Clear Distinction

          Given the insanity of not having the league of women voters conduct a meaningful debate, it is astounding that Pete Buttigieg produced such a well crafted sound byte defining the difference between Trump and Sanders.

          Trump really does want to send me back to the 1950s nightmare I lived while, on the other hand, Sanders wants to build on the energy generated in the 1960s by people working to actually address societal issues.

          Pete Buttigieg is, of course, an idiot, and states this all as a bad thing, but even an idiot …

          And, for the naysayers, it's not about having solutions, it's about working toward solutions. It seems as if most naysayers have never been involved in solving systemic problems in real life.

RIP

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Comments

Lily O Lady's picture

whose ego can carry the day. And I’m OK with them throwing chairs. And we can sell tickets at $5,000 a pop to go towards the Sanders campaign.

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28 users have voted.

"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Lily O Lady

I’d like to see Pete and Mikey duke it out to see whose ego can carry the day. And I’m OK with them throwing chairs.

A certain pleasant feeling arises in my heart at the thought of Beavis (Bloomberg) and Butt-wipe engaging in good old-fashioned Roman gladiatorial combat. But that is schadenfreude is one I'll never get to savour.

Biggrin

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16 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

boriscleto's picture

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6 users have voted.

" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

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11 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

thanatokephaloides's picture

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4 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

OzoneTom's picture

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9 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@OzoneTom

that he was gay. This took a huge act of bravery and to use the picture for something else is not cool. The boy is 9 and he got a great reception from the crowd.

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15 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg
Whatever you think of Pete, this was a startlingly courageous act on the part of the young boy. Exploiting, not just his act but his image, for mockery is way uncool.

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11 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

PriceRip's picture

@boriscleto

          I think of Pete Buttigieg as idiotic, not evil. Context is everything.

RIP

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5 users have voted.
Roy Blakeley's picture

@PriceRip connections, which pretty much means he is evil.

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10 users have voted.
PriceRip's picture

@Roy Blakeley

          In the context of talking with this young man in front of a large crowd, with his smiling mother standing nearby, I don't see Pete as evil.

RIP

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5 users have voted.
thanatokephaloides's picture

@PriceRip

I think of Pete Buttigieg as idiotic, not evil. Context is everything.

Cherished idiocy, especially when it infests the wielder of the Oval Office, is evil regardless of context.

I respectfully submit and present as People's Exhibit A: one Donald J. Trump. And People's Exhibit B: one each Penis Peter Buttigieg.

Bad

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0 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

PriceRip's picture

@thanatokephaloides

Aww, fuck it.

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2 users have voted.

@PriceRip

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0 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

thanatokephaloides's picture

@PriceRip

Nary a one of us, myself included, would deny that courageous young man due props for that courage.

If anything, some of us (again, myself included) have our doubts as to whether Mayo Pete gave that young man the same due props, especially in light of the unintelligible gibberish he spouted when he interrupted Bernie in the incident you documented above.

Credentials be damned, stupid is as stupid does; and after the above-mentioned gibberish spouting, Mayo Pete has no one to blame but himself for our considering him an idiot -- and one who cherishes his idiocy, at that.

One should consider this aspect before serving big batches of word salad to people.

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4 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides
in that dusty flatbed Ford?

Hecate, we need you; O brother where art thou?

up
3 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

earthling1's picture

the 50s before credit cards were invented? The 50s where a man could work one job and support a family of four? Of building an interstate highway system? Of a silver quarter worth a gallon of gas? $35 an oz. for gold?
Or the 60s with the first compact car? Unleaded gas? Free college? Put an American man on the moon? Rock & Roll you could dance to? Where political punditry was Rocky & Bulwinkle?
Lemme think a minute.

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28 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

@earthling1 the 50's were so "great" in America also has to do with the fact that all our major industrial competitors were decimated in WWII. That day isn't going to happen again unless the US succeeds in destroying every country on earth and even then, the 50's "utopia" will not return to America as America will not have a global market anymore when every other country is destroyed - who will buy our shit with no money?

