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Post by miscmisc on Feb 2, 2021 4:38:34 GMT 1
This is what we on the left had to fight against 10 years ago, the bipartisan orthodoxy, the fortress built by the neoclassical economic dogma on debt.
It was an overwhelming Democratic majority Congress that passed this PAYGO law crap *in the middle of a gigantic recession*, a truly bipartisan affair. Chew on that for a bit. This monstrosity was the norm even among Obama liberals 10 years ago.
We had to cry foul as loudly as possible so that the next crisis wouldn't completely ruin our economy. We kept arguing that neoclassical economics was not only intellectually corrupt but also absolutely *silly* too.
You can't say we played no role in this tidal shift. Who is the stupid now.
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Post by miscmisc on Feb 2, 2021 4:59:07 GMT 1
Ted Cruz at it again.
Right-wingers are obsessed with Hollywood. That's a key to understanding these people. You could write a thick book on this subject alone in fact.
QAnon is full of Hollywood crap too. Many of them believe the entire cast of Friends have already been "executed." Their obsession with the 1990s pop culture is hilarious. That tells you what kind of people the major driving force of that "movement" are.
Trumpism is merely the latest label of the reactionary right-wing movement, a kind of resentment-driven pathology that is not different at all from what Adorno dissected back in the days. They rail against so-called Beautiful People, the glamorous world of media celebrities. That's why they cling to the stupid idea that "Hollywood" - instead of the likes of Republican private equity funds, Walmart, Home Depot etc. - are the "elites" that rule us.
Hell, QAnon Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who inherited a profitable construction company from her Dad (sounds familiar?), is wealthier than most of "Hollywood," but somehow a Real American Patriot who suffers under the elite "Hollywood" oppression.
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gols
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Post by gols on Feb 2, 2021 15:25:21 GMT 1
The definition of talking out of your arse. I don't know and am not interested in who the hell this liar/idiot is, but such complete bollocks can be passed off as expertise by the BBC is scandalous. Patrick Minford is the most vocal of the very small group of Brexiter economists.
Whenever ther BBC wants to do some "both sides"-ism, they wheel him out. Says it all about the state of the BBC these days...
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gols
Novice Member
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Post by gols on Feb 2, 2021 15:36:10 GMT 1
Ted Cruz at it again. Right-wingers are obsessed with Hollywood. That's a key to understanding these people. You could write a thick book on this subject alone in fact. I haven't actually watched the video (don't want to make myself ill at the sight of Ted Cruz), but isn't he contradicting the right-wing hate of Hollywood? If Hollywood is full of lefty liberals why are they making the 'rabid environmentalists' the bad guys?
He is right though. Often the people pointing out all the problems that humanity has caused are the bad guys in movies, and usually their solution is to wipe out most of the population in some way. The good guys save the day, but never offer up their own solution to the problem...
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Post by K1power on Feb 2, 2021 19:57:37 GMT 1
I haven't actually watched the video (don't want to make myself ill at the sight of Ted Cruz), but isn't he contradicting the right-wing hate of Hollywood? If Hollywood is full of lefty liberals why are they making the 'rabid environmentalists' the bad guys? Exactly what I was thinkin while confusedly reading that tweet. |
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Post by miscmisc on Feb 2, 2021 21:13:33 GMT 1
Cruz has made Hollywood references to get across his disingenuous, deceitful "points" so frequently that he doesn't even bother to make his stance coherent anymore. You might call it silly cognitive dissonance to simultaneously believe that Hollywood is ruled by "radical left" AND express joy over the negative portrayal of "environmentalists" in the very movies that supposedly evil radical left entity makes, but you could easily say that Cruz simply doesn't give a fuck as long as he thinks he can somehow impress Republican voters with that kind of drivels. It's a bit of both IMO.
It doesn't even make sense on its own, you know. Thanos is what?
And this is exactly one important point that QAnon shares with Cruz; They absolutely denounce "Hollywood" as the cesspool of evil in the world, but cannot for the life of them stop talking about movies and the inspirations they get from them. And in their case, it's DEFINITELY a severe case of cognitive dissonance.
But that has been the pathology of the right for decades and even more. Libertarianism for example is based fundamentally on the cognitive dissonance over the concept of "liberty."
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Post by miscmisc on Feb 2, 2021 21:30:58 GMT 1
I'm not contrarian enough to say that I would choose Donald Trump over Mitt Romney, but seeing the latter scream "deficit!" in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic makes me feel that he perhaps deserves most of the abuse that he got from Trump if he still doesn't understand that the four years of Donald Trump *once again* proved that no one gives a fuck about deficit.
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Post by miscmisc on Feb 3, 2021 18:08:32 GMT 1
Both the South African and Brazilian variants are an ominous sign of things to come with their near-capability to beat our current immunity, whether via infection or vaccination, but it does seem that they are not nearly as transmissible as the UK variant.
So, in terms of the damage that they can do at the moment, the UK variant seems to be the absolute worst. They are strikingly good at winning the competition; They keep growing even when the overall infection rate is going down. It's amazing that we still don't know how/why.
You really don't want to let that one be the dominant type in your community/country.
