Updates From the Left: Matt Taibi reviews "Shattered", and Matt Stoller tweets about Obama & Yachts.

[Moonbeam]

lol, you talk about income/wealth inequality and then listen to a guy that opposes the greatest solution to those problems, free international trade. What makes you any different from the white trash that turned out in droves to support Trump?

Are you saying that you are so in favor of free trade that you would allow the most advantaged people on the planet by raping it in the past should suddenly collapse into a statistically normal state of income with a sense of grace by having all their advantages built over the centuries taken away. OK, I'm ready, but you first. I want to hear about life on a dollar a day and how you like it. No, I bet that in your own mind you're special and will float to the top no matter the situation. Be sure your intellectually cold and precise analysis of life can be matched by your ability to happily survive the implied consequences.

Maybe a better way would be to try to preserve what some have and bring the rest up to that level in a way that isn't totally disruptive and causes nut bags like Trump to be elected.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Are you saying that you are so in favor of free trade that you would allow the most advantaged people on the planet by raping it in the past should suddenly collapse into a statistically normal state of income with a sense of grace by having all their advantages built over the centuries taken away. OK, I'm ready, but you first. I want to hear about life on a dollar a day and how you like it. No, I bet that in your own mind you're special and will float to the top no matter the situation. Be sure your intellectually cold and precise analysis of life can be matched by your ability to happily survive the implied consequences.

Maybe a better way would be to try to preserve what some have and bring the rest up to that level in a way that isn't totally disruptive and causes nut bags like Trump to be elected.

The norm is rapidly improving, and yeah, I have a hard time feeling bad for the average privileged white American with 15x the wealth of his non-white brothers and 100s of times the wealth of a man from China working his ass off. Nothing is collapsing, it's just that hundreds of millions of spoiled children used to receiving massive birthday gifts every year are going to have to settle with less. The median person in China makes $23 a day btw (about 6 times less than the median American) and still quickly rising, in a nation where cost of living is far lower, where people are still recovering from decades of devastating left-wing policies that communists like the OP support, and where there is a massive rural uneducated population to contend with. Within a few generations, they could potentially reach a standard of living we currently enjoy today. It's not my problem that your only life skills are dropping acid and psychoanalyzing people on internet forums. Get ready to rev up those burger grills. Typical Trump supporter.

 

[Moonbeam]

The norm is rapidly improving, and yeah, I have a hard time feeling bad for the average privileged white American with 15x the wealth of his non-white brothers and 100s of times the wealth of a man from China working his ass off. Nothing is collapsing, it's just that hundreds of millions of spoiled children used to receiving massive birthday gifts every year are going to have to settle with less. The median person in China makes $23 a day btw (about 6 times less than the median American) and still quickly rising, in a nation where cost of living is far lower, where people are still recovering from decades of devastating left-wing policies that communists like the OP support, and where there is a massive rural uneducated population to contend with. Within a few generations, they could potentially reach a standard of living we currently enjoy today. It's not my problem that your only life skills are dropping acid and psychoanalyzing people on internet forums. Get ready to rev up those burger grills. Typical Trump supporter.

But it's acid and my psychoanalytic skills that it produces that led me to the conclusion that your problem revolves around the fact you have a hard time feeling bad for people. I simply suggested that part of the reason for that is that you don't see yourself as one of those average privileged Americans and that fact accounts for your indifference. My claim is that your cynical belief in the objective reality of your diagnosis is the result of a psychological deficiency, the inability to see yourself in others shoes, that accounts for your world view, that in fact there isn't any real emotional impartiality to it.

I have no problem with you calling me drug addled or psychobabblish because I am aware that I don't take drugs and that what I know about you I know because I know about me. To what, if you hear from others what you hear from me, do you rely on to reject those claims?

 

[HamburgerBoy]

But it's acid and my psychoanalytic skills that it produces that led me to the conclusion that your problem revolves around the fact you have a hard time feeling bad for people. I simply suggested that part of the reason for that is that you don't see yourself as one of those average privileged Americans and that fact accounts for your indifference. My claim is that your cynical belief in the objective reality of your diagnosis is the result of a psychological deficiency, the inability to see yourself in others shoes, that accounts for your world view, that in fact there isn't any real emotional impartiality to it.

I have no problem with you calling me drug addled or psychobabblish because I am aware that I don't take drugs and that what I know about you I know because I know about me. To what, if you hear from others what you hear from me, do you rely on to reject those claims?

A person's own emotional bias is only really relevant to that person. We could, for example, forgive every person that ever covered up a crime committed by a loved one, on the argument that anyone else might do the same under the particular circumstances that led to the crime. That might be the sympathetic response, but it's not likely to be the one that leads to more equitable circumstances for the nation at large. Same goes for the privileged American that can feel bad for Howard next door who went bankrupt with a leased BMW in the garage and above-median-income salary, but not Hui fighting tooth and nail for a job of his own. Your problem is that you aren't sympathetic, you're just someone that likes feeding off of the emotion he can taste. Those non-American workers way the hell off in some other continent? Out of sight, out of mind.

Still not seeing where all these suffering Americans are anyways. Wages have largely recovered from the recession, employment is high, what's there to complain about?

 

[Moonbeam]

A person's own emotional bias is only really relevant to that person. We could, for example, forgive every person that ever covered up a crime committed by a loved one, on the argument that anyone else might do the same under the particular circumstances that led to the crime. That might be the sympathetic response, but it's not likely to be the one that leads to more equitable circumstances for the nation at large. Same goes for the privileged American that can feel bad for Howard next door who went bankrupt with a leased BMW in the garage and above-median-income salary, but not Hui fighting tooth and nail for a job of his own. Your problem is that you aren't sympathetic, you're just someone that likes feeding off of the emotion he can taste. Those non-American workers way the hell off in some other continent? Out of sight, out of mind.