Of course one other reason the 50's were so "great" has to do with union wages, a highly progressive tax structure (91% on anything over $1M if I am not mistaken), as well as all those horrible social programs that reduced poverty. Trump never had any intention of returning to that, but I would bet he does think he can destroy all major competitors and so does the Democratic "Resistance" apparently. And hey, once we take away all those pesky domestic regulations on our Corporations, maybe they will bring jobs back to America, along with the pollution we offshored as well. MAGA!

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27 users have voted.

Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

thanatokephaloides's picture

@earthling1

Or the 60s with the first compact car? Unleaded gas? Free college? Put an American man on the moon? Rock & Roll you could dance to? Where political punditry was Rocky & Bulwinkle?

Actually, the first compact car was a direct product of World War II in the 40s: the Volkswagen Beetle. But Beetles didn't really take off in the USA until the 60s. Another VW really drove the compact movement in the USA hard: the Karmann Ghia, still a sought-after chassis today.

Unleaded gas! Now one could run Coleman gear on gas straight from the pump! Biggrin

And that's before we consider the political milieu of the 60s -- far more humane than today's. That Butt-wipe insists on defending today's shitfest and denigrating the far superior political culture of the 1960s tells all intelligent humans all they need to know.

Bad

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13 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides
with Sanders breaking a lectern over his head.

up
5 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Anja Geitz's picture

@UntimelyRippd

It’ll piss him off and he’ll look ridiculous.

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2 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

TheOtherMaven's picture

@Anja Geitz @Anja Geitz

Might be worth thinking about it. Diablo

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2 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@Anja Geitz
[video:https://youtu.be/vSgRkBWNlBo]

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2 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@thanatokephaloides
Whereas, to my surprise, Donald Trump does -- he's a big fan, similar to Chris Christie with Springsteen.

Art is a mysterious thing.

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8 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

thanatokephaloides's picture

"Mayo Pete" Buttigieg has made it crystal clear that he likes things just the way they are right now, with only the tiniest minority of us ever able to achieve work/life balance much less retire.

He deserves only contempt.

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23 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Cassiodorus's picture

But let's review:

1) Degrees from Harvard and Oxford

2) CIA connections

3) McKinsey connections

4) Former mediocre mayor of South Bend, Indiana

5) Pete Buttigieg interrupted Bernie Sanders' response to his accusation THROUGHOUT Sanders' response time. Yeah, former mayor of South Bend interrupting a present-day senator from Vermont. Here's what they both said:

https://www.reddit.com/r/SandersForPresident/comments/f9tpth/pete_interr...

6) Pete Buttigieg speaks in word salads. "The shape of our democracy is the issue that affects every other issue." This guy graduated with a degree in history and literature from Harvard, magna cum laude. He's got an MA from Oxford.

So, yeah, this guy absolutely knows what he's doing. He's playing us for idiots. His problem, quite clearly, is that his EGO is ENORMOUS, so much so that he doesn't care if he's such an embarrassment.

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24 users have voted.

"I'm starting to believe that they want Donald Trump to get elected." -- Compton Jay

PriceRip's picture

@Cassiodorus

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25 users have voted.

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9 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Anja Geitz's picture

@UntimelyRippd

I'm still hoping someone does.

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11 users have voted.

There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

thanatokephaloides's picture

@Anja Geitz

Watching it made me want to pie him

With ye Pie fresh from the backside of ye Cow. (cow pie)

Bad

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3 users have voted.

"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

PriceRip's picture

π @thanatokephaloides

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1 user has voted.

@thanatokephaloides

up
1 user has voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@PriceRip I wanted to smack that jackass into next week. What a rude jerk, trying to completely swamp everything Bernie was saying.

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20 users have voted.
Lily O Lady's picture

@PriceRip

ointment. Our ointment.

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15 users have voted.

"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

orlbucfan's picture

@PriceRip of high end gobbledygook. Rec’d!

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1 user has voted.

Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

Wally's picture

@orlbucfan

Yikes stripes, pretty smart on his part as Phil Ochs used to refrain:

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2 users have voted.
PriceRip's picture

Pete Buttigieg is not an idiot.
But let's review:

1) Degrees from Harvard and Oxford
                                @Cassiodorus

          Really? Degrees don't a non-idiot make.

          I have never gotten a pass (for holding degrees) on being accused of being an idiot. I sure as hell know an idiot when I see an idiot and Pete Buttigieg is an idiot.

RIP

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21 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@PriceRip are magna cum laude? At least one of Pete's is.

And at least one commentator watching Pete has figured out that Pete has been watching old Obama video to figure out how to imitate Obama's gestures and postures. It's of course a soulless imitation, because Pete is a cynical egoist whose complete contempt for the rest of us drips from every facet of his phony facade, but idiots don't do stuff like that.

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14 users have voted.

"I'm starting to believe that they want Donald Trump to get elected." -- Compton Jay

@Cassiodorus
Pete is not a stupid person. He clearly has a very powerful and effective cognition apparatus, in terms of its ability to acquire new information, comprehend or synthesize arguments, etc. Sure, I've met PhDs who weren't necessarily all that bright, but PB's record speaks for itself, he's much, much smarter than the average bear. Grade inflation and parental influence might get you through Harvard with a respectable GPA, but it isn't going to get you mcl, nor that Rhodes scholarship. There are probably few realms of intellectual endeavor that were beyond his capacity when he struck out from South Bend, accompanied by a very generous tuition stipend provided by Notre Dame as a benefit for the children of their faculty.

So now it's just a matter of semantics: Can somebody that smart still be an idiot? Or perhaps only a fool? Or something else? Arrogance and ego can, indeed, run interference against a brilliant but unsubtle mind.

"Wise fool" Gandalf calls Sauron, who has enabled his own destruction because of his inability to comprehend the minds of those who see the world and the universe in a way different from his own:

He supposes that we were all going to Minas Tirith; for that is what he would himself have done in our place. And according to his wisdom it would have been a heavy stroke against his power. Indeed he is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream.

up
11 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd
(and I figured that out in 2007 when I tuned her out as a polemicist, long before she became a raging Russiagator.) No, they're not stupid. Highly developed linguistic, argumentative, and rote memory skills. What they lack is the analytical skills to recognize their own fallacies and think through anything outside their own box. Pedestrian, hackneyed, and uncreative.

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16 users have voted.
Shahryar's picture

@Marie

both he and Rachel don't have that problem you mention, of being able to think outside their box. I think both of them are very aware that they are specifically staying in that box because that's where the money (and power) is.

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15 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@Shahryar They're egomaniacs.

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6 users have voted.

"I'm starting to believe that they want Donald Trump to get elected." -- Compton Jay

janis b's picture

@Cassiodorus

is tempered by a sense of sympathy and affinity with humanity, you have no intelligence. It’s not like we don’t all have an ego, but we do have a choice about what we do with what whatever we are given.

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6 users have voted.

@janis b

up
1 user has voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

janis b's picture

@UntimelyRippd

I'd like to know how you think about this.

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2 users have voted.

@janis b
of intelligence by adding extra qualifications to it. I think it is symptomatic of the thing I ranted about elsewhere: American anti-intellectualism. It's just the lefty version of "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich," recast to accommodate the prime values of the left (sympathy, empathy, social responsibility) rather than the prime values of the right ( MONEY MONEY MONEY ). "If you're so smart, why are you such an asshole?"

In both cases, it's characteristic of the resentment almost all people automatically feel towards anyone who can do anything better than they themselves can. However, there's no way to redefine "speed" -- no way to say, "Well, you know, I think speed is about more than how fast you can run 3000 meters, I think it's also about how hard you're breathing when you're done, and whether you enjoying the running, and the camaraderie of the entire running community ..." Well, to me, burdening intelligence with a variety of values-laden qualifiers is exactly as bizarre and inappropriate as burdening swiftness with anything other than the results on the timer.

