Sunday, March 12, 2017

Hmm...

...Is Intersectionality a Religion?

The news about Trump's shenanigans in Russia did turn out to be fake.

5 comments:

  1. 1. To use one of TT's (Trump Team's)favourite responses: Please provide proof that it's not true. It could be true...

    2. I may have missed this, but where is the mention of Trump's sexual shenanigans in the piece? The relevance of your comment escapes me.

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  2. Hi Vikram,

    The investigation into the dossier continues. A lot has been substantiated, and from the get-go, because of how it was being put together, it has always been clear that some of it would be imprecise and some simply wrong. It was, however, put together in as a starting point, and well done. It is a gathering of information from close sources. Much, but not all, will hold water.

    Just a couple days ago, it turns out that Trump himself communicated with Russians, something he has been denying. This is the problem with Flynn, and the problem with Sessions, et al, and the problem with his campaign staff, what would normally be an a unnecessarily denial, therefore looking too much like something is being hidden, whether true or not. We need to wait to see what turns out to be substantiated. Right now, the sexcapade is cannot be asserted as false, and sort of detracts. Indeed, many who hate the Obamas could cheer what he did if he did it, and if true, would prove or add nothing substantive. And this is how it has been reported in mainstream, as a part of a yet-to-be substantiated dossier, therefore not fake news.

    We’ve always had Martian-landing newspapers, and I am sure some of them reported the sexcapade in the dossier as if fact.

    I'll be posting a reply shortly on the article.

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  3. Sorry for the typos in the previous. I was editing to break up the lengthy post and did not re-scan. On to the article.

    Quote: "But, in a strange echo of the Trumpian right, they are insisting on the superiority of their orthodoxy to 'facts.' They are hostile, like all fundamentalists, to science, because it might counter doctrine."

    In this organized protest, it was cool to see how the audience turned the other way, and all had the same copy to read, as if church. I was impressed with the organization at the 19 minute mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6EASuhefeI. The young (impressionable) students, especially the organizers, did their homework. Grade B for that. It is also fair to say that the result came across as a sort of religious fundamentalism, that anyone against their agenda in one instance, is a damnable sinner. D for that.

    Imagine if, out of this group, came a spokesperson that adherents propped up to win a future presidential election. We'd have the anti-anti-version of the anti-administration we have now. I have uncomfortably thought of these camps as extremists, but they aren't. Extremisms may be in the same ballpark, but they are different positions.

    To be continues to break up the post . . .

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  4. finally . . .

    Back up to the Women's March for America in Boston. Upwards to 175,000 people attended just in that city. So many people attended, that the organizers of different camps were in a tiny minority. Each marcher had her own script from home. The marchers were regular people who came out, disabilities, children, and all, against the administration, for their own personal reasons. It was personally important to each, and the signs the marchers made were for the most part home-made.

    You could not call it a liberal event, in the sense that you could not say that any one individual was a liberal. You could guess who was liberal and who was moderate or conservative, by their placards, or maybe even pack of placard. Although probably most were to some degree and on many issues.

    But some were neither left nor right, "Not Fit For Presidency," or "Black Lives Matter," or "Not My President," or those noting Russian connections. Indeed, to be against how Trump wants to impose federal ideas onto local police forces, for instance, is to take up a conservative banner. That’s blatant interference with local politics. The fact that he is not funding the program, but threatening to take funds for other projects away, is stupid, an attribute that is neither left nor right, might as well say that federal funds will be taken away from any city that does not send a spaceship to Venus.

    Let's look for a moment at the "My Body, My Choice" signs. If a person held that sign up, would that mean that the marcher behind her, agreed? We cannot affirm, "yes". We can offer the opinion, "Yes, I think that most likely a given marcher would agree." Maybe so. Yet and still that person was far more moved to hold up a "My Body, My Choice" sign than a sign indicating that Putin sends his congratulations. My partner Mary, who is a thinking and thoughtful liberal, held up an 8-year-old newspaper with a photo of then newly elected President Obama, full front page.

    We each have very different opinions, beliefs and priorities. To take everything that is anti-current administration, and put it all in the same grab-bag package, represents very few.

    Was it legitimate for the students to do this with Murray, for each to echo the march of 175,000 people in Boston as if it were one voice, as if all marchers would have been quite happy to randomly Christmas-swap placards with whomever would be next to them in any given moment, instead of keeping to the message from home?

    I like the article a lot, as it clarifies who Trump is. He's the one who held up all at one, all the anti-Republican establishment signs, then the anti-Swamp signs, anti-Hillary signs, anti-Obama signs ~~ who allowed and egged on the violent anger of his followers. But really, the 40-something percent who voted for him, simply agreed with that movement in general, wanting something much different, and felt it important to march to the polls. Many were KKK/Nazi/white supremacists. But many only differed with other issues on the menu, the health care plan, or were anti-abortion. Even when Trump would never be first choice, the anti-spokesperson became their guy.

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  5. Thanks for your comment, Rus. I linked to the piece because I found Sullivan's views on intersectionality interesting and worth sharing. I did not frankly understand his bringing up Trump at the tail end of the piece. I agree with your assessment of the dossier.

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