Identity Politics Brought Down the Left.
Nov. 19th, 2016 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraAnother piece about Steve Bannon. Gotta say, the guy kinda fascinates me. If one assumes his come-to-Ronnie moment – that Ronnie being Reagan – occurred some time during the Carter Administration, then Bannon has been playing a very long game indeed.
It’s also interesting that this piece appeared in The Hollywood Reporter (which has become the go-to media outlet for all the most interesting news as the Gray Lady becomes grayer and grayer and The Washington Post morphs into the Bezos Vanity Press.)
One of the more striking roles the social media played in this current election cycle is that it forced the equivalence of all content. Any obscure website carries as much social currency as The New York Times if enough people look at it. Since social media has an attention span of approximately .02 seconds, the emphasis is on getting it out in front of the eyeballs quickly. Fact-checking suffers.
Ironically, “Fake news sites” has also become a story now. This story may actually last a week because it’s fueled by massive indignation. HRC advocates need to find some reason why they lost the election (‘cause they’re in complete denial over the fact that the Democratic Party ran the wrong candidate), and they’re pointing the finger right now at Breitbart, Red State, the Blaze, Twitchy, ZeroHedge, the Daily Wire et al.
I read Breitbart regularly for the same reason that for many years, I remained a registered Republican: I firmly believe that it’s more important to know your enemies (so you can sabotage them) than it is to exchange high-fives with your friends.
I’m also practically the only person I know who maintains open channels to both HRC and Trump supporters on social media.
Fact is that in those weeks leading up to the election, both sides were equally guilty of disseminating fake news – by which I mean opinion disguised as news.
Opinion disguised as news – and carefully, carefully, carefully goose-stepping over the various libel and slander laws – would appear to be the new norm. Did I mention carefully? Carefully! ‘Cause none of us want to end up like Nick Denton with only a $24,000 a year clothing allowance as the Gawker bankruptcy stares him in the face.
###
Identity politics brought down the Left.
On the micro-level where human relationships form and opinions about them crystallize, people tolerate differences. Everybody has a gay cousin. African-American culture is the predominant pop culture for most people in this country under the age of 30. I’m not sure that many white people over the age of 30 have African-American friends, though, people outside work acquaintances with whom they actually share good times. And that’s true of people on both sides of the political spectrum. It is not a good thing.
I understood the slogan Black Lives Matter perfectly. But I think it left the majority of the white folk feeling defensive. And defensiveness soon degenerates into belligerence.
Nail in the coffin, though, may have been the transgender bathroom controversies. And on this one, I’m actually on the side of the Powers of Darkness. The whole hysterical outpouring of Leftist outrage on that issue was a complete turn-off to me. Are there attendants outside every bathroom in the United States of America ready to check your genitals before you go inside and pee? No? Then just go in and piss, and shut up about it! And don’t forget to wash your hands.
It doesn’t matter if there are laws on the books that say you can’t use a particular bathroom. Enforcement is what matters. And if you don’t make a huge fuss over it, there is no enforcement. In Arizona, cutting down a cactus carries a maximum prison sentence of 25 years. Does this law prevent any Arizonian from cutting down cacti? I doubt it.
###
Reading the Bannon piece above, it seems the plan to reemploy rustbelt America involves launching massive infrastructure projects and imposing tariffs on companies that maintain call centers in Mumbai. (I suppose ideally they’d also like to bring manufacturing plants back to the U.S. but I suspect it’s too late for that.) Since neither laying concrete nor answering phones requires a college degree, this is a huge hit for the higher education industry.
Can’t say I altogether disapprove of that. I see the value of liberal education. Liberal education awakens people to thought, to tolerance, to the beauty of diversity. But the emphasis in recent years has been on certification and licensing programs, and the only value I can see to those is that they keep entry level people out of the job market for longer and longer periods of time, thereby protecting the jobs of those few lucky enough to have found one already. (Full disclosure here: When I went to nursing school, I elected to go a hospital program. I saw no benefit whatsoever in a college nursing degree. Nursing is a trade. Like plumbing.)
If Bannon et al are successful here in providing remunerative employment to working class folk unwilling to become indentured servants for the dubious privilege of acquiring a college degree, that’s probably a good thing – much as it galls me to admit that.
###
The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia, says Bannon. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get fucked over. If we deliver, we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years.
Well, I fuckin’ hope not!
But it’s a big wakeup call.
###
The other interesting thing Bannon says is, I am Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors.
One must assume that Bannon knows his history well enough to realize that not only did Thomas Cromwell end up with his head on the chopping block but that his enemies at the court got the axeman so drunk the night before that the execution was very, very messy.
I guess Bannon’s reasoning is that so long as he steers Der Donald away from dynastic marriages, he’s safe.
It’s also interesting that this piece appeared in The Hollywood Reporter (which has become the go-to media outlet for all the most interesting news as the Gray Lady becomes grayer and grayer and The Washington Post morphs into the Bezos Vanity Press.)
One of the more striking roles the social media played in this current election cycle is that it forced the equivalence of all content. Any obscure website carries as much social currency as The New York Times if enough people look at it. Since social media has an attention span of approximately .02 seconds, the emphasis is on getting it out in front of the eyeballs quickly. Fact-checking suffers.
