucklehead who got a no-bid contract last year from a different city agency? Nice way to protect your buddies, [reporter's name]. I guess you thought we all forgot.") Subsequent coverage adds mention of offender's history.
3. Puff piece praising major real estate development. Readers' comments point out how few of the units have sold, how far the price has dropped, do the math on how angry the early buyers must be that their investment is being devalued so quickly. Many slurs on the neighborhood, the impossibility of "nice" developments in "that" city, numerous contemptuous comments about trash, poor morals, how glad the commenter is to be living in another city now, etc. Subsequent versions of the article (updated that night/the next day) quietly correct overblown marketing claims to the accurate number of units sold.
A lot of this stuff is sort of collective watchdogging, mixed with a lot of naysaying and contempt. The language is very ugly, and a lot of people are really being just plain hateful, but especially in these days of young reporters and diminished "beats," so that a person doesn't get a long time to build a historical understanding, newspaper commenters play an important role in collective memory.
Of course, they can be dangerously wrong -- it's actually pretty easy, given a core group of 6-10 regular posters, for them to fixate (consciously or unconsciously) on a false positive. There is definitely a tendency to overdiagnose conspiracies, for example.
But there is also a kind of rough justice that emerges, especially when you think of comments sections as a neighborhood bar. A few diehard junkies tend to remember everything and serve as the backdrop for a rotating cast of others who circulate in and out, making swipes and smart remarks, often cynically projecting their own worst motivations on to others, but oddly enough arriving at generally accurate conclusions a fair bit of the time.
Most of the newspapers I read don't have reporters wading into the comments sections, and none of them have editors weighing in. But almost every one of them has rephrased a headline, dropped or added a sentence from a story, or otherwise adjusted their coverage in a way that suggests they're actually paying pretty close attention.
He's just setting you up to look like a fool the next time you're in SoCal, parsi. Don't fall for it!
We can all hope whoever it was wrote that wrote the interns as unpaid labor article responds in some productive way to the angry letters people sent (the temperate ones too, I guess).
I should say that one of the things that actually angers me on a regular basis is the disparity between the "Readers' Recommendations" and "Editor's Choice" or "Highlighted" comments on the NY Times site.
There is nothing so infuriating as feeling that some editor is giving greater visibility to hateful and inaccurate comments in the name of false "balance." If that's their holy grail I wish they'd just write their own "opposing" comments, and at least make them be accurate.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Ventura county area -which doesn't correspond exactly to state and federal election districts - is now a mix of liberal and conservative, isn't it? You've got the Reagan people in the southish and I guess the east, and then towards the north it gets more liberal as you approach Santa Barbara. It still pisses me off that the Democrats lost such a close state-level race in 2008.
45: Editorial choices like that were a big reason I didn't spend very long in the Slate comments (or fray or whatever) years ago before heading to blogs.
42: that's really fascinating. Thanks for those examples. I'm not even sure how to lazily make what you're talking about reinforce my preexisting beliefs, which is definitely unusual. Hmm.
(Seriously, thanks for writing that out.)
Careful, you're reinforcing my sense that my particular little obsessions are of consuming interest to the rest of humanity anyone else.
and then towards the north it gets more liberal as you approach Santa Barbara
I think that's right. Also, I keep hearing that Ventura is full of good restaurants and Asian markets (NOT true of Santa Barbara, sadly). We should venture that way sometime.
42: A lot of this stuff is sort of collective watchdogging, mixed with a lot of naysaying and contempt. The language is very ugly, and a lot of people are really being just plain hateful, but especially in these days of young reporters and diminished "beats," so that a person doesn't get a long time to build a historical understanding, newspaper commenters play an important role in collective memory.
Yes, this. And it's so readily swayed, at least in theory, by less hateful, more measured voices, more fact-checking remarks, and articulacy. But few of those inclined to that ever participate in online or in-print newspaper discussion threads. I do agree that the general tenor can be shifted.
Or do we not believe that there's such a thing as the public dialogue? I mean the sort of thing people mutter about at the diner in the morning.