Still not seeing where all these suffering Americans are anyways. Wages have largely recovered from the recession, employment is high, what's there to complain about?

There it is again......."What's there to complain about?" You are simply unable to feel what other people feel." You have no emotional understanding at all if you think feelings are justified or can be. With regard to how to handle people who act out emotionally, commit crimes. Humanity is asleep unaware of what it feels, unaware and unable to intervene when emotions drive motivations, like maybe to kill. It is pointless to blame people like that or to punish them. They acted unconsciously and without control. They should be forgiven for that reason. What you do not do, however, is allow them to continue to have the freedom to act out. They need to be separated from society for the protection of everybody else.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

There it is again......."What's there to complain about?" You are simply unable to feel what other people feel." You have no emotional understanding at all if you think feelings are justified or can be. With regard to how to handle people who act out emotionally, commit crimes. Humanity is asleep unaware of what it feels, unaware and unable to intervene when emotions drive motivations, like maybe to kill. It is pointless to blame people like that or to punish them. They acted unconsciously and without control. They should be forgiven for that reason. What you do not do, however, is allow them to continue to have the freedom to act out. They need to be separated from society for the protection of everybody else.

What value is there in considering their emotions in a discussion on trade policy then, if you think justification and emotion are mutually exclusive? Provide evidence that things will "suddenly collapse into a statistically normal state of income", defined by you as around the order of a dollar per day. Some very fortunate people with jobs free from competition will find themselves a little less fortunate, but dollars redirected away from protectionism will find themselves in the hands of others, and spent more productively at that.

 

[Jaskalas]

How do you make people less fearful and more tolerant though?

This is only something people can do for themselves.

As a Democracy that's somewhat true. But we can help them by providing much more in straight forward and easier to understand ways. Medicare for all + Basic Income would cure a lot of fear and intolerance by reducing the visceral competitiveness found in basic survival.

At $15 trillion personal income in the US, a 40% tax yields a $6 trillion budget. Those programs can be realized.

Our people can be helped. We just need to hitch our wagon to the pending backlash against Trump and ride a wave to victory. Obama inspired people in 2008, voters who were looking for a better future. Let us inspire them further to reach new heights. My answer to you is that you give them hope again.

 

[Moonbeam]

As a Democracy that's somewhat true. But we can help them by providing much more in straight forward and easier to understand ways. Medicare for all + Basic Income would cure a lot of fear and intolerance by reducing the visceral competitiveness found in basic survival.

At $15 trillion personal income in the US, a 40% tax yields a $6 trillion budget. Those programs can be realized.

Our people can be helped. We just need to hitch our wagon to the pending backlash against Trump and ride a wave to victory. Obama inspired people in 2008, voters who were looking for a better future. Let us inspire them further to reach new heights. My answer to you is that you give them hope again.

In order to give people hope you have to know where hope lies. Then you have to get elected. I see no hope of that. I can't even convince my cold fish friend, Hamburger, here, that emotions matter because people react to them. If I talk to him about hope, he'll look it up on a chart. Every analysis has a pragmatic side that involves emotional evaluation.

 

[Moonbeam]

How do you make people less fearful and more tolerant though?

By the way, that was a very good question and I think that's where it starts, with either deep curiosity or need need for an answer We concern ourselves with irrelevancies and don't fix our focus on important issues. I believe that deep analysis of a pressing issue over a period of time will bring about a psychological transformation, an insight that brings disparate pieces that we hadn't been able to connect. How to make people more tolerant is not that different than asking what is the sound of one hand clapping. Answers appear, I think, in a state of exhaustion where thought simply runs out of gas.

 

[desura]

Clinton definitely looks bad in the reviews here. I mean, we love shitting on losers. I voted Clinton, but I was aware of her flaws. She definitely didn't seem to have an ounce of inspiration to her, but was like the ultimate careerist woman.

I think that if she had just been like, "yeah, I've been in government for a while, now let me school you on how shit is done" she would have beaten Trump. But she was oddly too timid here to own it.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

In order to give people hope you have to know where hope lies. Then you have to get elected. I see no hope of that. I can't even convince my cold fish friend, Hamburger, here, that emotions matter because people react to them. If I talk to him about hope, he'll look it up on a chart. Every analysis has a pragmatic side that involves emotional evaluation.

Emotions matter, but they shouldn't dictate rational policy, only marketing/propaganda to convince emotional people to either change their minds or stand down.

 

[Moonbeam]

Emotions matter, but they shouldn't dictate rational policy, only marketing/propaganda to convince emotional people to either change their minds or stand down.

Try to understand that you see emotions in the usual ordinary way that cynical emotionally damaged minds do. You don't trust emotions because you can see how people are manipulated by them, how passion can easily lead people astray. The point I am trying to make is that beyond that there are positive emotional experiences that make people high, things like love that appears from nowhere when the ego dies. These kinds of emotions represent our human potential, the place we want to go, and so I do my best to tell you this. Just a heads up there is something better to live for than cold rationality. I believe you miss a lot because you have assumed that your cooler approach represents a higher ideal. I disagree.

 

[hal2kilo]

So those people support Republicans who have even bigger messes on their face from eating corporate slop?

Lol

You're not getting it. @Bothsidesthesame

 

[ivwshane]

You're not getting it. @Bothsidesthesame

Yeah, it's the goto response from the right when they try to excuse their teams behavior.