Ironically, “Fake news sites” has also become a story now. This story may actually last a week because it’s fueled by massive indignation. HRC advocates need to find some reason why they lost the election (‘cause they’re in complete denial over the fact that the Democratic Party ran the wrong candidate), and they’re pointing the finger right now at Breitbart, Red State, the Blaze, Twitchy, ZeroHedge, the Daily Wire et al.
I read Breitbart regularly for the same reason that for many years, I remained a registered Republican: I firmly believe that it’s more important to know your enemies (so you can sabotage them) than it is to exchange high-fives with your friends.
I’m also practically the only person I know who maintains open channels to both HRC and Trump supporters on social media.
Fact is that in those weeks leading up to the election, both sides were equally guilty of disseminating fake news – by which I mean opinion disguised as news.
Opinion disguised as news – and carefully, carefully, carefully goose-stepping over the various libel and slander laws – would appear to be the new norm. Did I mention carefully? Carefully! ‘Cause none of us want to end up like Nick Denton with only a $24,000 a year clothing allowance as the Gawker bankruptcy stares him in the face.
###
Identity politics brought down the Left.
On the micro-level where human relationships form and opinions about them crystallize, people tolerate differences. Everybody has a gay cousin. African-American culture is the predominant pop culture for most people in this country under the age of 30. I’m not sure that many white people over the age of 30 have African-American friends, though, people outside work acquaintances with whom they actually share good times. And that’s true of people on both sides of the political spectrum. It is not a good thing.
I understood the slogan Black Lives Matter perfectly. But I think it left the majority of the white folk feeling defensive. And defensiveness soon degenerates into belligerence.
Nail in the coffin, though, may have been the transgender bathroom controversies. And on this one, I’m actually on the side of the Powers of Darkness. The whole hysterical outpouring of Leftist outrage on that issue was a complete turn-off to me. Are there attendants outside every bathroom in the United States of America ready to check your genitals before you go inside and pee? No? Then just go in and piss, and shut up about it! And don’t forget to wash your hands.
It doesn’t matter if there are laws on the books that say you can’t use a particular bathroom. Enforcement is what matters. And if you don’t make a huge fuss over it, there is no enforcement. In Arizona, cutting down a cactus carries a maximum prison sentence of 25 years. Does this law prevent any Arizonian from cutting down cacti? I doubt it.
###
Reading the Bannon piece above, it seems the plan to reemploy rustbelt America involves launching massive infrastructure projects and imposing tariffs on companies that maintain call centers in Mumbai. (I suppose ideally they’d also like to bring manufacturing plants back to the U.S. but I suspect it’s too late for that.) Since neither laying concrete nor answering phones requires a college degree, this is a huge hit for the higher education industry.
Can’t say I altogether disapprove of that. I see the value of liberal education. Liberal education awakens people to thought, to tolerance, to the beauty of diversity. But the emphasis in recent years has been on certification and licensing programs, and the only value I can see to those is that they keep entry level people out of the job market for longer and longer periods of time, thereby protecting the jobs of those few lucky enough to have found one already. (Full disclosure here: When I went to nursing school, I elected to go a hospital program. I saw no benefit whatsoever in a college nursing degree. Nursing is a trade. Like plumbing.)
If Bannon et al are successful here in providing remunerative employment to working class folk unwilling to become indentured servants for the dubious privilege of acquiring a college degree, that’s probably a good thing – much as it galls me to admit that.
###
The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia, says Bannon. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get fucked over. If we deliver, we'll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we'll govern for 50 years.
Well, I fuckin’ hope not!
But it’s a big wakeup call.
###
The other interesting thing Bannon says is, I am Thomas Cromwell in the court of the Tudors.
One must assume that Bannon knows his history well enough to realize that not only did Thomas Cromwell end up with his head on the chopping block but that his enemies at the court got the axeman so drunk the night before that the execution was very, very messy.
I guess Bannon’s reasoning is that so long as he steers Der Donald away from dynastic marriages, he’s safe.
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Re: Re: Progressive Fake News Sites And Operatives
Date: 2016-11-20 04:19 pm (UTC)RE: Re: Re: Progressive Fake News Sites And Operatives
Date: 2016-11-20 04:50 pm (UTC)RE: Re: Re: Progressive Fake News Sites And Operatives
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Date: 2016-11-20 04:57 pm (UTC)Re: Progressive Fake News Sites And Operatives
Date: 2016-11-20 05:11 pm (UTC)RE: Re: Re: Progressive Fake News Sites And Operatives
Date: 2016-11-20 04:57 pm (UTC)RE: Re: Re: Progressive Fake News Sites And Operatives
Date: 2016-11-20 05:03 pm (UTC)Re: Progressive Fake News Sites And Operatives
Date: 2016-11-20 06:10 pm (UTC)XXXOOO
RE: Re: Re: Progressive Fake News Sites And Operatives
Date: 2016-11-20 06:36 pm (UTC)RE: Re: Re: Progressive Fake News Sites And Operatives
Date: 2016-11-20 04:52 pm (UTC)