Also, just FYI on things Ventura, the big city is pronounced OHnard, not OXnard. Always funny when non-natives make that mistake.
Interestingly, Wikipedia has it "awks" too.
Or do we not believe that there's such a thing as the public dialogue?
Too damned much of one, if you ask me. America could benefit from a year or so of living in a nice strict Trappist silence , interrupted only by occasional readings from my one-man show, "I Will Turn This Republic Around Right Now If You Three Hundred-Odd Million Can't Behave Yourselves".
OT: Went to one of the newish (to NYC) Korean-based fried chicken chains for the first time. Not bad. Spicy enough. They certainly deliver quite a bit of chicken for the money.
52: To really impress people, you should say "OHN-yard."
Too damned much of one, if you ask me.
True, but since we can't shut everyone up at this point, or ask them to be more quiet and thoughtful, please, the only thing for it is to counter the louder voices. I don't say it's not grim.
On the other hand! There has always been a public dialogue; it just didn't have as widespread consequences.
I heard it as OHN-yohng. Something like that.
Ventura is full of good restaurants and Asian markets
Hmm. That hasn't been my parents' experience since they retired and moved to the area. At least for Chinese restaurants and Chinese markets. I think there's a decent Japanese market, but expensive. My aunts, who live in the LA area, bring massive amounts of food when they visit.
It's actually pronounced "Zero Ten Nard" because it was founded by mathematicians, Romans, and Nards.
Oh, and a while back I followed a few links in some conversation about something or other academic and, to my surprise, found myself reading a Timothy Burke comment at the New York Times on an article about the humanities.
58: the Nards, being of French origin, did not pronounce the D.
He's clearly completely unreasonable and beyond approach, has no power anyway, and will probably die soon.
Yep, whenever anyone disagrees with you, it's clearly the case that the reductio ad absurdam case applies. Well done on figuring that out!
Oxnard entered my pop culture world long before one would reasonably expect it to.
No, it's (hug)-(kiss)-nard. Or -narrh, with the French and everything, like the way Ofeibea Quist-Arcton pronounces "Dakar".
Forgive me, M/tch, but I don't understand. I was being sarcastic -- kind of snottily so -- in the remark you quote, and I thought that was probably clear. I can't tell from your comment whether you got that or not. What did I "figure out"?
According to Wikipedia, Oxnard intended to name the settlement after the Greek word for "sugar", zachari, but frustrated by bureaucracy, named it after himself.
Ghoulardi? Oxnard? Zachari? Zacherle?
1. Political figure who is a flashpoint for criticism. Comments sections full of vitriol, some substantive and some just plain racist and/or sexist. The latter seemed especially fixated on a personal style quirk -- let's pretend, since I like to wear hats, that it was big hats. Numerous comments over a period of weeks that fixated on the big hats, made comments about how the hats were a poor fashion choice only to be expected of A Person Like That, etc. What happens? The newspaper ceases using all stock photos of the political figure when she is wearing a hat. They continue to use a rotating set of file photos, but none with hats.
Your city's newspapers were really twisting the truth if they only showed hatless pictures of Bella Abzug.
I still have no idea what M/tch is on about in 61, but I may have to take it to my grave bedtime, anyway.
OHN-yohng could be either a Korean chicken or a mutation of Awks Nard.
"Governing isn't, and shouldn't be, about party loyalty. It's about what's best for America."
Isn't this the mantra of Village thinking? Oh politics, when will you ever grow up?
Isn't this the mantra of Village thinking? Oh politics, when will you ever grow up?
Well, yes, and it's a deeply pernicious conception of politics, but it really does seem shared by a lot of people. At least according to a fairly persuasive book from 2002, most Americans really do hold a very anti-political idea of politics.
Americans often complain about the operation of their government, but scholars have never developed a complete picture of people's preferred type of government. In this provocative and timely book, Hibbing and Theiss-Morse, employing an original national survey and focus groups, report the governmental procedures Americans desire. Contrary to the prevailing view that people want greater involvement in politics, most citizens do not care about most policies and therefore are content to turn over decision-making authority to someone else. People's wish for the political system is that decision makers be empathetic and, especially, non-self-interested, not that they be responsive and accountable to the people's largely nonexistent policy preferences or, even worse, that the people be obligated to participate directly in decision making.