And if you think my objection has the acrid, bitter taint of subjective experience, you're fuckin A right.

up
5 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

janis b's picture

@UntimelyRippd

When I reach more understanding I will try to reply intelligently.

Incidentally, your mention of acrid and bitter didn’t occur to me. I guess I’ll have to include that in the equation.

For now, I’ll concentrate on preparing dinner, after which I hope to have digested the stir-fry along with your thoughts.

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4 users have voted.
janis b's picture

@UntimelyRippd

I didn’t have much time to reflect until now, and I’m a slow thinker to begin with.

If I understand you correctly, I agree that there is a similarly inadequate understanding of differing perspectives from both positions. I'm sure all of us would benefit from taking a look at the ‘bigger picture’ with greater understanding for the other.

I appreciate your perspective, and the cue it includes to look more closely at one’s blinder spots.

It’s the nuance that I think is so difficult to reach.

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1 user has voted.

@janis b
I once had a student.
I adored her. She was awesome. SO FUCKING SMART. Watching her "get it", effortlessly, was like watching a damselfly dance and flit through the cattails, a creature fully in its own particular element.
It was during a time and place in my life when any relationship between us was out of the question; if not, I'd have asked her out 10 minutes after handing in final grades; and she'd have said yes, because she had a massive crush on me, which it was my sorrow to deflect; and I swear, we would've been married.
We were chatting once, and somehow the topic of class reunions had come up. I told her I had gone to one (sort of my 9th, it's a long story), and it was a lot better than I expected -- basically, all the people you had loathed didn't show up, because their lives had pretty much peaked in high school, and they weren't eager to compare themselves with their classmates 10 years on.
"I don't think I'd be welcome at my high school reunion ..."
"Really? Why not?"
"Well, because I sued them over a scholarship ..."
"Wait ... that was you? I read about that in the papers! It was out in ..."
"Yeah, that's where I grew up. They had this senior scholarship for academic achievement. It always went to the person with the highest grades. But my year, they changed the rules, so they could add other criteria -- school citizenship, or whatever."
"What the hell?"
"Yeah. They said they didn't want to encourage elitism."
"WHAT?"
"Yeah. Except really, they just didn't want to give it to me. Because I was the girl who shaved her head in 11th grade, and wore black every day."

BTW, she didn't only have excellent grades. She was also the winner of a high-prestige honor -- one I cannot identify for you, because if I did, it would come close to revealing her identity.

Also BTW, this was at a time when people were really getting powered up about tackling the problem of self-esteem in adolescent girls (the book, Reviving Ophelia was current), and keeping them going in high school math and science. I asked her about it one day -- what we could do to try to combat institutional gender academic discrimination.
"You know what I think they should do first? They should stop painting the girls' bathrooms pink."

up
11 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd
to the topic/issue under discussion. However, I'm horrified that you think it's acceptable for a teacher to pursue a personal/sexual relationship with a student. It's not acceptable ever, regardless of whether the teacher has the impression that the student would welcome the attention.

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0 users have voted.

@Marie
First: There is nothing wrong with a relationship between two adults who formerly had a teacher/student relationship. NOTHING. Suggesting otherwise is ludicrous. I was a grad student, not a faculty member, and she was not a major in our department. Once the grades were in, I had no authority over her of any kind. We were just two people who really, really, really liked each other. Really. It's one of the minor tragedies of my life that it could not happen; as for her, well, I think she's happy and fulfilled with her blue-collar hubby and her clever son and her career -- but she did not get what she wanted most at the time; and I reject your misplaced and groundless moralizing with casual prejudice.

And it pertains directly to the matter at hand. Her school used anti-elitism as an acceptable cover for their obnoxious agenda of denying her the honor she had earned through the expression of her innate intellectual talent. Yeah -- their motivation might have been something else (at least, that's what she believed), but they exploited the time-honored American tradition of anti-intellectualism to get what they wanted.

And so, in conclusion, pttthhhht.

up
1 user has voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

janis b's picture

@UntimelyRippd

I’d like to imagine that she has also benefited from the circumstances that once felt unjust, by having to depend more on her own personal resources.