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Post by miscmisc on Feb 3, 2021 18:23:42 GMT 1
I watched some BBC programs, and saw a few people talk about "the new rules" after Brexit.
Yes, they feel "new" to British people, but it's a very inappropriate word. It gives off the idea/sentiment that the EU created rules specifically for Brexit to pick on the UK or something.
There are no "new" EU rules; They are just existing rules that every non-EU country has always been subject to.
*Everyone* loves the victimhood narrative, don't they? It's tiresome.
To be frank, I feel that the UK-EU relation is going in a wrong direction, and I'm not even talking about the vaccine fiasco here. Things don't look good. What the hell is this nonsense for example:
The European Commission made a complete ass of themselves with their Northern Ireland "safeguard clause" crap, but this man is telling them to hold his beer. He's basically blaming his own pile of shit on the EU. Utterly shameless.
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Post by miscmisc on Feb 4, 2021 19:38:31 GMT 1
I know this is not the time to talk about it as we are still in the middle of the pandemic with the exit still looking rather distant, but the scale of the mass mental health problem/trauma in many countries that will have been caused by this whole thing will dwarf anything that we've experienced in our life time. You'd have to go back to WWII to find a similar situation, although that one was obviously much, much worse.
It's wrong to think that as we largely/mostly beat SARS-CoV-2, things will just go back to normal. We will celebrate first of course, and even party like there's no tomorrow, but after that brief euphoria will have to face the deep, deep scars everywhere in the society. And we will have to do that in a cratered economy.
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Post by miscmisc on Feb 4, 2021 22:16:16 GMT 1
I think I mentioned this "study" before, about the OH-MY-GOD DEVASTATING EFFECTS of school closure on American kids ("Years of Life Lost!"), because it smelled like bullshit. It didn't pass my common sense smell test.
Sure enough.
Crap studies are often not only based on misguided beliefs but also on simple mathematical errors. Unfortunately this one actually influenced many politicians and bureaucrats around the globe.
Read the whole thread to see how people keep defending their crap studies even after they do realize that they were total crap based on errors. And unfortunately I can guarantee you these intellectual frauds will keep acting like an authority and influencing our governments.
Because, as you know, you don't have to pay for your grave mistakes in this day and age if you are "tenured" in some way.
It happens even in hard science like physics, so of course it happens all the time in this kind of a field which frankly I wouldn't consider to be part of legitimate science.
One problem is that truly smart people don't go into the fields that are actually very important for policy-making. We are ruled by third-rate people as a result. Like I said before, the least smart ones among my uni classmates headed for Washington D.C., while the smartest ones became mathematicians, musicians and fiction writers.
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Post by miscmisc on Feb 4, 2021 22:54:41 GMT 1
If a country's average mobility in December drops by 30% compared to the last winter, and if you see someone describe it as "wisely letting the virus take its course instead of trying to suppress it," you are looking at a complete idiot/shameless grifter.
30% mobility reduction to all intents and purposes means a kind of lockdown no matter what the policies are. Even a declared "lockdown" *in Germany* failed to achieve that high a mobility reduction in many regions in this winter wave.
Of course I'm talking about Sweden, which continues to be El Dorado for all Covidiots and herdie crackpots in the world.
Those people are about as annoying and intelligent as Q believers.
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Post by miscmisc on Feb 5, 2021 12:25:04 GMT 1
"Who cares!" ... followed by a few hundred passionate words to hammer home how much his fee-fees have been hurt and how much he actually cares.  |
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Post by miscmisc on Feb 5, 2021 12:31:32 GMT 1
Again, Hollywood is always a key to the minds of these people.
It's pure jealousy and resentment, from top (Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, etc.) to bottom (your average MAGA guy).
Of course Donald Trump is very different from your average MAGA. But even he is a product of a delusion-based society that absolutely over-promises and can't deliver, at least to a small degree. And the irony is that Hollywood is indeed one big entity that perpetuates the delusion.
Everyone wants to be famous. A society where everyone simply wanted to be rich was much healthier.
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Post by miscmisc on Feb 5, 2021 14:53:51 GMT 1
I got some flack for calling Liz Cheney smart when she voted for the impeachment of Donald Trump (which I did in this thread too, I think).
Look at how she survived the attacks from the Trumpian wing of the party now. It's not going to be easy of course, but I'm pretty sure she will survive... unlike Kevin McCarthy.
Don't get me wrong, I still think the Republican Party is going in the Bircher direction. You can tell from the way Fox News is going deep in that direction concurrently.
But in politics, you've got to find the place for yourself. Liz Cheney cemented hers with that impeachment vote, and that place is NOT something that anyone can just dismiss. There's a lot of money there for her too. I'm talking about political money, and not about her personal greed. The establishment GOP can't be killed just like that by the Birchers.
On the other hand, where will Kevin McCarthy's place be? He's increasingly looking like someone who's completely out of this depth with no substance at all.
You gotta take some risk in politics, and Cheney was in a perfect position to do that. That's why I called her smart.
In case you misunderstand me, I absolutely hate that ghoulish woman. She's one of the worst conservatives, but proved to me that she's far smarter than the likes of Kevin McCarthy.
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