First chapter, Google Books page, unlicensed pdf.
I remember the book as revealing something rather worse than what the abstract says--a decided hostility to any suggestion of conflict or of genuinely clashing values. Anyway: I think this is definitely a problem, and its constant reinforcement by Village High Broderism makes it worse, but it needs to be acknowledged as a constraint/challenge. In the meantime, it may be, rhetorically speaking, a good tactic, when used to encourage members of the more-evil party to defect from more extreme planks of a sincerely-held but pernicious party platform.
THERE"S A BLOG COMMENT THAT WILL CHANGE MY MIND, BUT YOU AIN'T BEEN TO IT.
most Americans really do hold a very anti-political idea of politics
Most Americans can't tell you who their representatives are, couldn't name a single sitting Supreme Court justice, and couldn't explain the process by which a bill becomes law if their lives depended on it. They're by and large the same people who state that they vote for the candidate, not the party, as if that meant anything at all.
Or more succinctly, 71 is very correct.
Most Americans people anywhere in the world can't tell you who their representatives are, couldn't name a single sitting Supreme Court justice in their own country, and couldn't explain the process by which a bill becomes law if their lives depended on it. They're by and large the same people who state that they vote for the candidate, not the party, as if that meant anything at all.
That said, I've always regarded Tedra's bullshit detector as being one of the finest instruments of its kind in the known universe, so I'm a little perplexed to see her do this.
Well, in this particular case, it looks like there's a straightforward rhetorical advantage to doing so: she's painting one side as ideological, partisan, and indifferent to human welfare, while painting the other side as pragmatic, and empathetic in an apolitical way. In one sense this is nonsense--the budget fight is clearly over conflicting values and priorities--but as a tactic matter, it's not bad framing. It happens to also reinforce a misleading conception of politics, but it's hard to work successfully within a given system, whether symbolic or "real", without at least partially reinforcing it.
Contrary to the prevailing view that people want greater involvement in politics, most citizens do not care about most policies and therefore are content to turn over decision-making authority to someone else.
ObPratchett: the well-meaning King Verence's plans to introduce a parliament are not popular with his subjects, who reckon that he's the king, governing is his job, and it's not fair him asking them to help him with it unless he's also going to come over and help them weed the carrots.
Or, in other words: our elected representatives are representatives, not delegates, and we give them the power to make decisions for themselves, not just act as our mouthpieces.
Or, in other words: our elected representatives are representatives, not delegates, and we give them the power to make decisions for themselves, not just act as our mouthpieces.
Which is as it should be, but that isn't an argument for failing to pay attention to the decisions they make themselves, as we may wish to turn the rascals out on the strength of it. This is all part of the price of liberty being eternal vigilance and that kind of stuff.
If a majority of Americans (or people in any democratic state) actually want to revert to autocracy on the basis that they can't be arsed to be citizens, we're in deeper shit than most of us so far want to admit.
There's something to be said for wading into the cesspit of newspaper comments. You'll most likely not convince the angry wingnuts actually commenting, but the audience is far larger than just them. Making sensible and well reasoned comments can influence the people reading but not commenting. It requires staying calm while people are hurling insults, but I think it does at least a little good.
If a majority of Americans (or people in any democratic state) actually want to revert to autocracy on the basis that they can't be arsed to be citizens, we're in deeper shit than most of us so far want to admit.
Well, they won't actually say that don't want to get to vote, but they also don't put much of an effort into learning anything about the issues. They want to have the cake, and eat it too, and they don't want to have to bake it either.
79: One of the reasons they don't want to learn anything about the issues is that there is a concerted and deliberate effort to (1) make the issues as complicated as possible and (2) lie about them.
Even in the absence of (2) the deliberate complexification discourages public participation. The tax code is a great example of this. It's such a goddamn maze that there's no way even a well informed member of the general public can really come to grips with it. I do not believe that this is entirely accidental. The fact that it facilitates lying is an important secondary benefit for the ruling class.