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0 users have voted.

@janis b
I can't think of much else to say to that. How can she possibly have benefited from additional debt? How can she possibly have benefited from being deprived of the right to list that honor on her educational resume?

In any case, the point of the anecdote is not whether she was worse or better off. The point of the anecdote is that a bunch stick-up-the-ass school administrators were able to exploit their constituency's cheerful and comfortable anti-intellectualism -- bigotry, in other words -- in order to beat up on someone who didn't fit in.

up
1 user has voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

janis b's picture

@UntimelyRippd

would you know if the initial bitter taste didn’t evolve (for her) into something sweeter. Projection is a tricky thing.

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0 users have voted.

@janis b
in, I don't know, a dozen years. But I'm sure as hell not projecting with respect to how she felt about it at that time -- she was angry. She understood that she had been punished for her nonconformity, and she despised them for it. She violated their expectations of what was right and good in the world, because she was a freaky weirdo who did not respect their conventions -- I mean, had open contempt for them -- but nonetheless outperformed their Chosen Ones.

We got to know each other pretty well over the next two years. Since that other kind of relationship wasn't an option, I instead became something of a mentor and unofficial academic advisor; I also recruited her to tutor students in my class who were having difficulty, and wrote one of her postgraduate recommendations.

up
1 user has voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

janis b's picture

@UntimelyRippd

[video:https://youtu.be/Tt-N_irbG90]

[video:https://youtu.be/FAGAhFHJXuQ]

up
0 users have voted.

up
1 user has voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@Shahryar

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

Upton Sinclair was an optimist; it's more than difficult. People invest emotionally in their work environment and that in turn reconfigures their cognitive perceptions of the world. As long as they remain in that box or bubble, they truly can't see outside it or even recognize that they're in a bubble.

Do you think that Russigaters recognize that they've fallen into an irrational bubble and are just playing along with it? I don't. Their excessive emotional investment in a Hillary presidency couldn't admit the defeat -- and they didn't have a candidate adult and responsible enough to assist them in managing the disappointment; she shrieked "the boogieman did it." Sanders demonstrated adult and responsible leadership in his 2016 loss.

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8 users have voted.
Shahryar's picture

@Marie

I believe that Rachel Maddow knows it's a hoax but I think those who watch her show and who love her think it's real because she said so.

But I would not be totally shocked if she, herself, believes in "Russia!!!"

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1 user has voted.
earthling1's picture

@UntimelyRippd
he's known as an overeducated idiot.

up
7 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

@earthling1
He's not overeducated, he's undereducated. Despite his long, deep slog through an impressively difficult educational program, nobody ever sat him down and Socratically forced him to question his own intellectual self. It's the critical component, and he's missing it. It's a tragedy, really.

up
7 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Cassiodorus's picture

@UntimelyRippd Tho' those sorts of educations are usually only available to those who voluntarily take part in them. It's the old "you can lead a horse to water" thing.

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8 users have voted.

"I'm starting to believe that they want Donald Trump to get elected." -- Compton Jay

earthling1's picture

@UntimelyRippd @UntimelyRippd
he's a plant. We were warned a couple of years ago that ex military and intel were being groomed to run for offices across the country.

up
10 users have voted.

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Wally's picture

@UntimelyRippd

had something to do with his papa having been probably the foremost scholar on Antonio Gramsci and a distinquished faculty member at Notre Dame University? I'm not saying he is stupid but he certainly is privileged af. I can think of some other choice expletives to throw his way but at this point I doubt it's even worth discussing him. Especially after:

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10 users have voted.

@Wally
anything other than a really, really, really smart person is just bullshit. You all sitting around here smugly dismissing him from the comfort of your superiority complexes is pure unadulterated 100% American anti-intellectualism, with a massive side dish of anti-elitism. No, he didn't get into Harvard because his Dad was a Gramsci scholar, he got into Harvard because he destroyed high school, because he's a wicked smart multilingual polymath who, although evidently highly inarticulate when extemporizing under pressure, has highly polished written communication skills and is a hyper-achiever with respect to his impressive set of born-with abilities.