I think what chris is saying is that Tedra Osell's thinking may be what's wrong with America today.
How old are you, chris?
Her name may be Tedra
But she'll always be the Bitch
to me.
If I were sure a majority of Americans were like Tedra, I'd sleep securely tonight.*
Because then we'd only have the Europeans, Asians, Africans, Pacific Islanders, Australians, Latin Americans and Caribbeans to worry about.**
**I refuse to worry about Canadians, Greenlanders, St Helenans and Falkland Islanders.
I refuse to worry about Canadians
Emerson wept.
Um, to be fair, if you could get someone to bake a cake, then give it to you, then let you eat however much you want free of charge, wouldnt you prefer that to any other cake-ian outcome? Further, Americans are lazy, sure, but so is everyone else; i think a more unique characterization is our near obsession w optionality. We put insanely high premiums on options for really unlikely outcomes all the time, e.g., keep taxes low bc im just a temporarily embarrassed millionaire; dont touch my gun, i might need it someday; im going to spend all my money at the survivalist store, etc. Some of these are charming and optimistic, some less so, but i dont think the tendency to focus on the tail end of the curve is going away anytime soon, so we should probably figure out a way to use that productively. Circling back to the original point (sort of), pls dont underestimate how much Americans relish the ability to throw the bums out, should they choose to care. American apathy is more complicated than it looks.
Im tempted to go on about how this tendency to place high premiums on optionality might reflect perceived volatility in American society, but i am not currently in a bar.
Um, to be fair, if you could get someone to bake a cake, then give it to you, then let you eat however much you want free of charge, wouldnt you prefer that to any other cake-ian outcome? Further, Americans are lazy, sure, but so is everyone else; i think a more unique characterization is our near obsession w optionality. We put insanely high premiums on options for really unlikely outcomes all the time, e.g., keep taxes low bc im just a temporarily embarrassed millionaire; dont touch my gun, i might need it someday; im going to spend all my money at the survivalist store, etc. Some of these are charming and optimistic, some less so, but i dont think the tendency to focus on the tail end of the curve is going away anytime soon, so we should probably figure out a way to use that productively. Circling back to the original point (sort of), pls dont underestimate how much Americans relish the ability to throw the bums out, should they choose to care. American apathy is more complicated than it looks.
Im tempted to go on about how this tendency to place high premiums on optionality might reflect perceived volatility in American society, but i am not currently in a bar.
Also unfortunate: placing high premiums on optionality makes one really easy to manipulate. As though that weren't evident already.
Maybe we are doomed?
87: I'm not sure I understand what your getting at by "placing high premiums on optionality", but I am fairly certain we are doomed.
88: "placing high premiums on optionality" would mean that Americans ascribe a high value to the availability of choices; i.e. Americans think they are well-off because they have a choice between 53 different sorts of breakfast cereal, even though all 53 are pretty horrible.
This may or may not be true but it's not what dona means, judging by the rest of the comment. What she means is that Americans tend to overestimate the probability of very rare events and act accordingly.
Further to that, it's usual for humans of all flavours to overestimate the probability of rare positive events; otherwise lotteries would never get started. Dona seems to be pointing out that Americans also overestimate the probability of rare negative events (armed robbery, terrorist attack, collapse of civilisation).
I think dona is referring to "optionality" in the sense of stock options. Americans will spend a lot of money "insuring" for unlikely outcomes, like voting against tax increases in case someday they're super-rich too.
I mean that they place high premiums on optionality, and that one of the major reasons for this is that they focus on events with low probability. Further, i think that these two things are related generally, not just amongst Americans (altho maybe especially so amongst Americans). But you are right that they are technically two seperate...things.
What she means is that Americans tend to overestimate the probability of very rare events and act accordingly.
Though this hardly fits with the US approach to financial markets, for example. I don't think it's a matter of politically-neutral overweighting of low-probability events at all; it's a very loaded focus on situations that express heroic agency. Low-probability events that call for collective long-term institution-building, hell no.
Think about the movie "Armageddon": oops, asteroid, we're all gonna die! But wait--thank god we just so happen to have these two (two!) super spaceships built, plus two secret space-mining machines (that we illegally copied from a private inventor's design!). And as it turns out, part of the tension comes from the need to pursuade the by-the-book, institutionally-trained NASA guys to let the heroic (oil-drilling!) private team just do what it takes in their gritty, can-do attitude. (Amusingly enough, the crazy Russian cosmonaut here represents a more-orthodox-than-the-pope super-American archetype, because he's a post-soviet, nothing-works, gotta-fix-it-with-spit-and-duct-tape-and-clutchiosity Russian.)
You know, the more I think of it, the more "Armageddon" seems to embody everything wrong with America. I really loved that movie, though. I admit it: it got me a little teary.
Health policy, vocational retraining, unemployment--these are other important areas where Americans seem to woefully underestimate the likelihood of low probability but catastrophic outcomes.
it's a very loaded focus on situations that express heroic agency. Low-probability events that call for collective long-term institution-building, hell no.
Yeah, though higher-probability events that call for collective long-term institution-building, hell no as well. Kid might need college tuition help? Late-life health care might be a problem? Might lose your job? Possible! Ensure a social safety net for these purposes? Well ... maybe.
On preview, semi-pwned by 94.
We of course have a tendency to silence and/or render invisible and/or demonize those in need of such help. Or rather, conservative-libertarians do. Which brings us back to our admiration for the heroic agent.
I think there's a difference btwn institutional and individual attitudes, but i have not seen Armageddon. (Specifically bc of that song. That fucking Aerosmith song that *is now stuck in my head*. I still like you, tho, x.trap.) And yeah, i was referring to optionality in the financial derivatives sense (hence the reference to volatility).
I also kind of marvel at how this tendency gets manipulated by and catered to through marketing. Im not sure Americans would have the same attitude towards unemployment if there was someone on the tv constantly yelling at them about it. There isn't tho, bc there's no money in that (private unemployment insurance? Hmmmm. Any enterprising sociopaths in the Commentariat should feel free to run w that). You should, however, buy gold.
I can't say that Tedra's thinking is what's wrong with America. But it has to be a symbol of everything that's wrong with sometimg. Not unfogged. She doesn't come round any more. Maybe southern California. Or blogging.
She doesn't come round any more.
Except at 17 above.
One of the things wrong with America today.
99 should have included a warning about cardiovascular events.
I have to say that I'm not clear on what's wrong with Tedra's thinking in that post (I'm looking again at 74 and 75 upthread): that she's focusing on best policy practices, as it were, and deprecating party politics? And this is wrong because party politics does follow from policy objectives, such that pretending otherwise is silly?
I feel that I've been playing Obviousman quite a bit lately, but I feel the need to, er, fix ideas.
Obviously the debates ongoing in Washington lately are fairly ideological in nature; there was an odd and annoying moment on the Diane Rehm show this morning, for which the topic was the competing Democratic and Republican budget proposals, when Diane asked all panelists to please refrain from referring to anything like a "class war."
Why?
OT, but sort of not: Goddamn do I love Nancy Pelosi. She's like an artist with the political shiv. I want about a million more of her in Democratic politics.
My guess is that it's like the analogy ban. One person mentions class war and then the conversation turns from examining the budget specifics to a dreary debate about dueling definitions of class warfare.
I have to say that I'm not clear on what's wrong with Tedra's thinking in that post (I'm looking again at 74 and 75 upthread): that she's focusing on best policy practices, as it were, and deprecating party politics? And this is wrong because party politics does follow from policy objectives, such that pretending otherwise is silly?
I didn't much like the last 4 paragraphs (or the headline, but obviously she's not responsible for that). I dislike, in general, the 'common good vs. politicking' frame, and she finishes up playing entirely in that key. I understand that her rhetorical target is relatively moderate republicans rather than tea-party sorts, and hence those less likely to be ideological true believers, but by and large conservatives do have a mental model of politics and the economy in their head when they rail against "Obama's socialism", and according to that model, they're standing up for the common good by opposing it. Their error is substantive, not procedural.