This guy would eat any and all of you for fucking breakfast in almost any setting that required nothing but the ability to read and understand complex concepts, and then provide analyses of specific problems within the domain of those concepts. The particular exception would be in technical fields, where his educational choices -- and possibility his innate capabilities, I don't know whether he was or was not ever any good at math -- have left him at an insuperable disadvantage.

Jesus, it makes me want to puke. Grow the fuck up.

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3 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Wally's picture

@UntimelyRippd

. . . he's a privileged dick with a shitty moral compass who's not a dumbass.

But hey, whatever.

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8 users have voted.

@Wally
than almost everyone on this board who is smirkingly discounting his academic achievement as some sort of meaningless credentialism. In some cases, a lot smarter. Apparently not wiser, nor more virtuous, but smarter? Yeah. Deal with it.

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1 user has voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

Cassiodorus's picture

@UntimelyRippd .

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1 user has voted.

"I'm starting to believe that they want Donald Trump to get elected." -- Compton Jay

Wally's picture

@UntimelyRippd

I don't think his academic achievements or his academic credentials are meaningless. Nor do I think his privilege in obtaining those credentials is meaningless.

He is dangerously devious, imo, and that certainly requires some smarts.

And if he lived during the 1960's . . .

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3 users have voted.
orlbucfan's picture

@Wally @Wally someone a little smarter than an idiot savant.

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1 user has voted.

Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.

@UntimelyRippd
that's uncalled for. Tone it down.

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10 users have voted.

@JtC
rapping of my knuckles:

[video:https://youtu.be/pWdd6_ZxX8c]

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2 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd
this is not ‘Nam. This is bowling. There are rules.

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9 users have voted.

@JtC

up
2 users have voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd
a White Russian in your direction.

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3 users have voted.
PriceRip's picture

@JtC

          of people like Trump and Pete seem to be the order of the day. Why do people that should know better imbue them with more credit than they are due. (or some words like that??)

          Trump is not some skilled con artist, he is just a crook, and a very low level one at best. He is more like the bag man of the crew.

          Pete is not some intellectual savant, he just knows how to get attention and accolades from the "right people".

          I am thinking about spelling out why these "positive" accolades are so very out of place, but in the end I suspect no one is really interested in understanding how very shallow Trump and Pete are in real life.

RIP

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5 users have voted.

@PriceRip
people to sneer at and downrate Buttigieg's intellectual accomplishment?

Just because you've met people in higher ed who weren't all that bright, doesn't make it true that no academic credential carries any weight or significance. PB's got the goods. He's freakishly intelligent. I've known his type in the course of my own academic endeavors. They are always a bit off-putting, even for those of us out beyond the 3rd standard deviation, because their raw capabilities are combined with high levels of focus, discipline and energy -- which is to say: They make us look bad.

They are also, like many others out beyond the 3rd standard deviation, or for that matter the 2nd, characteristically susceptible to a particular set of fallacies, such as confirmation bias. This susceptibility derives directly from a life long experience of having been right about almost everything, almost all the time. It's the ironic Achilles heel of being too smart for their own damn good.

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1 user has voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@PriceRip as a few people here are highly impressed by an Ivy League sheepskin with honors and presumably if that person is also verbally fluent/fluid. A guess on that last part because they might also object to labeling a certain Yale and Harvard Business graduate an idiot and as Penn is commonly considered an excellent university, DJT and Ivanka meet their standard for very smart. (An aspect as to why I love that scene in "Good Will Hunting" is that they made sure that the Harvard Grad student would sound very smart in most venues and Will called out his hollow, vapid, regurgitated 'intellectualism' for what it was.)

I guess one person's idiot is another person's very stable genius.

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2 users have voted.
PriceRip's picture

@Marie

why is it so important to some people to sneer at and downrate Buttigieg's intellectual accomplishment?