Insofar as some are behaving badly in a procedural way--that is, some really are voting against the better choice, as they themselves see it--the critique is a more subtle one: it's the institutional complaint that Yggles makes so well, that since voter in fact treat elections as referenda on the incumbent president's performance, opposition parties--even when they control congress--have good reason to sacrifice short-term policy goals in order to increase the likelihood of having full control of the government later. The system gives even those who want to do good an incentive to sabotage things when they happen to be out of power. This is an important fact to recognize, and an important flaw in our institutions. But the 'common good vs. politicking' framing makes it invisible, turns a structural problem into one of personal virtues and vices.
103: Perhaps so; I missed the first half of the discussion, and the panelists didn't seem particularly nuanced in the first place. (Mara Liasson (sp) was among them, and I don't think awfully highly of her.)
Too bad, though; and maybe there should be a further discussion! Once we see Lindsey Graham arguing in favor of very smart and sensible federal spending for local infrastructure projects involving government agencies -- which types of projects the recent budget deal cut -- it's a short step to concluding that even though the asshole is a rather diehard spending-cuts advocate, he actually knows what's good for the country, and is letting the conservatives' class warfare against the welfare state rule his voting behavior.
The article in 99 is, indeed, horrifying, but it also reflects are curious/depressing tendency in politics for wifely corruption to generate extra-special-bonus-outrage (even when it's small potatoes compared to the more manly crimes taking place). Top-of-my-head examples: Imelda Marcos and Mugabe's wife.
(I should say: the first few paragraphs of the article in 99 seem horrifying, but I can't bring myself to read the whole thing now, so I'm just assuming that it's an accurate account of something awful, &c &c.)
104: I understand that her rhetorical target is relatively moderate republicans rather than tea-party sorts, and hence those less likely to be ideological true believers, but by and large conservatives do have a mental model of politics and the economy in their head when they rail against "Obama's socialism", and according to that model, they're standing up for the common good by opposing it. Their error is substantive, not procedural.
You're kind of losing me here: given that her rhetorical target is moderate, non-ideological conservatives, what she says about the difference between favoring the rich and favoring the rest of us (through federally subsidized cancer screenings, for heaven's sake) is substantive.
Addressing the procedural misbehavior of the out-of-power party would be a topic for a different post, or entire set of them, altogether.
I don't understand how, in the portion of your comment I quoted above, "conservatives do have a mental model of politics and the economy in their head when they rail against "Obama's socialism"" is consistent with "relatively moderate republicans rather than tea-party sorts, and hence those less likely to be ideological true believers"
I mean that even the most left of the Republican house caucus are likely to be fairly coherent conservatives, ideologically speaking, and that while their policy "ideal points" are likely to be such that they prefer no-gov't-shutdown to gov't-shutdown, they also vastly prefer the policies of the median House Rep Caucus member to that of Obama, and hence are not being unreasonable in their brinksmanship, even if it's socially destructive.
Part of what makes what I feel Tedra's trying to do difficult is that her piece is nominally addressed to Republican legislators, but it's surely "really" addressed to moderate right-leaning Ventura voters, for whom what I said above doesn't hold.
Ugh, I'm not being very clear. It feels like she's pretending to address the House R. Caucus members, but making an argument that really wouldn't cut much ice with them, and not even trying to engage with the reasons that really apply to them (trade-offs between policy now and policy later).
I'll just stop; I'm only confusing myself now, and if anything's clear it's that I'm neither the intended rhetorical audience nor a personal qualified to evaluate rhetoric, so it's time to STFU.
moderate right-leaning Ventura voters
You mean "Venties" or "Grouchy Danes."
Is the "Venties" sobriquet purely about the whining, or is there also Starbucks-related snarkiness there?
Oh, it long predates Starbucks. Probably arises from the Conejo Valley "War" of 1922, when a band of hired Mexican banditos paid for by LA County Land Owners fought some heavily armed Chumash Indians for control over agricultural land. 10 or so people died, cementing the counties' bitter rivalry.
No more being impressed by Halford till he actually writes that book about LA he's mentioned. (C'mon, you know you want to.)