          So, I just stopped responding. Words fail when trying to engage when there is no shared experience or Weltanschauung.

          I got into a lot of trouble, in part because I treated students as junior colloquies and actually allowed them the opportunity to develop their own approach to learning. Not teaching to the test, it turns out, is detrimental to the metrics that are oh so very important for institutional evaluation and budget allocation algorithms.

          Those of us that "march to a different drummer" don't test well and really upset those in power when we succeed. Pete, just doesn't measure up and some are not able to understand that aspect of reality.

RIP

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1 user has voted.

@PriceRip
I've ever been called an anti-intellectual. I also admire and enjoy being around really smart and educated people.

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2 users have voted.
PriceRip's picture

@Marie

          I had a friend in Grad School that had graduated from Caltech. He told me he was leisurely walking across campus one day when just for a moment he thought about approaching Richard Feynman, who was lounging on a park bench in a quiet location.

          I really reamed Doug for not talking with him. Wow, passing up the opportunity to talk to Feynman in a casual setting, sheesh. Well at least Doug knew he had blown it good.

          I took students to various national meetings a few times and they were impressed by how approachable all the recognizable scientists were.

RIP

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1 user has voted.
PriceRip's picture

@Cassiodorus

          magna cum laude none. If that is your measure with respect to this topic, we have no common ground for discussion.

          As soon as I read your words, the images of several individuals I have known over the years flashed through my mind. You might want to go back and watch Matt Damon's performance with Scott Winters a bit more carefully. Then take a look at Pete's face, he knows. It always shows in the face.

RIP

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4 users have voted.

@Cassiodorus
challenge to anyone. Plenty of really smart people never have the privilege of attending college and many of those that do, don't have the privilege of having it paid for and being financially supported. Just a couple of handicaps a financially poor or not wealthy person may have as a student.

That said, I don't think it's a big deal that I have a summa and a magna (separate degrees and separate disciplines), but I'm still an idiot when it comes to electricity. (And no, I wasn't financially privileged; began working at sixteen and supported myself since eighteen.)

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12 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@Marie Pete is a specialist at social climbing -- it's the skill he's put his intelligence to work at.

And I'm not into the "deficit" model of intelligence. Sorry. Not into it.

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4 users have voted.

"I'm starting to believe that they want Donald Trump to get elected." -- Compton Jay

@Marie
will, with only a moment's reflection, understand that the observation that some smart people don't graduate magna cum laude from the most elite institution in the US, because they don't even go to college at all, says Not. One. Thing. about those who do graduate magna cum laude from the most elite institution in the US.

Not. One. Thing. The syllogisms are straightforward.

And what you do not know about electricity says exactly and only one thing about you: That you don't know much about electricity. C'est tout.

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1 user has voted.

The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

snoopydawg's picture

@Cassiodorus

He has been saying the very same things that Obama said. Word for word. I posted it but not sure anyone watched it.

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13 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Raggedy Ann's picture

@snoopydawg
and also on another site I check out. I actually saw it there first. Everyone needs to see it. Intense. This guy is a good actor - he'll do whatever they tell him = he coaches well.

We need to watch out for him. He won't go away. He'll run for something else and win. He'll be tapped by someone for some high level job, but it's all been fixed, it's a set-up, he's in the game, he's part of the club.

We need to be on to him. To continue to expose him for what he is. It's the only way to have some semblance of control over our future.

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15 users have voted.

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

snoopydawg's picture

@Raggedy Ann

Not sure why she couldn't shake Bernie's hand. But I'm with what he said to her after?

"_________"

You can provide fill in the words here best.

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5 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

Raggedy Ann's picture

@snoopydawg
Bernie’s seen her true colors. So have we.

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10 users have voted.

"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

snoopydawg's picture

@Raggedy Ann

Heh I knew that you would have the right words. Besides being rude Warren was being childish. Is she still holding on to her grudge against him?

Anyone know the last time Bernie has attacked Warren? Yeah me neither, but she attacked him just last night. But sexism is why she is tanking right?

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8 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

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